Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

Wolfe grunted. "It is conceivable. And you want me to

prove it was murder and find the murderer, with evidence?"

"Yes." Wellman hesitated, opening his mouth and closing it again. He glanced at me and returned to Wolfe. "I tell you, Mr. Wolfe, I am willing to admit that what I am doing is vin-dictive and wicked. My wife thinks it is, and so does the pastor of my church. I was home one day last week, and they both said so. It is sinful to be vindictive, but here I am, and I'm going through with it. Even if it was just a hit-and-run acci-dent I don't think the police are going to find him, and what-ever it was I'm not going back to Peoria and sell groceries until he's found and made to pay for it. I've got a good paying business, and I own some property, and I never figured on dying a pauper, but I will if I have to, to get the murderous criminal that killed my daughter. Maybe I shouldn't say that. I don't know you too well, I only know you by reputation, and maybe you won't want to work for a man who can say an unchristian thing like that, so maybe it's a mistake to say it, but I want to be honest about it."

Wellman took his glasses off and started wiping them with a handkerchief. That showed his better side. He didn't want to embarrass Wolfe by keeping his eyes on him while Wolfe was deciding whether to take on a job for such an implacable bastard as John R. Wellman of Peoria, Illinois.

"I'll be honest too," Wolfe said dryly. "The morality of vengenance is not a factor in my acceptance or refusal of a case. But it was a mistake for you to say it, because I would have asked for a retainer of two thousand dollars and now I'll make it five thousand. Not merely to gouge you, though. Since the police have turned up nothing in seventeen days, it will probably take a lot of Work and money. With a few more facts I'll have enough to start on."

"I wanted to be honest about it," Wellman insisted.

When he left, half an hour later, his check was under a paperweight on my desk, along with the copy of Joan Well-man's last letter home, and there was an assortment of facts in my notebook-plenty, as Wolfe had said, for a start. I went to the hall with him and helped him on with his coat. When I opened the door to let him out he wanted to shake hands, and I was glad to oblige.

"You're sure you won't mind," he asked, "if I ring you fairly often? Just to find out if there's anything new? I'll try not to make a nuisance of myself, but I'm like that. I'm persistent."

"Any time," I assured him. "I can always say 'no progress'."

"He is good, isn't he? Mr. Wolfe?"

"He's the best." I made it positive,

"Well-I hope-all right." He crossed the sill into an icy wind from the west, and I stood there until he had descended from the stoop to the sidewalk. The shape he was in, he might have tumbled down those seven steps.

Returning down the hall, I paused a moment before enter-ing the office, to sniff. Fritz, as I knew, was doing spareribs with the sauce Wolfe and he had concocted and, though the door to the kitchen was closed, enough came through for my nose, and it approved. In the office, Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed. I picked up Wellman's check, gave it an admiring glance, went and put it in the safe, and then crossed to Wolfe's desk for another look at one of the prints of Joan Wellman's likeness. As near as you can tell from a picture, it would have been nice to know her.

I spoke. "If you're working, knock off. Dinner in ten minutes."

Wolfe's eyes opened.

I asked, "Have we got a murder or not?"

"Certainly we have." He was supercilious.

"Oh. Good for us. Because she wouldn't go for a walk in the park in February?"

"No." He humphed. "You should have a better reason."

"Me? Thanks. Me have a reason?"

"Yes. Archie. I have been training you for years to ob-serve. You are slacking. Not long ago Mr. Cramer showed us a list of names on a sheet of paper. The seventh name on that list was Baird Archer. The evening she was killed Miss Wellman had an appointment with a man named Baird Archer. Leonard Dykes who wrote that list of names was murdered. It would be silly not to hypothesize that Miss Well-man was also murdered."

I turned on my heel, took the two paces to my swivel chair, turned it so I would face him, and sat. "Oh, that," I said carelessly. "I crossed that off as coincidence."

"Pfui. It never struck you. You're slacking."

"Okay. I am not electronized."

"There is no such word."

"There is now. I've used it." I was getting indignant. "I mean I am not lightning. It was six weeks ago that Cramer showed us that list of names, and I gave it the merest glance.

I know you did too, but look who you are. What if it were the other way around? What if I had remembered that name from one short glimpse of that list six weeks ago, and you hadn't? I would be the owner of this house and the bank ac-count, and you would be working for me. Would you like that? Or do you prefer it as it is? Take your pick." He snorted. "Call Mr. Cramer." "Right." I swiveled to the phone and dialed.

3

IF YOU like Anglo-Saxon, I belched. If you fancy Latin, I eructed. No matter which, I had known that Wolfe and Inspector Cramer would have to put up with it that evening, because that is always a part of my reaction to sauerkraut. I don't glory in it or go for a record, but neither do I fight it back. I want to be liked just for myself.

If either Cramer or Wolfe noticed it he gave no sign. I was where I belonged, during an evening session in the office and, with Wolfe behind his desk and Cramer in the red leather chair, I was to one side of the line of fire. It had started off sociably enough, with Wolfe offering refreshment and Cramer choosing bourbon and water, and Fritz bringing it, and Cramer giving it a go and saying it was good whisky, which was true.

"You said on the phone," he told Wolfe, "you have some-thing I can use."

Wolfe put his beer glass down and nodded. "Yes, sir. Un-less you no longer need it. I've seen nothing in the paper re-cently about the Leonard Dykes case-the body fished out of the river nearly two months ago. Have you got it in hand?"

"No."

"Any progress?"

"Nothing-no."

"Then I would like to consult you about something, be-cause it's a little ticklish." Wolfe leaned back and adjusted himself for comfort. "I have to make a choice. Seventeen days ago the body of a young woman named Joan Wellman was found on a secluded road in Van Cortlandt Park. She

had been struck by an automobile. Her father, from Peoria, Illinois, is dissatisfied with the way the police are handling the matter and has hired me to investigate. I saw him just this evening; he left only two hours ago, and I phoned you immediately. I have reason to think that Miss Wellman's death was not an accident and that there was an important connection between the two homicides-hers and Dykes's."

"That's interesting," Cramer conceded. "Something your client told you?"

"Yes. So I'm faced with an alternative. I can make a pro-posal to your colleague in the Bronx. I can offer to tell him of this link connecting the two deaths, which will surely be of great help to him, on the condition that he collaborates with me, within reason, to satisfy my client-when the-case is solved-that I have earned my fee. Or I can make that proposal to you. Since the death of my client's daughter oc-curred in the Bronx and therefore is in your colleague's jurisdiction, perhaps I should go to him, but on the other hand Dykes was killed in Manhattan. What do you think?"