Rex Stout - Champange for One

And was now telling Schuster that he was not aware of having inflicted an injury on anyone.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cecil Grantham said.

“Facts are facts,” Beverly Kent muttered. Unquestionably a diplomatic way of putting it, suitable for a diplomat. When he got a little higher up the ladder he might refine it by making it “A fact is a fact is a fact.”

“Do you deny,” Schuster demanded, “that we owe it to Goodwin that we are being embarrassed and harassed by a homicide investigation? And he is your agent, employed by you. No doubt you know the legal axiom, respondent superior . Isn’t that an injury?”

“Not only that,” Cecil charged, “but he goes up to Grantham House, sticking his nose in. And yesterday a man tried to pump my mother’s butler, and he had no credentials, and I want to know if you sent him. And another man with no credentials is asking questions about me among my friends, and I want to know if you sent him .”

“To me,” Beverly Kent stated, “the most serious aspect is the scope of the police inquiry. My work on our Mission to the United Nations is in a sensitive field, very sensitive, and already I have been definitely injured. Merely to have been present when a sensational event occurred, the suicide of that young woman, would have been unfortunate. To be involved in an extended police inquiry, a murder investigation, could be disastrous for me. If in addition to that you are sending your private agents among my friends and associates to inquire about me, that is adding insult to injury. I have no information of that, as yet. But you have, Cece?”

Cecil nodded.” I sure have.”

“So have I,” Schuster said.

“Have you, Ed?”

Laidlaw cleared his throat. “No direct information, no. Nothing explicit. But I have reason to suspect it.”

He handled it pretty well, I thought. Naturally he had to be with them, since if he had refused to join in the attack they would have wondered why, but he wanted Wolfe to understand that he was still his client.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Schuster told Wolfe.” Do you deny that we owe this harassment to Goodwin, and therefore to you, since he is your agent?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “But you owe it to me, through Mr Goodwin, only secondarily. Primarily you owe it to the man or woman who murdered Faith Usher. So it’s quite possible that one of you owes it to himself.”

“I knew it,” Cecil declared.” I told you, Paul.”

Schuster ignored him. “As I said,” he told Wolfe, “this may become a question of law.”

“I expect it to, Mr Schuster. A murder trial is commonly regarded as a matter of law.” Wolfe leaned forward, flattened his palms on the desk, and sharpened his tone.” Gentlemen. Let’s get to the point, if there is one. What are you here for? Not, I suppose, merely to grumble at me. To buy me off? To bully me? To dispute my ground? What are you after?”

“Goddamm it,” Cecil demanded, “what are you after? That’s the point! What are you trying to pull? Why did you send—”

“Shut up, Cece,” Beverly Kent ordered him, not diplomatic at all. “Let Paul tell him.”

The lawyer did so. “Your insinuation,” Schuster said, “that we have entered into a conspiracy to buy you off is totally unwarranted. Or to bully you. We came because we feel, with reason, that our rights of privacy are being violated without provocation or just cause, and that you are responsible. We doubt if you can justify that responsibility, but we thought you should have a chance to do so before we consider what steps may be taken legally in the matter.”

“Pfui”, Wolfe said.

“An expression of contempt is hardly an adequate justification, Mr Wolfe.”

“I didn’t intend it to be, sir.” Wolfe leaned back and clasped his fingers at the apex of his central mound. “This is futile, gentlemen, both for you and for me. Neither of us can possibly be gratified. You want a stop put to your involvement in a murder inquiry, and my concern is to involve you as deeply as possible—the innocent along with—”

“Why?” Schuster demanded.” Why are you concerned?”

“Because Mr Goodwin’s professional reputation and competence have been challenged, and by extension my own. You invoked respondent superior ; I will not only answer, I will act. That the innocent must be involved along with the guilty is regrettable but unavoidable. So you can’t get what you want, but no more can I. What I want is a path to a fact. I want to know if one of you has buried in his past a fact that will account for his resort to murder to get rid of Faith Usher, and if so, which. Manifestly you are not going to sit here and submit to a day-long inquisition by me, and even if you did, the likelihood that one of you would betray the existence of such a fact is minute. So, as I say, this is futile both for you and for me. I wish you good day only as a matter of form.”

But it wasn’t quite that simple. They had come for a showdown, and they weren’t going to be bowed out with a “good day” as a matter of form—at least, three of them weren’t. They got pretty well worked up before they left. Schuster forgot all about saying that they hadn’t come to present a threat. Kent went far beyond the bounds of what I would call diplomacy. Cecil Grantham blew his top, at one point even pounding the top of Wolfe’s desk with his fist. I was on my feet, to be handy in case one of them lost control and picked up a chair to throw but my attention was mainly on our client. He was out of luck. For the sake of appearance he sort of tried to join in, but his heart wasn’t in it, and all he could manage was a mumble now and then. He didn’t leave his chair until Cecil headed for the door, followed by Kent , and then, not wanting to be the last one out, he jumped up and went. I stepped to the hall to see that no one took my new hat in the excitement, went and tried the door after they were out, and returned to the office.

I expected to see Wolfe leaning back with his eyes closed, but no. He was sitting up straight, glaring at space. He transferred the glare to me.

“This is grotesque,” he growled.

“It certainly is,” I agreed warmly. “Four of the suspects come to see you uninvited, all set for a good long heart-to-heart talk, and what do they get? Bounced. The trouble is, one of them was our client, and he may think we’re loafing on the job.”

“Bah. When the men phone tell them to come in at three. No. At two-thirty. No. At two o’clock. We’ll have lunch early. I’ll tell Fritz.” He got up and marched out.

I felt uplifted. That he was calling the men in for new instructions was promising. That he had changed it from three o’clock, when his lunch would have been settled, to two-thirty, when digestion would have barely started, was impressive. That he had advanced it again, to two, with an early lunch, was inspiring. And then to go to tell Fritz instead of ringing for him—all hell was popping.

“How many times,” Wolfe asked, “have you heard me confess that I am a wilting?”

Fred Durkin grinned. A joke was a joke. Orrie Gather smiled. He was even handsomer when he smiled, but not necessarily braver. Saul Panzer said, “Three times when you meant it, and twice when you didn’t.”

“You never disappoint me, Saul.” Wolfe was doing his best to be sociable. He had just crossed the hall from the dining-room. With Fred and Orrie he wouldn’t have strained himself, but Saul had his high regard.” This, then,” he said,” makes four times that I have meant it and this time my fault was so egregious that I made myself pay for it. The only civilized way to spend the hour after lunch is with a book, but I have just swallowed my last bite of cheese cake, and here I am working. You must bear with me. I am paying a deserved penalty.”