Rex Stout - The Twisted Scarf

“Excuse me. Mr. Wolfe often says I jump to conclusions.”

“You did that time.” She was still indignant. “A blackmailer’s not a crook, he’s a snake! Not that it really matters. What’s wrong with being a crook is the other crooks — they make it dirty whether you like it or not. I’ve been up to my knees in it. It makes a coward of you too — that’s the worst. I had a friend once — as close as a crook ever comes to having a friend — and a man killed her, strangled her, and if I had told what I knew about it they could have caught him, but I was afraid to go to the cops, so he’s still loose. And she was my friend! That’s getting down toward the bottom. Isn’t it?”

“Fairly low,” I agreed, eyeing her. “Of course I don’t know you any too well. I don’t know how you react to two stiff drinks. Maybe your hobby is stringing private detectives. If so, why don’t you wait for Mr. Wolfe? It would be more fun with two of us.”

She simply ignored it. “I realized long ago,” she went on as if it were a one-way conversation, “that I had made a mistake. I wasn’t what I had thought I was going to be — a romantic reckless outlaw. You can’t do it that way, or anyhow I couldn’t. I was just a crook and I knew it, and about a year ago I decided to break loose. A good way to do it would have been to talk to someone the way I’m talking to you now, but I didn’t have sense enough to see that. And so many people were involved. It was so involved! You know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“So I kept putting it off. We got a good one in December and I went to Florida for a vacation, but down there I met a man with a lead and we followed it up here just a week ago. That’s what I’m working on now. That’s what brought me here today. This man—”

She stopped abruptly.

“Well?” I invited her.

She looked dead serious, not more serious, but a different kind. “I’m not putting anything on him,” she declared. “I don’t owe him anything and I don’t like him, but this is strictly about me and no one else — only I had to explain why I’m here. I wish to God I’d never come!”

There was no question about that coming from her heart, unless she had done a lot of rehearsing in front of a mirror.

“It got you this talk with me,” I reminded her.

She was looking straight through me and beyond. “If only I hadn’t come! If only I hadn’t seen him!” She leaned toward me for emphasis. “I’m either too smart or not smart enough, that’s my trouble. I should have looked away from him, turned away quick, when I realized I knew who he was, before he turned and saw it in my eyes. But I was so shocked I couldn’t help it! For a second I couldn’t move. God, I was dumb! I stood there staring at him, thinking I wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t had a hat on, and then he looked at me and saw what was happening. I knew then all right what an awful fool I was, and I turned away and moved off, but it was too late. I know how to manage my face with nearly anybody, anywhere, but that was too much for me. It showed so plain that Mrs. Orwin asked me what was the matter with me and I had to try to pull myself together — then seeing Nero Wolfe gave me the idea of telling him, only of course I couldn’t right there with the crowd — and then I saw you going out and as soon as I could break away I came down to find you.”

She tried smiling at me, but it didn’t work so good. “Now I feel some better,” she said hopefully.

I nodded. “That’s good bourbon. Is it a secret who you recognized?”

“No. I’m going to tell Nero Wolfe.”

“You decided to tell me.” I flipped a hand. “Suit yourself. Whoever you tell, what good will that do?”

“Why — then he can’t do anything to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because he wouldn’t dare. Nero Wolfe will tell him that I’ve told about him, so that if anything happened to me he would know it was him, and he’d know who he is — I mean Nero Wolfe would know — and so would you.”

“We would if we had his name and address.” I was studying her. “He must be quite a specimen, to scare you that bad. And speaking of names, what’s yours?”

She made a little noise that could have been meant for a laugh. “Do you like Marjorie?”

“So-so.”

“I used Evelyn Carter in Paris once. Do you like that?”

“Not bad. What are you using now?”

She hesitated, frowning.

“Good Lord,” I protested, “you’re not in a vacuum, and I’m a detective. They took the names down at the door.”

“Cynthia Brown,” she said.

“I like that fine. That’s Mrs. Orwin you came with?”

“Yes.”

“She’s the current customer? The lead you picked up in Florida?”

“Yes. But that’s—” She gestured. “That’s finished. That’s settled now, since I’m telling you and Nero Wolfe. I’m through.”

“I know. A job at Macy’s or marry a truck driver. There’s one thing you haven’t told me, though — who was it you recognized?”

She turned her head for a glance at the door and then turned it still farther to look behind her. When her face came back to me it was out of kilter again, with the teeth pinching the lower lip.

“Can anyone hear us?” she asked.

“Nope. That other door goes to the front room — today the cloakroom. Anyhow this room’s soundproofed, including the doors.”

She glanced at the hall door again, returned to me, and lowered her voice. “This has to be done the way I say.”

“Sure, why not?”

“I wasn’t being honest with you.”

“I wouldn’t expect it from a crook. Start over.”

“I mean—” She used the teeth on the lip again. “I mean I’m not just scared about myself. I’m scared all right, but I don’t just want Nero Wolfe for what I said. I want him to get him for murder, but he has to keep me out of it. I don’t want to have anything to do with any cops — not now I don’t especially. I’m through. If he won’t do it that way — do you think he will?”

I was feeling a faint tingle at the base of my spine. I only get that on special occasions, but this was unquestionably something special, if Marjorie Evelyn Carter Cynthia Brown wasn’t taking me for a ride to pay for the drinks.

I gave her a hard look and didn’t let the tingle get into my voice. “He might, for you, if you pay him. What kind of evidence have you got? Any?”

“I saw him.”

“You mean today?”

“I mean I saw him then.” She had her hands clasped tight. “I told you — I had a friend. I stopped in at her apartment that afternoon. I was just leaving — Doris was inside, in the bathroom — and as I got near the entrance door I heard a key turning in the lock, from the outside. I stopped, and the door came open and a man came in. When he saw me he just stood and stared. I had never met Doris’s bank account and I knew she didn’t want me to, and since he had a key I supposed of course it was him, making an unexpected call, so I mumbled something about Doris being in the bathroom and went past him, through the door and on out.”

She paused. Her clasped hands loosened and then tightened again.

“I’m burning my bridges,” she said, “but I can deny all this if I have to. I went and kept a cocktail date, and then phoned Doris’s number to ask if our dinner date was still on, considering the visit of the bank account. There was no answer, so I went back to her apartment and rang the bell, and there was no answer to that either. It was a self-service elevator place, no doorman or hallman, so there was no one to ask anything. Her maid found her body the next morning. The papers said she had been killed the day before. That man killed her. There wasn’t a word about him — no one had seen him enter or leave. And I didn’t open my mouth! I was a lousy coward!”