Rex Stout - Death of a Dude

She moved her head a little sideways to give her black eyes a slant at me, as cautious people often do. "What you bet?"

"Oh, a buck."

"Huh. Miss Rowan's man. Mr Archie Goodwin." She put a hand out palm up. "One buck."

"Huh yourself. You may not mean what you could mean, so I'll skip it." I had my wallet out. "It's a pleasant surprise seeing you here." I handed her a bill. "I would have thought you'd be busy with customers Saturday evening."

She turned the bill over to see the other side. "Trick?" She grunted and spread her fingers, and the bill fluttered to the floor. "New trick."

"No trick." I picked up the finif and offered it. "One buck of this is the bet. The rest is for your time answering a couple of questions I want to ask."

"I don't like questions."

"Not about you. As you know, my friend Harvey Greve is in trouble."

She grunted. "Bad trouble."

"Very bad. You may also know I'm trying to help him."

"Everybody knows."

"Yeah. And everybody seems to think I can't, because he killed that man. You see a lot of people and hear a lot of talk. Do they all think that?"

She pointed at the bill in my hand. "I answer and you pay? Four dollars?"

"I pay first. Take it and then answer."

She took it, looked at both sides again, poked it in a pocket in her skirt, and said, "I don't go to the court."

"Of course not. This is just a friendly talk."

"Many people say Mr Greve killed him. Not all. Some people say you killed him."

"How many?"

"Maybe three, maybe four. You know Emmy?"

I said yes. Emmy was Emmett Lake, who rode herd at the Bar JR and was known to be one of Henrietta's best customers. "Don't tell me he says I did it."

"No. He say a man at Mr Farnham's."

"I know he does, but he doesn't say which one. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what you think."

"Me think? Huh."

I gave her a man-to-woman smile. "I bet you think plenty."

"What you bet?"

"I couldn't prove it. Look, Henrietta, as I said, you hear a lot of talk. He was here six weeks last year-the man who was killed. He told me he bought something from you."

"One time. With Mr Farnham."

"Did he say anything about anybody?"

"I forget."

"But you don't forget what people have said about him this week, since he was killed. That's my most important question. I don't expect you to name anybody, only what anyone has said about him." I got a sawbuck from my wallet and kept it visible. "It might help me help Mr Greve. Tell me what you've heard about him."

Her black eyes lowered to fix on the bill and raised again. "No," she said.

And it stayed no, though I spent ten minutes trying to budge her. I returned the sawbuck to my wallet. It wouldn't have done any good to double it or even make it a hundred; she wasn't going to risk being asked questions in the court even if I swore on ten saddles that she wouldn't have to. I left her and surveyed the field. Of the dozen or more people in view, I knew the names of all but three, but none of them was likely to spill any beans, and I went out and along to Woody's.

The hall was even bigger than Vawter's store outside, but inside it was partitioned into three sections, with the entrance at the middle section, which had shelves and counters with displays of cultural material, some of it for sale. There were phonograph records, paperbacks, reproductions of paintings and drawings, busts of great men, facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence, and a slew of miscellaneous items like the Bible in Armenian, most of them one-of-a-kind. Very few people ever bought anything there; Woody had told Lily that he took in about twenty dollars a week. His income came from the other two sections, where you had to pay to get in-the one at the left to see a movie and the one at the right to dance and mix, both Saturdays only.

When I entered, Woody was conversing with a quartet of dudes from some ranch upriver or downriver, three men and a woman, whom I had never seen before. I listened a while, looking at paperbacks, learning nothing. Woody claimed he never offered a book for sale unless he had read it, and I won't call him a liar. His opinion of dudes in general was fully as low as that of most of his fellow Montanans, but he liked Lily so he accepted me, and he left the quartet to come and ask me if Miss Rowan was coming. I told him no, she was tired and going early to bed, and she had asked me to give him her regards.

He wasn't as short as Alma Greve, but he too had to tilt his head back to me. His eyes were as black as Henrietta's, and his mop of hair was as white as the top of Chair Mountain. "I bow to her," he said. "I kiss her hand with deep respect. She is a doll. May I ask, have you made some progress?"

"No, Woody, I haven't. Are you still with us?"

"I am. Forever and a day. If Mr Greve shot that man like a coward I am a bow-legged coyote. I have told you I had the pleasure of meeting him when he was two years old. I was sixteen. His mother bought four blankets from my father that day and two dozen handkerchiefs. You have made no progress?"

"Not a smell. Have you?"

He shook his head, slow, his lips pursed. "I must confess I haven't. Of course during the week I don't see many people. Tonight there will be much talk and I'll keep my ears open, and with some I can ask questions. You will stay?"

I said sure, that I had already asked questions of everybody who might have answers, but I would listen to the talk. A pair of dudes had entered and were approaching to speak with the famous Woody, and I went back to the paperbacks, picked one entitled The Greek Way, by Edith Hamilton, which I had heard mentioned by both Lily and Nero Wolfe, and went to a bench with it.

At 9:19 a man in a pink shirt, working Levi's, cowboy boots, and a yellow neck rag, arrived, opened the door at the right, and set up his equipment, supplied by Woody, just outside the door-a till and a box of door checks on a little table. The gun at his belt was for looks only; Woody always checked it to make sure it wasn't loaded. At 9:24 the musicians came-having met at Vawter's probably, at Henrietta's possibly-dressed fully as properly as the doorman, with a violin, an accordion, and a sax. Local talent. The piano, which Lily said was as good as hers, was on the platform inside. At 9:28 the first patrons showed, and at 9:33 the door at the left opened and the movie audience poured out, most of them across to the other door; and the fun started. The next four hours was what brought people of all ages from Timberburg, and both natives and dudes from as far away as Flat Bank. When the rush at the door had let up a little I paid my two bucks and went in. The band was playing "Horsey, Keep Your Tail Up," and fifty couples were already on the floor, twisting and hopping. One of them was Woody and Flora Eaton, a big-boned widow out of luck who did the laundry and housework at the Bar JR. Many a dudine had tried to snare Woody for that first dance, but he always picked a native.

I said this is a sample, and I mustn't drag it out. In those four hours at the hall I heard much and saw much, but left around one-thirty no wiser.