Rex Stout - Champagne for One

I had hold of Byne’s arm, a good hold, and he didn’t even know it. When he realized it he tried to jerk loose but couldn’t, and for a second I thought he was going to swing with the other fist, and so did he.

"Take it easy," I advised him. "You’re going to need all the breath you’ve got."

"How did you get it?" Mrs Usher demanded. "Where is it?" She was still clutching her jaw with both hands.

Wolfe was eyeing her, but not warily. Complacently, I would say. You might think that for a long time he had had a suppressed desire to kick a woman on the chin.

"It’s in my pocket," he said. He tapped his chest. "I got it just now from the man who took it from your hotel room. You’ll probably get it back in due course; that will depend; it may-"

"That’s burglary," Byne said. "That’s a felony."

Wolfe nodded. "By definition, yes. I doubt if Mrs Usher will care to make the charge if the document is eventually returned to her. It may be an exhibit in evidence in a murder trial. If so-"

"There has been no murder."

"You are in error, Mr Byne. Will you please sit down? This will take a while. Thank you. I’ll cover that point decisively with a categorical statement: Faith Usher was murdered."

"No!" Mrs Usher said. Her hands left her jaw but remained poised, the fingers curved. "Faith killed herself!"

"I’m not going to debate the point," Wolfe told her. "I say merely that I will stake my professional reputation on the statement that she was murdered-indeed, I have done so. That’s why I am applying my resources and risking my credit. That’s why I must explore the possibilities suggested by this letter." He tapped his chest and focused on Byne. "For instance, I shall insist on seeing the agreement between you and Mr Grantham. Does it provide that if Faith Usher should die your remittances to her mother are to be materially decreased, or even cease altogether?"

Byne wet his lips. "Since you’ve read the letter to Mrs Usher you know what the agreement provides. It’s a confidential agreement and you’re not going to see it."

"Oh, but I am." Wolfe was assured. "When you came here my threat was only to tell the police of your rendezvous. Now my threat is more imperative and may even be mortal. Observe Mrs Usher. Note her expression as she regards you. Have you seen the agreement, madam?"

"Yes," she said, "I have."

"Does it contain such a provision as I suggested?"

"Yes," she said, "it does. It says that if Faith dies he can pay me only half as much or even less. Are you telling the truth, that she was murdered?"

"Nuts," Byne said. "It’s not the truth he’s after. Anyhow, I wasn’t even there. Don’t look at me, Elaine, look at him."

"I thought," Wolfe said, "that it might save time to see the agreement now, so I sent Mr Gather to your apartment to look for it. It will expedite matters if you phone him and tell him where it is. He is good with locks and should be inside by this time."

Byne was staring. "By God," he said.

"Do you want to phone him?"

"Not him. By God. You’ve been threatening to call the police. I’ll call them myself. I’ll tell them a man has broken into my apartment, and he’s there now, and they’ll get him."

I left my chair. "Here, Dinky, use my phone."

He ignored me. "It’s not the agreement," he told Wolfe. "It’s your goddamn nerve. He won’t find the agreement because it’s not there. It’s in a safe-deposit box and it’s going to stay there."

"Then it must wait until Monday." Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. "However, Mr Gather will not have his trouble for nothing. Aside from the chance that he may turn up other interesting items, he will use your typewriter, if you have one. I told him if he found one there to write something with it. I even told him what to write. This: ‘Have you found out yet that Edwin Laidlaw is the father of Faith Usher’s baby? Ask him about his trip to Canada in August 1956.’ He will type that and bring it to me. You smile. You are amused? Because you don’t have a typewriter?"

"Sure I have a typewriter. Did I smile?" He smiled again, a poker smile. "At you dragging Laidlaw in all of a sudden. I don’t get it, but I suppose you do."

"I didn’t drag him in," Wolfe asserted. "Someone else did. The police received an unsigned typewritten communication which I have just quoted. And you were wrong to smile; that was a mistake. You couldn’t possibly have been amused, so you must have been pleased, and by what? Not that you don’t have a typewriter, because you have. I’ll try a guess. Might it not have been that you were enjoying the idea of Mr Gather bringing me a sample of typing from your machine when you know it is innocent, and that you know it is innocent because you know where the guilty machine is? I think that deserves exploration. Unfortunately tomorrow is Sunday; it will have to wait. Monday morning Mr Goodwin, Mr Panzer, and Mr Gather will call at places where a machine might be easily and naturally available to you-for instance, your club. Another is the bank vault where you have a safe-deposit box. Archie. You go to my box regularly. Would it be remarkable for a vault customer to ask to use a typewriter?"

"Remarkable?" I shook my head. "No."

"Then that is one possibility. Actually," he told Byne, "I am not sorry that this must wait until Monday, for it does have a drawback. The samples collected from the machines must be compared with the communication received by the police, and it is in their hands. I don’t like that, but there’s no other way. At least, if my guess is good, I will have exposed the sender of the communication, and that will be helpful. On this point, sir, I do not threaten to go to the police; I am forced to."

"You goddamn snoop," Byne said through his teeth.

Wolfe’s brows went up. "I must have made a lucky guess. It’s the machine at the vault?"

Byne’s head jerked to Mrs Usher. "Beat it, Elaine. I want to talk to him."

Chapter Fourteen

Austin Byne sat straight and stiff. When Saul had escorted Mrs Usher to the front room, staying there with her, I had told Dinky he would be more comfortable in the red leather chair, but from the way he looked at me I suspected that he had forgotten what "comfortable" meant.

"You win," he told Wolfe. "So I spill my guts. Where do you want me to start?"

Wolfe was leaning back with his elbows on the chair arms and his palms together. "First, let’s clear up a point or two. Why did you send that thing about Laidlaw to the police?"

"I haven’t said I sent it."

"Pfui." Wolfe was disgusted. "Either you’ve submitted or you haven’t. I don’t intend to squeeze it out drop by drop. Why did you send it?"

Byne did have to squeeze it out. His lips didn’t want to part. "Because," he finally managed, "they were going on with the investigation and there was no telling what they might dig up. They might find out that I knew Faith’s mother, and about my-about the arrangement. I still thought Faith had killed herself, and I still do, but if she had been murdered I thought Laidlaw must have done it and I wanted them to know about him and Faith."