Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

"Why not?" It came from two of the women in unison. It was the first cheep out of them.

"If he didn't know what was in the manuscript, and he didn't, why did he kill people? There is no discernible reason. If he didn't kill people, why does he confess to it? No, he didn't write this."

"Did he kill himself?" Mrs. Adams blurted. She looked ten years older, and she was already old enough.

"I shouldn't think so. If he did, it was he who got me on the phone to hear the shot and told me he had mailed me a letter, meaning this-"

"What's that?" Cramer demanded. "He said he had mailed you a letter?"

"Yes. I left that out of my report to you because I don't want my mail intercepted. He said that. Mr. Goodwin heard it. Archie?"

"Yes, sir."

"And since he didn't write this thing he would hardly tell me he had mailed it to me. No, madam, he didn't kill himself. We might as well deal with that next-unless someone wants to maintain that Corrigan wrote the confession?"

No one did.

Wolfe took them in. "For this a new character is required, and we'll call him X. This will have to be a hodgepodge party, partly what he must have done and partly what he could have done. Certainly he spent some hours yesterday between noon and ten in the evening at Corrigan's apartment, composing and typing this document. Certainly Corrigan was there too. He had been hit on the head, and was either unconscious from the blow or had been tied and gagged. I prefer it that he was conscious, knowing something of X as I do, and that X, as he typed the confession-which may have been composed beforehand and merely had to be copied-read it aloud to Corrigan. He wore gloves, and, when he was through, he pressed Corri-gan's fingertips to the paper and envelope here and there, certainly on the postage stamp.

"I don't know whether his schedule was left to exigency or was designed, but I would guess the latter, for X is fond of alibis, and we'll probably find that he has one ready for last evening from nine-thirty to ten-thirty. Anyway, at ten o'clock he turned on the radio, if he hadn't already done so, hit Corrigan on the head again, at the same spot as before, with something heavy and hard enough to stun but not kill, put him on the floor near the telephone, and dialed my number. While talking to me, making the voice unrecognizable with huskiness and agitation, he pressed the muzzle of Corrigan's own revolver against his head and, at the proper moment, pulled the trigger and dropped the gun and the phone on the floor. He may also have fallen heavily to the floor himself; I think he would have. If he did he didn't stay there long. I said he was wearing gloves. He made Corrigan's dead hand grip the gun, put the gun on the floor, and left, perhaps twenty seconds after the shot had been fired. I haven't even inquired if the door had to be locked from the outside with a key; if it did, X had had ample opportunity to procure one. He dropped the letter to me, this confession, into the nearest mailbox. I lose him at the mailbox. We'll hear of his next move when we are confronted with his alibi."

Wolfe's eyes moved. "I invite comment."

Three lawyers spoke at once. Cramer outspoke them. "How much of it can you prove?"

"Nothing. Not a word."

"Then what does it get us?"

"It clears away the rubbish. The rubbish was the assumption that Corrigan wrote that confession and killed himself. I have shown that one is false and the other is not invulnerable. Depriving you of a suicide was simple. Giving you a murder, and a murderer, is harder. May I proceed?"

"If you've got something better than guesses, yes."

"I've got a question," Kustin put in. "Is this a buildup for charging someone in this room with murder?"

"Yes."

"Then I want to speak with you privately."

"The devil you do." Wolfe was indignant. To control his emotions, he closed his eyes and waggled his head. Then he

told Kustin dryly, "So you're beginning to see something, now that I've cleared away some of the rubbish? And you'd like to point at it? I'll do the pointing, Mr. Kustin." His eyes moved. "Before I go on to particulars, another comment. At my first reading of this"-he tapped the paper-"I saw the flaw that told me that Corrigan hadn't written it: his performance in Los Angeles made it obvious that he had never read the manuscript. But it could have been written by you, Mr. Kustin, or you, Mr. Phelps, or you, Mr. Briggs. It could have been any one of you, instead of Corrigan, who had done the deeds which this document attributes to Corrigan. That was why it was of first importance to learn if any of you had had access to the typewriter at the Travelers Club. Learning that you hadn't, and therefore had not exposed O'Malley, it was clear that if one of you had committed three murders it must have been for some other motive than concealment of a betrayal of your former partner."

"Get down to it," Cramer growled.

Wolfe ignored him. He looked over the heads of the lawyers and inquired abruptly, "Is one of you ladies named Dondero?"

I twisted my neck. Sue was one of the four on the couch. Startled, she stared at him. "Yes, I am." She was a little flushed and pretty as a picture.

"You are Mr. Phelps's secretary?"

"Yes."

"A week ago Saturday, nine days ago, Mr. Phelps dictated a brief letter to me, to be sent by messenger. There were en›-closures for it-items of material written by Leonard Dykes, from the files, including a letter of resignation he wrote last July. Do you remember that incident?"

"Yes. Certainly."

"I understand that you have recently been questioned about it by the police; that you have been shown the Dykes letter and your attention has been called to a certain notation, 'Ps one-forty-six, three,' in a corner of it, in pencil, in a handwriting resembling Corrigan's; and that you state flatly that the notation was not on the letter that Saturday morning when it was sent to me. Is that correct?"

"Yes, it is," Sue said firmly.

"Are you positive the notation was not on the letter at the time you enclosed it in the envelope with the other material?"

"I am."

"You're a positive person, aren't you, Miss Dondero?"

"Well-I know what I saw and what I didn't see."

"Admirable and remarkable." Wolfe was terse but not hostile. "Few of us can say that and support it. How many typewriters did you use that morning?"

"I don't know what you mean. I used one. Mine."

"Mr. Phelps dictated the letter to me, and you typed it on your machine. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"And you addressed an enevelope to me on the same machine?"

"Yes."

"How positive are you of that?"

"I'm absolutely positive."

"How much chance is there that for some trivial reason, no matter what, you used a different machine for addressing the envelope?"

"Absolutely none. I was there at my desk, and I did the envelope right after I typed the letter. I always do."

"Then we have a problem." Wolfe opened a drawer of his desk and took out a sheet of paper and an envelope, handling the envelope gingerly, holding it by a corner. "This is the letter and the envelope; Mr. Goodwin will attest that and so will I. The variation is apparent to the naked eye, and I have examined them with a glass. They were not typed on the same machine."