Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

“I wondered about that,” Colonel Tinkham said dryly. “It was postmarked eleven p.m. Ryder had been dead seven hours.”

“Irrelevant,” Wolfe snapped. “That could have been accounted for in a dozen ways. On the envelope I placed a grenade like the one that killed Colonel Ryder. I asked General Carpenter for it on the phone last evening, and he sent it by messenger on a plane. The experiment was to leave each of you in here alone for ten minutes, with those objects on the desk, and see what would happen. After each of you left, Fritz came in to inspect-especially to learn if the envelope had been tampered with. That may seem a little crude. But consider: consider the state of mind of the murderer. Could he stay in here alone for ten minutes, with that envelope staring him in the face, and do nothing about it? Make no effort whatever to learn what was in it? Impossible. Absolutely impossible!”

Fife snorted. “I never saw the damn thing. I don’t see it now.” He was regarding Wolfe as anything but a valued associate. “And you had the gall, by God, to put me on your list!”

“It impresses me,” Tinkham said coldly, “as kindergarten stuff.”

“Ah, Colonel,” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him, “but it worked!” He wiggled the finger at the desk. “As General Fife remarked, he doesn’t see it now. It’s gone.”

They all goggled at him. Then, as the implication soaked in, they looked at one another. Currents of startled inquiry, uneasiness, distrust, darted from one pair of eyes to another, here and there, in all directions, crossing, meeting.

Fife barked at Wolfe, “What the hell are you talking about? What are you insinuating?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said quietly. “I’m merely reporting. I know you gentlemen are on edge, but even so you might let me finish. As I said, Fritz entered to look things over after each of you had been in here ten minutes. And all of you passed the test admirably. Lawson, Tinkham, Fife, Shattuck. But there was another. The last to come was Miss Bruce. She too had her allotted ten minutes. But, gentlemen, she remained for only seven of them! The keyhole of the kitchen door commands a view of the hall. After seven minutes Fritz saw Miss Bruce emerge from the office and depart by the front door. He came in here-and both the envelope and the grenade were gone! Why she took the grenade I don’t know, unless for the purpose of hurling it through the window at me.”

They all glanced at the window, and I did too, to make it unanimous.

Fife was on his feet. “I want to use that phone.”

Wolfe shook his head. “It requires a little discussion, General. For one thing, we can’t afford to make enemies of the police. For another, they are already attending to Miss Bruce. I arranged with Inspector Cramer to post men outside, to follow any of you, including Miss Bruce, who left the house before one o’clock. For still another, General Carpenter phoned me from Washington last evening and gave me some special instructions. As I said, he sent me that grenade. And with it, the instructions in writing. So if you’ll bear with me a little longer-”

Fife sat down.

“I do not state,” Wolfe said, “that Miss Bruce murdered Colonel Ryder. She has the appearance of a resourceful and determined woman, but we certainly haven’t enough evidence to charge her with murder. Why she stayed in here seven minutes, instead of seizing the envelope as soon as she saw it and leaving with it, I don’t know. She may have been coolheaded enough to open it and examine the contents, but that doesn’t seem likely, since all it contained was blank sheets of paper. At any rate, we can now start to work on her, and whether her wrongdoing went to the length of murder or not, she’ll pay for whatever she did.” Wolfe frowned. “I admit I don’t like her having that grenade. I didn’t foresee that. If she gets in a corner and kills someone with it-” He shrugged. “Archie, you’d better phone Mr. Cramer and tell him to warn his men-but first, where’s that letter from General Carpenter? Have you got it in your desk?”

It was just as I opened my mouth to answer him that I realized what he was doing. This was the booby trap.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think you took it. I’ll look.” I pulled a drawer of my desk open. I would have given a month’s pay to be able to watch their faces, but I knew that was Wolfe’s part of it and went on with mine. I shut the drawer and opened another one. “Not here.” I opened a third drawer and closed it.

Wolfe, leaning back with his arms folded, said testily, “Try mine.”

I went around to the side of his desk and did so. The middle drawer; the three on the left; the four on the right. I was about to mutter something about trying the files when Wolfe spoke.

“Confound it, I remember! I put it back in the suitcase. Get it.”

I returned to my desk. Just as my fingers were reaching for the catches of the suitcase Wolfe’s voice snapped like a whip: “Mr. Shattuck! What’s the matter?”

“Matter? Nothing,” Shattuck’s reply came, but it wasn’t much like his voice.

I wheeled to look at him. His hands were grasping the arms of his chair, his jaw was clamped, and his eyes glittered with what seemed to be, from my distance, half fear and half fight.

“It’s adrenaline,” Wolfe told him. “You can’t control it. Perhaps you would have done better if you were a brave man, but obviously you’re a coward.” He reached down and pulled a drawer open, and his hand came up holding the grenade. “See, here it is. Just to reassure you. Calm yourself. Miss Bruce didn’t set a trap with it in one of the drawers, or in that suitcase, as you did yesterday in Colonel Ryder’s suitcase.” He put the grenade on his desk.

“Good God,” Fife said.

Lawson got up and stood there in front of his chair, stiff and erect as at attention.

Tinkham, who had been staring at Wolfe, transferred the stare to Shattuck, and stroked his mustache.

Shattuck neither moved nor spoke. He hadn’t recovered control, and he was waiting till he did. He may not have been brave, but he had a good set of brakes.

Wolfe rose to his feet. “General,” he said to Fife, “I’m afraid you’re out of this. Mr. Shattuck is not in the Army, so it’s for the civil authorities after all. I want him where he’ll feel free to talk, so he and I are going for a little ride in my car. Major Goodwin will drive us. If you gentlemen are thirsty, Fritz will serve you.” He turned. “Mr. Shattuck. You can tell me to go to the devil. You can run to your lawyers. You can, for the moment, do whatever you please. But I strongly advise you, if you know me at all, and from what you said yesterday you seem to have heard my name, to accept my invitation to talk it over with me.”

Chapter 7

“To Van Cortlandt Park,” Wolfe directed me from the rear seat.

If and when I write a book called Interesting Trips I Have Taken , that one will be the first on the list.

I was behind the wheel. I was violating Regulations by having three buttons on my jacket unfastened, for quick and easy access to the gun in my shoulder holster. That was on my own initiative. John Bell Shattuck was in front beside me, and had not been frisked. In the back was Wolfe, alone, making a more comical picture than usual, for the hand that was not gripping the strap at the side was gripping something else: the grenade. Whether he had brought it along for protection, or just to get it out of the house, I didn’t know; but he sure was hanging on to it. And why Van Cortlandt Park? He had never been anywhere near the place.