Rex Stout: The Last Witness

“Do you know,” Judge Corbett asked him, “where Helen Weltz is now?”

“Yes, sir. She is present. I told her that if she came and faced it the District Attorney might show appreciation for her help.”

“Have you anything to add that you told Mr. Ashe this morning?”

“I have, Your Honor. Do you wish me to differentiate clearly between what Helen Weltz told me and my own exposition?”

“No. Anything whatever that you said to Mr. Ashe.”

“I told him that the fact that he had tried to hire me to learn the identity of the Bagby operator who would service his number, and to bribe her to eavesdrop on his line, was one of the points that had caused me to doubt his guilt; that I had questioned whether a man who was reluctant to undertake such a chore for himself would be likely to strangle the life out of a woman and then open a window and yell for the police. Also I asked him about the man who telephoned him to say that if Ashe would meet him at the Bagby office on Sixty-ninth Street he thought they could talk Miss Willis out of it. I asked if it was possible that the voice was Bagby’s, and Ashe said it was quite possible, but if so he had disguised his voice.”

“Had you any evidence that Mr. Bagby made that phone call?”

“No, Your Honor. All I had, besides my assumptions from known facts and my own observations, was what Miss Weltz had told me. One thing she had told me was that Marie Willis had become an imminent threat to the whole conspiracy. She had been ordered by both Unger and Bagby to accept Ashe’s proposal to eavesdrop on his line, and not to tell Mrs. Ashe, whom Miss Willis idolized; and she had refused and announced that she was going to quit. Of course that made her an intolerable peril to everyone concerned. The success and security of the operation hinged on the fact that no victim ever had any reason to suspect that Bagby Answers, Incorporated, was responsible for his distress. It was Bagby who got the information, but it was Unger who used it, and the tormented under the screw could not know where the tormentor had got the screw. So Miss Willis’s rebellion and decision to quit — combined, according to Miss Weltz, with an implied threat to expose the whole business — were a mortal menace to any and all of them, ample provocation for murder to one willing to risk that extreme. I told Mr. Ashe that all this certainly established a reasonable doubt of his guilt, but I also went beyond that and considered briefly the most likely candidate to replace him. Do you wish that too?”

The judge was intent on him. “Yes. Proceed.”

“I told Mr. Ashe that I greatly preferred Mr. Bagby. The mutual alibi of Miss Hart and Miss Velardi might be successfully impeached, but they have it, and besides I have seen and talked with them and was not impressed. I exclude Miss Weltz because when she came to me last evening she had been jolted by consternation into utter candor, or I am a witless gull; and that excludes Mr. Unger too, because Miss Weltz claims certain knowledge that he was on his boat in the Sound all of that evening. As for Mr. Bagby, he had most at stake. He admits that he went to his apartment around the time of the murder, and his apartment is on Seventieth Street, not far from where the murder occurred. I leave the timetable to the police; they are extremely efficient with timetables. Regarding the telephone call, Mr. Ashe said it could have been his voice.”

Wolfe pursed his lips. “I think that’s all — no, I also told Mr. Ashe that this morning I sent a man, Saul Panzer, to keep an eye on Mr. Bagby’s office in Forty-seventh Street, to see that no records are removed or destroyed. I believe that covers it adequately, Your Honor. I would now like to plead to the charge of contempt, both on behalf of Mr. Goodwin and of myself. If I may—”

“No.” Judge Corbett was curt. “You know quite well you have made that charge frivolous by the situation you have created. The charge is dismissed. Are you through with the witness, Mr. Donovan?”

“Yes, Your Honor. No more questions.”

“Mr. Mandelbaum?”

The Assistant District Attorney got up and approached the bench. “Your Honor will appreciate that I find myself in an extraordinary predicament.” He sounded like a man with a major grievance. “I feel that I am entitled to ask for a recess until the afternoon session, to consider the situation and consult with my colleagues. If my request is granted, I also ask that I be given time, before the recess is called, to arrange for five persons in the room to be taken into custody as material witnesses — Alice Hart, Bella Velardi, Helen Weltz, Guy Unger, and Clyde Bagby.”

“Very well.” The judge raised his eyes and his voice. “The five persons just named will come forward. The rest of you will keep your seats and preserve order.”

All of them obeyed but two. Nero Wolfe left the witness chair and stepped down to the floor, and as he did so Robina Keane sprang up from her place on the front bench, ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and pressed her cheek against his. As I said before, actresses always act, but I admit that was unrehearsed and may have been artless. In any case, I thoroughly approved, since it indicated that the Ashe family would prove to be properly grateful, which after all was the main point.

The thought may have occurred to you, that’s all very nice, and no doubt Ashe sent a handsome check, but after all one reason Wolfe walked out was because he hated to sit against a perfumed woman on a wooden bench waiting for his turn to testify, and he had to do it all over again when the State was ready with its case, against the real murderer. It did look for a while as if he might have to face up to that, but a week before the trial opened he was informed that he wouldn’t be needed, and he wasn’t. They had plenty without him to persuade a jury to bring in a verdict of guilty against Clyde Bagby.