Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

"But I can't-" She gulped. "How can I help?"

"I'm telling you. I could have tricked you into helping. I've just proved it. You would have come along for a chance at fifty thousand dollars, you know darned well you would. You'd have let me go through your brother's letters for evidence, and whether we found it or not you'd have written the letter to the law firm. That's all I'm asking you to do, only now I'm giving it to you straight and asking you to do it not for a pile of dough but to help catch the man that killed your brother. If you would have done it for money, and you would, don't you think you ought to do it to bring a murderer to justice?"

She was frowning, concentrating. "But I don't see-You only want me to write a letter?"

"That's right. It's like this. We think your brother wrote that novel, and it was a vital element in the murders. We think that someone in that law office is involved and either committed the murders or knows who did. We think that someone is desperately determined that the contents of that manuscript shall not be known to any living person. If we're right, and you send the kind of letter I described, he'll have to move and move quick, and that's all we need, to start him moving. If we're wrong, your sending the letter will do nobody any harm."

She was keeping the frown. "What did you say you wanted me to say in the letter?"

I repeated it, with fuller detail. Toward the end she began slowly shaking her head. When I stopped she spoke.

"But that would be a lie-saying you have a copy of the manuscript when you haven't. I couldn't tell them a deliberate lie!"

"Maybe not," I said regretfully. "If you're the kind of person who has never told a lie in all your life, I can't expect you to tell one just to help find the man who killed your brother -and who also killed two young women, ran a car over one of them and pushed the other one out of a window. Even if it couldn't possibly hurt any innocent person, I wouldn't want to urge you to tell your very first lie."

"You don't have to be sarcastic." Her face had turned a mild pink. "I didn't say I never told a lie. I'm no angel. You're perfectly right, I would have done it for the money, only then I wouldn't have known it was a lie." Suddenly her eyes twinkled. "Why don't we start over and do it the other way?"

I would have liked to give her a good hug. "Listen," I suggested, "let's take things in order. We've got to go through his letters first anyhow, there's no objection to that, then we can decide on the next step. You get the letters, huh?"

"I guess so." She arose. "They're in a box in the garage."

"Can I help?"

She said no, thanks, and left me. I got up and crossed to a window to look out at the California climate, I would have thought it was beautiful if I had been a seal. It would be beautiful anyway if one of Dykes's letters had what I was after. I wasn't asking for anything elaborate like an outline of the plot; just one little sentence would do.

When she came back, sooner than I expected, she had two bundles of white envelopes in her hands, tied with string. She put them down on the glass-topped table, sat, and pulled the end of a bowknot

I approached. "Start about a year ago. Say March of last year." I pulled a chair up. "Here, give me some."

She shook her head. "I'll do it."

"You might miss it. It might be just a vague reference."

"I won't miss it. I couldn't let you read my brother's letters, Mr. Thompson."

"Goodwin. Archie Goodwin."

"Excuse me. Mr. Goodwin." She was looking at postmarks.

Evidently she meant it, and I decided to table my motion, at least temporarily. Meanwhile I could do a job. I got out my notebook and pen and started writing at the top of a sheet:

Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin & Briggs 522 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y. Gentlemen:

I am writing to ask your advice because my brother worked for you for many years up to the time of his death. His name was Leonard Dykes. I am his sister and in his will he left everything to me, but I suppose you know that.

A man named Walter Finch has just been to see me. He says he is a literary agent. He says that last year my brother wrote a novel.

I stopped to consider. Mrs. Potter was reading a letter, with her teeth clamped on her lower lip. Well, I thought, I can put it in, and it will be easy enough to take it out if we have to. I resumed with my pen:

I already knew that

because my brother mentioned it once in a letter, but that was all I knew about it. Mr. Finch says he has a copy of the manuscript and its title is "Put Not Your Trust," and my brother put the name of Baird Archer on it as the author, but my brother really wrote it. He says he thinks that he can sell it to the movies for $50,000.00, and he says since my brother left everything to me I am the legal owner of it and he wants me to sign a paper that he is my agent and I will pay him 10 per cent of what he gets for it from the movies.

I am writing to you air mail because it is a

big sum of money and I know you will give me good advice. I don't know any lawyer here that I know I can trust. I want to know if the 10 per cent is all right and should I sign the paper. Another thing I want to know is that I haven't seen the manuscript except just the envelope he has it in and he won't leave it with me, and it seems to me I ought to see it and read it if I am going to sell it because I ought to know what I am selling.

Please answer by air mail because Mr. Finch says it is urgent and we must act quick. Thanking you very much.

Sincerely yours,

It didn't come out that way all at once. I did a lot of crossing out and changing, and the preceding was the final result, of which I made a clear copy. I read it over and passed it. There was the one sentence that might have to come out, but I hoped to God it wouldn't.

My accomplice was reading steadily, and I had kept an eye on her progress. There were four envelopes in a little stack at her right, finished, and if she had started with March and he had written one a month, she was up to July. My fingers itched to reach for the next one. I sat and controlled them until she finished another one and began folding it for return to the envelope, and then got up to take a walk. She was reading so damn slow. I crossed to the glass doors at the far end of the room and looked out. In the rain a newly planted tree about twice my height was slanting to one side, and I decided to worry about that but couldn't get my mind on it. I got stubborn and determined that I damn well was going to worry about that tree, and was fighting it out when suddenly her voice came.

"I knew there was something! Here it is. Listenl"

I wheeled and strode. She read it out.

"Here is something just for you, Peggy dear. So many things have been just for you all my life. I wasn't going to tell even you about this, but now it's finished and I have to. I have written a novel! Its title is "Put Not Your Trust." For a certain reason it can't be published under my name and I have to use a nom de plume, but that won't matter much if you know, so I'm telling you. I have

every confidence that it will be published, since I am by no means a duffer when it comes to using the English language. But this is strictly for you alone. You mustn't even tell your husband about it."