Rex Stout - And Four to Go

“I doubt it. All five of them?”

“Yes.”

“Possibly by sunup. Bring them to your bedroom?”

He rubbed his nose with a fingertip. “Very well. But you can call them now, as many as you can get. Make it eleven in the morning. Tell them I have a disclosure to make and must consult with them.”

“That should interest them,” I granted, and reached for the phone.

Chapter 4

BY THE TIME WOLFE came down from the plant rooms to greet the guests, at two minutes past eleven the next morning, there hadn’t been a peep out of the Long Island law. Which didn’t mean there couldn’t be one at three minutes past eleven. According to the morning paper, District Attorney Delaney and Chief of Detectives Baxter had both conceded that anyone could have entered the tent from the back and therefore it was wide open. If Anna Banau read newspapers, and she probably did, she might at any moment be going to the phone to make a call.

I had made several, both the night before and that morning, getting the guests lined up; and one special one. There was an address and phone number for an Alexander Banau in the Manhattan book, but I decided not to dial it. I also decided not to ring Zoller’s restaurant on Fifty-second Street. I hadn’t eaten at Zoller’s more than a couple of times, but I knew a man who had been patronizing it for years, and I called him. Yes, he said, there was a captain at Zoller’s named Alex, and yes, his last name was Banau. He liked Alex and hoped that my asking about him didn’t mean that he was headed for some kind of trouble. I said no trouble was contemplated, I just might want to check a little detail, and thanked him. Then I sat and looked at the slip on which I had scribbled the Banau home phone number, and with my finger itching to dial it, but to say what? No.

I mention that around ten-thirty I got the Marley.38 from the drawer, saw that it was loaded, and put it in my side pocket, not to prepare you for bloodshed, but just to show that I was sold on Mrs. Banau. With a murderer for a guest, and an extremely nervy one, there was no telling.

H. L. Griffin, the importer, and Paul Rago, the sauce chef, came alone and separately, but Korby and Flora had Dick Vetter with them. I had intended to let Flora have the red leather chair, but when I showed them to the office, Rago, the six-footer with the mustache and the accent, had copped it, and she took one of the yellow chairs in a row facing Wolfe’s desk, with her father on her right and Vetter on her left. Griffin, the runt who had made the best speech, was at the end of the row nearest my desk. When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, entered, greeted them, and headed for his desk, Vetter spoke up before he was seated.

“I hope this won’t last long, Mr. Wolfe. I asked Mr. Goodwin if it couldn’t be earlier, and he said it couldn’t. Miss Korby and I must have an early lunch because I have a script conference at one-thirty.”

I raised a brow. I had been honored. I had driven a car with my arm across the shoulders of a girl whom Dick Vetter himself thought worthy of a lunch.

Wolfe, adjusted in his chair, said mildly, “I won’t prolong it beyond necessity, sir. Are you and Miss Korby friends?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Possibly nothing. But now, nothing about any of you is beyond the bounds of my curiosity. It is a distressing thing to have to say, in view of the occasion of our meeting yesterday, the anniversary of the birth of this land of freedom, but I must. One of you is a miscreant. One of you people killed Philip Holt.”

The idea is to watch them and see who faints or jumps up and runs. But nobody did. They all stared.

“One of us?” Griffin demanded.

Wolfe nodded. “I thought it best to begin with that bald statement, instead of leading up to it. I thought-”

Korby cut in. “This is funny. This is a joke. After what you said yesterday to that district attorney. It’s a bad joke.”

“It’s no joke, Mr. Korby. I wish it were. I thought yesterday I was on solid ground, but I wasn’t. I now know that there is a witness, a credible and confident witness, to testify that no one entered the tent from the rear between the time that the speeches began and the discovery of the body. I also know that neither Mr. Goodwin nor I killed him, so it was one of you. So I think we should discuss it.”

“You say a witness?” Rago made it “weetnuss.”

“Who is he?” Korby wanted to know. “Where is he?”

“It’s a woman, and she is available. Mr. Goodwin, who has spoken with her, is completely satisfied of her competence and bona fides, and he is hard to satisfy. It is highly unlikely that she can be impeached. That’s all I-”

“I don’t get it,” Vetter blurted. “If they’ve got a witness like that why haven’t they come for us?”

“Because they haven’t got her. They know nothing about her. But they may find her at any moment, or she may go to them. If so you will soon be discussing the matter not with me but with officers of the law-and so will I. Unless you do discuss it with me, and unless the discussion is productive, I shall of course be constrained to tell Mr. Delaney about her. I wouldn’t like that and neither would you. After hearing her story his manner with you, and with me, would be quite different from yesterday. I want to ask you some questions.”

“Who is she?” Korby demanded. “Where is she?”

Wolfe shook his head. “I’m not going to identify her or place her for you. I note your expressions-especially yours, Mr. Korby, and yours, Mr. Griffin. You are skeptical. But what conceivable reason could there be for my getting you here to point this weapon at you except the coercion of events? Why would I invent or contrive such a dilemma? I, like you, would vastly prefer to have it as it was, that the murderer came from without, but that’s no good now. I concede that you may suspect me too, and Mr. Goodwin, and you may question us as I may question you. But one of us killed Philip Holt, and getting answers to questions is clearly in the interest of all the rest of us.”

They exchanged glances. But they were not the kind of glances they would have exchanged five minutes earlier. They were glances of doubt, suspicion, and surmise, and they weren’t friendly.

“I don’t see,” Griffin objected, “what good questions will do. We were all there together and we all know what happened. We all know what everybody said.”

Wolfe nodded. “But we were all supporting the theory that excluded us. Now we’re not. We can’t. One of us has something in his background which, if known, would account for his determination to kill that man. I suggest beginning with autobiographical sketches from each of us, and here is mine. I was born in Montenegro and spent my early boyhood there. At the age of sixteen I decided to move around, and in fourteen years I became acquainted with most of Europe, a little of Africa, and much of Asia, in a variety of roles and activities. Coming to this country in nineteen-thirty, not penniless, I bought this house and entered into practice as a private detective. I am a naturalized American citizen. I first heard of Philip Holt about two years ago when Fritz Brenner, who works for me, came to me with a complaint about him. My only reason for wishing him harm, but not the extremity of death, was removed, as you know, when he agreed to stop annoying Mr. Brenner about joining your union if I would make a speech at your blasted picnic. Mr. Goodwin?”