Rex Stout - The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“Mr. Wolfe is busy. I’ll see. Step in?”

They entered. I took them into the front room, glanced at the soundproofed door connecting with the office to check that it was closed, invited them to sit, and left them. Going by way of the hall, I shut that door, returned to the office, and told Wolfe, “Two tidbits in the front room. One named Horan, who wanted you to cough up the ten grand, with a sidekick named Maddox.”

He ran true to form. He glowered at me. Having finished with the briefing, he was all set to relax with a book, and here I was bringing him work to do. If we had been alone he would have indulged in one or two remarks, but after what he had just been telling the squad about hopelessness he had to control it, and I admit he did it like a man.

“Very well. Let Saul and Fred and Orrie out first, after you have given them expense money as specified.”

I went to the safe for the dough.

Chapter 8

From their manner, and glances that passed between them as I ushered the callers into the office and got them into chairs, I gathered that I had been too hasty in assuming they were sidekicks. The glances were not affectionate.

Dennis Horan was a little too much. His eyelashes were a little too long, and he was a little too tall for his width and a little too old for campus tailoring. He needed an expert job of toning down, but since he had apparently spent more than forty years toning up I doubted if he would consider an offer.

Maddox made it plain to Wolfe that his name was James Albert Maddox. He had been suffering with ulcers from the cradle on, close to half a century-or if not, it was up to him to explain how his face had got so sour that looking at him would have turned his own dog into a pessimist. I put them into a couple of the yellow chairs which the boys had vacated, not knowing which of them, if either, rated the red leather one.

Horan opened up. He said that he had not intended, on the phone that morning, to intimate that Wolfe was doing or contemplating anything improper or unethical. He had merely been trying to safeguard the interests of his former friend and client, Mrs. Damon Fromm, who had been-

“Not your client,” interposed Maddox in a tone that matched his face perfectly.

“I advised her,” Horan snapped.

“Badly,” Maddox snapped back.

They regarded each other. Not sidekicks.

“Perhaps,” Wolfe suggested dryly, “it would be well for each of you to tell me, without interruption, to what extent and with what authority you represent Mrs. Fromm. Then contradictions can be composed or ignored as may seem desirable. Mr. Horan?”

He was controlling himself. His thin tenor was still thin, but it wasn’t as close to a squeak as it had been on the phone. “It is true that I was never Mrs. Fromm’s attorney of record in any action. She consulted me in many matters and showed that she valued my advice by frequently acting upon it. As counsel for the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons, which I still am, I was closely associated with her. If she were alive I don’t think she would challenge my right to call myself her friend.”

“Are you an executor of her estate?”

“No.”

“Thank you. Mr. Maddox?”

It hurt him, but he delivered. “My law firm, Maddox and Welling, was counsel for Damon Fromm for twelve years. Since his death we have been counsel for Mrs. Fromm. I am the executor of her estate. I interrupted because Mr. Horan’s statement that Mrs. Fromm was his client was not true. I have something to add.”

“Go ahead.”

“This morning-no, this afternoon-Mr. Horan phoned and told me of the check Mrs. Fromm gave you yesterday, and of his conversation with you. His call to you was gratuitous and impertinent. My call on you now is not. I ask you formally, as Mrs. Fromm’s counsel and executor of her estate, under what arrangement and for what purpose did she give you her check for ten thousand dollars? If you prefer to tell me privately, let us withdraw. Mr. Horan insisted on coming with me, but this is your house, and that young man looks quite capable of dealing with him.”

If he intended the glance he shot at me to be complimentary, I’d hate to have him give me one of disapproval.

Wolfe spoke. “I don’t prefer to tell you privately, Mr. Maddox. I prefer not to tell you at all.”

Maddox didn’t look any sourer, because he couldn’t. “Do you know law, Mr. Wolfe?”

“No.”

“Then you should seek advice. Unless you can establish that Mrs. Fromm received value for that payment, I can compel you to disgorge it. I am giving you a chance to establish it.”

“I can’t. She received nothing. As I told Mr. Horan on the phone, I intend to earn that money.”

“How?”

“By making sure that the murderer of Mrs. Fromm is exposed and punished.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s the function of officers of the law. The information I got about you today, on inquiry, indicated that you are not a shyster, but you sound like one.”

Wolfe chuckled. “You’re prejudiced, Mr. Maddox. The feeling of virtuous lawyers toward shysters is the same as that of virtuous women toward prostitutes. Condemnation, certainly; but somewhere in it one tiny grain of envy, not to be recognized, let alone acknowledged. But don’t envy me. A shyster is either a fool or a fanatic, and I am neither. I would like to ask a question.”

“Ask it.”

“Did you know that Mrs. Fromm intended to call on me, before she came?”

“No.”

“Did you know that she had called on me, after she came?”

“No.”

Wolfe’s eyes moved. “You, Mr. Horan? Both questions.”

“I don’t see-” Horan hesitated. “I question your right to ask them.”

Maddox looked at him. “Meet him, Horan. You insisted on coming. You have claimed that Mrs. Fromm consulted you on important matters. He’s trying to lay ground. If he can establish that she told either you or me that she was coming to him, or had come, without disclosing what for, he’ll take the position that manifestly she didn’t want us to know and therefore he can’t betray the confidence. Head him off.”

Horan wasn’t buying it. “I will not,” he insisted, “submit to a cross-examination.”

Maddox started to argue, but Wolfe cut in. “Your elucidation may be acute as far as it goes, Mr. Maddox, but you don’t appreciate Mr. Horan’s difficulty. He is stumped. If to my second question he says yes, you’re right, I have a weapon and I’ll use it. But if he says no, then I ask him how he knew that Mrs. Fromm had given me a check. I’ll want to know, and I should think you will too.”

“I already know. At least I know what he told me. This morning, when he heard of Mrs. Fromm’s death, he telephoned her home and spoke with Miss Estey, Mrs. Fromm’s secretary, and she told him about the check. I was in the country for the weekend, and Horan got me there. I drove to town immediately.”

“Where in the country?”

Maddox’s chin went up. “That’s sheer impudence.”