Rex Stout - A Right to Die

MISS RAE KALLMAN, about Susan's age, white. She helped Susan arrange meetings and parties. Susan recruited her and paid her personally, but she is staying on for a while. Didn't meet her. I got the impression that she didn't approve of Susan's cottoning to Dunbar. I didn't go into points like that since I wasn't supposed to, but I got the impression.

MISS BETH TIGER, colored, 21, stenographer. Only Henchy has a secretary, they're shorthanded, but she took all of Dunbar's dictation. Another impression, from a comment by Henchy: she would have been willing to take more than dictation from Dunbar. Didn't meet her.

MISS MAUD JORDAN, white, 50 or more, switchboard and receptionist. She is included chiefly because she took the phone call from Susan that afternoon and put the message on Dunbar's desk that Susan couldn't get to the apartment until nine o'clock. She's a volunteer, hipped on civil rights, another do-gooder, evidently with a private pile since she takes no pay and Henchy mentioned that she gave $500 to the fund for Medgar Evers's children. I saw her entering and leaving. An old maid, spinster to you, who had to be hipped on something and happened to stumble on civil rights or maybe wrongs. My impression, based on my infallible understanding of women under 90.

All of them knew about the apartment. Henchy, Ewing, Faison, and Kallman knew where it was. Oster says he didn't. Jordan knew the phone number. Tiger, I don't know.

***

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at six o'clock he picked it up, read it twice, scowled at it for two minutes, put it in a drawer, and picked up his current book. Not Rowse on Shakespeare; _The Minister and the Choir Singer_, by a lawyer named Kunstler. I had read it and recommended it. At dinner we discussed it and agreed that the New York Police Department and district attorney's office had never made such an awful mess of a case and never would.

The evening didn't start off any too well. When four or more are coming for an after-dinner session I equip a portable bar in the kitchen and wheel it into the office, and it was there, by the bookshelves to the left of the safe, when the first one arrived; but twenty minutes later, when they had all come and been seated, and Wolfe entered, I had made no sales. That was remarkable. Out of eight people, at nine o'clock in the evening, you would expect at least two or three to be thirsty enough or bushed enough to want a drink, but they all said no. It couldn't have been because of my manners, offering to serve people of an inferior race. First, two of them were white, and second, when I consider myself superior to anyone, as I frequently do, I need a better reason than his skin.

The seating was segregated, not by color but by sex. Wolfe had told me to put Whipple, the client, in the red leather chair, and since he had arrived before Oster there had been no clash. In the front row of yellow chairs Oster was at the far end from me, then Henchy, Ewing, public relations, and Faison, fund-raising. In the back row were Rae Kallman, Maud Jordan, and Beth Tiger. It was my first sight of the Misses Kallman and Tiger. Kallman, who had more lipstick than necessary on her full lips, would probably be plump in a few years, but now she was just nice and curvy. Tiger was one of those specimens who cannot be properly introduced by details. I'll mention that her skin was about the color of an old solid-gold bowl Wolfe has in his room which he won't allow Fritz to clean, that-if she had been Cleopatra instead of what's-her-name I wouldn't have missed that movie, and that I had a problem with my eyes all evening, since with a group there I am supposed to watch expressions and movements. It was especially difficult because Miss Tiger, nearest me in the back row, was at an angle to my right. My mistake.

It was ten past nine when I buzzed the kitchen on the house phone to tell Wolfe they were all there, and in a minute he entered, circled around Whipple to his desk, and stood while I pronounced names. To each one he nodded, his usual eighth-of-an-inch nod, then turned to me and demanded, "The refreshments, Archie?"

"Offered," I said, "and declined."

"Indeed. Beer for me, please." As I rose he turned to the client. "Mr. Whipple, that evening at Upshur Pavilion you took ginger ale."

Whipple's eyes widened. "You remember that? "

"Certainly. But the other day you had a martini. Will it be ginger ale now? I'm having beer and invite you to join me-to your taste."

"All right, I will. Scotch and soda."

"Mr. Henchy?"

The executive director objected. "It takes time."

"Come, sir, is time really so precious? Mine isn't. If yours is, all the more tempting to steal a little."

Henchy's eyes smiled, but he wouldn't let his mouth chip in. "It's a point," he conceded. "Bourbon on the rocks."

With the boss sold, the others came along. Rae Kallman offered to help, and that reduced the loss of time. The only holdout was Maud Jordan, and when the others had been served she made it unanimous by asking for a glass of water. I took gin and tonic because Miss Tiger did. I believe in fellowship.

Wolfe put his glass down, half empty, and sent his eyes left, then right. "I suppose all of you know that I am proceeding on the premise that Dunbar Whipple was not implicated in the murder of Susan Brooke. That needs no discussion unless one or more of you challenge it. Do you?"

Some shook their heads and some said no.

"Let's make it clear. Will all of you who agree with me on that point please raise your hands?"

As Miss Tiger raised hers, her head turned right. Checking. Two of them, Cass Faison and Rae Kallman, were a little slow. Henchy moved only his forearm, to a forty-five degree angle. "But we're not the jury and you're not the judge," Adam Ewing said.

"The intention, Mr. Ewing, is that it shall never get to a judge and jury." Wolfe's eyes went left and right. "Of course all of you have been questioned separately by the police, except Mr. Oster. For our joint purpose, to clear Mr. Whipple, this joint discussion was preferable, but to avoid confusion let's start with each of you singly. But attend, please; if any of you hear a statement made by another that you challenge or question, say so at once. Intervene. Don't let it pass. Is that understood?"

No one said it wasn't.

"Very well. Mr. Goodwin reports that all of you knew of that apartment, and I am assuming that all of you knew where it was, again excepting Mr. Oster. Any comment?"

"I did." Beth Tiger.

"I didn't." Maud Jordan. "I knew the phone number, I knew it was in Harlem, but I didn't know the address."

"Nevertheless, I am assuming that you did. You, Miss Jordan, knowing the phone number, could easily have learned the address. Actually, Mr. Oster, I am not excepting even you. However unlikely it may be that one of you went there and killed Susan Brooke, it is by no means unthinkable. The possibility is in my mind, naturally, but at the back. The police have questioned you regarding your whereabouts that evening, but I won't. If later something points to one of you, we'll see. An alibi is rarely unimpeachable. What I-"

"Just a minute," Henchy cut in. "When you asked if we agreed that Whipple didn't kill her I put my hand up. If you ask if we think no one in this room killed her, I'll put it up again." He jerked forward and hit his knee with a fist. "If you want to clear Whipple, all right, I hope you do, but you're not going to do it by putting it on one of us!"