Rex Stout - Death of a Dude

He grunted. "I'm not in a humour for orchids. I'm in a predicament, Miss Rowan. I am indeed at your mercy. It is necessary for me to be in this immediate neighbourhood, in easy touch with Mr Goodwin, and I don't know how long. That place near Timberburg is not a sty, it's moderately clean, but it would be an ordeal, and it's at a distance. A self-invited guest is an abomination, but there is no alternative for me. May I occupy this room?"

"Of course." She was controlling a smile. "Archie has quoted you as saying once that a guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality. I know too much about you to expect you to be a jewel, but neither will you be an abomination. You could have just told Archie to come and tell me you were going to stay, instead of getting me in and asking me. You did it very nicely. I know how you feel about guests and hosts; I have dined at your house. Before you go to bed, tell me if you want anything."

"I presumed to ask Mr Goodwin if there is an electric blanket."

"Certainly." She rose. "What else?"

"At the moment, nothing. Sit down-if you please. Mr Goodwin is going to tell me what he has done and we're going to discuss what's to be done now. I'll ask questions, and you may know the answers to some of them better than he does. Will you remain?"

"Yes. I would like to."

"Very well. My first question deals with you. It must, if I am to be a guest in your house. How and where did you spend the afternoon of Thursday, July twenty-fifth?"

I don't want to give the impression that I am trying to sell the idea that Lily Rowan, in all respects and circumstances and 365 days in the year, is a perfect female biped. Anyone who tried to sell me that idea would have an argument. But there aren't many women who wouldn't have wasted time and words, one way or another, in reacting to that question, and she didn't react at all, she merely answered it.

"Most of it fishing," she said, "in the Fishtail River. In midsummer trout are scarce in the creek and to fill a creel you have to go to the river. Around one o'clock that day Archie and I were sitting at the edge of Cutthroat Pool eating a picnic lunch. We had left our horses at the end of the trail." She turned to me. "How far were we from Blue Grouse Ridge?"

"Oh, ten or twelve miles."

Back to Wolfe. "Blue Grouse Ridge is where Philip Brodell was killed. After lunch we caught fish and took a dip in the river, which a polar bear would love, and watched beavers repairing a dam in a creek, and Archie threw a rock at a bear-black, not polar-who jumped into a pool to swim across when he had a cutthroat on. It was nearly dark when we got home, and Diana-she's a guest-said that Bill Farnham had phoned to ask if Philip Brodell was here."

"What's a cutthroat?"

"A trout with a red mark under the jaw. If I had a cap, that would be a feather in it, using a word you didn't know."

"There are thousands of words I don't know." He turned to me. "I concede that you may reasonably object that that was unnecessary. If you had not conclusively eliminated Miss Rowan, you would not have remained as her guest. I've had a long hard day and I'm tired, and my wits are slow. I haven't even asked you if you shot that man. Did you?"

"No. I was wondering why you didn't ask."

"I'm tired. But go ahead. If I find I can't keep up with you I'll say so. Report."

"I'll have to know what for," I said. "You said you don't know how long you'll stay. If you intend just to check our conclusion on Harvey and wish us luck, there's no point in-"

"How can I check your conclusion? I can only accept it or reject it. Very well, I accept it. The length of my stay depends on how long it will take us to establish his innocence."

" 'Us'?"

"Yes."

I raised a brow. "I don't know. You mean well and I deeply appreciate it, but there are a couple of snags. One, we have never worked together like this. We're equals, fellow guests of Miss Rowan. You wouldn't be paying me to run errands and follow instructions and bring anybody you wanted to see, and I would be free to balk if I thought-"

"Nonsense. I'm reasonable and so are you."

"Not always, especially you. I have known you to assume-but there's no use in going into that now. It might work. We can give it a try. Second, you'd be in the same fix as me, only worse. Nobody would tell you anything. I've been here before, as you know, but men who have pitched horseshoes and played pinochle and chased coyotes with me, and women who have danced with me, clam up when I want to discuss murder. I've had ten days of that, and you're not only a dude, you're a complete stranger and a freak that wears a vest. Even if you asked me to go and bring A or B or C, and I brought him, you would know as much when he left as when he came. He might tell you how old he is. I doubt if-"

"Archie. If your conclusion about Mr Greve is sound, and I have accepted it, someone knows something that will demonstrate it. Will my presence make it harder for you?"

"No."

"Very well. Miss Rowan has said I may occupy this room. I would appreciate a full report."

"It would take all night. We'd better go to bed and-"

"I can't go to bed until my luggage comes."

"Okay. More beer?"

He said no. I shifted in my chair and crossed my legs. "This will be the longest row of goose eggs I have ever reported. I have spent ten days on it, and as I said, I haven't got a scrap of evidence pointing to anyone. There are plenty of possibles. Two of them are your fellow guests, very handy for grilling: Miss Diana Kadany, a New York actress so far off Broadway but hoping to make it on, and Mr Wade Worthy, a writer, working on the outline of a book he's going to produce about Miss Rowan's father. They both qualify on means. In a cupboard in the storeroom, which is down the hall, there's a gun that would have done fine-a Mawdsley Special double-decker. Either of them would have trouble hitting a barn with it, let alone a barn door, as they proved a couple of weeks ago when Diana and I took on Worthy and Miss Rowan for a target tournament, but that fits in, since X was a lousy shot. So there's two possibles, right here. Morley Haight, the sheriff, didn't check the gun, with Miss Rowan's permission, until Friday afternoon. It was clean, but there had been plenty of time to see to that."

"His motive? Or hers?"

"I'll come to it. On opportunity they also qualify. Mimi Deffand, who will cook your breakfast unless you would rather do it yourself had the day off, with Miss Rowan and me picnicking at the river, and she spent it in Timberburg. I haven't pumped my fellow guests, but it appears from conversation that Diana picnicked too, up the creek at what we call the second pool, and got back around six o'clock, so Worthy was here alone. Beautiful. No alibi for either of them, and they would be hot if there was the slightest smell of motive. Neither of them had ever seen Brodell, they say. I saw him a few times last year-he and Farnham came for supper once, and we went there-and he liked shows and had been to New York, I don't know how often. I thought of writing Saul to ask him to see if he could dig up a contact between Brodell and either of them, but you know what a job that is-at five Cs a week, which is what it would cost Miss Rowan."

"That wouldn't break me," Lily said, "but I simply can't believe they were lying when they said they had never seen him or heard of him. That was the day after he came, when I told them the father of Alma's baby was back."