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

I headed for the 47th Street entrance to the West Side Highway.

“It was sensible for you to come along without protest, Mr. Shattuck,” Wolfe rumbled.

“I’m a sensible man,” Shattuck said. Apparently he was in running order again. There was no adrenaline in his voice. He had twisted around on the seat to be able to face Wolfe. “Whatever you’re up to-I don’t know what you’re driving at. To accuse me of killing Harold Ryder was absolutely ridiculous, and you couldn’t possibly have been serious. But you said it before four witnesses. I came with you-away from them-because I’m willing to give you a chance to explain-if you can. But it will have to be damned good.”

“I’ll make it as good as I can,” Wolfe told him. We crossed the 42nd Street car tracks. “Archie. Go slower.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll try to keep to the essentials,” Wolfe said. “If you want a point elaborated, say so. First, I confess that most of what I told you and the others was a pack of lies.”

“Ah,” Shattuck said. “But you haul me off alone to admit it. I expect you to justify that. Let’s hear you.”

“I’ll specify-” Wolfe grunted as we hit a little bump. “-a few of the lies. I was not undecided as to the manner of Colonel Ryder’s death. One look at the remains of his suitcase told the story-by the way, I have it in my office. I got no letter of instructions from General Carpenter, though I did talk with him on the phone. He’s coming to New York this afternoon and will dine with me this evening. But most of the lies concerned Miss Bruce. Practically everything I said about her was untrue. She was under no suspicion. Colonel Ryder was preparing no report that could have injured her. I had not arranged with the police to follow her when she left my house. The truth is, Miss Bruce is a confidential assistant of General Carpenter, reporting directly to him. He told me last evening that she’s worth any two men on his staff. I doubt that, but she did show some intelligence about the suitcase. Seeing it only from a distance of several feet, from the door of the anteroom, she saw the significance of its condition.”

“What the devil was the significance of its condition?” Shattuck demanded.

“Now, now,” Wolfe reproached him. “I beg you, none of those transparent implications of innocence. Miss Bruce was also clever enough to get the suitcase out of there, to show to General Carpenter. He had sent her to New York because of indications that someone in that unit was involved in the suspected transactions regarding industrial secrets. It was she who typed that anonymous letter to you-incidentally, you shouldn’t have let it scare you like that. No one had the slightest suspicion of you. The same letter was sent to some thirty people-key people in legislative and administrative positions. They were merely fishing. It was different with Colonel Ryder. There was no proof, but he was under observation, and that’s why Miss Bruce was assigned to his office from Washington. He may have suspected something of the sort, and that was a factor in his decision to go to General Carpenter and make a clean breast of it. Another-”

“By God!” Shattuck cut in. “That’s dirty! That’s lousy! If you want to make damn fool accusations about me, and stand the consequences, that’s all right, I’m here, and I can take care of myself, and I will. But Harold’s dead. To start a dirty lie like that about a dead man-”

“Stop it,” Wolfe said curtly. “You’ll have me thinking you’re not only a coward but a fool. To try to impress me with that rubbish! You know quite well why you came and got in this car with me: to find out how much I know. Then let me talk. Speak only if you want to say something. Where was I? Oh, Miss Bruce. That will do for her. I may mention that Lieutenant Lawson is also on special assignment from General Carpenter, as a sort of errand boy for Miss Bruce. In that capacity he may possibly be satisfactory. I wouldn’t be telling you these things, Army secrets in a way, if there were any chance of your passing them on. But there’s no risk, since in an hour from now, less than that I should say, you won’t be alive.”

Shattuck stared at him, speechless.

We were rolling along the West Side Highway. I was myself sufficiently startled to look aside at Shattuck, and returned to my driving just in time to jerk away from kissing the curb.

“Are you crazy?” Shattuck found his voice to ask.

“No, sir,” Wolfe said. “I did state an overwhelming probability as a certainty. We all do that.”

“I won’t be alive? An hour from now?” Shattuck laughed, and it wasn’t very hollow at that. “This is incredible. I suppose you’re going to threaten to blow me to pieces with that grenade unless I sign a confession to anything you tell me to. Absolutely unbelievable!”

“Not like that. The grenade, yes. I brought it along for you to kill yourself with.”

“By God-you are crazy!”

Wolfe shook his head. “Don’t shout at me. Keep your wits. You’re going to need them. Archie, where are you going?”

“Leaving the highway,” I told him, “for the park entrance. Then what?”

“Secluded roads in the park.”

“Yes, sir.” We rolled on down the incline.

“The reason you shouted,” Wolfe went on to Shattuck, “was because the first glimmer of a fact darted into your brain-the fact that you are fighting for your life. That was a mean trick I played on you in my office. You had seen the grenade on my desk. You were told that a person who thought I was endangering her safety had been in there alone for seven minutes, had departed, and the grenade had disappeared. The most vivid impression your mind held at that moment was the memory of what you yourself had done the day before with a grenade like that one. When Major Goodwin began pulling drawers open-the grenade trap, just like the one you had set, might have been in any of them-control of your involuntary processes was out of the question. When I told him to open the suitcase-it’s a pity you couldn’t have seen yourself. It was magnificent-better, really, than if you had leaped screaming to your feet and fled from the room.

“Archie, confound it, can’t you see a hole?

“What you want, of course, is to learn how much I know. How much General Carpenter knows. I’m not going to tell you. You got in this car with me to match your wits against mine. Abandon the attempt. If we met on equal terms, there’s no telling what the score would be, but we don’t. I am free and safe; you are a doomed man. You’re cornered, with no space to maneuver.”

“I’m letting you talk,” Shattuck said. “You’re talking drivel.”

We entered Van Cortlandt Park.

Wolfe ignored his remark. “A crook is not always a fool,” Wolfe said. “As you know, Mr. Shattuck, there are men in high places in public life, even as high as yours, who are venal, dishonest and betrayers of trust, and who yet will die peacefully in their beds, surrounded with tokens of respect, their chief regret being that they will be unable to read the glowing obituaries the following day. You might have been one of them. From the tremendous backlog of credit for services performed which you were piling up among wealthy and influential persons, by these crooked operations you were supervising and protecting from attack, you might even have succeeded in reaching the limit of your ambition.