Rex Stout: Over My Dead Body

"Nope. Pure Ohio. The ejaculation was involuntary."

Wolfe, ignoring me, went on, "I would like to say, Mr Stahl, that my temperament would incline me to resent and resist an attempt by any individual to inquire into my personal history or affairs, but I do not regard you as an individual. Naturally. You represent the Federal Government. You are, in effect, America itself sitting in my office wanting to know something about me, and I am so acutely grateful to my native country for the decencies it still manages to preserve. by the way, would you care for a glass of American beer?"

"No, thank you."

Wolfe pushed the button and leaned back. He grunted. "To your question, sir: I represent no foreign principal, firm, individual, organization, dictator, or government. Occasionally I pursue inquiries here, professionally as a detective, on requests from Europe, chiefly from Mr Ethelbert Hitchcock of London, an English confrиre, as he does there for me. I am pursuing none at present. I am not an agent of Mr Hitchcock or of anyone else."

"I see." Stahl sounded open to conviction. "That's definite enough. But your early experiences in Europe. may I ask. do you know a Prince Donevitch?"

"I knew him long ago. He's getting ready to die, I believe, in Paris."

"I don't mean him. Isn't there another one?"

"There is. Old Peter's nephew. Prince Stefan Donevitch. I believe he lives in Zagreb. When I was there in 1916 he was a six-year-old boy."

"Have you communicated with him recently?"

"No. I never have."

"Have you sent money to him or to anyone or any organization for him-or the cause he represents?"

"No, sir."

"You do make remittances to Europe, don't you?"

"I do." Wolfe grimaced. "From my own funds, earned at my trade. I have contributed to the Loyalists in Spain. I send money occasionally to the-translated, it is the League of Yugoslavian Youth. Prince Stefan Donevitch assuredly has no connexion with that."

"I wouldn't know. What about your wife? Weren't you married?"

"No. Married? No. That was what-" Wolfe stirred, as under restraint, in his chair. "It strikes me, sir, that you are nearing the point where even a grateful American might tell you to go to the devil."

I put in emphatically, "I know damn well I would, and I'm only a sixty-fourth Indian."

The G-man smiled and uncrossed his legs. "I suppose," he said amiably, "you'd have no objection to putting this in the form of a signed document. What you've told me."

"On a proper occasion, none at all."

"Good. You represent no foreign principal, directly or indirectly?"

"That is correct."

"Well, that's all we wanted to know." He got up. "At present. Thank you very much."

"You're quite welcome. Good-day, sir."

I followed him out, to open the front door for America and make sure he was on the proper side of it when it was closed again. Wolfe could get sentimental about it if he wanted to, but I don't like any stranger nosing around my private affairs, let alone a nation of 130 million people. When I returned to the office he was sitting back with his eyes closed.

"You see what happens," I told him bitterly. "Just because you rake in two fat fees and the bank account is momentarily bloated, in the space of three weeks you refuse nine cases. Not counting the poor little immigrant girl with a friend who likes diamonds. You refuse to investigate anything for anybody. Then what happens? America gets suspicious because it's un-American not to make all the money you can, and sticks a senior G-man on you, and now, by God, you're going to have to investigate yourself! You don't need-"

"Archie. Shut up." His eyes opened. "You're a liar. Since when have you been a sixty-fourth Indian?"

Before I could parry his counter-attack, Fritz appeared to announce lunch. I knew it was to be warmed-over duck scraps, so I was off at the gun.

During meals Wolfe ordinarily excludes business not only from his conversation but also from his mind. But that day it appeared that his thoughts were straying from the food, though I didn't see how they could have been on business, since there was none on hand. He did his share of demolition to the remains of three ducks-his old friend Marko Vukcic had dined with us the day before-but there was an air of absent-mindedness in his ardour as he tore the backbones apart and scraped the juicy shreds off with his gleaming white teeth. It somewhat prolonged the operations, so that it was after two o'clock when we finished with the coffee and waddled back to the office. That is, he waddled, I strode.

Then, instead of resuming with the catalogues or playing with some other of his toys, he leaned back and clasped his hands over the duck repository and shut his eyes. It wasn't a coma, for several times during the hour he sat there I saw his lips push in and out, so I knew he was hard at work on something.

Suddenly he spoke.

"Archie. What made you say that girl wanted to borrow a book?"

So he hadn't been able to get his mind off the Montenegrin females. I waved a hand. "Persiflage. Chaff."

"No. You said she asked if I had read it."

"Yes, sir."

"And if I study it."

"Yes, sir."

"And are you reading it."

"Yes, sir."

He nearly opened his eyes. "Did it occur to you that she was finding out if either of us would be apt to look at that book in the immediate future?"

"No, sir. My mind was occupied. I was sitting down and she was standing in front of me and I was thinking about her curves."

"That is not thought. Those nerves are in the spinal column, not the brain. You said it was United Yugoslavia by Henderson."

"Yes, sir."

"Where was it when you returned to the office?"

"On the shelf where it belongs. She had put it back herself. For a Monteneg-"

"Get it, please."

I crossed the room and got it down and took it to him. He rubbed the cover caressingly with his palm, as he always did with a book, and then turned it with its front edge facing him, squeezed it tight shut and held it for a moment, and suddenly released the pressure. Then he opened it around the middle and took out a piece of paper that was there between the leaves. The paper was folded, and he unfolded it and started reading it. I sat down and set my teeth on my lip to hold in what might otherwise have come out. I set them hard.

"Indeed," Wolfe said. "Shall I read it to you?"

"Oh, please do, yes, sir."

He began an incoherent jabber and splutter that didn't even sound human. I knew he expected me to butt in with an outcry, so I set my teeth again. When he had finished I grinned at him.

"Okay," I said, "but why couldn't she tell me to my face how handsome and seductive I was and so on instead of writing it down and sticking it in that book. Especially that last-"

"And especially writing it in Serbo-Croat. Do you speak Serbo-Croat, Archie?"

"No."

"Then I'll translate. It's dated at Zagreb, 20th August, 1938, and bears the Donevitch crest. It says, roughly, 'The bearer of these presents, my wife, the Princess Vladanka Donevitch, is hereby empowered without reservation to talk and act in my name, and attach my name and honour by her signature, which appears herewith below my own, in all financial and political matters and claims pertaining to me and to the Donevitch dynasty, with particular reference to Bosnian forest concessions and to the disposal of certain credits at present in the care of Barrett amp; De Russy, bankers of New York. I bespeak for her loyalty from those who owe it, and co-operation from those whose interests ride with mine.' "

Wolfe folded the paper and imprisoned it under his palm. "It is signed Stefan Donevitch and Vladanka Donevitch. The signatures are attested."

"Good." I glared at him. "He even spent two bits on a notary. Let's take one thing at a time. How did you know that thing was in that book?"