Rex Stout - The Second Confession

When I got to the end I added, “If I may make a suggestion, why not have one of the boys find out where Aloysius Murphy was at nine-thirty Monday evening? I’d be glad to volunteer. I bet he’s a D and a Commie both, and if he didn’t kill Rony he ought to be framed for it. You ought to meet him.”

Wolfe grunted. “At least the afternoon wasn’t wasted. You didn’t find the membership card.”

“Yeah, I thought that was how you’d take it.”

“And you met Mrs. Sperling and her son. How sure are you that he invented those letters?”

I shrugged. “You heard me describe it.”

“You, Saul?”

“Yes, sir, I agree with Archie.”

“Then that settles it.” Wolfe sighed. “This is a devil of a mess.” He looked at Fred and Orrie. “Come up closer, will you? I’ve got to say something.”

Fred and Orrie moved together, but not alike. Fred was some bigger than Orrie. When he did anything at all, walk or talk or reach for something, you always expected him to trip or fumble, but he never did, and he could trail better than anybody I knew except Saul, which I would never understand. Fred moved like a bear, but Orrie like a cat. Orrie’s strong point was getting people to tell him things. It wasn’t so much the questions he asked. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t very good at questions; it was just the way he looked at them. Something about him made people feel that he ought to be told things.

Wolfe’s eyes took in the four of us. He spoke.

“As I said, we’re in a mess. The man we were investigating has been killed, and I think he was murdered. He was an outlaw and a blackguard, and I owe him nothing. But I am committed, by circumstances I prefer not to disclose, to find out who killed him and why, and, if it was murder, to get satisfactory evidence. We may find that the murderer is one who, by the accepted standards, deserves to live as richly as Mr. Rony deserved to die. I can’t help that; he must be found. Whether he must also be exposed I don’t know. I’ll answer that question when I am faced by it, and that will come only when I am also facing the murderer.”

Wolfe turned a hand over. “Why am I giving you this lecture? Because I need your help and will take it only on my own terms. If you work with me on this and we find what we’re looking for, a murderer, with the required evidence, any one or all of you may know all that I know, or at least enough to give you a right to share in the decision: what to do about it. That’s what I won’t accept. I reserve that right solely to myself. I alone shall decide whether to expose him, and if I decide not to, I shall expect you to concur; and if you concur you will be obligated to say or do nothing that will conflict with my decision. You’ll have to keep your mouths shut, and that is a burden not to be lightly assumed. So before we get too far I’m giving you this chance to stay out of it.”

He pressed a button on his desk. “I’ll drink some beer while you think it over. Will you have some?”

Since it was the first group conference we had had for a long time, all five of us, I thought it should be done right, so I went to the kitchen, and Fritz and I collaborated. It was nothing fancy — a bourbon and soda for Saul, and gin fizzes for Orrie and me, and beer for Fred Durkin and Wolfe. Straight rye with no chaser was Fred’s drink, but I had never been able to talk him out of the notion that he would offend Wolfe if he didn’t take beer when invited. So while the rest of us sat and enjoyed what we liked, Fred sipped away at what I had heard him call slop.

Since they were supposed to be thinking something over, they tried to look thoughtful, and I tactfully filled in by giving Wolfe a few sidelights on the afternoon, such as the bottle of Scotch Rony had kept in the bond box. But it was too much for Saul, who hated to mark time. When his highball was half gone he lifted the glass, drained it, put it down, and spoke to Wolfe.

“What you were saying. If you want me to work on this, all I expect is to get paid. If I get anything for you, then its yours. My mouth doesn’t need any special arrangement to keep it shut.”

Wolfe nodded. “I know you’re discreet, Saul. All of you are. But this time what you’ll get for me may be evidence that would convict a murderer if it were used, and there’s a possibility that it may not be used. That would be a strain.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll make out all right. If you can stand it I can.”

“What the hell,” Fred blurted. “I don’t get it. What do you think we’d do, play pattycake with the cops?”

“It’s not that,” Orrie told him impatiently. “He knows how we like cops. Maybe you never heard about having a conscience.”

“Never did. Describe it to me.”

“I can’t. I’m too sophisticated to have one and you’re too primitive.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

“There certainly isn’t.” Orrie raised his glass. “Here’s to crime, Mr. Wolfe. There’s no problem.” He drank.

Wolfe poured beer. “Well,” he said, “now you know what this is like. The contingency I have described may never arise, but it had to be foreseen. With that understood we can proceed. Unless we have some luck this could drag on for weeks. Mr. Sperling’s adroit stroke in persuading a man of standing to sign that confounded statement, not merely a chauffeur or other domestic employee, has made it excessively difficult. There is one possibility which I shall have explored by a specialist — none of you is equipped for it — but meanwhile we must see what we can find. Archie, tell Fred about the people who work there. All of them.”

I did so, typing the names for him. If my weekend at Stony Acres had been purely social I wouldn’t have been able to give him a complete list, from the butler to the third assistant gardener, but during the examinations Monday night and Tuesday morning I had got well informed. As I briefed Fred on them he made notes on the typed list.

“Anyone special?” Fred asked Wolfe.

“No. Don’t go to the house. Start at Chappaqua, in the village, wherever you can pick up a connection. We know that someone in that house drugged a drink intended for Mr. Rony on Saturday evening, and we are assuming that someone wanted him to die enough to help it along. When an emotion as violent as that is loose in a group of people there are often indications of it that are heard or seen by servants. That’s all I can tell you.”

“What will I be in Chappaqua for?”

“Whatever you like. Have something break on your car, something that takes time, and have it towed to the local garage. Is there a garage in Chappaqua, Archie?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That will do.” Wolfe drank the last of his beer and used his handkerchief on his lips. “Now Saul. You met young Sperling today.”

“Yes, sir. Archie introduced us.”

“We want to know what he and his mother were looking for at Mr. Rony’s apartment. It was almost certainly a paper, since they were looking in books, and probably one which had supported a threat held by Mr. Rony over young Sperling or his mother. That conjecture is obvious and even trite, but things get trite by occurring frequently. There is a clear pattern. A month ago Mrs. Sperling reversed herself and readmitted Mr. Rony to her home as a friend of her daughter, and the son’s attitude changed at the same time. A threat could have been responsible for that, especially since the main objection to Mr. Rony was then based on a mere surmise by Mr. Sperling. But Monday afternoon they were told something which so blackened Mr. Rony as to make him quite unacceptable. Yet the threat still existed. You see where that points.”

“What blackened him?” Saul asked.

Wolfe shook his head. “I doubt if you need that, at least not now. We want to know what the threat was, if one existed. That’s for you and Orrie, with you in charge. The place to look is here in New York, and the son is far more likely than the mother, so try him first — his associates, his habits — but for that you need no suggestions from me. It’s as routine as Fred’s job, but perhaps more promising. Report as usual.”