Rex Stout - Too Many Detectives

“Okay,” I told Wolfe. “It must be the cabbage.”

He grunted. “You say he didn’t establish his identity, Mr. Kerr? Why not?”

“Why should he?” Kerr demanded. “Do you know how many husbands in the metropolitan area get suspicious about their wives every week on an average? Hundreds. Thousands! Some of them come to me for help. A man comes and wants to pay me for expert service. Why should I doubt if he knows who he is? If I tried to check on all of them I’d spend all my time on it.”

“You must have heard that name, Arthur M. Leggett. A man of your widespread — uh, activities.”

Kerr jerked his chin up. “Look, are you a cop? Or one of us?”

“I’m one of us.”

“Then be yourself. Let the cops tell me what names I must have heard. Don’t worry, they have and they will. And I reported the tap in my statement to the secretary of state, because it was ethical and because I knew I had to. I knew they had two of the technicians singing, and I would have been sunk if they connected me with a job I hadn’t reported.”

Wolfe nodded. “We have no desire to harass you, Mr. Kerr. We only ask that you contribute your share to our pool of information. You had no suspicion that your client was not Arthur M. Leggett?”

“No.”

“And never have had?”

“No.”

“Then when you were taken to view the corpse today you must have identified it as Arthur M. Leggett.”

“I did.”

“I see.” Wolfe considered a moment. “Why not? And naturally, when you learned that wasn’t his name you were shocked and indignant, and now you have severe epithets for him. You’re not alone in that. So have I; so has Miss Bonner; and so, doubtless, have Mr. Ide and Mr. Amsel.” He emptied his beer glass, refilled it, kept his eye on it long enough to see that the rising foam didn’t break at the edge, then looked up. “Have you, Mr. Ide?”

Ide put his cup and saucer down on my suitcase, there on the rack, which I had invited him to use for a table. He cleared his throat. “I want to say, Mr. Wolfe, that I feel better than I did when I entered this room.”

“Good. Since it’s my room, and Mr. Goodwin’s, I am gratified.”

“Yes, sir. The fact is, my experience with that man was very similar to yours and Miss Bonner’s, and I have deeply regretted it. He imposed on me as he did on you, and in the same pattern. If I gave you all the details it would be mostly a repetition of what you and Miss Bonner have said.”

“Nevertheless, we’d like to hear them.”

“I see no point in it.”

Ide’s voice had sharpened a little, but Wolfe stayed affable. “One or more of the details might be suggestive. Or at least corroborative. When did it happen?”

“In April.”

“How much did he pay you?”

“Two thousand dollars.”

“Did he give his name as Donahue?”

“No. Another name. As I said, the pattern was very similar to the one he used with you.”

“How did he establish his identity?”

“I prefer not to say. I mishandled it badly. I omitted that detail from my statement to the secretary of state. I suppose Mr. Hyatt will insist on it at the hearing, but I don’t think the whole thing will be published, and I’m not going to publish it by telling it here. I was going to say, the reason I feel better is that now I have the consolation of knowing that I’m not the only one he made a fool of.”

“You have indeed. We have all qualified for dunce’s caps.” Wolfe drank some beer and passed his tongue over his lips. “How did it end? Did you get onto him, or did he call it off as he did with Miss Bonner and Mr. Kerr?”

“I prefer not to say.” From the expression on Ide’s bony face, with its long hawk’s nose, he would prefer to switch to some harmless topic like the weather. “I’ll say this much, the tap was discontinued after ten days, and that ended my association with him. Like you and Miss Bonner and Mr. Kerr, I never saw him again until today, and then he was a corpse.”

“And you identified the corpse?”

“Yes. There was no other... it would have been folly not to.”

“You identified it with the name he gave you when he hired you?”

“Of course.”

“What was that name?”

Ide shook his head. “It was the name of a respectable and law-abiding citizen. I saw him and told him about it, and he was good enough to accept my apology. He is a very fine man. I hope his name won’t have to be dragged into a murder case, and it won’t be by me.”

“But you have given it to the police, of course.”

“No, not yet. I admit I may be compelled to. I can’t let my career end by having my license taken away.”

Wolfe’s eyes went around. “I suggest that we leave the question open whether Mr. Ide has contributed his share, at least until we have heard from Mr. Amsel.” They settled on Steve Amsel. “Well, sir?”

“If I don’t play I’m it,” Amsel said. “Huh?”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” Wolfe told him. “But you’ve heard us, and it’s your turn.”

“Last one in is a monkey,” Kerr declared.

“Nuts. Have I been last?” There was half a finger left of his double bourbon and water, and he finished it, left his chair to put the glass on the dresser, got out a cigarette and lit it, and turned to prop his backside against the dresser. “I’ll tell you how it is,” he said. “My situation’s a little different. One thing, I was a boob to identify that stiff, but there he was, and in a case like that you can’t stall, you’ve got to say yes or no, and I said yes. Now here we are. Miss Bonner said we might as well tell each other what we’ve told the cops, and I’ll buy that, but my problem’s not like yours. You see, I identified him as a guy named Bill Donahue I knew once.”

He had already had six pairs of eyes, and with that he had them good. He grinned around at them.

“I said my situation’s different. So I was stuck with that. So what I’ve told the cops. I’ve told them I’d seen him around a few times last spring, but it was kinda vague, I couldn’t remember much about it except that once he came and wanted me to arrange a tap for him and I turned him down. They wanted to know whose wire he wanted tapped, and I tried to remember but couldn’t. I said just for a fact I wasn’t sure he had told me the name. So that’s what I’ve told the cops, and that’s what I’m telling you.” He went to his chair and sat.

He still had the eyes. Wolfe’s were half closed. He spoke. “I suggest, Mr. Amsel, that since talking with the police you’ve had time to jog your memory. Possibly you can be a little more definite about the occasions when you saw Donahue around last spring.”

“Nothing doing. Just vague.”

“Or the name of the man whose wire he wanted tapped?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“One thing occurs to me. Mr. Kerr has said he knew — to use his words — that ‘they had two of the technicians singing.’ Supposing that your memory has failed you on another detail, supposing that you did arrange the tap and have forgotten about it — just a supposition — wouldn’t your situation be quite untenable if the technicians do remember it?”

“Just supposing.”

“Certainly.”

“Well, I’ve heard there were a lot of technicians around. I guess they’re pretty scarce now. Supposing the ones doing the singing aren’t the ones I used? Supposing the ones I used aren’t going to sing?”

Wolfe nodded. “Yes, if I can suppose you can too. I understand your disinclination to tell us anything you haven’t told the police, but I think we may reasonably ask this: did you mention this incident in your statement to the secretary of state?”

“What incident?”