Rex Stout - Before Midnight

“Out there, Mr. Hansen.” Wolfe aimed a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “It could even be conclusive if that bottle has identifiable fingerprints, but I doubt if you — one of you — had lost his mind utterly. That’s my fact, and it justifies a question. Mr. Assa left my office yesterday at ten minutes past seven. Who was on these premises later than that? Were you, Mr. Hansen?”

“No. I told you. I was here from four o’clock on, but left before six-thirty.”

“Were you, Mr. Heery?”

“No. I told you when I was here.”

“Mr. O’Garro?”

“Don’t answer, Pat,” Hansen commanded him.

“Pah.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Something so easy to explore? If you prefer the plague—”

“I prefer,” O’Garro said, “to have this out with you here and now.” His bluster was gone. He was being very careful and keeping his eyes straight at Wolfe. “I was here all yesterday afternoon. I saw Assa and spoke with him several times, but always with others present. Buff and I left together around half-past seven and met Assa at a restaurant. We ate something and went from there to your place — Buff and I did. Assa stopped off for an errand and came on alone.”

“What was his errand?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“At the restaurant, what did he say about his visit to me?”

“Nothing. He didn’t mention it. The first I heard of it was here from you.”

“When did you make the appointment to meet him at the restaurant?”

“I didn’t make it.”

“Who did?”

O’Garro’s jaw worked. His eyes hadn’t left Wolfe. “I’ll reserve that,” he said.

“You preferred,” Wolfe reminded him, “to have it out here and now.”

“That will do,” Hansen said, with authority. “As your counsel, Pat, I instruct you, and you too, Oliver, to answer no more questions. I said this man is treacherous and I repeat it. He was in your employ in a confidential capacity, and he is trying to put you in jeopardy on a capital charge. Don’t answer him. — If you have anything else to say, Wolfe, we’re listening.”

Wolfe ignored him and looked at Buff. “Fortunately, Mr. Buff, Mr. O’Garro has spared me the effort of persuading you to disobey your attorney, since he has told me that you left here with him around seven-thirty.” His eyes moved. “I deny that I am treacherous. My client is a business entity called Lippert, Buff and Assa. Until the moment of Mr. Assa’s death I devoted myself exclusively to my client’s interests by working on the job that had been given me. Indeed, I am still doing so, but the circumstances have altered. The question is, what will best serve the interests of that business entity under these new circumstances? Its corollary is, how can I finish my job and learn who took the wallet without exposing the murderer? I can’t.”

He flattened his palms on the desk. “Mr. Dahlmann, who was apparently equipped to furnish the vitality and vigor formerly supplied by Mr. Lippert, has been killed — by one of you. Mr. Assa, who rashly incurred great personal risk for the sake of the firm, has also been killed — by one of you. Who, then, is the traitor? Who has reduced the firm to a strait from which it may never recover? If it is reasonable for you to expect me to regard my client’s interests as paramount, as it is, it is equally reasonable for me to expect you to do the same; and you are simpletons if you don’t see that those interests demand the exposure of the murderer as quickly and surely as possible.”

His eyes fixed on the lawyer. “Mr. Hansen. You are counsel for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa?”

“I am.”

“Are you Mr. Buff’s personal attorney?”

“Of record? No.”

“Or Mr. O’Garro’s?”

“No.”

“Then I charge you with treachery to your client. I assert that you betray your client’s vital interests when you instruct these men to withhold answers to my questions. — No no, don’t bother to reply. Draft a twenty-page brief tomorrow at your leisure.” He left him for the members of the firm. “I have noted that you have not raised the question of motive. I myself have not broached it because I know little or nothing about it — that is, the motive for killing Dahlmann. Mr. Cramer of course has a stack of them, good, bad, and indifferent. I have nothing at all for Mr. Hansen and next to nothing for Mr. Heery, and anyway the timetable shelves them tentatively. For Mr. O’Garro, nothing. For Mr. Buff, nothing conclusive, but material for speculation. I have gathered that he more or less inherited his eminence in the firm on the death of Mr. Lippert, who had trained him; that since Mr. Lippert’s death he has gloried in his status of senior partner and clung to it tenaciously; that his abilities are negligible except for one narrow field; and that there was a widespread expectation that before long Mr. Dahlmann would become the master instead of the servant. I don’t know how severely that prospect galled Mr. Buff, but you must know.” He focused on the senior partner. “Especially you, Mr. Buff. Would you care to tell me?”

Buff darted a glance at Hansen, but the lawyer had no instructions, and he went to Wolfe. His round red face was puffy and flabby, and a strand of his white hair, dangling over his brow, had been annoying me and I had been tempted to tell him to brush it back. Around the corner at the end of the table, at my right, he was close enough for me to do it myself.

He wasn’t indignant. He was a big man and an important man, and this was a very serious matter. “Your attempt to give me a motive,” he told Wolfe, “is not very successful. We all resented Dahlmann a little. He got on our nerves. I think some of us hated him — for instance, O’Garro here. O’Garro always did hate him. But in trying to give me a motive you’re overlooking something. If I killed him to keep him from crowding me out at LBA, I must have been crazy, because why did I take the wallet? Taking the wallet was what got LBA into these grave difficulties. Was I crazy?”

“By no means.” Wolfe met his eyes. “You may have gone there merely to get the wallet, and took the gun along because you were determined to get it, and the opportunity to get rid of him became irresistible after you were with him. Leaving, you would certainly take the wallet. That was what you had gone for; and in any case, you didn’t want it found on his body with that paper in it. You were not in a state of mind to consider calmly the consequences of your taking it. By the way, what have you done with the paper? It must have been in the wallet, since you sent the answers to the contestants.”

“That’s going too far, Wolfe.” Buff’s voice raised a little. “You only suggested a motive, but now you’re accusing me. With witnesses here, don’t forget that. But what you said about the vital interests of this firm, that they are paramount, that made sense and I agree with you. At a time like this personal considerations are of no account. So I must tell you of a little mistake O’Garro made — I don’t say he did it deliberately, it may have slipped his mind that he did make the appointment for us to meet Assa at the restaurant. He was in his office, and he came to my office and said that Assa had phoned and he had arranged for us to meet him at Grainger’s at a quarter to eight.”

I thought O’Garro was going to plug him, and O’Garro thought so too. He was across from me, at Buff’s right, and he was out of his chair, his eyes blazing, with two fists ready, but he didn’t swing. He put his fists on the table and leaned on them, toward Buff, until his face was only a foot away from the senior partner’s.

“You’re too old to hit,” he said, grinding it out between his teeth. “Too old and too goddam dirty. You said I hated Dahlmann. Maybe I didn’t love him, but I didn’t hate him. You did. Seeing him coming up on his way to take over and boot you out — no wonder you hated him — and by God, I felt sorry for you!”