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

For over three hours I collected neighborhood gossip, and it wasn’t worth a dime a bushel. I didn’t even get any significant dirt, let alone useful information. On the question of the death of old Mrs. Leeds, fourteen of them divided as follows:

4 Mrs. Chack killed her.

1 Miss Leeds killed her.

6 She died of old age.

3 She died of meanness.

No majority for anybody or anything. No nothing. I went home, arriving a little before 5:00, to think it over and decide whether it was worth while springing Ann on Wolfe at all and as I stood in the office frowning at the dust on Wolfe’s desk, the doorbell rang. I went and pulled the curtain aside for a look through the glass panel, and there was Roy Douglas on the stoop. My heart skipped a beat. Was something going to break? I pulled the door open and invited him in.

He acted embarrassed, as if he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure what it was. I took him to the office and dusted off a chair for him, and he sat down and opened his mouth for air a couple of times and then said:

“I guess I wasn’t very courteous down there at the loft today. I never am very polite when I’m working with the birds. You see, it makes them nervous to have strangers around.”

I nodded sympathetically. “Me too. By the way, I forgot to ask, how’s Dusky Diana coming along?”

“Oh, she’s much better. She’ll be all right.” He squinted at me. “I suppose Miss Amory told you about her?”

“Yeah, she told me a lot of interesting things.”

He shifted in his chair. Then he cleared his throat. “You were with her all evening, weren’t you?”

“Sure, I stuck around.”

“I saw you when you came back. When you brought her home. From my window.”

“Did you? It was pretty late.”

“I know it was. But I-You see, I was worried about her. I am worried about her. I think she’s in some kind of trouble or something, and I wondered if that was why she went to see that Lily Rowan.”

“You might ask her.”

He shook his head. “She won’t tell me. But I’m sure she’s in some kind of trouble, the way she acts. I don’t know Miss Rowan, so I can’t go and ask her, but I know you, that is I’ve met you, and if you were with them last evening-and then your coming to see me today-I thought you might tell me. You see, I’ve got a right to know about it, a kind of a right, because we’re engaged to be married.”

My brows went up. “You are? You and Miss Amory?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” He squinted at me. “So I wondered why you came to see me, and I thought maybe it was to tell me something about her, or ask me something, and that made me wonder-Anyhow, if you know whether she’s in trouble I wish you’d tell me.”

Except for the fact that I had solved the mystery of Ann’s fiance, or rather it had solved itself, that certainly didn’t sound as if Roy’s visit was going to break anything. However, since I had him there, I thought I might as well see what he had concealed on his person, so I proceeded to treat him as a friend. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t help him out any on the nature of Ann’s difficulty, if any, and casually guided the conversation in the direction of the inhabitants of 316 Barnum Street. That proved to be a boomerang. The minute we arrived at that address he got started on pigeons, and then did he talk!

I learned things. He had been in the fancy, as he put it, since boyhood. Mrs. Leeds had built the loft for him and kept him going, and now Miss Leeds was carrying on. His birds had won a total of 116 diplomas in young bird races and 63 diplomas in old bird races. One year his Village Susie, a Blue Check Grooter, had returned first in the Dayton Great National, with 3,864 birds, 512 lofts competing. He had lost fourteen birds in the big smash in the Trenton 300-mile special last year. The best racing pigeons in the world, in his opinion, were the Dickinson strain of Sion-Stassarts-Dusky Diana was one.

I couldn’t get him off it. As the clock on the wall crept along toward 6:00 I began to think I’d have to pick him up and carry him outdoors, since Wolfe would come in from training soon after 6:00 and I didn’t want him there. But that problem was solved for me. At 5:55 the doorbell rang, and Roy got up and said he would be going, and followed me out to the front. I pulled the curtain aside for a look, and what did I see on the stoop but Lily Rowan, and she had seen me.

I slipped the chain in the socket so the door would only open four inches, let it come that far, and announced through the crack:

“Air raid alarm. Go home and get under the bed. I’m on-”

Her hand came in through the crack, her arm nearly up to the elbow.

“Shut it on that,” she said savagely. “Let me in.”

“No, girlie, I-”

“Let me in! Do you want me to yell it for the whole neighborhood-”

“Yell what?”

“There’s been a murder!”

“You mean there will be a murder. Some day-”

“Archie! You damned idiot! I tell you Ann Amory has been murdered! If you don’t-”

There was a noise from Roy at my elbow. I pushed him aside, slipped the chain off, let Lily through, shut the door, and got her by the shoulders, gripping her good.

“Spill it,” I told her. “If you think you’re putting on a charade-”

“Quit hurting me!” she spat. Then she was quiet. “All right, keep on hurting me. Go on. Harder.”

“Spill it, my love.”

“I am spilling it. I went there to see Ann. When I rang the bell the latch didn’t click, so I rang another bell and got in. The door of her apartment was standing a little open, so I knocked once and then went in. I thought she must be there because I had phoned her office and she said she would get home before five-thirty, and it was a quarter to six. She was there all right. She was there on the floor propped up against a chair with a scarf tied around her throat and her tongue hanging out and her eyes popping. She was dead. I saw she was dead and I-”

Roy Douglas went. He did it so quick, pulled the door open and scooted, that I didn’t even get a chance to make a grab for him.

“Goddamn it,” I said. I turned Lily loose and glanced at my wrist-6:02. If I beat it with her it would be just my luck for Wolfe to be approaching and see me. Lily was sputtering:

“I tell you, Archie, it was the most awful-”

“Shut up.” I opened the door to the front room, steered her inside, and closed the door. “You do what I tell you, girlie, or I swear to God I’ll scalp you. Sit down and don’t breathe. Nero Wolfe will be coming in and I don’t want him to know you’re here. No, sit there, away from the window. I want to know one thing. Did you kill her?”

“No.”

“Look at me. You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Archie-”

“Shut up.”

I sat on the edge of a chair and put my fists on my knees and stared at the wall. I can’t think with my eyes closed the way Wolfe does. In maybe three minutes I thought I had it, at least a sketch of it, if only it hadn’t been for that damn Douglas kid. It all depended on him.