Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

"I dislike business with breakfast," he stated.

"Yeah, I know you do."

"You can fill in later. Get Saul and put him on the disbarment of Mr. O'Malley."

"That was covered fairly well in the police file on Dykes. I've told you about it."

"Nevertheless, put Saul on it. Put Fred and Orrie on Dykes's associations outside that law office."

"He didn't have any to speak of."

"Put them on it. We've made this assumption and we'll either validate it or void it. Pursue your acquaintance with those women. Take one of them to lunch."

"Lunch isn't a good time. They only have-"

"We'll argue later. I want to read the paper. Have you had breakfast?"

"No. I got up late."

"Go and eat."

"Glad to."

Before I did so, I called Saul and Fred and Orrie and told them to come in for briefing. After breakfast I had that to attend to and also various office chores I had got behind on. There was a phone call from Purley Stebbins, who wanted to know how I had made out with my dinner party, and I asked him which one or ones he was tailing, or, as an alternative, which one he had on a line, but he brushed me off. I made no attempt to arrange to buy a lunch. So fast a follow-up on Sue would have been bad strategy, and a midday fifty minutes with one of the others would have given me no scope. Besides, I had had less than five hours' sleep and hadn't shaved.

When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven he went over the morning mail, dictated a couple of letters, looked through a catalogue, and then requested a full report. To him a full report means every word and gesture and expression, and I have learned to fill the order not only to his satisfaction but to mine. It took more than an hour. When I was through, after asking a few questions, he issued a command.

"Phone Miss Troy and take her to lunch."

I remained calm. "I understand and sympathize," I told him, "but I can't oblige. You're desperate and therefore impulsive. I could present an overwhelming case against it, but will mention only two items: first, it's nearly one o'clock and that's too late, and second, I don't feel like it. There are some things I know more about than you do, and one of them is my extractive ability with women. Take it from me, it would be hard

to conceive a lousier idea than for me to invite a middle-aged lawyer's niece with pimples to a quick bite in a crowded mid-town beanery, especially since she is probably right now on a stool at a fountain lunch working on a maple-nut sundae."

He shivered.

"I'm sorry to upset you, but maple-nut sundaes are-"

"Shut up," he growled.

All the same, I was quite aware that it was up to me. True, Saul and Fred and Orrie were out collecting, but they were even farther away from Joan Wellman than I was, and that was some distance. If one of those ten females, or one of the other six whom I hadn't met, had just one measly little fact tucked away that would start Wolfe's lips pushing out and in, no one but me was going to dig it out, and if I didn't want it to drag on into the Christmas season, only ten months away, I had better pull something.

Back in the office after lunch, Wolfe was seated at his desk, reading a book of lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, his mind a million miles from murder, and I was wandering around trying to think of something to pull, when the phone range and I went to answer it.

A woman's voice told me, "Mr. Corrigan would like to speak to Mr. Wolfe. Put Mr. Wolfe on, please?"

I made a face. "Get home all right, Mrs. Adams?"

"Yes."

"Good. Mr. Wolfe is busy reading poetry. Put Corrigan on."

"Really, Mr. Goodwin."

"I'm stubborner than you are, and you made the call, I didn't. Put him on." I covered the transmitter and told Wolfe, "Mr. James A. Corrigan, the senior partner."

Wolfe put the book down and took his instrument. I stayed on, as always when I wasn't signaled to get off.

"This is Nero Wolfe."

"This is Jim Corrigan. I'd like to have a talk with with you."

"Go ahead."

"Not on the phone, Mr. Wolfe. It would be better to meet, and some of my associates would like to sit in. Would it be convenient for you to call at our office, say around five-thirty? One of my associates is in court."

"I don't call at people's offices, Mr. Corrigan. I stay in my office. I won't be available at five-thirty, but six would do if you wish to come."

"Six would be all right, but it would be better to make it

here. There will be four of us-perhaps five. Six o'clock here?"

"No, sir. If at all, here."

"Hold the wire a minute."

It was more like three minutes. Then he was on again. "Sorry to keep you waiting. All right, we'll be there at six or a little after."

Wolfe cradled his phone, and I did likewise.

"Well," I remarked, "at least we touched a sore spot somewhere. That's the first cheep we've got out of anybody in ten days."

Wolfe picked up bis book.

11

THAT was the biggest array of legal talent ever gathered in the office. Four counselors-at-law in good standing and one disbarred.

James A. Corrigan (secretary, Charlotte Adams) was about titie same age as his secretary, or maybe a little younger. He had the jaw of a prizefighter and the frame of a retired jockey and the hungriest pair of eyes I ever saw-not hungry the way a dog looks at a bone you're holding up but the way a cat looks at a bird in a cage.

Emmett Phelps (secretary, Sue Dondero) was a surprise to me. Sue had told me that he was the firm's encyclopedia, the guy who knew all the precedents and references and could turn to them with his eyes shut, but he didn't look it. Something over fifty, and a couple of inches over six feet, broad-shouldered and long-armed, on him a general's or admiral's uniform would have looked fine.

Louis Kustin (secretary, Eleanor Gruber) was the youngster of the bunch, about my age. Instead of hungry eyes he had sleepy ones, very dark, but that must have been a cover because Sue had told me that he was their trial man, and hot, having taken over the tougher courtroom assignments when O'Malley had been disbarred. He looked smaller than he was on account of the way he slumped.

Frederick Briggs, Helen Troy's Uncle Fred, had white hair

and a long bony face. If he had a secretary I hadn't met her. From the way he blinked like a half-wit at everyone who spoke, it seemed a wonder he had been made a partner even in his seventh decade-or it could have been his eighth-but it takes all kinds to make a law firm. I wouldn't have hired him to change blotters.

Conroy O'Malley, who had been the senior partner and the courtroom wizard until he got bounced off the bar for bribing a juror, looked as bitter as you would expect, with a sidewise twist to his mouth that seemed to be permanent. With his mouth straightened and the sag out of his cheeks and a flash in his eye, it wouldn't have been hard to imagine him dominating a courtroom, but as he was then he couldn't have dominated a phone booth with him alone in it.