Rex Stout - The Squirt and the Monkey

Hildebrand nodded, and the squeak came. “I was putting on some touches. I often work Sundays.”

“You were in there in the workroom?”

“Yes. Mr. Getz was there, making some suggestions. I was doubtful about one of his suggestions and went upstairs to consult Mr. Koven, but Mrs. Koven was there in the hall and—”

“You mean the big hall one flight up?”

“Yes. She said Mr. Koven wasn’t up yet and Miss Lowell was in his office waiting to see him. Miss Lowell has extremely good judgment, and I went up to consult her. She disapproved of Mr. Getz’s suggestion, and we discussed various matters, and mention was made of the gun Mr. Koven kept in his desk drawer. I pulled the drawer open just to look at it, with no special purpose, merely to look at it, and closed the drawer again. Shortly afterward I returned downstairs.”

“Was the gun there in the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take it out?”

“No. Neither did Miss Lowell. We didn’t touch it.”

“But you recognized it as the same gun?”

“I can’t say that I did, no. I had never examined the gun, never had it in my hand. I can only say that it looked the same as before. It was my opinion that our concern about the gun being kept there was quite childish, but I see now that I was wrong. After what happened today—”

“Yeah.” Cramer cut him off. “Concern about a loaded gun is never childish. That’s all I’m after now. Sunday morning, in Miss Lowell’s presence, you opened the drawer of Koven’s desk and saw the gun which you took to be the gun you had seen there before. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct,” Hildebrand squeaked.

“Okay, that’s all.” Cramer nodded at Sol. “Take him back to Rowcliff.”

I treated myself to a good deep breath. Purley was squinting at me, not gloating, just concentrating. Cramer turned his head to see that the door was closed after the dick and the artist and then turned back to me.

“Your turn,” he growled.

I shook my head. “Lost my voice,” I whispered, hissing.

“You’re not funny, Goodwin. You’re never as funny as you think you are. This time you’re not funny at all. You can have five minutes to go over it and realize how complicated it is. When you phoned Wolfe before you phoned us, you couldn’t possibly have arranged all the details. I’ve got you. I’ll be leaving here before long to join you downtown, and on my way I’ll stop in at Wolfe’s place for a talk. He won’t clam up on this one. At the very least I’ve got you good on the Sullivan Act. Want five minutes?”

“No, sir.” I was calm but emphatic. “I want five days and I would advise you to take a full week. Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. Before I leave for downtown, if you’re actually going to crawl out on that one, I wish to remind you of something, and don’t forget it. When I voluntarily took Koven’s gun from my holster and turned it over — it wasn’t ‘found on me,’ as you put it — I also turned over six nice clean cartridges which I had in my vest pocket, having previously removed them from my gun. I hope none of your heroes gets careless and mixes them up with the cartridges found in my gun, if any, when you retrieved it from the monkey. That would be a mistake. The point is, if I removed the cartridges from my gun in order to insert one or more from Koven’s gun, when and why did I do it? There’s a day’s work for you right there. And if I did do it, then Koven’s friendly effort to fix me up for justifiable manslaughter is wasted, much as I appreciate it, because I must have been premeditating something, and you know what. Why fiddle around with the Sullivan Act? Make it the big one, and I can’t get bail. Now I button up.”

I set my jaw.

Cramer eyed me. “Even a suspended sentence,” he said, “you lose your license.”

I grinned at him.

“You goddam mule,” Purley rumbled.

I included him in the grin.

“Send him down,” Cramer rasped and got up and left.

Even when a man is caught smack in the middle of a felony, as I had been, there is a certain amount of red tape to getting him behind bars, and in my case not only red tape but also other activities postponed my attainment of privacy. First I had a long conversation with an assistant district attorney, who was the suave and subtle type and even ate sandwiches with me. When it was over, a little after nine o’clock, both of us were only slightly more confused than when we started. He left me in a room with a specimen in uniform with slick brown hair and a wart on his cheek. I told him how to get rid of the wart, recommending Doc Vollmer.

I was expecting the promised visit by Inspector Cramer any minute. Naturally I was nursing an assorted collection of resentments, but the one on top was at not being there to see and hear the talk between Cramer and Wolfe. Any chat those two had was always worth listening to, and that one must have been outstanding, with Wolfe learning not only that his client was lying five ways from Sunday, which was bad enough, but also that I had been tossed in the can and the day’s mail would have to go unanswered.

When the door finally opened, and a visitor entered it wasn’t Inspector Cramer. It was Lieutenant Rowcliff, whose murder I will not have to premeditate when I get around to it because I have already done the premeditating. There are not many murderers so vicious and inhuman that I would enjoy seeing them caught by Rowcliff. He jerked a chair around to sit facing me and said with oily satisfaction, “At last we’ve got you, by God.”

That set the tone of the interview.

I would enjoy recording in full that two-hour session with Rowcliff, but it would sound like bragging, and therefore I don’t suppose you would enjoy it too. His biggest handicap is that when he gets irritated to a certain point he can’t help stuttering, and I’m onto him enough to tell when he’s just about there, and then I start stuttering before he does. Even with a close watch and careful timing it takes luck to do it right, and that evening I was lucky. He came closer than ever before to plugging me, but didn’t, because he wants to be a captain so bad he can taste it and he’s not absolutely sure that Wolfe hasn’t got a solid in with the Commissioner or the Mayor or possibly Grover Whalen himself.

Cramer never showed up, and that added another resentment to my healthy pile. I knew he had been to see Wolfe, because when they had finally let me make my phone call, around eight o’clock, and I had got Wolfe and started to tell him about it, he had interrupted me in a voice as cold as an Eskimo’s nose.

“I know where you are and how you got there. Mr. Cramer is here. I have phoned Mr. Parker, but it’s too late to do anything tonight. Have you had anything to eat?”

“No, sir. I’m afraid of poison and I’m on a hunger strike.”

“You should eat something. Mr. Cramer is worse than a jackass, he’s demented. I intend to persuade him, if possible, of the desirability of releasing you at once.”

He hung up.

When, shortly after eleven, Rowcliff called it off and I was shown to my room, there had been no sign of Cramer. The room was in no way remarkable, merely what was to be expected in a structure of that type, but it was fairly clean, strongly scented with disinfectant, and was in a favorable location since the nearest corridor light was six paces away and therefore did not glare through the bars of my door. Also it was a single, which I appreciated. Alone at last, away from telephones and other interruptions, I undressed and arranged my gray pinstripe on the chair, draped my shirt over the end of the blankets, got in, stretched, and settled down for a complete survey of the complications. But my brain and nerves had other plans, and in twenty seconds I was asleep.