Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

Mrs. Potter looked up at me, at her elbow. "There! I had forgotten that he mentioned the title, but I knew-no! What are you-"

She made a quick grab, but not quick enough. I had finally pounced. With my left hand I had snatched the letter from her fingers, and with my right the envelope from the table, and then backed off out of reach.

"Take it easy," I told her. "I'd go through fire for you and I've already gone through water, but this letter goes home with me. It's the only evidence on earth that your brother wrote that novel. I'd rather have this letter than one from Elizabeth Taylor begging me to let her hold my hand. If there's anything in it that you don't want read in a courtroom that part won't be read, but I need it all, including the envelope. If I had to I would knock you down and walk on you to get out of here with it. You'd better take another look at my ears."

She was indignant. "You didn't have to grab it like that."

"Okay, I was impulsive and I apologize. I'll give it back, and you can hand it to me, with the understanding that if you refuse I'll take it by force."

Her eyes twinkled, and she knew it, and flushed a little. She extended a hand. I folded the letter, put it in the envelope, and handed it to her. She looked at it, glanced at me, held it out, and I took it.

"I'm doing this," she said gravely, "because I think my brother would want me to. Poor Len. You think he was killed because he wrote that novel?"

"Yes. Now^I know it. It's up to you whether we get the guy that killed him." I got out my notebook, tore out a sheet, and handed it to her. "All you have to do is write that letter on your own paper. Maybe not quite all. I'll tell you the rest."

She started to read it. I sat down. She looked beautiful. The phony logs in the phony fireplace looked beautiful. Even the pouring rain-but no, I won't overdo it.

15

I PHONED Wolfe at 3:23 from a booth in a dragsters somewhere in Glendale. It is always a pleasure to hear him say "Satisfactory" when I have reported on an errand. This time he did better. When I had given him all of it that he needed, including the letter written by Dykes that I had in my pocket and the one written by Mrs. Potter that I had just put an air-mail stamp on and dropped in the slot at the Glendale Post Office, there was a five-second silence and then an emphatic "Very satisfactory." After another five bucks' worth of discussion of plans for the future, covering contingencies as well as possible, I dove through the rain to my waiting taxi and gave the driver an address in downtown Los Angeles. It rained all the way. At an intersection we missed colliding with a truck by an eighth of an inch, and the driver apologized, saying he wasn't used to driving in the rain. I said he soon would be, and he resented it.

The office of the Southwest Agency was on the ninth floor of a dingy old building with elevators that groaned and creaked. It occupied half the floor. I had been there once before, years back, and, having phoned that morning from the hotel that I would probably be dropping in, I was more or less expected. In a corner room a guy named Ferdinand Dolman, with two chins, and fourteen long brown hairs deployed across a bald top, arose to shake hands and exclaim heartily, "Well, well! Nice to see you again! How's the old fatty?"

Few people know Nero Wolfe well enough to call him the old fatty, and this Dolman was not one of them, but it wasn't worth the trouble to try to teach him manners, so I skipped it. I exchanged words with him enough to make it sociable and then told him what I wanted.

"I've got just the man for you," he declared. "He happens to be here right now, just finished a very difficult job. This is a break for you, it really is." He picked up a phone and told it, "Send Gibson in."

In a minute the door opened and a man entered and approached. I gave him one look, and one was enough. He had

a cauliflower ear, and his eyes were trying to penetrate a haze that was too thick for them.

Dolman started to speak, but I beat him to it. "No," I said emphatically, "not the type. Not a chance."

Gibson grinned. Dolman told him he could go, and he did so. When the door had closed behind him I got candid. "You've got a nerve, trotting in that self-made ape. If he just did a difficult job I'd hate to see who does your easy ones. I want a man who is educated or can talk like it, not too young and not too old, sharp and quick, able to take on a bushel of new facts and have them ready for use."

"Jesus." Dolman clasped his hands behind his head. "J. Edgar Hoover maybe?"

"I don't care what his name is, but if you haven't got one like that, say so, and I'll go shopping."

"Certainly we've got one. With over fifty men on the payroll? Certainly we've got one."

"Show him to me."

He finally did, I admit that, but not until after I had hung around for more than five hours and had interviewed a dozen prospects. I also admit I was being finicky, especially since there was a good chance that all he would ever do was collect his twenty a day and expenses, but after getting it set up as I had I didn't want to run a risk of having it bitched up by some little stumble. The one I picked was about my age, named Nathan Harris. His face was all bones and his fingers were all knuckles, and if I knew anything about eyes he would do. I didn't go by ears, like Peggy Potter.

I took him to my room at the Riviera. We ate in the room, and I kept him there, briefing him, until two in the morning. He was to go home and get some luggage and register at the South Seas Hotel under the name of Walter Finch, and get a room that met the specifications I gave him. I let him make notes all he wanted, with the understanding that he was to have it all in his head by the time it might be needed, which could be never. One decision I made was to tell him only what Walter Finch, the literary agent, might be expected to know, not to hold out on him but to keep from cluttering his mind, so when he left he had never heard the names of Joan Wellman or Rachel Abrams, or Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and feriggs.

Going to bed, I opened the window three inches at the bottom, and in the morning there was a pool that reached to

the edge of the rug. I got my wristwatch from the bedstand and saw 9:20, which meant 12:20 in New York. At the Glen-dale Post Office they had told me that the letter would make a plane which would land at La Guardia at eight in the morning New York time, so it should be delivered at Madison Avenue any time now, possibly right this minute as I stretched and yawned.

One of my worries was Mr. Clarence Potter. Mrs. Potter had assured me that her husband wouldn't try to interfere, whether he approved or not, but it tied a knot in me, especially with an empty stomach, to| think of the damage he could do with a telegram to Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs. It was too much for me. Before I even shut the window or went to the bathroom I called the Glendale number. Her voice answered.

"Good morning, Mrs. Potter. This is Archie Goodwin. I was just wondering-did you tell your husband about it?"

"Yes, of course. I told you I was going to."

"I know you did. How did he take it? Should I see him?"

"No, I don't think so. He doesn't quite understand it. I explained that you have no copy of the manuscript and there doesn't seem to be one anywhere, but he thinks we should try to find one and perhaps it can be sold to a movie studio. I told him we should wait for an answer to my letter, and he agreed. I'm sure he'll understand when he thinks it over."