Rex Stout - Too Many Detectives

There were three men in the hall, one in his own clothes, looking important, and two in uniform guarding an empty meat basket near the door of room thirty-eight, looking bored. Inside the room were three more — scientists, two with fingerprint outfits and one with a camera. They took time out to look as Groom, having told us to touch nothing, convoyed Wolfe around the table to the corpse. Except that its legs had been straightened and its necktie removed, it hadn’t changed much. Wolfe frowned down at it.

Groom asked him, “Do you identify him?”

“No,” Wolfe declared. “I don’t know who he is. I do, however, recognize him as a man I saw one day last April when he called on me, gave his name as Otis Ross, and engaged my services. I learned later that he was not Otis Ross — at least not the Otis Ross he had claimed to be. Mr. Goodwin, who saw him not once but nine times, has already stated that he is that man.”

“I know. Is that still your opinion, Goodwin?”

“Not an opinion.” If Wolfe could correct his choice of words so could I. “Conviction. He’s that man — or was.”

“Then we can — oh, by the way.” He turned to the table, pointed to an object on it, and asked one of the scientists, “Are you through with this ashtray, Walsh?”

“All done, Captain. Got it.”

“Then you can help a little, Goodwin, if you don’t mind. Just an experiment. Take it and hold it the way you would to hit a man on the head with it. Just naturally, without thinking.”

“Sure,” I said, and reached to get it. Jiggling it, I would have said at least a pound and probably more. “There would be two ways, both good. Either take it by the rim, like this, that would be best if you had room and time to swing” — I swung to show him — “or, with a big mitt and long fingers like mine, just cup it, like this, and you could either swing or hook or jab.” I performed a healthy jab, then transferred the tray to my left hand, got out my handkerchief with my right, and started wiping the brass with plenty of pressure.

“Not so good,” Groom said. “Your slapstick may go over big down where you belong, but here in the City of Albany we don’t appreciate it. It won’t buy you a thing.”

“What would?” I demanded. “What did you want me to do, refuse to touch it?” I finished the rubbing and put the tray back on the table.

“Come along,” he said, and moved. We followed him out and down the hall nearly to the end, where he opened a door and stood aside for us to pass. This was a corner room with windows on two sides, and it sported a couple of rugs. Seated at a desk with a window behind him was Albert Hyatt, talking on the phone. A man with big ears and a scar on his cheek came toward us and asked Groom how he wanted the chairs. So Wolfe and I would face the window, naturally. By the time Hyatt finished on the phone we were disposed, with Wolfe and me side by side and the man with ears at a little table nearby, with a notebook in front of him and a pen ready.

Hyatt stood up and invited Groom to come and take the desk, and Groom said no thanks and kept his chair on this side of it, facing us. He focused on Wolfe. “Mr. Hyatt has let me read your statement. Your statement to the secretary of state regarding wiretapping. He has also told me what you said to him this morning — merely a repetition of parts of the statement. Do you now want to change it?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you want to add anything to it?”

“That depends. If I am under suspicion of murder, or if Mr. Goodwin is, I wish to add something. Are we under suspicion?”

“Put it this way. You’re not charged. You’re being held for questioning, by police authority, to learn if you have any knowledge of the murder of a man with whom you admit you have been associated, and against whom you had a grievance. You did have a grievance?”

“I did indeed. I wish to make a further statement.”

“Go ahead.”

“I was summoned by the secretary of state to appear at this address in Albany at ten o’clock this morning. At six o’clock this morning I left my house in New York, in my car, with Mr. Goodwin driving. We stopped once en route, to eat something we had with us, and for coffee. We arrived at this address shortly before ten o’clock and entered the building, were directed to room forty-two on the third floor, went straight there, speaking to no one, and I remained there until I was taken to see Mr. Hyatt. Mr. Goodwin was out of the room briefly, with Miss Sally Colt, to go for coffee. I have not at any time seen or spoken to — what am I to call that creature?”

“The murdered man?”

“Yes.”

“Call him your client.”

“I prefer not to, in this context. I’ve had other clients. With regard to the man who called on me last April and told me he was Otis Ross, and hired me to do a job as described in my statement to the secretary of state, I have never seen him or had any communication with him, or known anything of his whereabouts, since April thirteenth, nineteen-fifty-five. My next knowledge of him was when, after leaving the room with Mr. Hyatt this morning, Mr. Goodwin returned almost immediately to tell me that he was lying dead in a nearby room. My next sight of him was a few minutes ago, when I was taken to that room and saw him dead. I had not known that he was on the premises. It is inane to pile up negatives. I have no knowledge whatever of his death or of his movements prior to his death. Beyond the facts given in my statement to the secretary of state, I have no knowledge of any nature that might be of help in the investigation of this murder.”

Wolfe considered a moment. “There, Mr. Groom. I don’t see what good can come of questions, but certainly you can try.”

“Yeah, I can always try.” Groom looked at me, and I thought it was my turn, but he went back to Wolfe. “You say you entered this building this morning shortly before ten o’clock. How much before?”

“Of my own knowledge, I don’t know. I don’t carry a watch. But as we entered Mr. Goodwin remarked that it was five minutes to ten. He claims that he never allows his watch to be more than thirty seconds off.”

“What time was it when you got to room forty-two?”

“I don’t know. I can only estimate. I would say that it took us four minutes, to the elevator, up to the third floor, and down the hall to the room. That would make it one minute to ten.”

“What if one or more of the others say that you arrived in the room about a quarter past ten?”

Wolfe eyed him. “Mr. Groom. That question is pointless and you know it. As a menace it is puerile. As a mere hypothesis it is flippant. And if one of them does say that you know how many issues it will raise, including his candor. Or more than one — even all of them. If you want your question answered as you put it, either his timepiece was wrong or his memory is at fault or he lies.”

“Yeah.” Apparently Groom was hard to rile. He shifted to me. “Naturally you corroborate everything Wolfe has said. Do you?”

“Naturally,” I told him.

“Yes or no. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Including the time of your arrival at this building?”

“Yes. Nine-fifty-five.”

He got up and stepped to me. “Let’s see your watch.”

I twisted my arm around and pushed the shirt cuff back, and he took a look, then looked at his own, then back at mine. He told the man at the table, “Put it that I found Goodwin’s watch twenty seconds slow,” and returned to his chair.

“You may wonder,” he said, “why I didn’t take you two separately. Because it would have been a waste of time. From what I know of your reputations and records and how you work, I figured that if you had fixed up a story the chance of my getting you to cross was so slim that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Also Mr. Hyatt wanted to go to lunch, and I wanted him with us, and you might as well know why.” He turned. “Will you tell them what you told me, Mr. Hyatt?”