Rex Stout - The Second Confession

Wolfe interrupted himself. “Bah!” he said scornfully. “You deserve complete candor. As I said, Mr. Rony is a mere trifle; he’ll be disposed of in no time, once I am established where I can be undisturbed. But I hope I have given you a clear idea of what X is like. He will know I can’t go on without money and, when he finds he can’t get at me, will try to stop the source of supply. He will try many expedients before he resorts to violence, for he is a man of sense and knows that murder should always be the last on the list, and of course the murder of a man in your father’s position would be excessively dangerous; but if he thought it necessary he would risk it. I don’t—”

“You can leave that out,” Sperling cut in. “If she wants to consider the cost in money she can, but I’ll not have her saving my life. That’s up to me.”

Wolfe looked at him. “A while ago you told me to go ahead. What about it now? Do you want to pay me off?”

“No. You spoke about your vanity, but I’ve got more up than vanity. I’m not quitting and I don’t intend to.”

“Listen, Jim—” his wife began, but to cut her off he didn’t even have to speak. He only looked at her.

“In that case,” Wolfe told Gwenn, “there are only two alternatives. I won’t drop it, and your father won’t discharge me, so the decision rests with you, as I said it would. You may have proof if you insist on it. Do you?”

“You said,” Madeline exploded at me, “it would be the best you could do for her!”

“I still say it,” I fired back. “You’d better come down and look at the plant rooms too!”

Gwenn sat gazing at Wolfe, not stubbornly — more as if she were trying to see through him to the other side.

“I have spoken,” Wolfe told her, “of what the proof, if you insist on it, will cost me and your father and family. I suppose I should mention what it will cost another person: Mr. Rony. It will get him a long term in jail. Perhaps that would enter into your decision. If you have any suspicion that it would be necessary to contrive a frame-up, reject it. He is pure scoundrel. I wouldn’t go to the extreme of calling him a cheap filthy little worm, but he is in fact a shabby creature. Your sister thinks I’m putting it brutally, but how else can I put it? Should I hint that he may be not quite worthy of you? I don’t know that, for I don’t know you. But I do know that I have told you the truth about him, and I’ll prove it if you say I must.”

Gwenn left her chair. Her eyes left Wolfe for the first time since her unsure glance at me. She looked around at her family.

“I’ll let you know before bedtime,” she said firmly, and walked out of the room.

More than four hours later, at nine o’clock in the evening, Wolfe yawned so wide I thought something was going to give.

We were in the room where I had slept Saturday night, if it can be called sleep when a dose of dope has knocked you out. Immediately after Gwenn had ended the session in the library by beating it, Wolfe had asked where he could go to take a nap, and Mrs. Sperling had suggested that room. When I steered him there he went straight to one of the three-quarter beds and tested it, pulled the coverlet off, removed his coat and vest and shoes, lay down, and in three minutes was breathing clear to China. I undressed the other bed to get a blanket to put over him, quit trying to fight temptation, and followed his example.

When we were called to dinner at seven o’clock I was conscripted for courier duty, to tell Mrs. Sperling that under the circumstances Mr. Wolfe and I would prefer either to have a sandwich upstairs or go without, and it was a pleasure to see how relieved she was. But even in the middle of that crisis she didn’t let her household suffer shame, and instead of a sandwich we got jellied consommé, olives and cucumber rings, hot roast beef, three vegetables, lettuce and tomato salad, cold pudding with nuts in it, and plenty of coffee. It was nothing to put in your scrapbook, but was more than adequate, and except for the jellied consommé, which he hates, and the salad dressing, which he made a face at, Wolfe handled his share without comment.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had had me take him home as soon as the library party was over, but neither was I surprised that he was staying. The show that he had put on for them hadn’t been a show at all. He had meant every word of it, and I had meant it along with him. That being so, it was no wonder that he wanted the answer as soon as it was available, and besides, he would be needed if Gwenn had questions to ask or conditions to offer. Not only that, if Gwenn said nothing doing I don’t think he would have gone home at all. There would have been a lot of arranging to do with Sperling, and when we finally got away from Stony Acres we wouldn’t have been headed for Thirty-fifth Street but for a foxhole.

At nine o’clock, after admiring Wolfe’s yawn, I looked around for an excuse to loosen up my muscles, saw the coffee tray, which had been left behind when the rest of the dinner remains had been called for, and decided that would do. I got it and took it downstairs. When I delivered it to the kitchen there was no one around and, feeling in need of a little social contact, I did a casual reconnoiter. I tried the library first. The door to it was open and Sperling was there, at his desk, looking over some papers. When I entered he honored me with a glance but no words.

After I had stood a moment I informed him, “We’re upstairs hanging on.”

“I know it,” he said without looking up.

He seemed to think that completed the conversation, so I retired. The living room was uninhabited, so when I stepped out to the west terrace no one was to be seen or heard. The game room, which was down a flight, was dark, and the lights I turned on disclosed no fellow beings. So I went back upstairs and reported to Wolfe.

“The joint is deserted, except for Sperling, and I think he’s going over his will. You scared ’em so that they all scrammed.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine twenty-two.”

“She said before bedtime. Call Fritz.”

We had talked with Fritz only an hour ago, but what the hell, it was on the house, so I went to the instrument on the table between the beds and got him. There was nothing new. Andy Krasicki was up on the roof with five men, still working, and had reported that enough glass and slats were in place for the morning’s weather, whatever it might be. Theodore was still far from cheerful, but had had a good appetite for dinner and so on.

I hung up and relayed the report to Wolfe, and added, “It strikes me that all that fixing up may be a waste of our client’s money. If Gwenn decides we’ve got to prove it and we make a dive for a foxhole, what do glass and slats matter? It’ll be years before you see the place again, if you ever do. Incidentally, I noticed you gave yourself a chance to call it off, and also Sperling, but not me. You merely said that your base of operations will be known only to Mr. Goodwin, taking Mr. Goodwin for granted. What if he decides he’s not as vain as you are?”

Wolfe, who had put down a book by Laura Hobson to listen to my end of the talk with Fritz, and had picked it up again, scowled at me.

“You’re twice as vain as I am,” he said gruffly.

“Yeah, but it may work different. I may be so vain I won’t want me to take such a risk. I may not want to deprive others of what I’ve got to be vain about.”

“Pfui. Do I know you?”

“Yes, sir. As well as I know you.”

“Then don’t try shaking a bogy at me. How the devil could I contemplate such a plan without you?” He returned to the book.

I knew he thought he was handing me a compliment which should make me beam with pleasure, so I went and flopped on the bed to beam. I didn’t like any part of it, and I knew Wolfe didn’t either. I had a silly damn feeling that my whole future depended on the verdict of a fine freckled girl, and while I had nothing against fine girls, freckled or unfreckled, that was going too far. But I wasn’t blaming Wolfe, for I didn’t see how he could have done any better. I had brought a couple of fresh magazines up from the living room, but I never got to look at them, because I was still on the bed trying to decide whether I should hunt up Madeline to see if she couldn’t do something that would help on the verdict, when the phone buzzed. I rolled over to reach for it.