Rex Stout: The Last Witness

“Of course not. How could I?”

“One way would be to suggest someone else with motive and opportunity. Means is no problem, since the plug cord was there at hand. Can you?”

She giggled, and then was shocked, presumably at herself for giggling about murder. “Sorry,” she apologized, “but you’re funny. The way they had us down there at the District Attorney’s office, and the way they kept after us, asking all about Marie and everybody she knew, and of course what they wanted was to find out if there was anybody besides that man Ashe that might have killed her. But now they’re trying Ashe for it, and they wouldn’t be trying him if they didn’t think they could prove it, and here you come and expect to drag it out of me in twenty minutes. Don’t you think that’s funny for a famous detective like you? I do.”

She picked up her glass and drained it, stiffened to control a shudder, and got up and started for the table. Guy Unger reached and beat her to the bottle. “You’ve had enough, Helen,” he told her gruffly. “Take it easy.” She stared down at him a moment, dropped the glass on his lap, and went back to her chair.

Wolfe eyed her. “No, Miss Weltz,” he said. “No, I didn’t expect to drag a disclosure from you in twenty minutes. The most I expected was support for my belief that you people have common knowledge of something that you don’t want revealed, and you have given me that. Now I’ll go to work, and I confess I’m not too sanguine. It’s quite possible that after I’ve squandered my resources on it, time and thought and money and energy, and enlisted the help of half a dozen able investigators, I’ll find that the matter you people are so nervous about has no bearing on the murder of Marie Willis and so is of no use to me, and of no concern. But I can’t know that until I know what it is, so I’m going to know. If you think my process of finding out will cause inconvenience to you and the others, or worse, I suggest that you tell me now. It will—”

“I have nothing to tell you!”

“Nonsense. You’re at the edge of hysteria.”

“I am not!”

“Take it easy, Helen.” Guy Unger focused his mean little eyes on Wolfe. “Look, I don’t get this. As I understand it, what you’re after is an out for Leonard Ashe on the murder. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling me, did Ashe’s lawyer hire you?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“Nobody. I developed a distaste for my function as a witness for the prosecution, along with a doubt of Mr. Ashe’s guilt.”

“Why doubt his guilt?”

Wolfe’s shoulders went up a fraction of an inch, and down again. “Divination. Contrariety.”

“I see.” Unger pursed his midget mouth, which didn’t need pursing. “You’re shooting at it on spec.” He leaned forward. “Understand me, I don’t say that’s not your privilege. Of course you have no standing at all, since you admit nobody hired you, but if Miss Weltz tells you to go to hell that won’t take you off her neck if you’ve decided to go to town. She’ll answer anything you want to ask her that’s connected with the murder, and so will I. We’ve told the police and the District Attorney, why not you? Do you regard me as a suspect?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He leaned back. “I first met Marie Willis about a year ago, a little more. I took her out a few times, maybe once a month, and then later a little oftener, to dinner and a show. We weren’t engaged to be married, nothing like that. The last week in June, just two weeks before her death, she was on vacation, and four of us went for a cruise on my boat, up the Hudson and Lake Champlain. The other two were friends of mine, a man and a woman — do you want their names?”

“No.”

“Well, that was what got me in the murder picture, that week’s cruise she had taken on my boat so recently. There was nothing to it, we had just gone to have a good time, but when she was murdered the cops naturally thought I was a good prospect. There was absolutely nothing in my relations with Marie that could possibly have made me want to kill her. Any questions?”

“No.”

“And if they had dug up a motive they would have been stuck with it, because I certainly didn’t kill her the evening of July fifteenth. That was a Thursday, and at five o’clock that afternoon I was taking my boat through the Harlem River and into the sound, and at ten o’clock that night I was asleep on her at an anchorage near New Haven. My friend Ralph Ingalls was with me, and his wife, and Miss Helen Weltz. Of course the police have checked it, but maybe you don’t like the way they check alibis. You’re welcome to check it yourself if you care to. Any questions?”

“One or two.” Wolfe shifted his fanny on the board slats. “What is your occupation?”

“For God’s sake. You haven’t even read the papers.”

“Yes, I have, but that was weeks ago, and as I remember it they were vague. ‘Broker,’ I believe. Stockbroker?”

“No, I’m a freewheeler. I’ll handle almost anything.”

“Have you an office?”

“I don’t need one.”

“Have you handled any transactions for anyone connected with that business, Bagby Answers, Incorporated? Any kind of transaction?”

Unger cocked his head. “Now that’s a funny question. Why do you ask that?”

“Because I suspect the answer is yes.”

“Why? Just for curiosity.”

“Now, Mr. Unger.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Since apparently you had heard of me, you may know that I dislike riding in cars, even when Mr. Goodwin is driving. Do you suppose I would have made this excursion completely at random? If you find the question embarrassing, don’t answer it.”

“It’s not embarrassing.” Unger turned to the table, poured an inch of bourbon in his glass, added two inches of water from a pitcher, gave it a couple of swirls, took a sip, and another one, and finally put the glass down and turned back to Wolfe.

“I’ll tell you,” he said in a new tone. “This whole business is pretty damn silly. I think you’ve got hold of some crazy idea somewhere, God knows what, and I want to speak with you privately.” He arose. “Let’s take a little walk.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t like conversing on my feet. If you want to say something without a witness, Miss Weltz and Mr. Goodwin can leave us. Archie?”

I stood up. Helen Weltz looked up at Unger, and at me, and then slowly lifted herself from her chair. “Let’s go and pick flowers,” I suggested. “Mr. Unger will want me in sight and out of hearing.”

She moved. We picked our way through the windfalls of the apple tree, and of two more trees, and went on into a meadow where the grass and other stuff was up to our knees. She was in the lead. “Goldenrod I know,” I told her back, “but what are the blue ones?”

No answer. In another hundred yards I tried again. “This is far enough unless he uses a megaphone.”

She kept going. “Last call!” I told her. “I admit he would be a maniac to jump Mr. Wolfe under the circumstances, but maybe he is one. I learned long ago that with people involved in a murder case nothing is impossible.”

She wheeled on me. “He’s not involved in a murder case!”

“He will be before Mr. Wolfe gets through with him.”

She plumped down in the grass, crossed her legs, buried her face in her hands, and started to shake. I stood and looked down at her, expecting the appropriate sound effect, but it didn’t come. She just went on shaking, which wasn’t wholesome. After half a minute of it I squatted in front of her, made contact by taking a firm grip on her bare ankle, and spoke with authority.