Rex Stout: The Squirt and the Monkey

Pat Lowell answered. “He may be in his room on the top floor.” They halted at the landing, the edge of the big square hall, and I joined them. We could hear the radio going upstairs. She indicated the room to the left. “He takes his afternoon nap in there with Rookaloo, but not this late usually.”

I thought I might as well glance in, and moved to the archway. A draft of cold air hit me, and I went on in. A window was wide open! I marched over and closed it, then went to take a look at the monkey. It was huddled on the floor in a corner of the cage, making angry little noises, with something clutched in its fingers against its chest. The light was dim, but I have good eyes, and not only was the something unmistakably a gun, but it was my Marley on a bet. Needing light, and looking for a wall switch, I was passing the large couch which faced the fireplace when suddenly I stopped and froze. Adrian Getz, the Squirt, was lying on the couch but he wasn’t taking a nap.

I bent over him for a close-up and saw a hole in his skull northeast of his right ear, and some red juice. I stuck a hand inside the V of his vest and flattened it against him and held my breath for eight seconds. He was through taking naps.

I straightened up and called, “Come in here, all three of you, and switch on a light as you come!”

They appeared through the archway, and one of them put a hand to the wall. Lights shone. The back of the couch hid Getz from their view as they approached.

“It’s cold in here,” Pat Lowell was saying. “Did you open another—”

Seeing Getz stopped her, and the others too. They goggled.

“Don’t touch him,” I warned them. “He’s dead, so you can’t help him any. Don’t touch anything. You three stay here together, right here in this room, while I—”

“Christ Almighty,” Pete Jordan blurted. Hildebrand squeaked something. Pat Lowell put out a hand, found the couch back, and gripped it. She asked something, but I wasn’t listening. I was at the cage, with my back to them, peering at the monkey. It was my Marley the monkey was clutching. I had to curl my fingers until the nails sank in to keep from opening the cage door and grabbing that gun.

I whirled. “Stick here together. Understand?” I was on my way. “I’m going up and phone.”

Ignoring their noises, I left them. I mounted the stairs in no hurry, because if I had been a raving maniac before, I was now stiff with fury and I needed a few seconds to get under control. In the room upstairs Harry Koven was still seated at the desk, staring at the open drawer. He looked up and fired a question at me but got no answer. I went to the phone, lifted it, and dialed a number. When I got Wolfe he started to sputter at being disturbed again.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but I wish to report that I have found my gun. It’s in the cage with the monkey, who is—”

“What monkey?”

“Its name is Rookaloo, but please don’t interrupt. It is holding my gun to its breast, I suspect because it is cold and the gun is warm, having recently been fired. Lying there on a couch is the body of a man, Adrian Getz, with a bullet hole in the head. It is no longer a question whether I call a cop, I merely wanted to report the situation to you before I do so. A thousand to one Getz was shot and killed with my gun. I will not be — hold it—”

I dropped the phone and jumped. Koven had made a dive for the door. I caught him before he reached it, got an arm and his chin, and heaved. There was a lot of feeling in it, and big as he was he sailed to a wall, bounced off, and went to the floor.

“I would love to do it again,” I said, meaning it, and returned to the phone and told Wolfe, “Excuse me, Koven tried to interrupt. I was only going to say I will not be home to dinner.”

“The man is dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you anything satisfactory for the police?”

“Sure. My apologies for bringing my gun here to oblige a murderer. That’s all.”

“We haven’t answered today’s mail.”

“I know. It’s a damn shame. I’ll get away as soon as I can.”

“Very well.”

The connection went. I held the button down a moment, with an eye on Koven, who was upright again but not asking for an encore, then released it and dialed RE 7–5260.

I haven’t kept anything like an accurate score, but I would say that over the years I haven’t told the cops more than a couple of dozen barefaced lies, maybe not that many. They are seldom practical. On the other hand, I can’t recall any murder case Wolfe and I were in on and I’ve had my story gone into at length where I have simply opened the bag and given them all I had, with no dodging and no withholding, except one, and this is it. On the murder of Adrian Getz I didn’t have a single thing on my mind that I wasn’t willing and eager to shovel out, so I let them have it.

It worked fine. They called me a liar.

Not right away, of course. At first even Inspector Cramer appreciated my cooperation, knowing as he did that there wasn’t a man in his army who could shade me at seeing and hearing, remembering, and reporting. It was generously conceded that upon finding the body I had performed properly and promptly, herding the trio into the room and keeping the Kovens from holding a family council until the law arrived. From there on, of course, everyone had been under surveillance, including me.

At six-thirty, when the scientists were still monopolizing the room where Getz had got it, and city employees were wandering all over the place, and the various inmates were still in various rooms conversing privately with Homicide men, and I had typed and signed my own frank and full statement, I was confidently expecting that I would soon be out on the sidewalk unattended, flagging a taxi. I was in the front room on the ground floor, seated at Pat Lowell’s desk, having used her typewriter, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins was sitting across from me, looking over my statement.

He lifted his head and regarded me, perfectly friendly. A perfectly friendly look from Stebbins would, from almost anyone else, cause you to get your guard up and be ready to either duck or counter, but Purley wasn’t responsible for the design of his big bony face and his pig-bristle eyebrows.

“I guess you got it all in,” he admitted. “As you told it.”

“I suggest,” I said modestly, “that when this case is put away you send that to the school to be used as a model report.”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “You’re a good typist.” He turned to go.

I arose too, saying casually, “I can run along now?”

The door opened, and Inspector Cramer entered. I didn’t like his expression as he darted a glance at me. Knowing him well in all his moods, I didn’t like the way his broad shoulders were hunched, or his clamped jaw, or the glint in his eye.

“Here’s Goodwin’s statement,” Purley said. “Okay.”

“As he told it?”

“Yes.”

“Send him downtown and hold him.”

It caught me completely off balance. “Hold me?” I demanded, squeaking almost like Hildebrand.

“Yes, sir.” Nothing could catch Purley off balance. “On your order?”

“No, charge him. Sullivan Act. He has no license for the gun we found on him.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “Ha, ha, and ha, ha. There, you got your laugh. A very fine gag. Ha.”

“You’re going down, Goodwin. I’ll be down to see you later.”

As I said, I knew him well. He meant it. I had his eyes. “This,” I said, “is way out of my reach. I’ve told you where and how and why I got that gun.” I pointed to the paper in Purley’s hand. “Read it. It’s all down, punctuated.”