Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

"In that way," she said, nodding to the right, and I turned a corner into a big room that was mostly glass on one side, with glass doors, closed, to the outdoors at the far end. At the other end was a phony fireplace with phony logs glowing. The red and white and yellow rugs were matched by the cushions on the wicker furniture, and a table with books and magazines had a glass top.

She invited me to sit, and I did so. She stood far enough off so that I would have had to make three good bounds to grab her, and it is only fair to say that it might have been worth the effort. She was three inches shorter, some years older, and at least ten pounds plumper than my ideal for grabbing, but with her dark twinkling eyes in her round little face she was by no means homely.

"If you're wet," she said, "move over by the fire."

"Thanks, this is all right This ought to be a nice room when the sun's shining."

"Yes, we think we'll like it very much." She sat down on the edge of a chair with her feet drawn backT maintaining her distance. "Do you know why I let you in? Your ears. I go by ears. Did you know my brother Len?"

"No, I never met him." I crossed my legs and leaned back, as evidence that I wasn't gathered for a pounce. "I'm much obliged to my ears for getting me in out of the rain. I believe I told you I'm a literary agent, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"The reason I had to see you, I understand you were your brother's only heir. He left everything to you?"

"Yes." She moved back in her chair a little. "That's how we bought this place. It's all paid for, cash, no mortgage."

"That's fine. Or it will be when it stops raining and the sun comes out. The idea is this, Mrs. Potter, since you were the sole legatee under your brother's will everything he had belongs to you. And I'm interested in something that I think he had-no, don't be alarmed, it's nothing that you've already used. Possibly you've never even heard of it. When did you last see your brother?"

"Why, six years ago. I never saw him after nineteen forty-five, when I got married and came to California." She flushed a little. "I didn't go back when he died, to the funeral, because we couldn't afford it. I would have gone if I had known he had left me all that money and bonds, but I didn't know that until afterwards."

"Did you correspond? Did you get letters from him?"

She nodded. "We always wrote once a month, sometimes oftener."

"Did he ever mention that he had written a book, a novel? Or that he was writing one?"

"Why, no." Suddenly she frowned. "Wait a minute, now maybe he did." She hesitated. "You see, Len was always thinking he was going to do something important, but I don't think he ever told anyone but me. After father and mother died I was all he had, and I was younger than him. He didn't want me to get married, and for a while he didn't write, he didn't answer my letters, but then he did, and he wrote long letters, pages and pages. Why, did he write a book?"

"Have you kept his letters?"

"Yes, I-I kept them."

"Have you still got them?"

"Yes. But I think you ought to tell me what you want."

"So do I." I folded my arms and regarded her, her round little honest face. In out of the rain, I was feeling a qualm, and this was the moment when I had to decide whether to trick her or let her in on it-a vital point, which Wolfe had left to my own judgment after meeting her. I looked at her face, with the twinkle gone from her eyes, and decided. If it came out wrong I could kick myself back to New York instead of taking a plane.

"Listen, Mrs. Potter. Will you listen carefully, please?"

"Of course I will."

"Okay. This is what I was going to tell you. It's not what I am telling you, only what I intended to. I'm George Thompson, a literary agent. I have in my possession a copy of a manuscript of a novel entitled 'Put Not Your Trust,' written by Baird Archer. But I have reason to believe that Baird Archer was a pen name used by your brother, that your brother wrote the novel-but I'm not sure about it. I also have reason to believe that I can sell the novel to one of the big movie companies for a good price, around fifty thousand dollars. You are your brother's sole heir. I want, with you, to go through the letters your brother wrote you, looking for evidence that he wrote or was writing the novel. Whether we find such evidence or not, I want to deposit the manuscript in the vault of a local bank for safekeeping, and I want you to write a letter to a certain law firm in New York, the firm your brother worked for. In the letter I want you to say that you have a copy of the manuscript of a novel written by your brother under the name of Baird Archer, giving the title of the novel, that an agent named Thompson thinks he can sell it to the movies for fifty thousand dollars, and that you want their legal advice in the matter because you don't know how such things should be done. I also want you to say that Thompson has read the manuscript but you have not. Get that?"

"But if you can sell it-" She was wide-eyed. It didn't alter my opinion of her. A prospect of fifty thousand unexpected bucks is enough to open eyes, no matter how honest they are. She added, "If it's my property I can just tell you to sell it, can't I?"

"You see," I reproached her, "you didn't listen." "I did-too! I lis-"

"No. You did not. I warned you that that was only what I intended to tell you. There was some truth in it, but darned little. I do think that your brother wrote a novel of that title under the name of Baird Archer, and I would like to go through his letters to see if he mentioned it, but I have no copy of the manuscript, there is no prospect of selling it to the movies, I am not a literary agent, and my name is not George Thompson. Now, having-" "Then it was all lies!" "No. It would have-"

She was out of her chair. "Who are you? What's your name?"

"Have my ears changed any?" I demanded.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to listen. It wasn't a lie if I didn't say it, even if I intended to. Now here's what I do say, and it's the truth. You might as well sit down, because this is even longer."

She sat, but on about a third of the chair seat.

"My name," I said, "is Archie Goodwin. I'm a private detective, and I work for Nero Wolfe, also a private detec-"

"Nero Wolfe!"

"Right. It will please him to know that you had heard of him, and I'll be sure to tell him. He has been hired by a man named Wellman to find out who murdered his daughter. And another girl has been murdered, one named Rachel Abrams. Also, before that, your brother was murdered. We have reason to believe that the same person committed all three murders. It's a long and complicated reason, and I'll skip it. K you want the details later you can have them. I'll just say that our theory is that your brother was killed because he wrote that novel, Joan Wellman was killed because she had read it, and Rachel Abrams was killed because she had ' typed it."

"The novel-Len wrote?"

"Yes. Don't ask me what was in it, because we don't know. If we did, I wouldn't have had to come out here to see you. I came to get you to help us catch a man that murdered three people, and one of them was your brother."