Rex Stout - The Gun with Wings

“She signed this?”

“Yes, sir. In my presence.”

“Indeed. Good. Satisfactory.”

I acknowledged the tribute with a careless nod. It does not hurt my feelings when he says, “Satisfactory,” like that.

“A bold, easy hand,” he said. “She used your pen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I have it, please?”

I arose and handed it to him, together with a couple of sheets of typewriter paper, and stood and watched with interested approval as he wrote “Clara James” over and over again, comparing each attempt with the sample I had secured. Meanwhile, at intervals, he spoke.

“It’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever see it — except our clients... That’s better... There’s time to phone all of them before dinner — first Mrs. Mion and Mr. Weppler — then the others... Tell them my opinion is ready on Mrs. Mion’s claim against Mr. James... If they can come at nine this evening — If that’s impossible tomorrow morning at eleven will do... Then get Mr. Cramer... Tell him it might be well to bring one of his men along...”

He flattened the typed statement on his desk blotter, forged Clara James’ name at the bottom, and compared it with the true signature which I had provided.

“Faulty, to an expert,” he muttered, “but no expert will ever see it. For our clients, even if they know her writing, it will do nicely.”

It took a solid hour on the phone to get it fixed for that evening, but I finally managed it. I never did catch up with Gifford James, but his daughter agreed to find him and deliver him, and made good on it. The others I tracked down myself.

The only ones that gave me an argument were the clients, especially Peggy Mion. She balked hard at sitting in at a meeting for the ostensible purpose of collecting from Gifford James, and I had to appeal to Wolfe. Fred and Peggy were invited to come ahead of the others for a private briefing and then decide whether to stay or not. She bought that.

They got there in time to help out with the afterdinner coffee. Peggy had presumably brushed her teeth and had a nap and a bath, and manifestly she had changed her clothes, but even so she did not sparkle. She was wary, weary, removed, and skeptical. She didn’t say in so many words that she wished she had never gone near Nero Wolfe, but she might as well have. I had a notion that Fred Weppler felt the same way about it but was being gallant and loyal. It was Peggy who had insisted on coming to Wolfe, and Fred didn’t want her to feel that he thought she had made things worse instead of better.

They didn’t perk up even when Wolfe showed them the statement with Clara James’ name signed to it. They read it together, with her in the red leather chair and him perched on the arm.

They looked up together, at Wolfe.

“So what?” Fred demanded.

“My dear sir.” Wolfe pushed his cup and saucer back. “My dear madam. Why did you come to me? Because the fact that the gun was not on the floor when you two entered the studio convinced you that Mion had not killed himself but had been murdered. If the circumstances had permitted you to believe that he had killed himself, you would be married by now and never have needed me. Very well. That is now precisely what the circumstances are. What more do you want? You wanted your minds cleared. I have cleared them.”

Fred twisted his lips, tight.

“I don’t believe it,” Peggy said glumly.

“You don’t believe this statement?” Wolfe reached for the document and put it in his desk drawer, which struck me as a wise precaution, since it was getting close to nine o’clock. “Do you think Miss James would sign a thing like that if it weren’t true? Why would—”

“I don’t mean that,” Peggy said. “I mean I don’t believe my husband killed himself, no matter where the gun was. I knew him too well. He would never have killed himself — never .” She twisted her head to look up at her fellow client. “Would he, Fred?”

“It’s hard to believe,” Fred admitted grudgingly.

“I see.” Wolfe was caustic. “Then the job you hired me for was not as you described it. At least, you must concede that I have satisfied you about the gun; you can’t wiggle out of that. So that job’s done, but now you want more. You want a murder disclosed, which means, of necessity, a murderer caught. You want—”

“I only mean,” Peggy insisted forlornly, “that I don’t believe he killed himself, and nothing would make me believe it. I see now what I really—”

The doorbell sounded, and I went to answer it.

So the clients stayed for the party.

There were ten guests altogether: the six who had been there Monday evening, the two clients, Inspector Cramer, and my old friend and enemy, Sergeant Purley Stebbins. What made it unusual was that the dumbest one of the lot, Clara James, was the only one who had a notion of what was up, unless she had told her father, which I doubted. She had the advantage of the lead I had given her at the Churchill bar. Adele Bosley, Dr. Lloyd, Rupert Grove, Judge Arnold, and Gifford James had had no reason to suppose there was anything on the agenda but the damage claim against James, until they got there and were made acquainted with Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Stebbins. God only knew what they thought then; one glance at their faces was enough to show they didn’t know. As for Cramer and Stebbins, they had had enough experience of Nero Wolfe to be aware that almost certainly fur was going to fly, but whose and how and when? And as for Fred and Peggy, even after the arrival of the law, they probably thought that Wolfe was going to get Mion’s suicide pegged down by producing Clara’s statement and disclosing what Fred had told us about moving the gun from the bust to the floor, which accounted for the desperate and cornered look on their faces. But now they were stuck.

Wolfe focused on the inspector, who was seated in the rear over by the big globe, with Purley nearby. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Cramer, first I’ll clear up a little matter that is outside your interest.”

Cramer nodded and shifted the cigar in his mouth to a new angle. He was keeping his watchful eyes on the move.

Wolfe changed his focus. “I’m sure you’ll all be glad to hear this. Not that I formed my opinion so as to please you; I considered only the merits of the case. Without prejudice to her legal position, I feel that morally Mrs. Mion has no claim on Mr. James. As I said she would, she accepts my judgment. She makes no claim and will ask no payment for damages. You verify that before these witnesses, Mrs. Mion?”

“Certainly.” Peggy was going to add something, but stopped it on the way out.

“This is wonderful!” Adele Bosley was out of her chair. “May I use a phone?”

“Later,” Wolfe snapped at her. “Sit down, please.”

“It seems to me,” Judge Arnold observed, “that this could have been told us on the phone. I had to cancel an important engagement.” Lawyers are never satisfied.

“Quite true,” Wolfe agreed mildly, “if that were all. But there’s the matter of Mion’s death. When I—”

“What has that got to do with it?”

“I’m about to tell you. Surely it isn’t extraneous, since his death resulted, though indirectly, from the assault by Mr. James. But my interest goes beyond that. Mrs. Mion hired me not only to decide about the claim of her husband’s estate against Mr. James — that is now closed — but also to investigate her husband’s death. She was convinced he had not killed himself. She could not believe it was in his character to commit suicide. I have investigated and I am prepared to report to her.”

“You don’t need us here for that,” Rupert the Fat said in a high squeak.