Rex Stout - Too Many Women

Manifestly there was no point in trying to make a grab for the cat. After an interval, not a long one, I handed the menu to the waitress and told her to bring me three apples and a glass of milk. Then I asked him politely: “Were you saying something? I’m afraid I wasn’t listening.” He gave the waitress his order and let her go.

“I was speaking of diet,” he snapped, “and you heard me. It isn’t to be expected, Mr. Truett, that you’ll like this food at first. No one does. But after a while you will wonder how you ever liked anything else.” “Yeah. When I like it I’ll whinny. You ought to make up your mind who you’re Seating to lunch, though. Goodwin or Truett?” “I much prefer Goodwin.” He smiled at me. “That was my chief reason for inviting you to lunch, to tell you that the only way to deal with me is directly and forthrightly. Also to give you a message for Mr. Nero Wolfe. Tell him, please, that you have badly bungled this job. This morning, when I mentioned the murder of a former employee of my department, you should have displayed no interest in the matter.” “I see. Much obliged. So that aroused your suspicion and you investigated.” I looked at him admiringly. “You certainly stepped on it. Where did you start from?” “Now, now,” he scolded me and shook his head. “You’re extraordinarily transparent, Mr. Goodwin, and I must say it’s a surprise to me-and a disappointment. It would have been gratifying to find a good man, a good mind, starting to work on that murder. I would have watched you with the keenest interest and expectation-Those aren’t the best apples.” He frowned at the waitress. “Haven’t you any Stayman Winesaps?” It seemed they hadn’t. When she had served us and was gone I started peeling an apple. It is not my custom to peel apples, but I figured it would outrage him.

That was wasted effort, since he ignored it and waded in with a fork on a big bowl of a raw unholy mess which he had ordered by name: TODAY’S VITANUTRITA SPECIAL. With his small mouth he had to feed it in dribs, chewing with a straight one-two beat and skipping two chews for each drib going in.

“Here’s an idea,” I said amiably. “You can’t count on me to give that message to Mr. Wolfe. Why don’t you drop in on him this evening after dinner and give it to him yourself?” “I would be glad to.” He chewed. “But not this evening.” He chewed. “Three evenings a week, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I play chess at the Midtown Chess Club.” He chewed. “Saturday I’m going to the country, to spend the week-end looking at birds.” He chewed. “I should be delighted to do that on Monday.” “Okay, I’ll fix it up.” I started on another apple, not bothering to peel it.

“But by that time I may be all through here. In my opinion, and I hope Mr. Wolfe will agree, there’s only one thing to do: tell the police about it and let them start up the machinery. An accusation of murder is entirely too ticklish, especially for a bungler like me.” He stopped chewing to ask, “Who has made such an accusation?” “You have.” “I have not. I have merely stated that Moore was murdered. The police? Pooh.

They started their machinery the moment the body was discovered, but they have let it stop. Your intention, of course, was to force me into making disclosures by threatening to get the police after me. My dear Mr, Goodwin, I’m afraid this affair is far beyond the range of your abilities. A week ago I called upon Deputy Commissioner O’Hara, whom I have known for years, and stated to him that Moore was murdered. Naturally he wished me to elaborate, and naturally I refused. I told him that all I could furnish was the bare fact, that the procurement of evidence and apprehension of the criminal were functions of his department.” Naylor tittered. “I really believe that for some moments the Deputy Commissioner was tempted to have the third degree tried on me. At the end he merely regarded me as a babbler.” He resumed on the Vitanutrita.

My impulse was to finish the milk, shove the third apple in my pocket, beat it to Thirty-fifth Street, and tell Wolfe that Kerr Naylor was a malicious chattering hay-eating beetle and that was all there was to it. Various considerations restrained me, two of which were that Naylor-Kerr, Inc., was good for any amount up to twenty million, and that I now knew where Miss Livsey’s room was.

“Okay,” I said, completely friendly, “threats are out, disclosures are out, and chess and bird-looking will keep you from calling on Mr. Wolfe before Monday.

Meanwhile, I noticed that on that report to Mr. Pine, the one about Moore, where it asked how he got hired, you put, ‘Applied personally’. Who did he apply to, the head of that section, Mr. Dickerson?” That was the first dent I made in the beetle’s shell. It didn’t make him drop his fork, or even start the glint in his eyes dancing, but he went on conveying and chewing far beyond the limit of politeness. It was plain that he was finding it necessary to decide what to say.

He swallowed and spoke. “He applied to my sister.” “Oh. Which sister?” “I have only one.” The glint became perceptible. “My sister, Mr. Truett, is a remarkable and interesting woman, but she is far more conventional than I am.

Each of us was given one-quarter of the stock of the corporation by our father, who wished to get rid of his burdens and responsibilities. I turned mine over, without compensation, to certain old employees of the business, because they had earned it and I hadn’t. I don’t like to own things to which other people might conceivably assert a claim, especially a moral claim. Legal claims don’t interest me. But my sister, being more conventional, kept her stock. That was lucky for her husband. Jasper Pine, whom I believe you have met, as otherwise it is unlikely that he would have become president of the corporation.” “And Moore got his job through your sister?” The glint did a jig. “You have a talent, Mr. Goodwin, for making statements in the most distasteful manner possible. My sister likes to do things for people.

She sent Moore to me, and I spoke with him and had him interviewed by Dickerson, and he was given a job in that section. Now how about some pudding? And some Pink Steamer? Hot water with tangerine juice.” He was through as an information bureau. From there on the only thing that appealed to him as a topic of conversation was the food, and questions about Moore or murder or sister were simply ignored. He irritated me most when he was ignoring. I gave up and sat and watched him sip Pink Steamer.

When we got back to the building on William Street I parted from him in the lobby, went to a phone booth and dialed the number of the Gazette, and asked for Lon Cohen. He knew more facts than the Police Department and the Public Library combined.

When he was on I told him, “It’s your turn on the favors. What about a Mrs.

Jasper pine? When born she was called Naylor. Her husband is president of a big engineers’ supply firm with offices downtown. Ever hear of her?” “Sure, she’s meat.” “What kind of meat?” “Oh, that means anyone who might make a meal for a journalist some day, strictly as news. So far she has kept herself off the menu, except for paragraphs on the right inside pages, but not a sheet in town has lost hope.” “What keeps the hope going?” “Where are you phoning from? Wolfe’s office?” I tutted at him. “Didn’t I tell you my name? That’s all right, I’m in a booth.” “Okay. The subject of your inquiry is a befriender of young men. Not promiscuous. Discriminating, but chronic. She has plenty of dough, is well preserved, and presumably not a fool or she would have lost her balance long ago. I would advise you to try for it-now old are you, thirty? Just about right for her! You have the looks, and you could brush up on manners-” “Yeah. You’ll get ten per cent. I don’t suppose you could get hold of a list of my predecessors she has befriended?” “Well, we wouldn’t have one, we’re not that thorough. Do you think this paper would nose into people’s private af- Say! Wait a minute! You and Nero Wolfe and your homicides. I’ll try word association on you-damn it, what was that name?