Rex Stout: The Zero Clue

“You’re paraphrasing it,” Wolfe objected. “I’d prefer the words that were used.”

“This is the best of my ability, mister.”

“Very well. Go on.”

“I said I wasn’t a high-bracket boy myself, but anyway that wasn’t here or there or under the rug, because what I had in mind was a wholesale setup. I had figgers to show him. Say he did ten races a week. I could round up at least twenty customers right off the bat. He didn’t need to be any God Almighty always right; all he had to do was crack a percentage of forty or better, and it would start a fire you couldn’t put out if you ran a river down it. We could have a million customers if we wanted ’em, but we wouldn’t want ’em. We would hand-pick a hundred and no more, and each one would ante one C per week, which if I can add at all would make ten grand every sennight. That would—”

“What?” Wolfe exploded. “Ten grand every what?”

“Sennight.”

“Meaning a week?”

“Sure.”

“Where the deuce did you pick up that fine old word?”

“That’s not old. Some big wit started it around last summer.”

“Incredible. Go on.”

“Where was — Oh, yeah. That would make half a million little ones per year, and Heller and me would split it. Out of my half I would expense the operating, and out of his half he would expense the dope. He would have to walk on his nose to cut under a hundred grand all clear, and I wouldn’t do so bad. We didn’t sign no papers, but he could smell it, and after two more talks he agreed to do a dry run on three races. The first one he worked on, his answer was the favorite, a horse named White Water, and it won, but what the hell, it was just exercise for that rabbit. The next one, there were two sweethearts in a field of nine, and it was heads or tails between those two, and Heller had the winner all right, a horse named Short Order, but on a fifty-fifty call you don’t exactly panic. But get this next one.”

Busch gestured dramatically for emphasis. “Now get it. This animal was forty to one, but it might as well have been four hundred. It was a musclebound sore-jointed hyena named Zero. That alone, a horse named Zero, was enough to put the curse of six saints on it, but also it was the kind of looking horse which if you looked at it would make you think promptly of canned dog food. When Heller came up with that horse, I thought oh-oh, he’s a loon after all, and watch me run. Well, you ast me to tell you the words we used, me and Heller. If I told you some I used when that Zero horse won that race, you would lock me up. Not only was Heller batting a thousand, but he had kicked through with the most — What are you doing, taking a nap?”

We all looked at Wolfe. He was leaning back with his eyes shut tight, and was motionless except for his lips, which were pushing out and in, and out and in, and again out and in. Cramer and Stebbins and I knew what that meant: something had hit his hook, and he had yanked and had a fish on. A tingle ran up my spine. Stebbins arose and took a step to stand at Busch’s elbow. Cramer tried to look cynical but couldn’t make it; he was as excited as I was. The proof of it was that he didn’t open his trap; he just sat with his eyes on Wolfe, along with the rest of us, looking at the lip movements as if they were something really special.

“What the hell!” Busch protested. “Is he having a fit?”

Wolfe’s eyes opened, and he came forward in his chair. “No, I’m not,” he snapped, “but I’ve been having one all evening. Mr. Cramer. Will you please have Mr. Busch removed? Temporarily.”

Cramer, with no hesitation, nodded at Purley, and Purley touched Busch’s shoulder, and they went. The door closed behind them, but it wasn’t more than five seconds before it opened again and Purley was back with us. He wanted as quick a look at the fish as his boss and me.

“Have you ever,” Wolfe was asking Cramer, “called me, pointblank, a dolt and a dotard?”

“Those aren’t my words, but I’ve certainly called you.”

“You may do so now. Your opinion of me at its lowest was far above my present opinion of myself.” He looked up at the clock, which said five past three. “We now need a proper setting. How many of your staff are in my house?”

“Fourteen or fifteen.”

“We want them all in here, for the effect of their presence. Half of them should bring chairs. Also, of course, the six persons we have interviewed. This shouldn’t take too long — possibly an hour, though I doubt it. I certainly won’t prolong it.”

Cramer was looking contrary. “You’ve already prolonged it plenty. You mean you’re prepared to name him?”

“I am not. I haven’t the slightest notion who it is. But I am prepared to make an attack that will expose him — or her — and if it doesn’t, I’ll have no opinion of myself at all.” Wolfe flattened his palms on his desk, for him a violent gesture. “Confound it, don’t you know me well enough to realize when I’m ready to strike?”

“I know you too damn well.” Cramer looked at his sergeant, drew in a deep breath, and let it out. “Oh, nuts. Okay, Purley. Collect the audience.”

The office is a good-sized room, but there wasn’t much unoccupied space left when that gathering was fully assembled. There were twenty-seven of us all told. The biggest assortment of Homicide employees I had ever gazed upon extended from wall to wall in the rear of the six subjects, with four of them filling the couch. Cramer was planted in the red leather chair, with Stebbins on his left, and the stenographer was hanging on at the end of my desk.

The six citizens were in a row up front, and none of them looked merry. Agatha Abbey was the only person present who rated two chairs, one for herself and one for her mink, but no one was bothering to resent it in spite of the crowding. Their minds were on other matters.

Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again, taking them in. He spoke. “I’ll have to make this somewhat elaborate, so that all of you will clearly understand the situation. I could not at the moment hazard even a venturesome guess as to which of you killed Leo Heller, but I now know how to find out, and I propose to do so.”

The only reaction visible or audible was John R. Winslow clearing his throat.

Wolfe interlaced his fingers in front of his middle mound. “We have from the first had a hint that has not been imparted to you. Yesterday — Tuesday, that is — Heller telephoned here to say that he suspected that one of his clients had committed a serious crime and to hire me to investigate. I declined, for reasons we needn’t go into, but Mr. Goodwin, who is subordinate only when it suits his temperament and convenience, took it upon himself to call on Heller this morning to discuss the matter.”

He shot me a glance, and I met it. Merely an incivility. He went on to them, “He entered Heller’s office but found it unoccupied. Tarrying there for some minutes, and meanwhile exercising his highly trained talent for observation, he noticed, among other details, that some pencils and an eraser from an overturned jar were arranged on the desk in a sort of pattern. Later that same detail was of course noted by the police, after Heller’s body had been found and they had been summoned; and it was a feature of that detail which led Mr. Cramer to come to see me. He assumed that Heller, seated at his desk and threatened with a gun, knowing or thinking he was about to die, had made the pencil pattern to leave a message, and that the purpose of the message was to give a clue to the identity of the murderer. On that point I agreed with Mr. Cramer. Will you all approach, please, and look at this arrangement on my desk? These pencils and the eraser are placed approximately the same as those on Heller’s desk, with you, not me, on Heller’s side of the desk. From your side you are seeing them as Heller intended them to be seen.”