Rex Stout - The Gun with Wings

Wolfe grunted. “The clients. I have to earn my fee. They want their minds cleared, and they know the gun wasn’t on the floor when they discovered the body. For the jury, I can’t leave it that the gun was on the bust, and for the clients I can’t leave it that it stayed on the floor where the murderer put it. Having, through Mr. Weppler, got it from the bust to the floor, I must now go back and get it from the floor to the bust. You see that?”

“Only too plain.” I whistled for help. “I’ll be damned. How’re you coming on?”

“I’ve just started.” He sat up straight. “But I must clear my own mind, for lunch. Please hand me Mr. Shanks’s orchid catalogue.”

That was all for the moment, and during meals Wolfe excludes business not only from the conversation but also from the air. After lunch he returned to the office and got comfortable in his chair. For a while he just sat, and then began pushing his lips out and in, and I knew he was doing hard labor. Having no idea how he proposed to move the gun from the floor to the bust, I was wondering how long it might take, and whether he would have to get Cramer to arrest someone else, and if so who. I have seen him sit there like that, working for hours on end, but this time twenty minutes did it. It wasn’t three o’clock yet when he pronounced my name gruffly and opened his eyes.

“Archie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t do this. You’ll have to.”

“You mean dope it? I’m sorry, I’m busy.”

“I mean execute it.” He made a face. “I will not undertake to handle that young woman. It would be an ordeal, and I might botch it. It’s just the thing for you. Your notebook. I’ll dictate a document and then we’ll discuss it.”

“Yes, sir. I wouldn’t call Miss Bosley really young.”

“Not Miss Bosley. Miss James.”

“Oh.” I got the notebook.

At a quarter past four, Wolfe having gone up to the plant rooms for his afternoon session with the orchids, I sat at my desk, glowering at the phone, feeling the way I imagine Jackie Robinson feels when he strikes out with the bases full. I had phoned Clara James to ask her to come for a ride with me in the convertible, and she had pushed my nose in.

If that sounds as if I like myself beyond reason, not so. I am quite aware that I bat close to a thousand on invitations to damsels only because I don’t issue one unless the circumstances strongly indicate that it will be accepted. But that has got me accustomed to hearing yes, and therefore it was a rude shock to listen to her unqualified no. Besides, I had taken the trouble to go upstairs and change to a Pillater shirt and a tropical worsted made by Corley, and there I was, all dressed up.

I concocted three schemes and rejected them, concocted a fourth and bought it, reached for the phone, and dialed the number again. Clara’s voice answered, as it had before. As soon as she learned who it was she got impatient.

“I told you I had a cocktail date! Please don’t—”

“Hold it,” I told her bluntly. “I made a mistake. I was being kind. I wanted to get you out into the nice open air before I told you the bad news. I—”

“What bad news?”

“A woman just told Mr. Wolfe and me that there are five people besides her, and maybe more, who know that you had a key to Alberto Mion’s studio door.”

Silence. Sometimes silences irritate me, but I didn’t mind this one. Finally her voice came, totally different. “It’s a silly lie. Who told you?”

“I forget. And I’m not discussing it on the phone. Two things and two only. First, if this gets around, what about your banging on the door for ten minutes, trying to get in, while he was in there dead? When you had a key? It would make even a cop skeptical. Second, meet me at the Churchill bar at five sharp and we’ll talk it over. Yes or no.”

“But this is so — you’re so—”

“Hold it. No good. Yes or no.”

Another silence, shorter, and then, “Yes,” and she hung up.

I never keep a woman waiting and saw no reason to make an exception of this one, so I got to the Churchill bar eight minutes ahead of time. It was spacious, air-conditioned, well-fitted in all respects, and even in the middle of August well-fitted also in the matter of customers, male and female. I strolled through, glancing around but not expecting her yet, and was surprised when I heard my name and saw her in a booth. Of course she hadn’t had far to come, but even so she had wasted no time. She already had a drink and it was nearly gone. I joined her and immediately a waiter was there.

“You’re having?” I asked her.

“Scotch on the rocks.”

I told the waiter to bring two and he went.

She leaned forward at me and began in a breath, “Listen, this is absolutely silly, you just tell me who told you that, why, it’s absolutely crazy—”

“Wait a minute.” I stopped her more with my eyes than my words. Hers were glistening at me. “That’s not the way to start, because it won’t get us anywhere.” I got a paper from my pocket and unfolded it. It was a neatly typed copy of the document Wolfe had dictated. “The quickest and easiest way will be for you to read this first, then you’ll know what it’s about.”

I handed her the paper. You might as well read it while she does. It was dated that day:

I, Clara James, hereby declare that on Tuesday, April 19, I entered the apartment house at 620 East End Avenue, New York City, at or about 6:15 P.M., and took the elevator to the 13th floor. I rang the bell at the door of the studio of Alberto Mion. No one came to the door and there was no sound from within. The door was not quite closed. It was not open enough to show a crack, but was not latched or locked. After ringing again and getting no response, I opened the door and entered.

Alberto Mion’s body was lying on the floor over near the piano. He was dead. There was a hole in the top of his head. There was no question whether he was dead. I got dizzy and had to sit down on the floor and put my head down to keep from fainting. I didn’t touch the body. There was a revolver there on the floor, not far from the body, and I picked it up. I think I sat on the floor about five minutes, but it might have been a little more or less. When I got back on my feet and started for the door I became aware that the revolver was still in my hand. I placed it on the base of the bust of Caruso. Later I realized I shouldn’t have done that, but at the time I was too shocked and dazed to know what I was doing.

I left the studio, pulling the door shut behind me, went down the public stairs to the twelfth floor, and rang the bell at the door of the Mion apartment. I intended to tell Mrs. Mion about it, but when she appeared there in the doorway it was impossible to get it out. I couldn’t tell her that her husband was up in the studio, dead. Later I regretted this, but I now see no reason to regret it or apologize for it, and I simply could not get the words out. I said I had wanted to see her husband, and had rung the bell at the studio and no one had answered. Then I rang for the elevator and went down to the street and went home.

Having been unable to tell Mrs. Mion, I told no one. I would have told my father, but he wasn’t at home. I decided to wait until he returned and tell him, but before he came a friend telephoned me the news that Mion had killed himself, so I decided not to tell anyone, not even my father, that I had been in the studio, but to say that I had rung the bell and knocked on the door and got no reply. I thought that would make no difference, but it has now been explained to me that it does, and therefore I am stating it exactly as it happened.

As she got to the end the waiter came with the drinks, and she held the document against her chest as if it were a poker hand. Keeping it there with her left, she reached for the glass with her right and took a big swallow of scotch. I took a sip of mine to be sociable.