Rex Stout - A Right to Die

"A booth. Sixty-fourth and Lexington."

"Where will you be?"

"Home in bed. It's nearly midnight."

"If we don't ring you tonight we will in the morning. Stand by, huh?"

He said he would. I cradled the phone and sat a minute looking at it. It was the kind of thing Wolfe hates and I'm not too fond of myself. Trying to find someone or ones who had seen that car in Harlem that evening, granting it had been there, was a job for an army. Facing her with it as a known fact without naming the source would be a waste of breath. I got up, said a word aloud that needn't be in the record, went to the hall, and found that the party was over. Two of them were on their way to the front, and the others were filing out of the office, all but Paul Whipple, who was having a word with Wolfe at his desk.

I went to help with coats and hats, and deliberately selected Maud Jordan's, letting one of the others serve Miss Tiger. I didn't want to give her the impression that I was at her beck, let alone her call. Then Paul Whipple came, and I had his ready for him. He was the last one out.

When I went to the office Wolfe had his reading light on and had opened _The Minister and the Choir Singer_. That was as it should be; he would stay to keep me company while I took things out and straightened up. To go to bed, leaving the mess to me, would sort of imply that I was merely a menial, so he stayed to collaborate. As I entered he looked a question.

I nodded. "Saul. Mrs. Brooke forgets things. Monday evening, March second, around a quarter to eight, she got her car from the garage and brought it back an hour or more later. Saul shelled out twenty dollars to the garage attendant and promised not to reveal the source. No one with her."

He growled. "Confound her."

"Yes, sir. I told Saul we'd ring him tonight or in the morning. Any instructions?"

"It's past bedtime. Ask Saul to come at eleven. If Miss Kallman hasn't called by ten o'clock you should call her."

"Right. Do you want to see Magnus?"

"No. You will."

Meaning he only did the tricky ones. He raised his book, and I started collecting glasses. Miss Tiger's was still two-thirds full. Wasting good gin, Follansbee's.

9

A problem like Dolly Brooke's lie is plain ornery. Even if we could get the garage man to play along and he said it to her face, a big if, she could say that he was mistaken, it had been another evening, or that she had gone on a personal errand which she preferred to keep to herself; and if she had actually driven to 128th Street and killed Susan Brooke it wouldn't heip any to let her know we had caught her in a lie just to show her how smart we were. You might like to know how Nero Wolfe would handle such a problem, but I can't tell you in this particular case because he didn't handle it at all. Luck did. The luck rang the doorbell of the old brownstone at five minutes to ten Tuesday morning.

But first William Magnus. Rae Kallman phoned while I was at my breakfast table in the kitchen, on my fourth homemade Creole pork sausage and my third Creole fritter. She had discovered that she had Magnus's phone number in a notebook at home, and she had called him early, to get him before he left. By now he had gone for a day at school. He would have no free time until four-thirty, and we could expect him a little before five. As I resumed with the sausage and fritters I considered the fact that Miss Kallman was cooperating beyond the call of duty; she had promised only to supply his address and phone number. Sometimes-not often, but it does happen-such a little detail has a point. Had she wanted to brief him, and if so, why? A corner of my mind was still considering it in the office as I opened the morning mail.

When luck rang the doorbell at 9:55 I didn't know it was luck, even after I went to the hall and saw him on the stoop. Peter Vaughn was mereiy the long and lanky specimen who was still trying to hang onto the notion that he had been going to marry Susan Brooke after she got rid of her kink. As a candidate for the tag, at least 100 to 1. But when I opened the door and saw him closer, it was obvious that something really sharp was biting him. His bony face looked even narrower, and he had to unclamp his jaw to speak, to say that he knew Wolfe wasn't available at that hour, but he would rather see me anyway. That was grease, or it wasn't. I took him to the office and moved a chair up to face mine. He sat, clamped his jaw again, and rubbed his eyes, which were red and puffy, first with his fingertips and then with the heels of his palms.

"I haven't slept for four nights," he said.

I nodded. "You look it." Four nights had passed since he had been there with his future in-laws. If I had been Wolfe I would have asked if he had eaten. Being me, I asked, "How about a drink? Or coffee?"

"No, thanks." He tried to eye me, but it was mostly blinks. "I know a couple of men who know about you, and it's because of what they said that I would rather see you than Wolfe. They said you're tough but straight, and you're more human than Wolfe."

"At least I try."

He didn't hear it. He was in the kind of condition when you're so concentrated on what you want to say that nothing anyone else says can get in.

"I'm in one hell of a squeeze," he said. "I'm stuck. First I ought to tell you, I don't owe Kenneth and Dolly Brooke anything. They don't owe me anything, either. met them through Susan, about three years ago. I only knew them, I only kept knowing them and seeing them, on account of her. So I don't feel- Wait a minute. I didn't say this is confidential. It is."

I shook my head. "Not if it connects up with murder. I mustn't make liars of the men who told you I'm straight. Put it this way: nothing you tell me will be disclosed unless it has to be in order to nail a murderer. Everything else is, and will stay, confidential. Is that plain?"

"Yes." A muscle at the side of his neck was twitching. "I suppose… All right. I admit I'm thinking of me. I lied to the police."

"If I had a dime for every lie I've told them I'd be on my yacht in the Caribbean. What is it you don't feel?"

"What?"

"You said, 'I don't feel,' and stopped."

"I don't- Oh. Yes. I don't feel that there's any question of loyalty. I don't owe them any loyalty. I said I'm thinking of me, and I am, but the trouble is I have a conscience. That's an old-fashioned word, and I'm not religious, but I don't know what else to call it. That's why I haven't been able to sleep. What I can't stand- You remember, when we were here Friday evening, we tried to get Wolfe to tell us why he thinks that man is innocent, and he wouldn't. I want you to tell me why. Confidentially. Just for me."

It was beginning to sound promising. What was eating him might be something we could use, and the odds had at least doubled that he wasn't it. I made an effort. "If it would get you some sleep," I said, "I wish I could tell you. But if I did, people would no longer call me straight. Dunbar Whipple is Nero Wolfe's client, and I work for Nero Wolfe. But look at it. You read that piece in the Gazette. Mr. Wolfe has never taken a murder suspect for a client if he thought there was any chance that he was guilty. He knows Whipple is innocent. So do I. The only way he can prove it is to get the murderer. That's all I can tell you or your conscience."