Rex Stout - And Four to Go

He cocked his head. “You admit you had had words with Philip Holt during the past year. You admit he had become obnoxious to you-your word, obnoxious-by his insistence that your personal chef must join his union. The record of your past performances justifies me in saying that a man who renders himself obnoxious to you had better watch his step. I’ll say this, if it weren’t for the probability that some unknown person entered from the rear, and I concede that it’s quite possible, you and Goodwin would be held in custody until a judge could be found to issue a warrant for your arrest as material witnesses. As it is, I’ll make it easier for you.” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s five minutes to eight. I’ll send a man with you to a restaurant down the street, and we’ll expect you back here at nine-thirty. I want to cover all the details with you, thoroughly.” His eyes moved. “The rest of you may go for the present, but you are to be available.”

Wolfe stood up. “Mr. Goodwin and I are going home,” he announced. “We will not be back this evening.”

Delaney’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s the way you feel about it, you’ll stay. You can send out for sandwiches.”

“Are we under arrest?”

The DA opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “No.”

“Then we’re going.” Wolfe was assured but not belligerent. “I understand your annoyance, sir, at this interference with your holiday, and I’m aware that you don’t like me-or what you know, or think you know, of my record. But I will not surrender my convenience to your humor. You can detain me only if you charge me, and with what? Mr. Goodwin and I have supplied all the information we have. Your intimation that I am capable of murdering a man, or of inciting Mr. Goodwin to murder him, because he has made a nuisance of himself, is puerile. You concede that the murderer could have been anyone in that throng of thousands. You have no basis whatever for any supposition that Mr. Goodwin and I are concealing any knowledge that would help you. Should such a basis appear, you know where to find us. Come, Archie.”

He turned and headed for the door, and I followed. I can’t report the reaction because Delaney at his desk was behind me, and it would have been bad tactics to look back over my shoulder. All I knew was that Baxter took two steps and stopped, and none of the other cops moved. We made the hall, and the entrance, and down the path to the sidewalk, without a shot being fired; and half a block to where the car was parked. Wolfe told me to find a phone booth and call Fritz to tell him when we would arrive for dinner, and I steered for the center of town.

As I had holiday traffic to cope with, it was half past nine by the time we got home and washed and seated at the dinner table. A moving car is no place to give Wolfe bad news, or good news either for that matter, and there was no point in spoiling his dinner, so I waited until after we had finished with the poached and truffled broilers and broccoli and stuffed potatoes and herbs, and salad and cheese, and Fritz had brought coffee to us in the office, to open the bag. Wolfe was reaching for the remote-control television gadget, to turn it on so as to have the pleasure of turning it off again, when I said, “Hold a minute. I have a report to make. I don’t blame you for feeling self-satisfied, you got us away very neatly, but there’s a catch. It wasn’t somebody that came in the back way. It was one of them.”

“Indeed.” He was placid, after-dinner placid, in the comfortable, big made-to-order chair back of his desk. “What is this, flummery?”

“No, sir. Nor am I trying to show that I’m smarter than you are for once. It’s just that I know more. When you left the tent to go to the car your mind was on a quick getaway, so you may not have noticed that a woman was sitting there in a car to the left, but I did. When we returned to the tent and you went on out front, I had an idea and went out back again and had a talk with her. I’ll give it to you verbatim, since it’s important.”

I did so. That was simple, compared with the three-way and four-way conversations I have been called on to report word for word. When I finished he was scowling at me, as black as the coffee in his cup.

“Confound it,” he growled.

“Yes, sir. I was going to tell you, there when we were settling the details of why we went out to the car, the paper with your notes, but as you know we were interrupted, and after that there was no opportunity that I liked, and anyway I had seen that Mrs. Banau and the car were gone, and that baboon named Baxter had hurt my feelings, and I had decided not to play. Of course the main thing was you, your wanting to go home. If they had known it was one of us six, or seven counting Flora, we would all have been held as material witnesses, and you couldn’t have got bail on the Fourth of July, and God help you, I can manage in a cell, but you’re too big. Also if I got you home you might feel like discussing a raise in pay. Do you?”

“Shut up.” He closed his eyes, and after a moment opened them again. “We’re in a pickle. They may find that woman any moment, or she may disclose herself. What about her? You have given me her words, but what about her?”

“She’s good. They’ll believe her. I did. You would. From where she sat the steps and tent entrance were in her minimum field of vision, no obstructions, less than ten yards away.”

“If she kept her eyes open.”

“She thinks she did, and that will do for the cops when they find her. Anyhow, I think she did too. When she said nobody had gone into the tent but you and me she meant it.”

“There’s the possibility that she herself, or someone she knew and would protect-No, that’s absurd, since she stayed there in the car for some time after the body was found. We’re in a fix.”

“Yes, sir.” Meeting his eyes, I saw no sign of the gratitude I might reasonably have expected, so I went on. “I would like to suggest, in considering the situation don’t bother about me. I can’t be charged with withholding evidence because I didn’t report my talk with her. I can just say I didn’t believe her and saw no point in making it tougher for us by dragging it in. The fact that someone might have come in the back way didn’t eliminate us. Of course I’ll have to account for my questioning her, but that’s easy. I can say I discovered that he was dead after you went back out to the platform to make your speech, and, having noticed her there in the car, I went out to question her before reporting the discovery, and was interrupted by the scream in the tent. So don’t mind me. Anything you say. I can phone Delaney in the morning, or you can, and spill it, or we can just sit tight and wait for the fireworks.”

“Pfui,” he said.

“Amen,” I said.

He took in air, audibly, and let it out. “That woman may be communicating with them at this moment, or they may be finding her. I don’t complain of your performance; indeed, I commend it. If you had reported that conversation we would both be spending tonight in jail.” He made a face. “Bah. As it is, at least we can try something. What time is it?”

I looked at my wristwatch. He would have had to turn his head almost to a right angle to glance at the wall clock, which was too much to expect. “Eight after eleven.”

“Could you get them here tonight?”