Rex Stout - And Four to Go

“Talk,” Gallant said. “ Vent. Wind.” There was an ashtray on the little table at his elbow, but not a heavy one.

Anita Prince put in, “The police have insisted on knowing why he was there, what he wanted.”

Wolfe nodded. “And you refused to say. Why?”

“Because,” Emmy Thorne declared, “it was none of their business. And we have a right to know why you sent him, whether his questions were provocative or not.” That girl was strong on rights.

Wolfe’s eyes went from right to left and back again. “There’s no point,” he said, “in dragging this out. I’ll grant your question priority and we’ll go on from there. I sent Mr. Goodwin to see you because I suspected I had been gulled and wanted to find out; and further, because I had guessed that there was a connection between Sarah Yare, and her death, and the murder of Bianca Voss. By coming here en masse you have made that guess a conviction, if any doubt had remained.”

“I knew it,” Flora Gallant mumbled.

“ Tais-toi ,” her brother commanded her. To Wolfe: “I’ll tell you why we came here. We came for an explanation. We came-”

“For an understanding,” Carl Drew cut in. “We’re in trouble, all of us, you know that, and we need your help, and we’re ready to pay for it. First we have to know what the connection is between Sarah Yare and what happened to Bianca Voss.”

Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t mean that. You mean you have to know whether I have established the connection, and if so, how. I’m willing to tell you, but before I do so I must clarify matters. There must be no misunderstanding. For instance, I understand that all of you thought yourselves gravely endangered by Miss Voss’s presence. You, Miss Prince, you, Miss Thorne, and you, Mr. Drew-your dearest ambitions were threatened. Your future was committed to the success and glory of that enterprise, and you were convinced that Miss Voss was going to cheapen it, and perhaps destroy it. Do you challenge that?”

“Of course not.” Emmy Thorne was scornful. “Everybody knew it.”

“Then that’s understood. That applies equally to you, Miss Gallant, but with special emphasis. You also had a more intimate concern, for your brother. You told me so. As for you, Mr. Gallant, you are not a man to truckle, yet you let that woman prevail. Presumably you were under severe constraint. Were you?”

Gallant opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his sister, returned to Wolfe, and again opened his mouth and closed it. He was under constraint now, no doubt about that.

He forced it out. “I was under her heel.” He clamped his jaw. He unclamped it. “The police know. They found out enough, and I have told them the rest. She was a bad woman. I met her in France, during the war. We were in the Resistance together when I married her. Only afterward I learned that she was perfide. She had been a traitor to France-I couldn’t prove it, but I knew it. I left her and changed my name and came to America-and then last year she found me and made demands. I was under her heel.”

Wolfe grunted. “That won’t do, Mr. Gallant. I doubt if it has satisfied the police, and it certainly doesn’t satisfy me. In that situation you might have killed her, but surely you wouldn’t have let her take charge of your business and your life. What else was there?”

“Nothing. Nothing!”

“Pfui. Of course there was. And if the investigation is prolonged the police will discover it. I advise you to disclose it and let me get on and settle this affair. Didn’t her death remove her heel?”

“Yes. Thank God, it did.” Gallant hit the arms of the chair with his palms. “With her gone there is no evidence to fear. She had two brothers, and they, like her, were traitors, and I killed them. I would have killed her too, but she escaped me. During the war it would have been merely an episode, but it was later, much later, when I found out about them, and by then it was a crime. With her evidence I was an assassin, and I was doomed. Now she is gone, thank God, but I did not kill her. You know I did not. At half past eleven yesterday morning I was in my workshop with Miss Prince and many others, and you can swear that she was killed at that moment. That is why we came to see you, to arrange to pay-”

“Hold it, Alec.” Anita Prince headed him off. “Mr. Wolfe wants to clarify matters. Let him.”

“The cat’s head is out,” Wolfe told her, “but I had already heard it scratch. Let’s get on. I cannot swear that Bianca Voss was killed ‘at that moment.’ On the contrary, I’m sure she wasn’t, for a variety of reasons. There are such minor ones as the extraordinary billingsgate she spat at me on the phone, quite gratuitous; and her calling me a gob of fat. A woman who still spoke the language with so marked an accent would not have the word ‘gob’ so ready, and probably wouldn’t have it at all.”

He waved “gob” away. “But the major reasons are more cogent. In the first place, it was too pat. Since the complexities of nature permit a myriad of coincidences we cannot reject one offhand, but we can discriminate. That one-that the attack had come just at the moment when Miss Gallant had got Mr. Goodwin and me on the phone with her, was highly suspect. Besides, it was indiscreet to strike just then. Why not wait until she had hung up? Whoever was talking with her would certainly hear the sounds and take alarm. As I told Mr. Cramer, it was open to challenge circumstantially, though not intrinsically. However, there was another challenge, on surer ground. Miss Gallant did not dial Plaza two, nine-oh-two-two, Miss Voss’s number, as she pretended. She dialed Algonquin nine, one-eight-four-seven, Sarah Yare’s number.”

A noise, a sort of low growl, came from the waterfall. I was farthest away, and I heard it distinctly, so it must have reached their ears too, but Wolfe’s last words had so riveted their attention that it didn’t register.

It did with Wolfe, and he added hastily, “I didn’t know that yesterday. I became certain of it only after you rang my doorbell, when Mr. Goodwin handed me this note.” He tapped it, there on his desk. “It’s first words are ‘That phone works.’ I had sent him to learn if Sarah Yare’s phone was in operation. Obviously, Miss Gallant had arranged with Miss Yare to impersonate Bianca Voss, and it is a reasonable-”

“Wait a minute.” Gallant had come forward in the red leather chair. “You can’t prove that.”

“Directly, no. Inferentially, yes.”

“And how do you know she dialed Sarah Yare’s number? You weren’t where you could see the dial, and neither was Goodwin.”

Wolfe nodded. “Evidently you have discussed it with her. You’re quite right, Mr. Gallant; we couldn’t see the dial. Nevertheless, we can supply evidence, and we think it will be persuasive. I am not-”

“What kind of evidence?”

“That’s no good, Alec.” It was Emmy Thorne, the contact girl. “You can’t push Nero Wolfe. He has his teeth in it, you can see that. You know what we decided.”

“I’m not sure,” Anita Prince objected, “that we decided right.”

“I am. Carl?”

“Yes.” Drew was chewing his lip. “I think so. Yes.”