Rex Stout - Death of a Dude

He gave Lily a politician's smile and said, "I'm sorry there was a misunderstanding, Miss Rowan. Mr Goodwin said it wouldn't hurt to say please, and I do say please. Please consider this a confidential communication. I confidently leave that to your discretion. Mr Goodwin said we should tell you what happened, and I'm going to. It won't take long. Early this morning I had a phone call from a state official in Helena-a high official. He asked me to come to his office at my earliest convenience and bring my files on the Harvey Greve case. I drove to Helena and was with him nearly three hours. He wanted a complete detailed report, and after I dictated it to his secretary he asked questions, many questions."

He turned on the politician's smile again, for Lily, then for me, and back to her. "Now that was extraordinary. As far as I know, unprecedented, for the attor-for that state official to urgently summon a county attorney to Helena to report in detail on a case he is preparing. And a murder case. Of course I asked him what had caused such sudden and urgent interest, but I got no satisfaction. When I left his office I had absolutely no idea of the reason for it; I couldn't even guess. I was twenty miles or more on my way back to Timberburg before it occurred to me that you might possibly have-er-intervened. You are concerned about Harvey Greve-properly, quite properly. You have retained Luther Dawson, an eminent member of the Montana bar, in his behalf. I know nothing of any political connections you may have, but a woman of your standing and wealth and background must be-must know many important people. So I turned around and drove back to Helena and went to see Mr Dawson and described the situation to him. He said he knew nothing of any approach to the-to that official, and after some discussion he agreed that it would be reasonable to ask you about it, and he phoned you. I am not suggesting that you may have acted improperly, not at all. But if a high state official is going to-er-interfere with my handling of an important case, I have a right to know why, and naturally I want to know, and naturally Mr Dawson does too, as counsel for the defence." The smile again. "Of course if what I have said was confidential, anything you say will be confidential too."

If they had known Lily as well as I did they would have known that the little circular movement of the toe of her shoe meant that she was good and sore. Also one of her eyes, the left, was slightly narrower than the other, which was even worse. "You're asking me," she said, "if I have pulled some strings with someone in Helena."

"Well… I wouldn't put it in those terms."

"I would and do. What I say isn't confidential, Mr Jessup. I am suggesting that you have acted improperly. You're on the other side. Why should you ask me anything at all or expect me to tell you anything? If you'll go and sit in the car, Mr Dawson will come in a minute."

"I assure you, Miss Rowan-"

"Damn it, do you want Mr Goodwin to drag you?" She stood up, presumably to help me drag.

Jessup looked at me, then at Dawson. Dawson shook his head. Jessup, not smiling, got up and went, dignified, in no hurry. When he was in the car, some twenty paces away, Lily turned to the counsel for the defence. "I don't know if you've acted improperly or not, Mr Dawson, and I don't care. Even if it was proper I don't like it, but I'll relieve your mind so you can use it for representing your clients, including Harvey Greve. I have approached or consulted no one 'other than local people,' no one in Helena or anywhere else, and I have no idea why a state official is interested in the case. Have you, Archie?"

"No."

"Then that's settled. Let's go get a drink." She headed for the cabin door, and I followed.

Inside, she went left, to the door to the long hall, but I stayed in the big room long enough to see Dawson join Jessup in the car and take the wheel. When the car had disappeared around a bend in the lane I proceeded to the hall and on to the kitchen. Lily was putting ice cubes in a pitcher, and Mimi was at the centre table, slicing tomatoes brought by me from Vawter's.

"I'm trying to remember," Lily said, "if I was ever as mad as I am now."

"Oh, sure," I said. "More than once." I got out my wallet and produced two singles and offered them. "You win, damn it."

"Win what?"

Mimi's round blue eyes, which fitted her round face, which fitted all her other roundnesses, darted a glance at the bills and returned to the tomatoes. We talked as freely in her presence as Wolfe and I did in Fritz's. "I said," I told Lily, "that one would get you two that there was going to be some kind of a break. Here's the two. There will be no break."

"But I didn't take the bet. How do you know? If a high state official is interested-"

"Yeah, the Attorney General." I stuck the bills in a pocket and brought gin and vermouth from a shelf. "He almost said it once. Haven't you guessed who that report was for?"

"No." She cocked her head at me. "So you have approached somebody."

"No, not me. But one will get you ten that I know who did. I'm a detective, I figure things. I mailed that letter Saturday. He got it yesterday morning, and when he went up to the orchids he was harder for Theodore to take than usual. His appetite was off at lunch. Actually I am not absolutely essential to his convenience and comfort and welfare, nobody is, but he comes close to thinking I am. My letter left it wide open when he could expect me back-a week, a month, two months, no telling-and he hates uncertainty."

"So he phoned the Attorney General of Montana and demanded a complete detailed report pronto."

"No, but he phoned somebody." The ingredients were in and I started stirring. "There are a lot of people who are grateful for something he did, even after paying the bill, and a few of them are the kind who might phone a governor or even a president, let alone an attorney general. He phoned one of them, maybe more than one, and he phoned Helena. It wasn't any great favour to ask, just a report. The gist of it will probably be that the evidence against Harvey is all wool, from Montana sheep and two yards wide. If by phone he may have it already, and his appetite for dinner will be even worse." I looked at my wrist. "He's at the table now. It's seven-thirty-two in New York."

I put the glass rod down, picked up the pitcher, and poured. As she picked up her glass she said, "I admit that's good guessing, but you're not sure. Anyway I'm not. There could be a break." She raised the glass high. "To Harvey."

"One will get you ten. To Harvey."

If she had taken my ten-to-one offer, whether I had made a bad bet or not would have depended on whether what happened twenty-six hours later, around eight o'clock Wednesday evening, should be regarded as a break, and that would have depended on who did the regarding. I had spent the day scouting around making useless motions, trying to find a stone with something under it, and it was getting me down. At the supper table I had certainly contributed nothing to help to make it a jolly meal, and when the coffee was finished I had said I had a letter to write and gone to my room. I did want to write something, but not a letter. I was going to do something desperate, something I had never done before: write down every damned fact I had collected in ten days, at least every fact that could conceivably mean anything, and try to find connections or contradictions that would point somewhere. I was at the table by an open window, with a pad and a supply of pencils, considering where to start, when I heard a car coming up the lane. I couldn't see it because my room was on the creek side. The others were closer than I was, and the fact that I jumped up instantly and scooted to the big room showed what shape I was in. Pitiful. Diana was at the piano and Lily was at the screen door looking out, and I joined her. The car was there, a taxi from Timberburg. It would soon be dusk, but there was light enough to see the man at the wheel stick his head out of the window and call, "Is this Lily Rowan's place?"