Rex Stout - Trio for Blunt Instruments

He got me in focus with bleary eyes and said, “I would like to see Nero Wolfe. My name is Martin Kirk.”

If you think I should have recognized him from the pictures Lon had shown me, I don’t agree. You should have seen him. I told him Mr. Wolfe saw people only by appointment, but I’d ask. “You’re the Martin Kirk who lives at Two-nineteen Horn Street?”

He said he was, and I invited him in, ushered him into the front room and to a seat, which he evidently needed, went to the office by way of the connecting door, closed the door, and crossed to Wolfe’s desk. “I’m on my own time now,” I told him. “It’s Martin Kirk. He asked to see you, but of course you’re not interested. May I use the front room?”

He took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, then glared at me for five seconds and growled, “Bring him in.”

“But you don’t-”

“Bring him.”

Unheard of. Absolutely contrary to nature-his nature. The Nero Wolfe I thought I knew would at least have wanted me to pump him first. With a genius you never know. As I returned to the front room and told Kirk to come, I decided that the idea must be to show me that I would be a sap to waste my time. He would make short work of Martin Kirk. So as Kirk flopped into the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk he snapped at him, “Well, sir? I have read the morning paper. Why do you come to me?”

Kirk pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. He groaned. He lowered his hands and the bleary eyes blinked a dozen times. “You’ll have to make allowances,” he said. “I just left the district attorney’s office. I was there all night and no sleep.”

“Have you eaten?”

“My God no.”

Wolfe made a face. That complicated it. The mere thought of a man going without food was disagreeable, and to have one there in his house was intolerable. He had to either get him out in a hurry or feed him. “Why should I make allowances?” he demanded.

Kirk actually tried to smile, and it made me want to feed him myself. “I know about you,” he said. “You’re hard. And you charge high fees. I can pay you, don’t worry about that. They think I killed my wife. They let me go, but they-”

“Did you kill your wife?”

“No. But they think I did, and they think they can prove it. I haven’t got a lawyer, and I don’t know any lawyer I want to go to. I came to you because I know about you-partly that, and partly because they asked me a lot of questions about you-about you and Archie Goodwin.” He looked at me, blinking to manage the change of focus. “You’re Archie Goodwin, aren’t you?”

I told him yes and he went back to Wolfe. “They asked if I knew you or Goodwin, if I had ever met you, and they seemed to think I had-no, they did think I had. It seemed to have some connection with something that was mailed to Goodwin, and something about a necktie, and something about a phone call he got yesterday. I’m sorry to be so vague, but I said you’d have to make allowances, I’m not myself. I haven’t been myself since-I found-” His jaw had started to work and he stopped to control it. “My wife,” he said. “They kept at me that she wasn’t much of a wife, and all right, she wasn’t, but if a woman- I mean if a man-”

He stopped again to handle his jaw. In a moment he went on, “So I came to you partly because I thought you might know about a necktie and a phone call and something that was mailed to Goodwin. Do you?”

“Possibly.” Wolfe was regarding him. “Mr. Kirk. You said you can pay me, but I don’t sell information; I sell only services.”

“That’s what I want, your services.”

“You want to hire me to investigate this affair?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

“And you can pay me without undue strain?”

“Yes. I have- Yes. Do you want a check now?”

“A thousand dollars will do as a retainer.”

I had to shut my eyes a second to keep from gawking. That wasn’t only unheard of, it was unbelievable. Taking on a job, which meant that he would have to work, without the usual dodging and stalling-that could be on account of the lag in receipts; but taking a murder suspect for a client offhand, no questions asked but the routine did you kill her and can you pay me, without the faintest notion whether he was guilty or not and how much the cops had on him-that simply wasn’t done, not by anybody, let alone Nero Wolfe. I had to clamp my teeth on my lip to sit and take it. As Kirk got out a checkfold and a pen Wolfe pushed a button on his desk, and in a moment Fritz came.

“A tray, please,” Wolfe told him. “The madrilene is ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the pudding?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A bowl of each, cheese with water cress, and hot tea.”

When Fritz turned and went I would have liked to go along, to tell him that there could be something worse than having no client.

5

AN HOUR LATER, when the doorbell rang again, Kirk was still there and still the client, and I would still have had to toss a coin to decide where I stood on the question, did he or didn’t he?

Wolfe had of course refused to either talk or listen until the tray had come and gone. Kirk had said he couldn’t eat, but when Wolfe insisted he tried, and if a man can swallow anything he can swallow Fritz’s madrilene with beet juice, and after one spoonful of his lemon sherry pudding with brown sugar sauce there’s no argument. The cheese and water cress were still on the tray when I took it to the kitchen, but the bowls were empty.

When I returned Wolfe had started in. “… so I’ll reverse the process,” he was saying. “I’ll tell you and then ask you. Are you sufficiently yourself to comprehend?”

“I’m better. I didn’t think I could eat. I’m glad you made me.” He didn’t look any better.

Wolfe nodded. “The brain can be hoodwinked but not the stomach. First, then, your statement that you didn’t kill your wife is of course of no weight. I have assumed that you didn’t for reasons of my own, which I reserve. Do you know or suspect who did kill her?”

“No. There are-No.”

“Then attend. An item in yesterday’s mail to this house was an envelope addressed to Mr. Goodwin, typewritten. A paper inside had a typewritten note saying, ‘Archie Goodwin, keep this until you hear from me, JNV.’ The envelope and paper were the engraved stationery of James Neville Vance. Also in the envelope was a four-in-hand necktie, cream-colored with brown diagonal stripes, and it had a spot on it, a large brown stain.”

Kirk was squinting, concentrating. “So that’s how it was. They never told me exactly…”

“They wouldn’t. Neither would I if I weren’t engaged in your interest. At a quarter past eleven yesterday morning Mr. Goodwin got a phone call, and a voice that squeaked, presumably for disguise, said it was James Neville Vance and asked him to burn what he had received in the mail. Mr. Goodwin, provoked, went to Two-nineteen Horn Street and was admitted by Vance, who identified the tie as one of his but denied that he had sent it. As Mr. Goodwin was about to go a policeman arrived who wanted access to your apartment, and he was with Mr. Vance and the policeman when your wife’s body was discovered, but he left immediately. Later he took-”