Rex Stout - And Four to Go

Cramer spoke up. “What have you got there?”

“I beg your indulgence,” Wolfe muttered, and went on inspecting, shifting from one to another. He seemed to have a favorite, and I guessed it was the last of the series. After he had inserted it a third time and given it a good long minute, he lifted his head.

“Mr. Cramer and Mr. Skinner.” His voice had an edge. “If you will please come and take a look? This is one of the pictures Mr. Goodwin took yesterday-the last one.”

He turned the viewer around and pushed it across the desk. Cramer, there first, bent over to get his eyes at the right level. After ten seconds he grunted and moved aside to give Skinner a chance. The DA took a little longer, then straightened up.

“Interesting,” he told Wolfe. “He was certainly focused on Mrs. Bynoe. That man in front, apparently reaching for her-did he reach her?”

“I think not. Mr. Goodwin says he didn’t, and I gather that the others agree. But there is, to my eye, a suggestive detail. I wish you gentlemen would look again. Closely.”

They did so, longer than before. When they had finished Cramer demanded, “What’s the detail?”

Wolfe pulled the viewer back to him and took another look, then raised his head. “I may be wrong,” he conceded, “But it deserves inquiry and I would like to test it. Not with you gentlemen, for you have seen the picture. So has Mr. Goodwin. And Mr. Bynoe and Mr. Frimm were there.” His eyes moved. “Miss Innes and Mr. Herrick, if you will oblige us? Miss Innes, you will rise and move back a little so we can all see. You are Mrs. Bynoe, crossing the sidewalk and facing the cameras. Archie, you are the man who was apparently trying to reach her. Get in front of her, at the proper distance, with your back to the cameras. Mr. Herrick, you are Mrs. Bynoe’s escort, the one at her left. Take your position. No, closer to her, quite close, according to the picture. That’s better. Now. As you are crossing the sidewalk beside her, moving slowly, a man is suddenly there, facing her, apparently intending to touch her. Instinctively and abruptly you stretch your arms in front of her to fend him off. Don’t think about it; just do it; it was actually a reflex. Go ahead!”

I, in Tabby’s position, jerked forward an inch, and Herrick stuck his arms out in front of Iris Innes.

“Again, please,” Wolfe commanded. “You’re not attacking him; you are merely barring him off. Again!”

I jerked again and Herrick flung his arms across.

Wolfe nodded. “Thank you. Miss Innes, keep your position. Mr. Pizzi, will you demonstrate for us?”

Skinner said something to Cramer that I didn’t catch as Augustus Pizzi, who was barrel-shaped with slick black hair, replaced Joe Herrick and put himself in the mood by glaring at me. He performed with more zip than Herrick, and, after he had repeated it twice on request, made way for Alan Geiss. Geiss, from the expression on his long bony face, thought it was a lot of hooey, but he went through with it, twice.

“That will do,” Wolfe told us. “If you will resume your seats?” He turned the viewer around and pushed it across the desk. “Mr. Bynoe and Mr. Frimm, I think you should have a look at the picture.”

They had to wait because both Cramer and Skinner were at it ahead of them, for another go. Millard Bynoe was last. He peered at it for three seconds, not more, and then returned to the red leather chair and got his spine straight.

Cramer rasped, “I see where you’re headed, Wolfe, but watch your step.”

“I shall,” Wolfe assured him. His eyes went from right to left and back again. “Of course I am going to explore the possibility that Henry Frimm killed Mrs. Bynoe. After that demonstration it would be witless not to. All three of the demonstrators held their arms in approximately the same position, with their palms outward, whereas in the picture Mr. Frimm’s right arm is turned so that the palm is inward; and moreover, the tips of his thumb and forefinger are touching, which is absurd. All the demonstrators had their fingers spread on both hands. The position of Mr. Frimm’s hand and fingers is explicable under one assumption: that he was about to stick a needle into Mrs. Bynoe.”

I was aware that Skinner said something, and that Frimm started to leave his chair and decided not to, and that Iris Innes made a noise, but only vaguely because of Millard Bynoe. His jaw dropped open and his head was moving from side to side, from Wolfe to Frimm and back again, a perfect picture of a goof. He was making no effort to speak.

Frimm did make an effort. “This is before witnesses, Wolfe.”

Wolfe eyed him. “Yes, sir, I know. I have seen that picture only now, but I was too pressed for prudence. Mr. Bynoe was so urgent about the job he hired me to do that I permitted him to get all these people here, though I hadn’t the slightest idea what I would do with them, and probably nothing would have been accomplished if Mr. Goodwin hadn’t turned up with that picture. You know what Mr. Bynoe hired me for; do you challenge my right to explore a possibility?”

“No, I don’t challenge you.” Frimm swallowed. “But there are witnesses.”

“There are indeed.” Wolfe’s eyes were half closed. “There is no question about opportunity; you were there, and your hand was there. The point arises: why did you select so public an arena, with cameras pointed at you? Obviously you did so deliberately, calculating that it would be assumed that the needle was shot from one of the cameras, as indeed it had been. Two questions remain: where did you get the needle and the poison? and why did you do it?”

He turned a hand over. “The first is for Mr. Cramer and his army. His talents and resources are ideally fitted for that. For the second, I can at the moment only offer suggestions. We are exploring possibilities, and one is offered by the fact that you are the operating head of the Bynoe Rehabilitation Fund and Mrs. Bynoe was active in its affairs. She may have discovered, or suspected, that you were making free with the Fund’s money, and was going to tell her husband. That can be explored by examination of the Fund’s books. Another suggestion is offered by Mr. Bynoe’s high regard for his wife’s integrity-he prefers the word ‘purity.’ It might be that-”

Bynoe put in. He had his jaw back under control and had found his voice. It had changed, though; it came out harsh and louder than necessary. “You will omit that, Mr. Wolfe.”

“No, sir,” Wolfe declared, “I will not.” He kept his eyes at Frimm. “It might be that you had a try at her integrity and were repulsed. Assuredly you would not have killed her because she indulged you, but what if she refused to? And what if you were so persistent that she resolved to inform her husband? You would have lost your job and all that it meant to you. Of course, an exploration of this possibility may be extremely difficult. If you have peculated there are records that will reveal it, but a rebuffed gallantry may have left no record. There may be no one alive, except you, who knows anything about it. In that case-”

“ I do .”

All eyes went to Iris Innes. Hers were aimed at Frimm, and he twisted around to meet them.

“You tinhorn Casanova,” she said in a voice that wanted to shake but she wouldn’t let it. “Hinting to me that you had her, and I knew all the time you didn’t. That was what finally gave me sense enough to realize what you were. Remember, Hank? Remember what you told me? I’ve kept it to myself because I was having enough trouble already, but now they can have it.” Her eyes went to Wolfe. “Yes, I know about it. He told me-”