Rex Stout - Trio for Blunt Instruments

I stood up. “I might possibly catch her. Is it urgent?”

“No. After dinner will do. Confound it.”

“I agree.” I sat down. “I’m up with you. There were two things. Right?”

“Four.”

“Then I’m shy a couple. I have his phoning and his letting me have the tie. What else?”

“Only seven ties. Why?”

“Oh.” I looked at it. “Okay. And?”

“Well… take you. What have you that is a part of you? Say the relics you keep in a locked drawer. Would you give one of them to someone casually?”

“No.” I gave that a longer look. “Uhuh,” I conceded. “Check. But all four points wouldn’t convince a jury that he’s a murderer, and I doubt if they would convince Cramer or the DA that he ought to be jugged.”

“Certainly not. We have a job before we’re ready for Mr. Cramer, and not an easy one. Phenomena needed for proof may not exist, and even if they do they may be undiscoverable. Our only recourse-”

The doorbell rang. I got up and went to the hall, took a look, stepped back into the office, and said, “Nuts. Cramer.”

“No,” he snapped.

“Do you want to count ten?”

“No.”

I admit it’s a pleasure to slip the bolt in, open the door the two inches the chain permits, and through the crack tell a police inspector that Mr. Wolfe is engaged and can’t be disturbed. The simple pleasures of a private detective. But that time I didn’t have it. I was still a step short of the door when a bellow came from the office, my name, and I turned and went back.

“Bring him,” Wolfe commanded.

The doorbell rang. “Maybe this time you should count ten,” I suggested.

“No. Bring him.”

I went. From my long acquaintance with Cramer’s face I can tell with one glance through the glass if he’s on the warpath, so I knew he wasn’t before I opened the door. He even greeted me as if it didn’t hurt. Of course he didn’t let me take his hat, that would have been going too far, but he removed it on his way down the hall. When he’s boiling he leaves it on. From the way he greeted Wolfe it seemed likely that he would have offered a hand to shake if he hadn’t known that Wolfe never did.

“Another hot day,” he said and sat in the red leather chair, not settling back, and hanging on to his hat. “I just stopped in on my way home. You’re never on your way home, because you’re always home.”

I stared at him. Unbelievable. He was chatting!

Wolfe grunted. “I go out now and then. Will you have some beer?” That was logical. If Cramer acted like a guest, he had to act like a host.

“No, thanks.” Pals. “A couple of questions and I’ll go. The district attorney has about decided to hold Martin Kirk on a homicide charge. Kirk was here today for over an hour. Are you working for him?”

“Yes.”

Cramer put his hat on the stand at his elbow. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m here to hand you something-like a chance to cut loose from a murderer. The fact is, frankly, I think it’s possible the DA’s office is moving a little too fast. There are several reasons why I think that. The fact that you have taken Kirk on as a client isn’t the most important one, but I admit it is one. You don’t take on a murder suspect, no matter what he can pay, unless you think you can clear him. I said a couple of questions, and here’s the second one. If I go back downtown instead of home to supper, to persuade the DA to go slow, have you got anything I can use?”

One corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up a sixteenth of an inch, his kind of a smile. “A new approach, Mr. Cramer. Rather transparent.”

“The hell it is. It’s a compliment. I wouldn’t use it with any other private dick alive, and you know it. I’m not shoving, I’m just asking.”

“Well. It’s barely possible…” Wolfe focused narrowed eyes on a corner of his desk and rubbed his nose with a fingertip. Pure fake. He had had his idea, whatever it was, when he bellowed me back to the office. He held the pose for ten seconds and then moved his eyes to Cramer and said, “I know who killed Mrs. Kirk.”

“Uhuh. The DA thinks he does.”

“He’s wrong. I have a proposal. I suppose you have spoken with Mr. Vance, James Neville Vance. If you will send a man to his apartment at ten o’clock this evening to take him to you, and you keep him until you hear from me or Mr. Goodwin, and then send or bring him to me, I’ll give you enough to persuade the district attorney that he shouldn’t hold Mr. Kirk on any charge at all.”

Cramer had his chin up. “Vance? Vance ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My God.” He looked at me but saw only a manly, open face. He took a cigar from his pocket, slow motion, stuck it in his mouth, clamped his teeth on it, and took it out again. “You know damn well I won’t. Connive at illegal entry? Of course that’s why you want him away.”

“Merely your conjecture. I give you the fullest assurance, in good faith without reservation, that there will be no illegal entry or any other illegal act.”

“Then I don’t see…” Moving back in the chair, he lost the cigar. It dropped to the floor. He ignored it. “No. Vance is a respectable citizen in good standing. You’d have to open up.”

Wolfe nodded. “I’m prepared to. Not to give you facts, for you already have them; I’ll merely expound. You shouldn’t need it, but you have been centered on Mr. Kirk. Do you know all the details of the necktie episode? Mr. Goodwin getting it in the mail, the phone call he received, and his visit to Mr. Vance?”

“Yes.”

“Then attend. Four points. First the phone call. It came at a quarter past eleven. You assume that Mr. Kirk made it, pretending he was Vance. That’s untenable, or at least implausible. How would he dare? For all he knew, Mr. Goodwin had phoned Vance or gone to see him immediately after opening the envelope. For him to phone and say he was Vance would have been asinine.”

Cramer grunted. “He was off his hinges. The shape he was in, he wouldn’t see that.”

“I concede the possibility. The second point. When Mr. Goodwin went to see Vance he showed him the envelope and letterhead and let him take the tie to examine it. Vance was completely mystified. You know what was said and done. He inspected the ties in his closet and said that the one that had been mailed to Mr. Goodwin was his. But when Mr. Goodwin asked for it he handed it over without hesitation. Preposterous.”

Cramer shook his head. “I don’t think so. The body hadn’t been discovered. He thought it was just some screwy gag.”

“Pfui. One of his ties taken from his closet, his stationery used to mail it to a private detective with a message ostensibly from him, and the phone call; and he was so devoid of curiosity or annoyance that he let Mr. Goodwin take the tie, and the envelope and letterhead, with no sign of reluctance? Nonsense.”

“But he did. If he killed her, why isn’t it still nonsense?”

“Because it was part of his devious and crackbrained plan.” Wolfe looked at the clock. “It’s too close to dinnertime to go into that now. It was ill-conceived and ill-executed, and it was infantile, but it wasn’t nonsense. The third point, and the most significant: two missing neckties. He had nine and had given one to Mr. Kirk, and there were only seven left. Of course you have accounted for that in your theory. How?”