Rex Stout - The Second Confesion

Of the eighty words he used during those nine hours, only nine of them-one to an hour-had to do with the stratagem he was working on. Shortly before dinner he muttered at me, “What time is Mr Cohen free in the evening?” I told him a little before midnight.

When in the office after dinner, he once more settled back and shut his eyes, I thought, my God, this is going to be Nero Wolfe's last case. He's going to spend the rest of his life at it. I had myself done a good day's work and saw no sense in sitting all evening listening to him breathe. Considering alternatives, and deciding for Phil's and a few games of pool, I was just opening my mouth to announce my intention when Wolfe opened his.

“Archie. Get Mr Cohen down here as soon as possible. Ask him to bring a Gazette letterhead and envelope.” “Yes, sir. Is the ironing done?” “I don't know. We'll see. Get him.” At last, I thought, we're off. I dialled the number, and after some waiting because that was a busy hour for a morning paper, got him.

His voice came. “Archie? Buy me a drink?” “No,” I said firmly. “Tonight you stay sober. What time can you get here?” “Where is here?” “Nero Wolfe's office. He thinks he wants to tell you something.” “Too late.” Lon was crisp. “If it will rate the Late City, tell me now.” “It's not that kind. It hasn't come to a boil. But it's good enough so that instead of sending an errand boy, meaning me, he wants to see you himself, so when can you get here?” “I can send a man.” “No. You.” “Is it worth it?” “Yes. Possibly.” “In about three hours. Not less, maybe more.” “Okay. Don't stop for a drink, I'll have one ready, and a sandwich. Oh yes, bring along a Gazette letterhead and envelope. We've run out of stationery.” “What is it, a gag?” “No, sir. Far from. It may even get you a rise.” I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “May I make a suggestion? If you want him tender and it's worth a steak, I'll tell Fritz to take one from the freezer and start it thawing.” He said to do so and I went to the kitchen and had a conference with Fritz.

Then, back in the office, I sat and listened to Wolfe breathe some more. It went on for minutes that added up to an hour. Finally he opened his eyes, straightened up, and took from his pocket some folded papers which I recognized as sheets torn from his memo pad.

“Your notebook, Archie,” he said like a man who has made up his mind.

I got it from the drawer and uncapped my pen.

“If this doesn't work,” he growled at me, as if it were all my fault, “there will be no other recourse. I have tried to twist it so as to leave an alternative if it fails, but it can't be done. We'll either get him with this or not at all On plain paper, double-spaced, two carbons.” “Heading or date?” “None.” He gazed, frowning, at the sheets he had taken from his pocket. “First paragraph: “At eight o'clock in the evening of August 19, 1948, twenty men were gathered in a living-room on the ninth floor of an apartment house on East 84th Street, Manhattan. All of them were high in the councils of the American Communist Party, and this meeting was one of a series to decide strategy and tactics for controlling the election campaign of the Progressive Party and its candidate for President of the United States, Henry Wallace. One of them, a tall lanky man with a clipped brown moustache, was saying: “ ‘We must never forget that we can't trust Wallace. While we're playing him up we must remember that any minute he might pull something that will bring an order from Policy to let go of him.’ “ ‘Policy’ is the word the top American Communists use when they mean Moscow or the Kremlin. It may be a precaution, though it's hard to see why they need one when they are in secret session, or it may be merely their habit of calling nothing by its right name.

“Another of them, a beefy man with a bald head and a pudgy face, spoke up.” Wolfe, referring frequently to the sheets he had taken from his pocket, kept on until I had filled thirty-two pages of my notebook, then stopped, sat a while with his lips puckered, and told me to type it. I did so, double spacing as instructed. As I finished a page I handed it over to him and he went to work on it with a pencil. He rarely made changes in anything he had dictated and I had typed, but apparently he regarded this as something extra special. I fully agreed with him. That stuff, getting warmer as it went along, contained dozens of details that nobody lower than a Deputy Commissar had any right to know about-provided they were true. That was a point I would have liked to ask Wolfe about, but if the job was supposed to be finished when Lon Cohen arrived there was no time to spare, so I postponed it.

I had the last page out of the typewriter, but Wolfe was still fussing with it, when the bell rang and I went to the front and let Lon in.

Lon had been rank and file, or maybe only rank, when I first met him, but was now second in command at the Gazette's city desk. As far as I knew his elevation had gone to his head only in one little way: he kept a hairbrush in his desk, and every night when he was through, before making a dash for the refreshment counter he favoured, he brushed his hair good. Except for that there wasn't a thing wrong with him.

He shook hands with Wolfe and turned on me.

“You crook, you told me if I didn't stop-oh, here it is. Hello, Fritz. You're the only one here I can trust.” He lifted the highball from the tray, nodded at Wolfe, swallowed a third of it, and sat in the red leather chair.

“I brought the stationery,” he announced. “Three sheets. You can have it and welcome if you'll give me a first on how someone named Sperling wilfully and deliberately did one Louis Rony to death.” “That,” Wolfe said, “is precisely what I have to offer.” Lon's head jerked up. “Someone named Sperling?” he snapped.

“No. I shouldn't have said ‘precisely’. The name will have to wait. But the rest of it, yes.” “Damn it, it's midnight! You can't expect-” “Not tonight. Nor tomorrow. But if and when I have it, you'll get it first.” Lon looked at him. He had entered the room loose and carefree and thirsty, but now he was back at work again. An exclusive on the murder of Louis Rony was nothing to relax about.

“For that,” he said, “you'd want more than three letterheads, even with envelopes. What if I throw in postage stamps?” Wolfe nodded. “That would be generous. But I have something else to offer. How would you like to have, for your paper only, a series of articles, authenticated for you, describing secret meetings of the group that controls the American Communist Party, giving the details of discussions and decisions?” Lon cocked his head to one side. “All you need,” he declared, “is long white whiskers and a red suit' “No, I'm too fat. Would that interest you?” “It ought to. Who would do the authenticating?” “I would.” “You mean with your by-line?” “Good heavens, no. The articles would be anonymous. But I would give my warranty, in writing if desired, that the source of information is competent and reliable.” “Who would have to be paid and how much?” “No one. Nothing.” “Hell, you don't even need whiskers. What would the details be like?” Wolfe turned. “Let him read it, Archie.” I took Lon the original copy of what I had typed, and he put his glass down on the table at his elbow, to have two hands. There were seven pages. He started reading fast, then went slower, and when he reached the end returned to the first page and reread it. Meanwhile I refilled his glass and, knowing that Fritz was busy, went to the kitchen for beer for Wolfe.