Rex Stout - Death of a Dude

Jessup motioned me in, followed, and shut the door. He was about as slim and trim as usual from the neck down, but his eyes were red and the lids puffed and he hadn't shaved. There were a desk and a table in that room, but no one was at them, and there was no one in the inner room he ushered me to. There was good light from the three windows, and he looked at me and said, "I don't see any marks."

"None anywhere," I said, "except maybe my shoulder where Welch kicked me. I resisted arrest by ducking when he swung a wide one." I put my hands out, and as he used the key on the handcuffs and slipped them off he asked, "How much have you talked?"

"Not at all, except telling Welch what 'stand mute' means and saying I wanted to phone a lawyer named Jessup. That was around three o'clock this morning. Since then there has been no one to talk to."

"Haight?"

"No sign of him."

"Well, you'll do some talking now, but first-" He pointed to a carton with cord around it on a chair. "That's from Miss Rowan. A snack, she said. Do you want to eat first or talk first?"

I said I would rather get the talking done and take my time with the eating, and he went to his chair behind his desk. As I took one across from him he got an envelope from his breast pocket. "This explains itself," he said, and offered it, and I reached to take it. It wasn't sealed, and it held a single sheet of paper, Lily's Bar JR letterhead, and the writing on it, in a hand I knew, said:

AG: I have spoken at length with Mr Jessup and have reserved nothing relevant to the inquiry we are engaged on. Therefore neither will you. We are committed with him irrevocably, and I think he is with us. August 11, 1968 NW

I folded it and put it in the envelope and stretched across to hand it back to Jessup. "I'd like to have it later," I said, "as a souvenir, but Welch will frisk me again when he gets me back. Okay, I talk, but first a couple of questions. Where is Mr Wolfe?"

"At Miss Rowan's cabin. I have certified in writing that he is under arrest, that his movements are under my control, and that he is not to be molested without reference to me. The legal force of that document is questionable, but it will probably serve. Your other question?"

"What dented Sam Peacock's skull?"

"A rock not much bigger than your fist. He was hit with it four or five times. It was found there on the ground about twenty feet from the car. Dr Hutchins is sending it to the laboratory at Helena, but from his own examination he is certain it is the weapon. He says its surface is too rough for finger-prints. It could have been picked up anywhere. As you know, that's rocky ground."

"Has anybody got any ideas? Any you've heard about?"

"No. Except about you, of course. You were there, and you know how that is. In that note Wolfe says that you are irrevocably committed with me, and he thinks I am with you, and he's right. I'm stuck with you, and I hope to God I don't spend the rest of my life regretting it. After my talk with Wolfe I am completely satisfied that you didn't kill Sam Peacock, but that doesn't help much. It doesn't help at all with the squeeze I'm in. Wolfe thinks the two murders are connected, Brodell and Peacock, and I suppose you do."

"Certainly. Any odds you name, you've got a bet."

"Why?"

"I'll get to that." I leaned back and crossed my legs. The chair was a big improvement on the stool in my cell. "Naturally you want to compare what I say with what Mr Wolfe said. Starting where?"

"The day he came. If it's more than I want, I'll tell you."

I talked. It required no special effort, since I was to reserve nothing relevant. The only point that needed consideration, as I went along, was whether this or that detail belonged in, and I gave most of them the benefit of the doubt and included them. One that I omitted was the phone calls to Saul Panzer; he was two thousand miles from Jessup's jurisdiction. For the conversations, I gave him summaries of all of them except Wolfe's with Sam Peacock Friday evening; I reported that verbatim. He was a good listener and interrupted with questions only twice, and he took no notes at all. I ended with the last two relevant conversations, mine with Peggy Truett on the dance floor and mine with Wolfe in the Museum.

"Then," I said, "we went out to the car and opened the door, and there it was. I doubt if you need or want what happened next, since it's relevant to me but not to the inquiry. I'm getting hoarse because my throat's dry. The room service downstairs is none too good. Is there water handy?"

"I'm sorry. I apologize. I should have-" He was out of his chair. "Scotch or rye?"

I said just water would do but scotch would be welcome if it wanted in, and he went to a copper-coloured refrigerator in a corner and took things out. A woman would have found only one flaw: he didn't use a tray. I found none. When he returned to his chair there was on the desk in front of me a man-sized glass containing two ice cubes immersed in whisky, and a pitcher of water, and he had a glass too. I filled mine to the top, put the pitcher in his reach, took a healthy sip, and cleared my throat.

"That helps," I said, and took another sip. "Now connecting the two murders. Of course the first point is that Mr Wolfe and I want them to be connected, but there are other points. There at Farnham's Friday evening Mr Wolfe let them all hear him concentrate on Sam Peacock, and he made it obvious that he was by no means through with him. It could be that one of them knew that Sam had seen or heard something that Mr Wolfe must not know about, but it doesn't have to be. All of Farnham's crowd were there last night, and one of them may have told somebody how Nero Wolfe had concentrated on Sam." I took a swallow and put the glass down. "The shortest way to say what I'm saying is to repeat what Mr Wolfe once told a man: 'In a world of cause and effect, all coincidences are suspect.' There were more than two hundred people there last night, maybe three hundred, and one of them was murdered, and which one was it? It was the man who had been alone with Brodell the two days before he was murdered and who was going to be worked on by an expert. I not only suspect that coincidence, I reject it."

Jessup nodded. "So does Wolfe."

"Sure. He thinks things through like me. Did my report match his fairly well?"

"Not fairly. Perfectly."

"He has a good memory. This drink has reminded me that I'm hungry. When I smelled the Sunday dinner downstairs I decided to fast. Mr Wolfe never talks business during a meal, but I do." I rose. "May I open that carton?"

He said certainly, and I went and got it and put it on the desk. The knot looked complicated, and I borrowed his knife to cut the cord, opened the flaps, and unpacked. When I finished there was an imposing spread lined up on the desk:

1 can pineapple

1 can purple plums

10 (or more) large paper napkins

8 paper plates

1 jar caviar

1 quart milk

8 slices Mrs Barnes's bread

6 bananas

1 plastic container potato salad

4 deviled eggs

2 chicken second joints

1 slab Wisconsin cheese

1 jar pвtй de foie gras truffe