Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe and the Vanishing Clue

Wolfe turned. “Saul?”

“Yes, sir. Positive.”

“Mr. Tuttle, do you wish to comment?”

“No.”

“That is wise, I think.” He returned to me. “Paragraph. Before dictating the preceding paragraph I asked Mr. Tuttle where he was last evening, and he refused to tell me. I am also enclosing a summary of Mr. Panzer’s conversation with Mrs. Dobbs. I must confess it is far from conclusive. She would not identify the man who had just left the house. She would not divulge the purpose of Bert Fyfe’s visit to her. She would not discuss in any detail the events on that winter night twenty years ago. There are, of course, obvious conjectures. Was the alibi which Tuttle gave Bert a fraud, and Bert didn’t dare to impeach it? Does Mrs. Dobbs know it was a fraud? Did Tuttle leave the rooming house that stormy night, but Bert didn’t, and Mrs. Dobbs knows it? Did Tuttle go to the Fyfe home, and get admitted by Louise, and drug her chocolate drink, and later return and open the windows from the outside? I do not charge him with those acts, but the questions put themselves. I was not hired to find evidence to convict a murderer, but merely to decide whether a police investigation is called for, and I think it is, for the reasons given. I telephoned you this morning to suggest that you ask the Poughkeepsie police to put a guard on Mrs. Dobbs and the house she lives in, and said I would shortly tell you why. I have now told you. Paragraph.

“Many questions also put themselves regarding the death of Bert Fyfe. Merely as one example, if it is to be assumed that Vincent Tuttle, fearing exposure of a former crime, again undertook to help pneumonia kill a man, this time using dry ice instead of an open window, why did he leave the paper bag in the refrigerator that night, presumably with the ice cream still in it? Answer it as you will, failing an answer from him, but perhaps he did not know there was a disposal chute in the pantry; and when, on Sunday afternoon, he found that there was one, he took the first opportunity to dump the thing. As for the dry ice, it leaves no trace, so there is no record for you, but experts can furnish you with presumptions, as they did me. The chunks of ice were of course not put inside the bags; the limp empty bags were merely used as insulation to keep the ice from contact with the body. Probably the experts can tell you how long it would take small chunks of dry ice to wholly vaporize, but that point is not vital, since Mr. Tuttle was there in the apartment and could easily have had opportunity to remove the residue, if any, before Paul discovered the body. That, and other pertinent questions, I leave to you. I have done the job I was hired for, and I trust you will not find it necessary to consult me at any length. All the information I have goes to you with this.”

Wolfe flattened his palms on the chair arms and took in the audience. “There it is,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell you about it and go all over it again for Mr. Cramer. Any questions?”

David was slumped in the red leather chair, his head down, staring at the floor. At Wolfe’s question he slowly lifted his head and slowly moved it, taking in the others, one by one, and then going to Wolfe. He squeezed words out.

“I suppose I ought to feel sorry, but I don’t. I always thought Bert killed his father. I always thought Vince’s alibi was false, that he lied to save Bert, but I see it now. Without it Bert would probably have been convicted, so it did save him, but it saved Vince too. Of course Bert knew it was false, he knew he and Vince hadn’t been together all evening, but if he said so, if he said Vince had gone out for a while, that would have destroyed his own alibi, and he didn’t dare — and he didn’t know Vince had killed our father. He might have suspected, but he didn’t know. I see it now. I even see the Mrs. Dobbs part.” He frowned. “I’m trying to remember her testimony. She said she hadn’t heard either of them go out, but probably she had, and she might have known which one, but if she said she heard either of them leave the house that would have ruined Bert’s alibi, and she was crazy about Bert and she hadn’t liked our father. Not many people liked our father.”

He thought he was going to say more, decided not to, rose from the chair, and turned to his brother. “Was this what you were after, Paul? Did you suspect this?”

“Hell no,” Paul said harshly. “You know damn well what I suspected, and who, and if this fat slob is right about the dry ice” — he bounced out of his chair and wheeled to face Johnny Arrow — “why couldn’t it have been him? He had a key to the apartment! I never said I knew exactly how he did it! And if you — now lay off!”

David had stepped across and grabbed his arm, and for a second I thought Paul was going to sock his elder brother, but evidently David knew him better than I did. David said nothing, but he didn’t have to. He merely hung onto his arm, steered him around back of the other chairs, and headed him towards the hall. They disappeared, and Saul went to let them out.

“I have no questions,” Doctor Buhl said. He arose and looked down at the Tuttles, then at Wolfe. “My God, after twenty years. You used a phrase, ‘a window for death.’ You have certainly opened one.” He looked down again. “Louise, you have been my patient nearly all your life. Do you need me? Are you all right?”

“I’m all right.” Her high thin voice was trying not to be a wail. “I don’t believe it.”

Buhl opened his mouth to say more, decided not to, and turned and went. Wolfe spoke to the man and wife who owned a fine drugstore. “If you have no questions you might as well go.”

Louise, with her teeth bearing down on her lip, tugged at her husband’s sleeve. He took a deep breath, put a hand on her shoulder, and raised himself from the chair, and she came up with him. Side by side they headed for the door, and I left them to Saul too. When they were out of sight Wolfe sent his eyes in the direction of the pair in the rear and said sharply, “Well? Have I fixed it up for you?”

Damned if they weren’t holding hands, and they continued to hold as they got up and approached the desk. I am perfectly capable of holding hands, but not in public. Anne looked as if she wanted to cry but didn’t intend to. Luckily it was Johnny’s left hand she had, for he wanted to use the other one. When they got to the desk he stretched his arm across it and said, “Shake.”

I should explain one thing. Since Johnny and Anne had no part in the performance, why did Wolfe tell me to invite them? I didn’t have to ask him. I know him. One little grand is a pretty skimpy fee for a job like that, spotting a murderer, and if Johnny Arrow came and saw the neat process by which the guy who had killed his partner was dug out he might feel inclined to show his appreciation by contributing a small hunk of uranium. That was the idea, no question about it, and for some weeks, as I flipped through the morning mail, I had my eye out for an envelope with his return address. It never came, and I quit expecting it.

But last week, just four days after a jury had convicted Vincent Tuttle of the first-degree murder of Bertram Fyfe’s father — it had been decided to try him for that one because it was a tighter case, especially after Mrs. Dobbs opened up — here came an envelope with Fyfe-Arrow Mining Corporation, Montreal, in the corner, and when I opened it and saw the amount of the check I raised my brows as high as they would go. A really nice hunk.

There was no letter, but that was understandable. He had no time for writing letters. He was much too busy showing his wife how to prospect.