Rex Stout - Murder by the Book

and Cynthia Free to Orrie, telling them all to collect additional names and keep going. Then I hiked to the subway.

Down at Homicide on West Twentieth Street I learned how sour Cramer was. Over the years my presence has been requested at that address many times. When it's a case of our having something he would like to get, or he thinks it is, I am taken inside at once to his own room. When it's only some routine matter, I am left to Sergeant Purley Stebbins or one of the bunch. When all that is really wanted or expected is a piece of my hide, I am assigned to Lieutenant Rowcliff. If and when I am offered a choice of going to heaven or hell it will be simple; I'll merely ask, "Where's Rowcliff?" We were fairly even-he set my teeth on edge about the same as I did his-until one day I got the notion of stuttering. When he gets worked up to a certain point he starts to stutter. My idea was to wait till he was about there and then stutter just once. It more than met expectations. It made him so mad he had to stutter, he couldn't help it, and then I complained that he was mimicking me. From that day on I have had the long end and he knows it.

I was with him an hour or so, and it was burlesque all the way, because Wolfe had already given them my story and there was nothing I could add. Rowcliff's line was that I had overstepped when I searched her desk and took the notebook, which was true, and that I had certainly taken something besides the notebook and was holding out. We went all around that, and back and forth, and he had a statement typed for me to sign, and after I signed it he sat and studied it and thought up more questions. Finally I got tired.

"Look," I told him, "this is a lot of bull and you know it. What are you trying to do, b-b-b-break my spirit?"

He clamped his jaw. But he had to say something. "I'd rather b-b-b-break your goddam neek," he stated. "Get the hell out of here."

I went, but not out. I intended to have one word with Cramer, Down the hall I took a left turn, strode to the door at the end, and opened it without knocking. But Cramer wasn't there, only Purley Stebbins, sitting at a table working with papers.

"You lost?" he demanded.

"No. I'm giving myself up. I just c-c-c-cooked Rowcliff and ate him. Aside from that, I thought someone here might want to thank me. If I hadn't been there today, the precinct boys

would probably have called it a jump or a fall, and no one would have ever gone through that book and found those entries."

Purley nodded. "So you found the entries."

"So I did."

"And took the book home to Wolfe."

"And then, without delay, turned it over."

"By God, so you did. Thank you. Going?"

"Yes. But I could use a detail without waiting for the morning paper. What's in the lead on how Rachel Abrams got out of the window?"

"Homicide."

"By flipping a coin?"

"No. Finger marks on her throat. Preliminary, the M.E. says she was choked. He thinks not enough to kill her, but we won't know until they're through at the laboratory."

"And I missed him by three minutes."

Purley cocked his head. "Did you?"

I uttered a colorful word. "One Rowcliff on the squad is enough," I told him and beat it. Out in the anteroom I went to a phone booth, dialed, got Wolfe, and reported, "Excuse me for interrupting your dinner, but I need instructions. I'm at Homicide on Twentieth Street, without cuffs, after an hour with Rowcliff and a word with Purley. From marks on her throat the dope is that she was choked and tossed out the window. I told you so. I divided the three names Mrs. Abrams gave me among the help, and told them to get more and carry on. There should be another call on the family either tonight or tomorrow, but not by me. Mrs. Abrams might open up for Saul, but not for me, after today. So I need instructions."

"Have you had dinner?"

"No."

"Come home."

I went to Tenth Avenue and flagged a taxi. It was still drizzling.

6

WOLFE does not like conferences with clients. Many's the time he has told me not to let a client in. So when, that evening, following instructions, I phoned Wellman at his hotel and asked him to call at the office the next morning at eleven, I knew it looked as bad to Wolfe as it did to me.

Eight days had passed since we had seen our client, though we had had plenty of phone calls from him, some local and some from Peoria. Apparently the eight days hadn't done him any good. Either he was wearing the same gray suit or he had two of them, but at least the tie and shirt were different. His face was pasty. As I hung his coat on the rack I remarked that he had lost some weight. When he didn't reply I thought he hadn't heard me, but after we had entered the office and he and Wolfe had exchanged greetings and he was in the red leather chair, he apologized.

"Excuse me, what did you say about my weight?"

"I said you had lost some."

"I guess so. I haven't been eating much and I don't seem to sleep. I go back home and go to the office or the warehouse, but I'm no darned good, and I take a train back here, and I'm no good here either." He went to Wolfe. "He told me on the phone you didn't have any real news but you wanted to see me."

Wolfe nodded. "I didn't want to, I had to. I must put a question to you. In eight days I have spent-how much, Archie?"

"Around eighteen hundred bucks."

"Nearly two thousand dollars of your money. You said you were going through with this even if it pauperized you. A man should not be held to a position taken under stress. I like my clients to pay my bills without immoderate pangs. How do you feel now?"

Wellman looked uncomfortable. He swallowed. "I just said I don't eat much."

"I heard you. A man should eat." Wolfe gestured. "Perhaps I should first describe the situation. As you know, I regard it as

established that your daughter was murdered by the man who, calling himself Baird Archer, phoned for an appointment with her. Also that he killed her because she had read the manuscript she told about in her letter to you. The police agree."

"I know they do." Wellman was concentrating. "That's something. You did that."

"I did more. Most of your money has been spent in an effort to find someone who could tell us something about either the manuscript or Baird Archer, or both. It missed success by a – narrow margin. Yesterday afternoon a young woman named r Rachel Abrams was murdered by being pushed from a window of her office. Mr. Goodwin entered her office three minutes later. This next detail is being withheld by the police and is not for publication. In a notebook in her desk Mr. Goodwin found entries showing that last September a Baird Archer paid her ninety-eight dollars and forty cents for typing a manuscript. Of course that clinches it that your daughter was killed because of her knowledge of the manuscript, but I was already acting on that assumption, so it doesn't help any. We are-"

"It proves that Baird Archer did it!" Wellman was excited. "It proves that he's still in New York! Surely the police can find him!" He came up out of the chair. "I'm going-"

"Please, Mr. Wellman." Wolfe patted the air with a palm. "It proves that the murderer was in that building yesterday afternoon, and that's all. Baird Archer is still nothing but a name, a will-o'-the-wisp. Having missed Rachel Abrams by the merest tick, we still have no one alive who has ever seen or heard him. As for finding his trail from yesterday, that's for the police and they do it well; we may be sure that the building employees and tenants and passers-by are being efficiently badgered. Sit down, sir."