Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

Wolfe told him certainly, and he turned and went.

I looked at my watch. I addressed my employer. "Kustin phoned nearly three hours ago, as I reported. He wanted you to phone him quick so he can warn you that they're going to hold you accountable. Shall I get him?"

"No."

"Shall I call Sue or Eleanor or Blanche and make a date for tonight?"

"No."

"Shall I think of things to suggest?"

"No."

"Then it's all over? Then Corrigan wrote that thing and shot himself?"

"No. Confound it. He didn't. Take your notebook. We might as well get those statements done."

21

FORTY-EIGHT hours later, Monday morning at eleven, Inspector Cramer was back again.

At our end much had been accomplished. I had got a haircut and a shampoo. I had spent some pleasant hours with Lily Rowan. I had spent half an hour with Wellman, our client, who had called at the office after taking a plane from Chicago and was staying over to await developments. I had had two good nights' sleep and had taken a walk to the Battery and back, with a stopover at Homicide on Twentieth Street to deliver the statements Cramer had requested. I had made five copies of Corrigan's confession, from the copy Cramer had sent us as agreed. I had answered three phone calls from Saul Panzer, switched him to Wolfe, and got off the line by command. I had answered thirty or forty other phone calls, none of which would interest you. I had done some office chores, and had eaten six meals.

Wolfe had by no means been idle. He had eaten six meals too.

One thing neither of us had done, we had read no newspaper account of Corrigan's unsigned confession. There hadn't been any, though of course the death of a prominent attorney by a gunshot had been adequately covered, including pointed reference to previous regrettable occurrences connected with his firm. Evidently Cramer was saving the confession for his scrapbook, though it wasn't autographed.

Monday morning he sat in the red leather chair and announced, "The DA's office is ready to call it suicide."

Wolfe, at his desk, was pouring beer. He put the bottle down, waited for the foam to subside to the right level so that the tilt would get him beer and would also moisten his lips with foam, lifted the glass, and drank. He liked to let the foam dry on his lips, but not when there was company, so he used his handkerchief before he spoke.

"And you?"

"I don't see why not." Cramer, having accepted the invitation to help with the beer, which he rarely did, had his glass in his hand. "I could tell you how it stands."

"Please do."

"It's like this. The confession was typed on the machine in his apartment. He's had it there for years. He has always done quite a little typing-kept a supply of the firm's paper and envelopes there. His secretary, Mrs. Adams, admits that there is nothing about the typing or the text to cause a reasonable doubt that he typed it."

"Admits?"

"Yes. She defends him. She won't believe he betrayed O'Malley or committed murder." Cramer emptied bis glass and put it down. "I can give you more on the confession, plenty more, but the DA isn't prepared to impeach it, and neither am I. We can't challenge any of its facts. As for the dates of the murders, December thirtieth, February second, and February twenty-sixth, of course Corrigan had already been checked on that along with all the others. The file had him alibied for the twenty-sixth, the afternoon Rachel Abrams was killed, but digging into it we find that it's loose. We'd want to dig more on it if he was alive to take to a jury and we had to face a defense, but he's dead and there'll be no jury. We can't get a check on December fourth, the day he says he was at his office in the evening and found Dykes's manuscript and read it. There are no other dates to check."

Wolfe grunted. "How are the others on the dates? Did you go over that?"

"Some. They're all about the same as Corrigan; there's nothing too tight to rip open. As I think I told you once, none of them is completely eliminated by an alibi-except O'Malley the day Rachel Abrams was killed. He was in Atlanta, but now that we know what was in the manuscript he's out anyway. All it spilled about him was that he had been disbarred

for bribing a juror, and God knows that was no secret. Unless you think the confession lies about the manuscript?"

"No. On that point I credit it unreservedly."

"Then it doesn't matter where O'Malley was." Cramer reached to empty his bottle into his glass and settled back. "Now about the typewriter at the Travelers Club. It's still there, in an alcove off of the writing room, but it was overhauled about two months ago. That doesn't stop us, because in the firm's files we found two items Corrigan had typed on it, memoranda to Mrs. Adams. We got the original of the anonymous letter to the court informing on O'Malley and it was typed on that machine, absolutely no question about it. Corrigan used it occasionally. He ate dinner there two or three times a week and played bridge there Thursday evenings. None of the others is a member. Two of them, Kustin and Briggs, have been brought there once or twice by Corrigan for dinner, but that's all. So it looks-"

"This," Wolfe cut in, "is important. Extremely. How closely was it examined? A dinner guest might conceivably have used a typewriter, especially if he needed one that couldn't be traced to him."

"Yeah, I know. Saturday you called it a focus of interest. I had Stebbins handle it himself, with instructions to make it good, and he did. Besides, look at it. Say you're Kustin or Briggs, going there as a guest to eat with Corrigan. Say you use that typewriter for that particular purpose. You can't do it, you can't even get in that room, without either Corrigan or an attendant knowing about it, probably both of them, and that would be pretty damn dumb. Wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"So it looks as if Corrigan did inform on his partner. That alone makes the confession a lot easier to buy, signed or unsigned, and the DA's office feels the same way about it. Isn't that practically what you said Saturday? Is there anything wrong with that argument?"

"No." Wolfe made a noise that could have been a chuckle. "I will accept an apology."

"The hell you Will. For what?"

"You accused me, or Mr. Goodwin, of making that cryptic notation on Dykes's letter of resignation. Well?"

Cramer picked up his glass and drank, in no hurry. He set the glass down. "Uh-huh," he conceded. "I still say it looked like a typical Wolfe stunt, and I'm not apologizing. That's

the one detail in that confession that it's hard to dope. The confession says he made the notation in December, so of course it wasn't there when they all saw the letter last summer, that's all right, but it must have been there a week ago Saturday when the letter was sent to you. Yet three of them say it wasn't. Phelps asked his secretary, a girl named Don-dero, to see if it was in the files, and she dug it out and took it to him. O'Malley had come to the office that morning, for a conference at Corrigan's request, and was with Phelps in his room when the girl brought the letter in, and they both looked at it. They won't swear the notation wasn't on it, but they both think they would have noticed it if it had been, and they didn't notice it. Not only that, the girl says she would testify under oath that there was no such notation on the letter. She says she would positively have noticed it if it had been. Phelps dictated his letter to you, and she typed it, and Phelps signed it, and she put it and Dykes's letter of resignation, and the other material written by Dykes, into an envelope addressed to you, and sent for a messenger and took the envelope to the anteroom and left it with the switchboard girl to be given to the messenger when he came. So how do I dope it?"