Rex Stout: When a Man Murders…

“May I call you Purley?” I asked.

“You goddam clown.”

“All right, then, I won’t. After all these years you should know better. Eighty-seven and four-tenths percent of the people, including licensed detectives, who are asked impertinent questions by cops, answer quick because they are either scared or ignorant of their rights or anxious to cooperate. That lets me out. Give me one reason why I should tell you anything about my movements or any companions I may have had, and make it good.”

Silence. After a moment I added, “And don’t try to avoid giving me a shock. Since you’re Homicide, someone is dead. Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Huh-uh. I won’t try to guess because I might guess the right one and I’d be in the soup.”

“I want to be around when you are. Sidney Karnow was killed in his room at the Churchill this afternoon. He had been reported dead in Korea and had just turned up alive, and had learned that his wife had married Paul Aubry. As if I was telling you anything you don’t know.”

He couldn’t see my face through the crack, so I didn’t have to bother about managing it. I asked, “Karnow was murdered?”

“That’s the idea. He was shot in the back of the head.”

“Are you saying I knew about it?”

“Not so far. But you knew about the situation, since you were there with Aubry and the woman. I want ‘em, and I want ‘em now, and are they here? If not, where are they?”

“I see,” I said judiciously. “I admit you have given me a reason. Be seated while I go take a look.” I pushed the door shut, went back to the office and crossed to my desk, took a pencil and my memo pad, and wrote:

Stebbins. Says K. murdered. We were seen leaving hotel. Asks are they here and if not where.

I got up to hand it to Wolfe, and he took it in with a glance and slipped it into the top drawer of his desk. He looked at Caroline and then at Aubry. “You don’t need me,” he told them. “Your problem has been solved for you. Mr. Karnow is dead.”

They gawked at him.

“Of course,” he added, “you now have another problem, which may be even thornier.”

Caroline was stiff, frozen. “I don’t believe it,” Aubry said harshly.

“It seems authentic,” Wolfe declared. “Archie?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Stebbins of Homicide is out on the stoop. He says that Karnow was murdered, shot in the back of the head, this afternoon in his room at the Churchill. Mr. Aubry and Mrs. Karnow were seen leaving the hotel with me, and he wants to know if they’re here, and if not, where? He says he wants them.”

“Good God,” Aubry said. Caroline had let out a gasp, but no word. She was still rigid.

Her lips moved, and I thought she asked, “He’s dead?” but it was too low to be sure.

Wolfe spoke. “So you have another problem. The police will give you a night of it, and possibly a week or a month. Mr. Stebbins cannot enter this house without a search warrant, and if you were my clients I wouldn’t mind letting him wait on the stoop while we considered the matter, but since the job you gave me is now not feasible I am no longer in your hire. I have on occasion welcomed an opportunity to plague the police, but never merely for pastime, so I must bid you good evening.”

Caroline had left her chair and gone to Aubry with her hands out, and he had taken them and pulled her to him. Evidently the ban was off.

“However,” Wolfe continued, “I have a deep repugnance to letting the police take from my house people who have been moved to consult me and who have not been formally charged with a crime. There is a back way out, leading to Thirty-fourth Street, and Mr. Goodwin will take you by it if you feel that you would like a little time to discuss matters.”

“No,” Aubry said. “We have nothing to run from. Tell him we’re here. Let him in.”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not in my house, to drag you out. You’re sure you don’t want to delay it?”

“Yes.”

“Then Archie, will you please handle it?”

I arose, told them, “This way, please,” and headed for the door, but stopped and turned when I heard Caroline find her voice behind me.

“Wait a minute,” she said, barely loud enough for me to get it. She was standing facing Aubry, gripping his lapels. “Paul, don’t you think — shouldn’t we ask Mr. Wolfe—”

“There’s nothing to ask him.” Aubry was up, with an arm across her shoulders. “I’ve had enough of Wolfe. Come on, Caro mia. We don’t have to ask anybody anything.”

They came and followed me into the hall. As Aubry was getting his hat from the rack I opened the door, leaving the chain bolt on, and spoke to Purley. “What do you know, they were right here in the office. That’s a break for you. Now if—”

“Open the door!”

“In a moment. Mr. Wolfe is peevish and might irritate you, so if you’ll remove yourself, on down to the sidewalk, I’ll let them out, and they are yours.”

“I’m coming in.”

“No. Don’t even think of it.”

“I want you too.”

“Yeah, I thought so. I’ll be along shortly. Twentieth Street?”

“Now. With me.”

“Again no. I have to ask Mr. Wolfe if there’s anything we wouldn’t want to bother you with, and if so what. Where do I go, Twentieth Street?”

“Yes, and not tomorrow.”

“Right. Glad to oblige. The subjects are here at my elbow, so if you’ll just descend the steps — and be careful, don’t fall.”

He muttered something I didn’t catch, turned, and started down. When he was at the bottom of the seven steps I removed the bolt, swung the door open, and told our former clients, “Okay. In return for the sandwiches and coffee, here’s a suggestion. Don’t answer a single damn question until you have got a lawyer and talked with him. Even if—”

I stopped because my audience was going. Aubry had her arm as they crossed the stoop and started down. Not wishing to give Purley the pleasure of having me watch him take them, I shut the door, replaced the bolt, and returned to the office. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed.

“I’m wanted,” I told him. “Do I go?”

“Of course,” he growled.

“Are we saving anything?”

“No. There’s nothing to save.”

“The letters from Karnow to his wife are in my desk. Do I take them and turn them over?”

“No. They are her property, and doubtless she will claim them.”

“Did I discover the body?”

“Certainly not. To what purpose?”

“None. Don’t worry if I’m late.”

I went to the hall for my hat and beat it.

Since I wasn’t itching to oblige Homicide, and it was a pleasant evening for a walk, I decided to hoof it the fifteen blocks to Twentieth Street, and also to do a little chore on the way. If I had done it in the office Wolfe would have pulled his dignity on me and pretended to be outraged, though he knew as well as I did that it’s always desirable to get your name in the paper, provided it’s not in the obituary column. So I went to a phone booth in a drugstore on Tenth Avenue, dialed the Gazette number, asked for Lon Cohen, and got him.

“Scrap the front page,” I told him, “and start over. If you don’t want it I’ll sell it to the Times. Did you happen to know that Paul Aubry and his wife, Mrs. Sidney Karnow to you, called on Nero Wolfe this afternoon, and I went somewhere with them, and brought them back to Mr. Wolfe’s office, and fifteen minutes ago Sergeant Purley Stebbins came and got them? Or maybe you don’t even know that Karnow was murd—”

“Yeah, I know that. What’s the rest of it? Molasses you licked off your fingers?”

“Nope. Guaranteed straight as delivered. I just want to get my employer’s name in the paper. Mine is spelled, A-R-C-H—”