Rex Stout: The Squirt and the Monkey

“You had the gun in your holster and you have no license for it.”

“Nuts. But I get it. You’ve been hoping for years to hang something on Nero Wolfe, and to you I’m just a part of him, and you think here’s your chance. Of course it won’t stick. Wouldn’t you rather have something that will? Like resisting arrest and assaulting an officer? Glad to oblige. Watch it—”

Tipping forward, I started a left hook for his jaw, fast and vicious, then jerked it down and went back on my heels. It didn’t create a panic, but I had the satisfaction of seeing Cramer take a quick step back and Stebbins one forward. They bumped.

“There,” I said. “With both of you to swear to it, that ought to be good for at least two years. I’ll throw the typewriter at you if you’ll promise to catch it.”

“Cut the clowning,” Purley growled.

“You lied about that gun,” Cramer snapped. “If you don’t want to get taken down to think it over, think now. Tell me what you came here for and what happened.”

“I’ve told you.”

“A string of lies.”

“No, sir.”

“You can have ’em back. I’m not trying to hang something on Wolfe, or you either. I want to know why you came here and what happened.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I moved my eyes. “Okay, Purley, where’s my escort?”

Cramer strode four paces to the door, opened it, and called, “Bring Mr. Koven in here!”

Harry Koven entered with a dick at his elbow. He looked as if he was even farther away from happiness than before.

“We’ll sit down,” Cramer said.

He left me behind the desk. Purley and the dick took chairs in the background. Cramer stationed himself across the desk from me, where Purley had been, with Koven on a chair at his left. He opened up.

“I told you, Mr. Koven, that I would ask you to repeat your story in Goodwin’s presence, and you said you would.”

Koven nodded. “That’s right.” He was hoarse.

“We won’t need all the details. Just answer me briefly. When you called on Nero Wolfe last Saturday evening, what did you ask him to do?”

“I told him I was going to have Dazzle Dan start a detective agency in a new series.” The hoarseness bothered Koven, and he cleared his throat explosively. “I told him I needed technical assistance, and possibly a tie-up, if we could arrange—”

There was a pad of ruled paper on the desk. I reached for it, and a pencil, and started doing shorthand. Cramer leaned over, stretched an arm, grabbed a corner of the pad, and jerked it away. I could feel the blood coming to my head, which was silly of it with an inspector, a sergeant, and a private all in the room.

“We need your full attention,” Cramer growled. He went to Koven. “Did you say anything to Wolfe about your gun being taken from your desk?”

“Certainly not. It hadn’t been taken. I did mention that I had a gun in my desk for which I had no license, but that I never carried it, and I asked if that was risky. I told them what make it was, a Marley thirty-two. I asked how much trouble it would be to get a license, and if—”

“We’ll keep it brief. Just cover the points. What arrangement did you make with Wolfe?”

“He agreed to send Goodwin to my place on Monday for a conference with my staff and me.”

“About what?”

“About the technical problems of having Dazzle Dan do detective work, and possibly a tie-up.”

“And Goodwin came?”

“Yes, today around noon.” Koven’s hoarseness kept interfering with him, and he kept clearing his throat. My eyes were at his face, but he hadn’t met them. Of course he was talking to Cramer and had to be polite. He went on, “The conference was for twelve-thirty, but I had a little talk with Goodwin and asked him to wait. I have to be careful what I do with Dan and I wanted to think it over some more. Anyway I’m like that, I put things off. It was after four o’clock when he—”

“Was your talk with Goodwin about your gun being gone?”

“Certainly not. We might have mentioned the gun, about my not having a license for it, I don’t remember — no, wait a minute, we must have, because I pulled the drawer open and we glanced in at it. Except for that, we only talked—”

“Did you or Goodwin take your gun out of the drawer?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Did he put his gun in the drawer?”

“Absolutely not.”

I slid in, “When I took my gun from my holster to show it to you, did you—”

“Nothing doing,” Cramer snapped at me. “You’re listening. Just the high spots for now.” He returned to Koven. “Did you have another talk with Goodwin later?”

Koven nodded. “Yes, around half-past three he came up to my room — the living room. We talked until after four, there and in my office, and then—”

“In your office did Goodwin open the drawer of the desk and take the gun out and say it had been changed?”

“Certainly not!”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing, only we talked, and then he left to go down and get the others to come up for the conference. After a while he came back alone, and without saying anything he came to the desk and took my gun from the drawer and put it under his coat. Then he went to the phone and called Nero Wolfe. When I heard him tell Wolfe that Adrian Getz had been shot, that he was on a couch downstairs dead, I got up to go down there, and Goodwin jumped me from behind and knocked me out. When I came to he was still talking to Wolfe, I don’t know what he was telling him, and then he called the police. He wouldn’t let me—”

“Hold it,” Cramer said curtly. “That covers that. One more point. Do you know of any motive for Goodwin’s wanting to murder Adrian Getz?”

“No, I don’t. I told—”

“Then if Getz was shot with Goodwin’s gun how would you account for it? You’re not obliged to account for it, but if you don’t mind just repeat what you told me.”

“Well—” Koven hesitated. He cleared his throat for the twentieth time. “I told you about the monkey. Goodwin opened a window, and that’s enough to kill that kind of a monkey, and Getz was very fond of it. He didn’t show how upset he was but Getz was very quiet and didn’t show things much. I understand Goodwin likes to kid people. Of course I don’t know what happened, but if Goodwin went in there later when Getz was there, and started to open a window, you can’t tell. When Getz once got aroused he was apt to do anything. He couldn’t have hurt Goodwin any, but Goodwin might have got out his gun just for a gag, and Getz tried to take it away, and it went off accidentally. That wouldn’t be murder, would it?”

“No,” Cramer said, “that would only be a regrettable accident. That’s all for now, Mr. Koven. Take him out, Sol, and bring Hildebrand.”

As Koven arose and the dick came forward I reached for the phone on Pat Lowell’s desk. My hand got there, but so did Cramer’s, hard on top of mine.

“The lines here are busy,” he stated. “There’ll be a phone you can use downtown. Do you want to hear Hildebrand before you comment?”

“I’m crazy to hear Hildebrand,” I assured him. “No doubt he’ll explain that I tossed the gun in the monkey’s cage to frame the monkey. Let’s just wait for Hildebrand.”

It wasn’t much of a wait; the Homicide boys are snappy. Byram Hildebrand, ushered in by Sol, stood and gave me a long straight look before he took the chair Koven had vacated. He still had good presence, with his fine mat of nearly white hair, but his extremities were nervous. When he sat he couldn’t find comfortable spots for either his hands or his feet.

“This will only take a minute,” Cramer told him. “I just want to check on Sunday morning. Yesterday. You were here working?”