Rex Stout - The Father Hunt

"I would expect it to. On an excursion such as this you get nowhere again and again. Very well, we'll try another tack. When and where did you last see Elinor?"

"That Friday around noon at the studio. I was taking a plane to the coast on business, to see a scriptwriter I wanted."

"What studio?"

"Mine, of course."

"Did she speak of her plans for that evening?"

"Yes. We did. She was going to see a preview of a movie for a look at an actor we thought we might want to use."

"A preview where? At a theater?"

"No, a studio in the Bronx. That's why she took her car. Of course I went over all this with the police. They said she left the studio a little after ten that evening, and I told them she probably went for a drive. She often did. She said it relaxed her. I never saw her relaxed, not really."

"Who went to the preview with her?"

"No one." Thome emptied his glass and put it on ttc stand, started a hand for the bottle, and pulled it back. "That's marvelous cognac."

"Help yourself. I have nine bottles left. We'll start with that Friday and work back. How much were you with Elinor that morning?"

"Not much. There was a staff conference, but she had to leave it when someone came. Later I-"

"Who came?"

"A woman from an agency about a replacement their client didn't like. Just routine. Agencies' clients never like anything. Later I dictated some notes to her. Of course I had my secretary and she had hers, but she still did shorthand, and dictating to her made it different. It came out better. She was a very remarkable woman. She had offers of twice, three, or four times as much as she could make with me, agencies and public-relations people, but she turned them all down."

"Why?"

"I don't know. My guess was that they were mostly big outfits and she liked the complete freedom she had with me."

"What if I asked you to tell me everything you heard her say that morning? Could you do it?"

"My God, no. Anyway it was just business. There couldn't possibly have been anything with any hint of what was going to happen to her that night. You know, I might be better at this if I knew why you think it was premeditated murder. Goodwin told me it was Amy's in-tution. Isn't a hit-and-run nearly always just a hit-and-run?"

"Yes. I would Eke to oblige you, Mr. Thorne, if only as a token of Miss Denovo's appreciation of your willingness to help, but I can't divulge information that the police are reserving. Only five hours ago a police officer of high rank, discussing that hit-and-run with Mr. Goodwin, said, 'He got a cigar out to light it while he was parked on Second Avenue waiting for her, and there she came.' If I were free to tell you more I would. Help yourself to brandy. If you please, Archie, beer?"

That was a fair example of how to lie while sticking to

the truth. It was perfectly true that he couldn't, or anyhow shouldn't, divulge information that the police were reserving. It was also true that a high-ranking police officer had said that to me. So a truth plus a truth equaled a bare-faced lie.

It was the only one he told during the four long hours that Thome sat in the red leather chair while downing a third of a bottle of marvelous cognac. I doubted if he knew how good it was; a man had once offered Wolfe fifty bucks for a bottle of it.

The four hours took us an hour and a half past midnight, into Friday morning, and the brandy took Thome into a kind of talking trance that made him forget about time, and also seemed to oil his memory, which was just luck. He remembered Thursday a little better than Friday, and by the time they got back to Monday he was remembering so much that I began to suspect him. He had remarked at one point that he had done some script-writing, so he had had practice making things up.

But he didn't make up the thing, the thing that hit. It wasn't a smack. I damned near let it slide by. I had been sitting there listening to irrelevant trivialities for more than three hours; it was well past midnight, I had covered at least a dozen yawns, and I had been drinking milk, not brandy. They had been on Monday for maybe twenty minutes, and had got to where Thorne and Elinor were on their way out to have lunch with somebody, and Thorne was telling how the receptionist had stopped Elinor to tell her that Floyd Vance had been there again and she had had to threaten to call in a policeman if he didn't leave. The receptionist said he might be out in the hall. Elinor had thanked her and they had left. Naturally Wolfe had asked who Floyd Vance was, but Thorne knew nothing about him; he said probably some nut who wanted to peddle an idea for a show that the networks would give a million for. They were a dime a dozen.

As I said, I nearly let it slide by. It hit me a little later as I was telling my jaw and cheek muscles to get set to hide another yawn, and I made a mistake. I forgot the yawn and my jaws opened wide for it. That led me into a second mistake, which often happens. Preferring not to let Thorne know that he had told us a fact which might

be significant, I tried to go on as I had been for an hour, looking more awake and alert than I was, and I overdid it. If he had been awake and alert he would have noticed it, but by that time his talking trance was in command and it would have made no impression on him if I had wiggled my ears.

But Wolfe noticed it, and that was what kept him from going on and on and making a night of it unless Thome ran down. So it was only half past one and they had only got to the middle of Monday afternoon when he looked at the clock and said he was too tired to continue, and Thome must be too. Miss Denovo would deeply appreciate Thome's cooperation, and he and Mr. Goodwin would see if they could find a hint in any of the items Thome had supplied. As Thome used both hands on the chair arm to get to his feet I was thinking that I would have to steer him out and down the stoop steps, and possibly even go and get the Heron to cart him home, but he did all right. Going down the hall he put a hand to the wall once to steady himself, and outside he stood and brought his shoulders up and took a couple of deep breaths, but he made it down to the sidewalk without any trouble. I stayed to watch him for about thirty paces. Okay.

As I entered the office Wolfe growled at me, "You got something. What?"

I went to my desk and sat. "Nothing would please me more than to catch one you should have caught and missed, but I can't claim it on this. I think we've got a nibble. I don't know whether it's the father or the murderer, or possibly both, but I think it's a nibble. Last Sunday afternoon at Miss Rowan's place in the country three people came who had not been invited and weren't expected. Two of them were friends of hers-well, acquaintances; I had met them there before-who have a place half an hour away. The third one was their weekend house guest, a man named Floyd Vance. They said they had mentioned to him that Archie Goodwin was often at Lily Rowan's for weekends, and he had got them to drive him over because he wanted to meet me. I gathered from what he said that what he really wanted was to meet you. He said he was a public-relations counselor. He

said that if anybody needed expert handling of his public image a private detective did, and he would like to create a presentation to propose to you. He also said that if we were working on a case and I would tell him about it, he could use that as a basis for the presentation. At that, naturally, I looked and listened, but decided he was just trying to find another sucker for his racket. I now sincerely hope I was wrong. Two comments. One, there are probably very few Floyd Vances around. Two, allowing for the twenty-three years, he fits Salvatore Manzoni's description just fine."