Rex Stout: Nero Wolfe and the Vanishing Clue

“Then,” Wolfe objected, “he was an ass to tell his sister he had emptied them.”

Buhl shook his head. “Only to sidetrack her. He could tell Miss Goren he had done her that service, and at the same time could threaten, at least tacitly, to disclose her negligence. I don’t say he wasn’t an ass; obsessed people usually are. I merely say that I think he told his sister the truth and told Miss Goren a lie. I think he emptied the bags himself. I understand he will be here this evening, with the others, and I ask you to let them know that any attempt to charge Miss Goren with an act of negligence will be deeply resented by me and strongly opposed. I will advise her to bring an action for slander and will support it. If you prefer that I tell them myself—”

The doorbell rang. I got up and went to the hall for a look, and stepped back in.

“They’re here,” I told Wolfe. “David and two men and a woman.”

He looked up at the clock. “Ten minutes late. Bring them in.”

“No!” Anne Goren was on her feet. “I won’t! I won’t be in a room with them! Doctor Buhl! Please!”

I must say I agreed with her. I wasn’t obsessed, but I absolutely agreed. After a second’s hesitation Buhl did too, and told Wolfe so. Wolfe looked at her, and decided to make it unanimous.

“All right,” he conceded. “Archie, take Miss Goren and Doctor Buhl to the front room, and after the others are in here let them out.”

“Yes, sir.” As I went to open the door to the front room the bell rang again. Paul being impetuous. If he had known who was there he would probably have bounded through the glass panel.

The way it looked to me, as I sat at my desk and got out my notebook after ushering the newcomers in and letting Buhl and Anne Goren out, an investigation of a death that had surprised the doctor was about to deteriorate into an inquiry about a real-estate agent’s methods of courtship — not the sort of job that Wolfe would ever consider worthy of his genius, fee or no fee, and I was looking forward to it.

In appearance Paul was not up to his billing. He was a good eight inches shorter than me, broad and a little pudgy, and probably thought he looked like Napoleon — and maybe he did a little, or would have without the shiner (left eye) and the bruises on both sides of his swollen jaw. Evidently Johnny Arrow used both fists. Paul and the Tuttles were on chairs lined up in front of Wolfe’s desk, leaving the red leather chair to David.

Louise was taller than either of her brothers, and better-looking. For a middle-aged woman she wasn’t a bad sight at all, though a little bony, and her hair was too short. As for her husband, Tuttle, he was simply short of hair. His shiny dome, rising to a peak, dominated the scene and made such details as eyes and nose and chin unimportant. You had to concentrate to take them in.

When I came back and sat after letting Buhl and Anne Goren out, Wolfe was speaking. “... and Doctor Buhl stated that in his opinion your brother died of pneumonia, with no suspicious circumstances. Since he had already certified the death, that leaves us where we were.” He focused on Paul. “I understand that you maintain that the police should be asked to investigate. Is that correct?”

“Yes. You’re damn right it is.” He had a baritone and gave it plenty of breath.

“And the others disagree.” Wolfe’s head moved. “You disagree, sir?”

“As I told you.” David looked and sounded tireder than ever. “Yes, I disagree.”

“And you, Mrs. Tuttle?”

“I certainly do.” She was a word-clipper, with a high thin voice. “I don’t believe in asking for trouble. Neither does my husband.” Her head jerked sideways. “Vince?”

“That’s right, my dear,” Tuttle rumbled. “I always agree with you, even when I don’t. This time I do.”

Wolfe went back to Paul. “Then it seems to be up to you. If you go to the police what do you tell them?”

“I tell them plenty.” The ceiling light made Paul’s shiner look worse than it really was. “I tell them that when Doctor Buhl left Saturday evening he told us that Bert’s condition was satisfactory and we could go and enjoy the play, and a few hours later Bert was dead. I tell them that that guy Arrow was making a play for the nurse, and she was giving him the eye, and he could have had an opportunity to get at her stuff and substitute something for the morphine she was going to shoot into Bert. Doctor Buhl told us he was giving morphine. I tell them that Arrow stands to rake in several million bucks that he never would have got a smell of as long as Bert was alive. I tell them that Arrow saw that Bert was getting on with us, one of the family again, and he didn’t like it and showed he didn’t.”

Paul stopped to press gently at his jaw with fingertips. “It hurts me to talk,” he said. “The goddam hoodlum. Look, I’m no prince. The way you’re looking at me, you might be asking am I my brother’s keeper, and hell no. I didn’t get along any too well with Bert when we were kids, and I hadn’t seen him for twenty years, so what. I might as well tell you what. A murderer can’t collect on his crime, and if Arrow killed him that agreement is out the window, and it will all be in Bert’s estate, and it will be ours. That’s obvious, so why not say it? I won’t have to tell the police that because they’ll know it.”

“That’s no way to talk, Paul,” David said sharply.

“That’s right,” Tuttle agreed. “It certainly isn’t.”

“Oh, can it,” Paul told his brother-in-law. “Who are you?”

“He’s my husband,” Louise snapped at him. “He could teach you a lot of things if you were teachable.”

All in the family. Wolfe took over. “I concede,” he told Paul, “that you might stir the police into curiosity, but surmise is not enough. Have you anything else to tell them?”

“No. I don’t need anything else.”

“For me you do.” Wolfe leaned back, pulled in a bushel of air, and let it out again. “Let’s see if we can find something. What time did you arrive at your brother’s apartment Saturday evening?”

“Saturday afternoon around five o’clock.” The bottom half of Paul’s face was suddenly contorted, and I thought he was having a spasm until I realized he was merely trying to grin, which is a problem with a sore jaw. “I get it,” he said, “where was I at nine minutes to six on August sixth? Okay. I left Mount Kisco at a quarter to four, alone in my car, and drove to New York. My first stop was at Schramm’s on Madison Avenue, to buy two quarts of their mango ice cream to take back to Mount Kisco for a Sunday party. Then I drove to Fifty-second Street and parked the car, which can be done on a Saturday afternoon, and walked to the Churchill, arriving at the apartment a little after five. I went early because I had spoken with the nurse on the phone and liked her voice, and I thought I might get acquainted with her before the others came. Not a chance. That guy Arrow had her in the living room, telling her about prospecting for uranium. Every ten minutes or so she would sneak in for a look at her patient and then come back for more about prospecting. Then Dave came, and then Louise and Vince, and we were just starting dinner around a quarter to seven when Doctor Buhl came. Want more?”

“You might as well finish.”

“Anything you say. Buhl was in with Bert about half an hour, and when he left — I told you what he told us. We not only ate, we drank, and maybe I overdid it a little. I thought it wouldn’t be right to leave the nurse alone with Bert, and when the others left to go to the show I stayed. I thought if the nurse liked to hear about prospecting she might like to hear about other things too, but apparently not. After a little — oh, some remarks back and forth — she went in Bert’s room and shut the door and locked it. She told my sister later that I banged on the door and yelled at her that if she didn’t come out I’d break the door down, but I don’t remember it that way. Anyhow, by that time Bert was dead to the world with morphine, if it was morphine. She did come out, and we talked, and I may have touched her, but the marks on her that she showed them when they got back from the theater — she must have done that herself. I wasn’t that drunk, I was just a little high. Finally she got at the phone and said if I didn’t leave she would call down to the desk and tell them to send someone up, and I beat it. Want more?”