Rex Stout - Three at Wolfe's Door

"Certainly not." I eyed her. "Use your head if you've found it again. Their charging Cal with murder doesn't depend only on me. They have found out that Eisler took a woman to his apartment Sunday night and they're going over it for fingerprints. If they find some of yours, and if they learn that you and Cal are good friends, as they will, he's in for it, and I would be a damn fool to wait till they get me on the stand under oath."

I turned a palm up. "You see, one trouble is, you and me talking, that you think Cal killed him and I know he didn't. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have known him two years and I only met him last week, but I know him better than you do. I can be fooled and have been, but when he got me aside yesterday and asked me how to go about taking some hide off a toad he was not getting set to commit a murder, and the murder of Wade Eisler was premeditated by whoever took Cal's rope. Not to mention how he looked and talked when he showed me the body. If I thought there was a chance that Cal killed him I wouldn't leave anything

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out when I report to Mr. Wolfe. But I can't promise to hang onto it no matter what happens."

"You can if you will," she said. "I don't think Cal killed him. I know he didn't. I did."

My eyes widened. "You did what? Killed Eisler?"

"Yes." She swallowed. "Don't you see how it is? Of course I've got to tell them I killed him, but when they arrest me Cal will say he killed him because I told him about Sunday night. But I'll say I didn't tell him about Sunday night, and it will be my word against his, and they'll think he's just trying to protect me. So it does depend on you. You've got to promise you won't tell them what Cal told you yesterday. Because I killed him, and why should you protect me? Why should you care what happens to me if I killed a man?"

I regarded her. "You know," I said, "at least you've answered my question, why you went for Cramer. You wanted to plant the idea that you're a holy terror. That wasn't so dumb, in fact it was half bright, but now listen to you. You might possibly sell it to the cops that you killed him, at least you could ball them up a while, but not me. When I went to the shack yesterday and found you there with Cal, the first thing he said was that you thought he had killed him. And now you--"

"Cal was wrong. How could I think he had killed him when I knew I had?"

"Nuts. I not only heard what he said, I saw his face, and I saw yours. You still think Cal killed him and you're acting like a halfwit."

Her head went down, her hands went up to cover her face, and she squeezed her breasts with her elbows. Her shoulders shook.

I sharpened my voice. "The very worst thing you could do would be to try telling the cops that you killed him. It would take them about ten minutes to trip you up, and then where would Cal be? But maybe you should tell them about Sunday night, but of course not that you told Cal about it. If they find your fingerprints in Eisler's apartment you'll have to account for them, and it will be better to give them the account before they ask for it. That won't be difficult; just tell them what happened."

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"They won't find my fingerprints," she said, or I thought she did. Her voice was muffled by her hands, still over her face.

"Did you say they won't find your fingerprints?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm sure they won't."

I gawked at her. It wasn't so much the words as the tone--or not the tone, muffled as it was, but something. Call it a crazy hunch, and you never know exactly what starts a hunch. It was so wild that I almost skipped it, but it never pays to pass a hunch. "You can't be sure," I said. "You must have touched something. I've been to a party in that apartment. When you entered did you stop in the hall with the marble statues?"

"No. He ... we went on through."

"To the living room. You stopped there?"

"Yes."

"Did he take you across to look at the birds in the cages? He always does. The cages are stainless steel, perfect for prints. Did you touch any of them?"

"No, I'm sure I didn't." She had dropped her hands and lifted her head.

"How close did you go to them?"

"Why . . . not very close. I'm sure I didn't touch them."

"So am 1.1 am also sure that you're a damn liar. There are no marble statues or bird cages in Eisler's apartment. You have never been there. What kind of a double-breasted fool are you, anyway? Do you go around telling lies just for the hell of it?"

Naturally I expected an effect, but not the one I got. She straightened up in her chair and gave me a straight look, direct and steady.

"I'm not a liar," she said. "I'm not a fool either, except about Cal Barrow. The kind of a life I've had a girl gets an attitude about men, or anyway I did. No monkey business. Keep your fences up and your cinch tight. Then I met Cal and I took another look, and after a while I guess you would say I was in love with him, but whatever you call it I know how I felt I thought I knew how he felt too, but he never mentioned it, and of course I didn't. I only saw him now and then, he was mostly up north, and when I came to New York for this rodeo here he was. I thought he was glad to

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see me, and I let him know I was glad to see him, but still he didn't mention it, and when two weeks went by and pretty soon we would scatter I was trying to decide to mention it myself, and then Sunday night Nan told me about Wade Eisler, how he had--"

"Nan Karlin?"

"Yes. He had told her he was having a party at his apartment, and she went with him, and when they got there there wasn't any party, and he got rough, and she got rough too, and she got away."

"She told you this Sunday night?"

"Yes, when she got back to the hotel she came to my room. It's next to hers. Then there was this ear." She lifted a hand to push her hair back over her left ear. "I'm telling you the whole thing. I got careless with a bronc Sunday night and got bruised by a buckle, and I didn't want to admit to Cal that I didn't know how to keep clear around a horse. So when we met for breakfast yesterday morning I told him--you know what I told him. I guess I thought when he heard that, how a man had tried to bulldog me, he would see that it was time to mention something. I know I was a damn fool, I said I'm a fool when it comes to Cal Barrow, but I guess I don't know him as well as I thought I did. He never goes looking for trouble. I thought he would just ride herd on me, and that would be all right, I wanted him to. I never dreamt he would kill him."

"He didn't. How many times do I have to tell you he didn't? Who else did Nan tell about it?"

"She was going to tell Roger, Roger Dunning. She asked me if I thought she should tell Roger, and I said yes, because he had asked us to go easy with Eisler, not to sweat him unless we had to, so I thought he ought to know. Nan said she would tell him right away."

"Who else did she tell?"

"I guess not anybody. She made me promise not to tell Mel."

"Mel Fox?"

"Yes. She and Mel are going to tie up, and she was afraid he might do something. I'm sure she didn't tell him."

"Did you tell him?"

"Of course not. I promised Nan I wouldn't."

"Well." I lifted my hands and dropped them. "You're about the

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rarest specimen I've ever come across. I know something about geniuses, I work for one, but you're something new, an anti-genius. It wouldn't do any good to try to tell you--"

The phone rang, and I swiveled my chair around to get it. It was Lon Cohen of the Gazette. He wanted to know how much I would take for an exclusive on who roped Wade Eisler and why, and I told him I did and when I typed my confession I would make an extra carbon for him but at the moment I was busy.