Rex Stout - The Second Confession

“Thank you very much. I’ll be around eighty then and I’ll need it.”

“You’re welcome. Now for this afternoon. First, what about the pictures you took up there?”

“Six o’clock. That was the best they could do.”

“And the keys?”

“You said after lunch. They’ll be ready at one-thirty.”

“Good. Saul will be here at two?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have Fred and Orrie here this evening after dinner. I don’t think you’ll need them this afternoon; you and Saul can manage. This is what we want. There must—”

But that was postponed by the arrival of Doc Vollmer. Doc’s home and office were on our street, toward Tenth Avenue, and over the years we had used his services for everything from stitching up Dora Chapin’s head to signing a certificate that Wolfe was batty. When he called he always went to one of the smaller yellow chairs because of his short legs, sat, took off his spectacles and looked at them, put them on again, and asked, “Want some pills?”

Today he added, “I’m afraid I’m in a hurry.”

“You always are,” Wolfe said, in the tone he uses only to the few people he really likes. “Have you read about the Rony case?”

“Of course. Since you’re involved in it — or were.”

“I still am. The body is at the morgue in White Plains. Will you go there? You’ll have to go to the District Attorney’s office first to get yourself accredited. Tell them I sent you, and that I have been engaged by one of Mr. Rony’s associates. If they want more than that they can phone me, and I’ll try to satisfy them. You want to examine the body — not an autopsy, merely superficially, to determine whether he died instantly or was left to suffer a prolonged agony. What I really want you to inspect is his head, to see if there is any indication that he was knocked out by a blow before the car ran over him. I know the chance of finding anything conclusive is remote, but I wish you’d try, and there’ll be no grumbling about your charge for the trip.”

Vollmer blinked. “It would have to be done this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any idea what weapon might have been used?”

“No, sir.”

“According to the papers he had no family, no relatives at all. Perhaps I should know whom I’m representing — one of his professional associates?”

“I’ll answer that if they ask it. You’re representing me.”

“I see. Anything to be mysterious.” Vollmer stood up. “If one of my patients dies while I’m gone—” He left it hanging and trotted out, making me move fast to get to the front door in time to open it for him. His habit of leaving like that, as soon as he had all he really needed, was one of the reasons Wolfe liked him.

I returned to the office.

Wolfe leaned back. “We have only ten minutes until lunch. Now this afternoon, for you and Saul...”

The locksmith soaked me $8.80 for eleven keys. That was about double the market, but I didn’t bother to squawk because I knew why: he was still collecting for a kind of a lie he had told a homicide dick six years ago at my suggestion. I think he figured that he and I were fellow crooks and therefore should divvy.

Even with keys it might have taken a little maneuvering if Louis Rony had lived in an apartment house with a doorman and elevator man, but as it was there was nothing to it. The address on East Thirty-seventh Street was an old five-story building that had been done over in good style, and in the downstairs vestibule was a row of mailboxes, push buttons, and perforated circles for reception on the speaking tube. Rony’s name was at the right end, which meant the top floor. The first key I tried was the right one, and Saul and I entered, went to the self-service elevator, and pushed the button marked 5. It was the best kind of setup for an able young man with a future like Rony, who had probably had visitors of all kinds at all hours.

Upstairs it was the second key I tried that worked. Feeling that I was the host, in a way, I held the door open for Saul to precede me and then followed him in. We were at the center of a hall, not wide and not very long. Turning right, toward the street front, we stepped into a fairly large room with modern furniture that matched, bright-colored rugs that had been cleaned not long ago, splashy colored pictures on the walls, a good supply of books, and a fireplace.

“Pretty nice,” Saul remarked, sending his eyes around. One difference between Saul and me is that I sometimes have to look twice at a thing to be sure I’ll never lose it, but once will always do for him.

“Yeah,” I agreed, putting my briefcase on a chair. “I understand the tenant has given it up, so maybe you could rent it.” I got the rubber gloves from the briefcase and handed him a pair. He started putting them on.

“It’s too bad,” he said, “you didn’t keep that membership card Sunday night when you had your hands on it. It would have saved trouble. That’s what we want, is it?”

“It’s our favorite,” I began on the second glove. “We would buy anything that looks interesting, but we’d love a souvenir of the American Communist party. The best bet is a safe of some kind, but we won’t hop around.” I motioned to the left. “You take that side.”

It’s a pleasure to work with Saul because I can concentrate completely on my part and pay no attention to him. We both like a searching job, when it’s not the kind where you have to turn couches upside down or use a magnifying glass, because when you’re through you’ve got a plain final answer, yes or no. For that room, on which we spent a good hour, it was no. Not only was there no membership certificate, there was nothing at all that was worth taking home to Wolfe. The only thing resembling a safe was a locked bond box, which one of the keys fitted, in a drawer of the desk, and all that it contained was a bottle of fine liqueur Scotch, McCrae’s, half full. Apparently that was the one item he didn’t care to share with the cleaning woman. We left the most tedious part, flipping through the books, to the last, and did it together. There was nothing in any of them but pages.

“This bird trusted nobody,” Saul complained.

In our next objective, the bedroom, which was about half the size of the front room, Saul darted a glance around and said, “Thank God, no books.”

I agreed heartily. “We ought to always bring a boy along for it. Flipping through books is a hell of a way to earn a living for grownups.”

The bedroom didn’t take as long, but it produced as little. The further we went the more convinced I got that Rony had either never had a secret of any kind, or had had so many dangerous ones that no cut and dried precautions would do, and in view of what had happened to the plant rooms the choice was easy. By the time we finished with the kitchenette, which was about the size of Wolfe’s elevator, and the bathroom, which was much larger and spick-and-span, the bottle of Scotch locked in the bond box, hidden from the cleaning woman, struck me as pathetic — the one secret innocent enough to let into his home.

Thinking that that notion showed how broad-minded I was, having that kind of a feeling even for a grade A bastard like Rony, I thought I should tell Saul about it. The gloves were back in the briefcase and the briefcase under my arm, and we were in the hall, headed for the door, ready to leave. I never got the notion fully explained to Saul on account of an interruption. I was just reaching for the doorknob, using my handkerchief, when the sound of the elevator came, stopping at that floor, and then its door opening. There was no question as to which apartment someone was headed for because there was only one to a floor. There were steps outside, and the sound of a key being inserted in the lock, but by the time it was turned and the door opened Saul and I were in the bathroom, with its door closed to leave no crack, but unlatched.