Rex Stout: Three Men Out

As Wolfe sat and turned his head from elt to nght and back again, taking them in, and Aey focused on him, I was not utterly at ease because I had slid out from under 69 the responsibility. He had said he would have to discuss murder with them, and in the heat of his resentment at my having foxed him into taking a two-mile taxi ride he might regard it as funny to manage it so that I would have not less to explain to the cops, but more. Huck spoke. "I have explained to Mr. Goodwin that I tolerated his intrusion out of deference to my brother-in-law." His tone wasn't very deferential. "But now your barging in--frankly, Mr. Wolfe, there is a limit to my forbearance." Wolfe nodded. "I don't blame you, sir. I return your candor and confess that the fault is Mr. Goodwin's. On account of a defect in his make-up he has botched his errand here so badly that I was compelled to intervene. When he phoned me, twice, some four hours ago, not from this house, I suspected that he had been so thoroughly bewitched by one of these women that his mental processes were in suspense. It hits him like that. When later he phoned again, this time from your study, my fear was verified, and I was even able to identify the witch." He looked straight at Mrs. O'Shea, then at Miss Riff, then at Miss Marcy, but got no return because they were all looking at ^e. 70 T didn't mind, provided he was now willing to call it ev^- He was going on. "Plainly there was no other alternative, so I came to supersede lym- and now that I am here I refuse to employ the puerile stratagem that Mr. Lewent and Mr. Goodwin were determined to try. They should have known that their pretended concern about a large sum left secretly by Mr. Lewent's sister with one of you to be passed to him at her death--they should have known that none of you would take it seriously." He looked at Huck. "You, sir, even assumed that it was merely a blackmailing device, didn't you?" "I thought it possible." Huck, being a millionaire, was giving no ground for a suit for slander. "You say it was a stratagem?" "Yes." Wolfe flipped a hand. "Let's dismiss it. Slithering around looking for cracks is not to my taste. I'd much rather be forth"ght and tell you straight that I came here to discuss murder." There were noises, but not explosive. Paul lhayer's head jerked up. My private reac^n was absolutely unfavorable. Since he ad blurted it out, a call to the police was in roer right now, and exactly where would I be? B, 71 "Murder?" Huck was disbelieving l^ ears. "Did you say murder?" "Yes, sir, I did." Wolfe was at a disadvantage. Working on an audience in his office, it wasn't difficult to keep all the faces in view, but there they made almost half a circle, with Huck in his wheelchair in the center, and Wolfe had to keep turning his head and moving his eyes. "There's no point," he declared, "in going on with the rigmarole started by Mr. Goodwin. I much prefer the directness and vigor of Mr. Lewent's original suggestion when he called at my office this morning to hire me. He suggested that Mr. Goodwin should come here and tell you that he, Lewent, suspected that one of these three women had murdered his sister, poisoned her, and that he had engaged me to investigate. I now propose--"

This time the noises could be called explosions, especially the one contributed by Mrs. O'Shea. Also she moved. She bounced out of her chair and started for the door, and when Wolfe sharply demanded where she was going and she didn't stop, I ^lvea across and headed her off. White-faced, she ordered me, "Get out of my way! The dirtV little rat!" 72 t held the pass. Wolfe's voice came. "If vou're going for Mr. Lewent, madam, I beg you to consider. He came to me and paid me money because he lacked the spunk to tackle this himself. You can drag him in here, and the three of you can screech and scratch, but what good will it do? I'm willing to try to work this out, but not in pandemonium." She turned and took a step. "You should all realize," Wolfe told them, "what the situation is. You may think that this notion of Mr. Lewent's is preposterous, that he is in effect deranged, but that doesn't dispose of it or him. If he clings to it and speaks of it, it can become extremely ugly for all of you. Suing him for slander might settle him, but it wouldn't settle the stench. From the fact that he chose me to investigate for him, and from his paying me in advance what was for him a substantial sum, 1 assume that he has high regard for my ^gacity, judgment, and integrity. If I am convinced that his suspicions are baseless ^d unmerited, I think I can persuade him to abandon them; and it may be that you an convince me here and now. Do you ^t to try?" ^{1 Thayer threw his head back and 73 haw-hawed. It didn't go over as well s it had when he and I were together in [^ room. They all looked at him, not admiringly, and when he subsided ihey transferred the looks to Theodore Huck. He was regarding Wolfe thoughtfully. "I am wondering," he said, "if it would help for me to have a talk with my brotherin-law." "No, it wouldn't," Sylvia Marcy said so positively that everyone glanced at her in surprise. Immediately she cooed. "I just mean," she cooed, "that he's a case. He is definitely a case." Huck looked at Dorothy Riff. "What do you think?" She didn't hesitate. The gray-green eyes were alert and determined. "I would like to know what it would take to convince Mr. Wolfe." She looked at him. "That depends," Wolfe told her. "If, for instance, the source of the poison that killed Mrs. Huck has been satisfactorily established, and if none of you was connected with it in any way, I would be well on the road to conviction. According to Mr. Lewent, it was ptomaine, and all of v011 were on the premises at the time. Is rllat correct?" 74 "Yes." 'Good God," Paul Thayer protested, "you don't really mean it! You're actually going c/ to ask us?" "I'll ask you, Mr. Thayer, since you are not suspected by Mr. Lewent. Where did Mrs. Huck die? Here?" Thayer looked at Huck. "What about it, Uncle Theodore? Do you want me to play?" Huck nodded slowly. "I suppose so. Yes." "Whatever you say." Thayer looked at Wolfe. "My aunt died in this house, in her bed, just about a year ago." "Were you here?" "Yes." "Tell me about it. Just tell it, and I'll ask questions as required." "Well." Thayer cleared his throat. "It was my uncle's birthday, and there was a little celebration here in this room. We were all here, we who are here now, and a few other People, four or five�old friends of my aunt snd uncle. Do you want to know who they were?" 'Later, perhaps. Now just the event." We had drinks and things, and after^ard a buffet dinner served in this room, Plenty of wine�my aunt liked wine, and so �^Uncle Theodore�finishing up with 75 champagne, and some of us were fairly high, including me. In fact I finally got slightly objectionable, so my aunt said, and I left before the party broke up and went up to my room and made music. Did you ever play the piano while you were lit?" Wolfe said no. "Try it sometime. By the way, will you kindly tell me something? Why did one of these women poison my aunt? What for?" "Speaking for Mr. Lewent, because she was on intimate terms with your uncle and wanted to marry him. Where there is room for a deed there is always room for a motive. That can--" "You dare!" Mrs. O'Shea blazed. She was back in her chair. "No, madam, I don't. I am only trying to learn if there is any cause for daring. Go on, Mr. Thayer?" Thayer shrugged. "At some hour I quit making music and went to bed. In the morning I was told that my aunt had died, and the way it was described to me--it was quite horrible." "Who described it?" "Miss Marcy, and Mrs. O'Shea some." Wolfe's eyes moved. "You saw it then, Miss Marcy?" 76 "Yes, I did." She was not cooing. "To say that one of us poisoned her, that's terrible."

"I agree. What did you see?" "I was sleeping on the floor above this, and so was Mrs. Huck. She came and got me up; she was in great pain and didn't want to disturb her husband. I got her back to bed and called a doctor--it was after midnight--and I got Mrs. O'Shea, but there wasn't much we could do until the doctor came. It was a question about telling Mr. Huck--he couldn't even go in the room where she was, because the door was too narrow for his chair, but of course we had to tell him. She died about eight o'clock." Wolfe went to Huck. "Naturally there was some inquiry--a death under those circumstances." "Certainly." Huck was curt. "Was there an autopsy?" "Yes. It was ptomaine." "Was the source identified?" "Not by analysis." A spasm ran over Huck's face. He was having a little trouble with the controls. "Before dinner there had been a large assortment of hors d'oeuvres, and among them was a kind of pickled artichoke which my wife was very fond of. No 77 one else had taken any of them, and apparently she had eaten them all, since there were none left. Since no one else was ill, it was assumed that the ptomaines, which were definitely present, had been in the artichokes."