Rex Stout - The Final Deduction

“She still might. I must tell you that, if she does, my share will be legally collectible and I’ll collect it.”

“Sure, why not? You won’t have to. My mother won’t renege. What’s the point I have to agree on?”

“It’s a series of assumptions, and you may not like them. The first and basic one is that Mr Vail’s death was not an accident. He was murdered.”

“Huh?” Tedder uncrossed his legs and sat up. “He pulled that goddam statue over on him.”

“No.” Wolfe was emphatic. “I concede that that’s conceivable; it may even be sufficiently plausible for the police to accept it; but I reject it. There is no implication in the published accounts that he was drunk. Was he?”

“No.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“He had had a couple, not more. His usual, bourbon and water. He could handle half a dozen. He wasn’t even started. He was just sleepy. He said he couldn’t keep his eyes open and went to the couch.”

“And later, after you and the others had gone- Did you turn the lights off when you left?”

“All but one. Mother said to leave one on.”

“A good light?”

“Fairly good. A floor lamp by the wall.”

“And he awoke enough to realize where he was, leave the couch, stand, and walk; and, losing his balance, he caught at the statue, which was insecure, and brought it down on him. It’s possible, but I don’t believe it. I do not believe that a man awake enough to walk would be so befuddled that he couldn’t dodge a falling statue. Was it on a direct line from the couch to the door?”

“Not direct, but not far out.” Tedder was squinting again. “You said murder. How? Was he so sound asleep that he didn’t wake up when someone dragged him off the couch and over to the statue and pushed it over on him? Do you believe that?”

“No. He was drugged.”

“The hell he was.”

“He must have been. In one of his drinks. The handiest assumption is chloral hydrate, which is easily procured. In solution in an alcoholic beverage it has almost no taste. A moderate dose induces a deep sleep approaching coma. It decomposes rapidly and will not be detected by an autopsy unless it is performed within three or four hours after death, and even then the only reliable test is identification of urochloralic acid in the urine. That test is made only when chloral hydrate is specifically suspected, and with Mr Vail I doubt if it was. I am not parading; I had this surmise yesterday and consulted a book.”

He hadn’t mentioned it to me; it would have been admitting that Jimmy Vail’s death might possibly be of interest to us. We had several books on toxicology on the shelves, but he hadn’t been here yesterday, so he must have found one when he was going over Doc Vollmer’s shelves. I had had personal experience of chloral hydrate, having once been served a Mickey Finn by a woman named Dora Chapin [see The League of Frightened Men ]. Two hours after I had swallowed it you could have rowed me out to Bedloe’s Island and pushed the Statue of Liberty onto me and I wouldn’t have batted an eye.

Wolfe was going on. “So that Mr Vail was murdered with deliberation may properly be called a deduction, not an assumption. Not a final deduction, but a basic one, for it is the ground for my assumptions. Whether you like it or not, do you concur?”

“I don’t know.” Tedder’s tongue showed between his lips. “Go on with your assumptions.”

“They’re purely tentative, to establish a starting point. But first another deduction, made three days ago, on Tuesday, by Mr Goodwin and me. Dinah Utley, your mother’s secretary, was implicated in the kidnaping, and not indirectly or passively. She had an active hand in it. Her death-”

“How do you know that?”

“By observed evidence and interpretation of it. I’ll reserve it. I’m exposing my position, Mr Tedder, because I have to if you’re going to occupy it with me, but I need not reveal all the steps that have led to it. I’m taking your good faith as a working hypothesis, but there is still that conjecture-that you had a part in the kidnaping and you know where the money is. If so, it was an egregious blunder to come to me. I’ll get my share of the money, and you’ll get your share of doom. Do you want to withdraw before I commit myself to this mad gamble? Do you want to leave?”

“Hell no. You talk a lot and you talk big.”

“I hope to the point-our starting point. I am almost there. Miss Utley was involved in the kidnaping and was murdered. Mr Vail was the victim of the kidnaping and was murdered. My assumptions are, first, that both murders were consequential to the kidnaping operation; and second, that the person who killed Mr Vail, with premeditation since he drugged him, being involved in the kidnaping, knows where the money is. He was present at the gathering at that house Wednesday evening. Therefore, if we are to find the money, our starting point is that house and its occupants. If you will proceed from that point with me, I’ll accept your proposal.”

Tedder was chewing his lip. “Jesus,” he said. He chewed some more. “The way you put it… I guess I’m in over my head. You’re saying one of them killed Jimmy-Uncle Ralph or Frost or my sister.”

“Or your mother or you.”

“Sure, we were there.” He shook his head. “Holy Christ. My mother, that’s crazy. Me, I liked Jimmy. He couldn’t see me, but I liked him. Uncle Ralph-”

“That’s irrelevant, Mr Tedder. The murder resulted from the kidnaping-my assumption. The kidnaper wished him no harm and rendered him none; he only wanted the money. Logically that excludes your mother, but not you. There are several possibilities. For one, Miss Utley was killed because she demanded too large a share of the loot. For another, Mr Vail was killed because he had learned that one of those present Wednesday evening was responsible for the kidnaping, and of course that wouldn’t do. We ignore the mysterious Mr Knapp perforce, because we don’t know who or where he is. Presumably he was a confederate whose chief function was to make the phone calls, but he may also have got the money from your mother, since he spoke to her, and if he has bolted with it, we’re done before we start. We could expose the murderer, to no profit, but that’s all. I say ‘we.’ Is it ‘we’? Do we proceed?”

“How?”

“First I would need to speak at length, separately, with those who were present Wednesday evening, beginning with you. You would have to bring them here, or send them, by some pretext-or some inducement, perhaps a share of the money. Then I’ll see.”

“Great. Just great. I ask them-my sister, for instance-to come and let you grill her to find out if she kidnaped Jimmy and then killed him. Great.”

“You might manage to put it more tactfully.”

“Yeah, I might.” He leaned forward. “Look, Mr Wolfe. Maybe you’ve got it right, your deductions and assumptions, and maybe not. If you have and you find the money, okay, I’ll get mine and you’ll get yours. I don’t owe my uncle a damn thing, and God knows I don’t owe that lawyer, Andrew Frost, anything. He talked my mother out of letting me have-oh, to hell with it. As for my sister, I’m not her keeper, repeat not-she can look out for herself. You try putting it to her tactfully and see what-”