Rex Stout - A Family Affair

"Since that moment-dash-the moment that the body was discovered-dash-Mr. Goodwin and I have made various inquiries of various persons for the purpose of learning who was responsible for the death of Pierre Ducos in my house, comma, and we are going to continue such inquiries. Period. We have made them and shall make them not as licensed private investigators, comma, but as private citizens on whose private premises a capital crime has been committed. Period. We believe our right to make such an inquiry cannot be successfully challenged, comma, and if such a challenge is made we will resist it. Period. That right would not be affected by revocation of our licenses as investigators. Paragraph.

"Information obtained by us during our inquiry may be divulged by us, comma, or it may not, comma, either to the police or to the public. Period. The decision regarding disclosure will be solely at our discretion and will. Period. If the issue is raised of our responsibilities as private citizens it will of course be decided by the proper legal procedures. Period. If our licenses have not been revoked our responsibilities as private investigators will not be involved. Period. If they have been revoked those responsibilities will not exist. Paragraph.

"We will continue to cooperate with the police to the extent required by law-dash-for instance, comma, we will permit entry at any reasonable time to the room where the crime occurred. Period. We ap- prove and applaud a vigorous effort by the police to find the culprit and will continue to do so. Period."

He opened his eyes and straightened up. "On my letterhead, single-spaced, wide margins, four carbons. All to be signed by me, and by you if you wish. Give the original to Mr. Coggin. Mail one carbon to Mr. Cramer. Take one to Mr. Cohen and offer it as an item for publication in the Gazette tomorrow. If he rejects it, make it a two-column display advertisement in ten-point. Take one to the Times and offer it, not as an advertisement. If Mr. Coggin interferes by serving his warrants and arresting us before you get it typed, on being taken into custody I will exercise my right to telephone a lawyer, dictate it to Mr. Parker's secretary, and tell him what to do."

He turned his head the quarter-circle. "If you wish to comment, Mr. Coggin, you'll have to raise your voice. Mr. Goodwin will not use a noiseless typewriter."

Coggin was smiling. "It's not up to your usual standard. A lousy cheap bluff."

"Then call it. I believe that's the idiom for the proper reaction to a cheap bluff."

Wolfe turned a palm up. "Surely it's obvious; it was to Mr. Cramer. I do approve and applaud the effort by the police to do their duty under law, but in this case I hope they fail. I invite you to have a look at the room upstairs directly over my bedroom. A man was killed in it as I lay asleep. I intend to find the man who did it and bring him to account, with the help of Mr. Goodwin, whose self-esteem is as wounded as my own. He took him to that room."

His fingers curled into the palm. "No. Not a bluff. I doubt if I am taking a serious risk, but if so, then I am. The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized. You know what I told Mr. Cramer we will do if we are charged and taken, so there is no need to repeat it."

His head turned. "Type it, Archie."

I swiveled and swung the machine around and got paper and carbons. Much of the room shows in the six-by-four mirror on the wall back of my desk, so I knew I wasn't missing anything while I hit the keys, because Coggin's mouth stayed shut. His eyes were aimed in my direction. The amount of copy was just right, wide-margined, for a nice neat page. I rolled it out, removed the carbon paper, and took it to Wolfe, and he signed all of them, including the one we would keep, and I signed under him without bothering to sit and when I handed the original to Coggin he said, "I'll take the carbons too. All of them."

"Sorry," I said, "I only work here and I like the Job, so I follow instructions."

"Give them to him."

Wolfe said. "You have the notebook."

I handed them over. He put the original with them, Jiggled them on the little stand to even the edges, folded them, and stuck them in his inside breast pocket. He smiled at Wolfe. Of course the typing and signing had given him seven minutes to look at all angles. "Probably," he said, "you could name him right now and you only have to collect the pieces."

He palmed the chair arms for leverage and got to his feet. "I hope there'll be other warrants, not for material witnesses, and I hope I have it and you get ten years with no parole."

He turned and stepped, but halfway to the door he stopped and turned to say over his shoulder, "Don't come, Goodwin. You smell."

When the sound came of the front door closing, I crossed over for a look. He was out. I crossed back and said, "So you didn't give me an errand because you knew one of them would come. Wonderful."

He grunted. "I have told you a dozen times, sarcasm is the most futile of weapons. It doesn't cut, it merely bounces off. Why did he want the carbons?"

"Souvenirs. Autographs. Signed by both of us. Someday they'll be auctioned off at Sotheby's."

I looked at my watch. "It's twenty minutes to noon. Things will be all set for lunch and the customers won't start coming until nearly one. Or have you a better place to start than Felix?"

"You know I haven't. We want everything he knows about Mr. Bassett and his guests that evening. Unless-you have slept on it, so I ask again, does Philip know what was on that slip of paper?"

"It's still no. As I said, he was unloading. He thinks the name on it might have been Archie Goodwin. Pierre told him he wondered about it. All right, I probably won't be here for lunch."

"A moment. One detail. If Felix supplies names, even one, and you get to him, it might serve to tell him that Pierre told you that he saw one of them hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper. It might. Consider it."

"Yeah. And Pierre's dead."

I went to the hall and to the rack for my coat. No hat. The thermometer outside said, more like December than October, no sun, but I have rules too. No hat before Thanksgiving. Rain or snow is good for hair.

With felix it was all negatives, and negatives are no good either to write or to read. Except for preferences and opinions about food and how it should be served, I knew more about Harvey H. Bassett than he did, since I had read the newspapers twice and he may not have read them at all. Television and radio, and his working day was a good twelve hours. On the big question, the names of the guests at the dinner on October, nearly two weeks ago, he was a complete blank. He had never seen any of them before or since. All he knew was that it had been stag. Evidently he thought better of me than Philip did; he said he had some fresh pompano up from the Gulf and wanted to feed me, but I declined with thanks.

It was: when I left by the front door and headed uptown. One of my more useless habits is timing all walks, though it may be helpful only about one time in a hundred. It took nine minutes to the Gazette building. Lon Cohen's room, two doors down the hall from the publisher's on the twentieth floor, barely had enough space for a big desk with three phones on it, one chair besides his, and shelves with a few books and a thousand newspapers. It was his lunch hour, so I expected to find him alone, and he was.