Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

"Oh, my God," Blanche Duke said morosely. "Baird Archer again."

"I don't want to bore you," I declared.

Most of them said I wasn't.

"Okay. Joan had read Archer's novel and rejected it with a letter signed by her. On the phone he offered to pay her twenty dollars an hour to discuss his novel with him and tell him how to improve it, and she made a date to meet him the next day after office hours. So she said in her letter home. It was the evening of the next day that she was killed."

I reached for my coffee cup, drank some, and leaned back. "Now hold on to your hats. It had been six weeks since the cop had shown us that list of names, and we had just glanced at it. But when Mr. Wolfe and I saw Joan's letter home we immediately recognized the name of Baird Archer as one of those on Dykes's list. That proved there was some kind of connection between Leonard Dykes and Joan Wellman, and since they had both died suddenly and violently, and Joan had a date with Archer the day she died, it made it likely that their deaths were connected too, and connected with Archer. When you asked for something exciting about being a detective, if you meant something like tailing a murderer in Central Park and getting shot at, okay, that has its attractions, but it's not half as exciting as our spotting that name. If we hadn't, there would be one cop working on Dykes's death in his spare time, and another one in the Bronx likewise on Joan Well-man, instead of the way it is, which you know something about. That's what I call exciting."

It didn't seem essential to give the precise circumstances of the recognition of Baird Archer's name. If Wolfe had been there he would have told it his way, but he wasn't, and I was. Glancing around to see that coffee refills were being attended to and that cigarettes and matches were at hand for everyone, I resumed.

"Next I'm going to spill something. If it gets printed the cops won't like it, and they sure won't like me, but they don't anyhow. A girl named Rachel Abrams was a public stenographer and typist with a little one-room office on the seventh floor of a building up on Broadway. Day before yesterday she went out the window and smashed to death on the sidewalk. More excitement for me as a detective, which is what I'm supposed to be talking about. It would probably have been called suicide or an accident if I hadn't happened to walk into her office two or three minutes after she had gone out the window. In a drawer of her desk I found a little brown book in which she had kept a record of her receipts and expenses. Under receipts there were two entries showing that last September she had been paid ninety-eight dollars and forty cents by a man named Baird Archer."

"Ah," Dolly Harriton said. There were other reactions.

"I'll be dreaming about Baird Archer," Nina Perlman muttered.

"I am already," I told her. "As you can see, here's a job for a detective if there ever was one. I won't try to tell you how the cops are going at it, of course one or more of them has talked with all of you the past two days, but here's how we see it, and how we'll go on seeing it unless something shows we're wrong. We believe that Dykes's death was somehow connected with the manuscript of that novel. We believe that Joan Wellman was killed because she had read that manuscript. We believe that Rachel Abrams was killed because she had typed that manuscript. So naturally we want Baird Archer, and we want the manuscript. We've got to find one or both, or we're licked. Any suggestions?"

"Good lord," Sue Dondero said.

"Get a copy of the novel," Portia Liss offered.

Someone snickered.

"Look," I said impulsively, "unless you object I'm going to do something. There are a couple of people connected with this case upstairs now, waiting to see Mr. Wolfe. I think it would be interesting if they came down and told you about it." I pressed the floor button with my toe. "Unless you've had enough?"

"Who are they?" Mrs. Adams wanted to know.

"The father of Joan Wellman and the mother of Rachel Abrams."

"It won't be very gay," Dolly Harriton commented.

"No, it won't. Things and people mixed up with detectives are seldom gay."

"I want to see 'em," Helen Troy said loudly. "It's human nature."

Fritz had entered, and I spoke to him. "Where are Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman, Fritz? In the south room?"

"Yes, sir."

"Will you please ask them to be good enough to come down here?"

"Yes, sir."

He went. I inquired about drinks and got three orders.

9

BLANCHE DUKE darned near ruined it. When Wellman and Mrs. Abrams were ushered in by Fritz, ten pairs of eyes were focused on them, though in two or three cases the focusing required a little effort. I arose, performed the introductions, and brought them to the two chairs I had placed, one on either side of me. Mrs. Abrams, in a black silk dress or maybe rayon, was tight-lipped and scared but dignified. Wellman, in the same gray suit or its twin, was trying to take in all their faces without seeming to. He sat straight, not touching the back of the chair. I had my mouth open to speak when Blanche beat me to it.

"You folks need a drink. What'll you have?"

"No, thanks," Wellman said politely. Mrs. Abrams shook her head.

"Now listen," Blanche insisted, "you're in trouble. I've been in trouble all my life, and I know. Have a drink. Two jiggers of dry gin, one jigger of dry vermouth-"

"Be quiet, Blanche," Mrs. Adams snapped.

"Go to hell," Blanche snapped back. "This is social. You can't get Corrigan to fire me, either, you old papoose."

I would have liked to toss her out a window. I cut in. "Did I mix that right, Blanche, or didn't I?"

"Sure you did."

"Call me Archie."

"Sure you did, Archie."

"Okay, and I'm doing this right too. I do everything right. Would I let Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman go without drinks if they wanted them?"

"Certainly not."

"Then that settles it." I turned to my right, having promised Mrs. Abrams that Wellman would be called on first. "Mr. Wellman, I've been telling these ladies about the case that Mr. Wolfe and I are working on, and they're interested, partly because they work in the office where Leonard Dykes worked. I told them you and Mrs. Abrams were upstairs waiting to see Mr. Wolfe, and I thought you might be willing to tell them something about your daughter Joan. I hope you don't mind?"

"I don't mind."

"How old was Joan?"

"She was twenty-six. Her birthday was November nineteenth."

"Was she your only child?"

"Yes, the only one."

"Was she a good daughter?"

"She was the best daughter a man ever had."

There was an astonishing interruption-at least, astonishing to me. It was Mrs. Abrams' voice, not loud but clear. "She was no better than my Rachel."

Wellman smiled. I hadn't seen him smile before. "Mrs. Abrams and I have had quite a talk. We've been comparing notes. It's all right, we won't fight about it. Her Rachel was a good daughter too."

"NO, there's nothing to fight about. What was Joan going to do, get married or go on with her career, or what?"