Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 19 (27 page)

“I don’t believe it!” Sue exclaimed.

“Come here and look at them. No, please, only Miss Dondero. The envelope must not be touched.”

I made room for her to go by. She went to his desk and leaned over for a close-up. She straightened. “That’s a different envelope. I didn’t type that. I always put ‘By Messenger’ in caps and lower case and underline it. That’s all in caps and it’s not underlined. Where did you get it?”

“If you please, Miss Dondero, take your seat.” Wolfe returned the sheet and envelope to the drawer, touching only the tip of the envelope. He waited until Sue was back on the couch and he had her face before he told her, “Thank you for being positive. That’s a help. But you’re sure you put the letter and enclosures into the envelope you had typed?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And sealed it?”

“Yes.”

“And left it lying on your desk, perhaps, or in a basket?”

“No, I didn’t. It was to go by messenger, and I had sent for one. I went immediately to the anteroom and put it on Blanche’s desk and asked her to give it to the messenger when he came.”

“Who is Blanche?”

“The receptionist. Miss Duke.”

Wolfe’s eyes moved. “Which of you is Miss Duke?”

Blanche raised a hand, high. “I am. And I get the idea, I’m quick. You’re going to ask me if I put the stuff in another envelope, and I’m going to say I didn’t. And I don’t know who did. But Mr. O’Malley came and said
something about something left out and took the envelope away with him.”

“Mr. O’Malley?”

“Yes.”

“Did he bring it back?”

“Yes.”

“How soon? How long was he gone with it?”

“I don’t know, I guess three or four minutes. Anyway he brought it back, and when the messenger came I gave it to him.”

“Did you notice whether it was the same envelope?”

“My God, no!”

“This is important, Miss Duke. Will you testify that Mr. O’Malley took the envelope from your desk, left the room with it, and shortly returned with it or with a similar one?”

“What do you mean, will I? I am!”

Wolfe’s eyes left her to move right and back again, still above the heads of the lawyers. “We seem to be solving our problem,” he remarked. “One more detail would help. Clearly we must assume that Mr. O’Malley addressed another envelope and transferred the material to it. If so, it seems likely that one of you ladies saw him do it, though I don’t know how the typewriters are placed in that office. What about it? That Saturday morning, nine days ago, did any of you see Mr. O’Malley address an envelope on a typewriter?”

No reply. He had their eyes all right, but not their tongues.

He nodded understandingly. “It may be, of course, that he used a machine that wasn’t under observation. Or he may have been seen by one of the staff who is not present, and that will bear inquiry. But I should make sure that all of you understand the situation. This envelope is vital evidence. If Mr. O’Malley handled it and
typed an address on it, it will probably show his prints, for I don’t suppose he wore gloves in the office that morning. Not only that, it will be a simple matter to learn which machine it was written on. If it was a machine that is on the desk of one of you ladies, and you were there that morning, and Mr. O’Malley denies that he used it, you may find yourself in an uncomfortable spot. The police may properly ask—”

“It was my machine.” It was a sullen mutter, so low that it barely got through, and it came from the beautiful Eleanor, of all people.

“Ah. May I have your name?”

“Eleanor Gruber.” She muttered it.

“You will please tell us about it, Miss Gruber.”

“I was at the filing cabinet and he asked if—”

“Mr. O’Malley?”

“Yes. He asked if he could use my machine, and I said yes. That was all.”

“Did he address an envelope on it?”

“I don’t know. I was at the cabinet with my back turned. I said it was my machine, but I should have said it may have been.”

“There was a supply of the firm’s envelopes in your desk?”

“Certainly. In the top drawer.”

“How long was he at it?”

“I don’t—very briefly.”

“Not more than a minute or so?”

“I said very briefly. I didn’t time it.”

“But long enough to address an envelope?”

“Of course, that only takes seconds.”

“Did you see an envelope in his hand?”

“No. I wasn’t looking. I was busy.”

“Thank you, Miss Gruber. I’m sorry your memory needed jogging, and I’m glad it’s refreshed.” Wolfe
focused on Conroy O’Malley. “Mr. O’Malley, you ought to have a word. I won’t frame a tedious detailed question, but merely ask, did you do the things these people say you did that Saturday morning?”

O’Malley was a different man. The bitter twist to his mouth was gone, and so was the sag of his cheeks. He was ten years younger, and his eyes gleamed almost like eyes in the dark with a light on them. His voice had a sharp edge.

“I’d rather listen to you. Until you’re through.”

“Very well. I’m not through. Is it plain that I’m accusing you of murder?”

“Yes. Go on.”

Purley Stebbins got up, detoured around Cramer and Briggs, got an empty chair, put it just behind O’Malley’s right elbow, and sat. O’Malley didn’t glance at him. Wolfe was speaking.

“Manifestly, establishing that O’Malley got at that letter in order to make that notation on it in Corrigan’s hand before it came to me will not convict him of murder. By then all of you had heard the title of Baird Archer’s novel, ‘Put Not Your Trust,’ and anyone could have known or learned that it came from the third verse of the Hundred and forty-sixth Psalm. But it shows that he wanted to present me with evidence that someone in your office was connected with the manuscript and therefore with the crimes, and that that someone was Corrigan. I am going—”

“Why Corrigan?” Kustin demanded.

“That’s what I’m coming to. I’m going to have to tell you things I can’t prove, as I did with X. It is still X, only now I call him O’Malley. An odd thing about this confession is that nearly every detail of it is true and strictly accurate. The man who wrote it did find the manuscript in Dykes’s desk and read it; he found that
its contents were as described; he went to see Dykes and talked with him as related; he killed Dykes essentially for the reason given, fear of what might result from his knowledge of the contents of the manuscript; he killed Miss Wellman and Miss Abrams for a like reason. But it was O’Malley who wrote the confession. He—”

“You’re crazy,” Kustin blurted. “The manuscript revealed that Corrigan had informed on O’Malley. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And O’Malley learned that fact by finding and reading the manuscript?”

“Yes.”

“So he killed three people to keep it from being known that Corrigan had informed on him? For God’s sake!”

“No. He killed three people so he could safely kill a fourth.” Wolfe was on his way now. “When he learned that it was Corrigan who had ruined his career, destroyed him, he determined to kill Corrigan. But no matter how cleverly he managed it, Dykes would be an intolerable menace. Dykes knew that O’Malley knew of Corrigan’s treachery, and if Corrigan met a sudden and violent death, no matter how, Dykes might speak. So first Dykes had to go, and he did. Then Joan Wellman—was she also a menace? O’Malley had to find out, and he arranged to meet her. He may have thought he intended her no harm—the confession says so—but when she spoke of the resemblance of the novel’s plot to an event in real life, and even came close to remembering his name, that, as the confession says, was more than enough for him. Five hours later she was dead.”

There was a noise from the rear of the room, the sound of a chair scraping. John R. Wellman was on his
feet and moving. Eyes went to him. Wolfe stopped speaking, but Wellman came on tiptoe, off to one side, around the corner and along the wall to the chair which Purley Stebbins had vacated. It had an unobstructed view of the lawyers.

“Excuse me,” he said, apparently to everyone, and sat.

There were murmurs from the women. Cramer shot a glance at Wellman, evidently decided that he was not getting set as a nemesis, and looked at Wolfe.

“There remained,” Wolfe resumed, “only one source of possible danger, Rachel Abrams. O’Malley had probably been told about her by Dykes, but whether he had or not, he had found the receipts she had given Baird Archer when he searched Dykes’s apartment. I’ll read a few lines from the confession.” He fingered the sheets, found the place, and read:

Wolfe looked up. “This is indeed a remarkable document. There we have a man relieving his mind, perhaps even soothing his soul, by coolly expounding the stages of his transformation into a cold-blooded killer, but avoiding the consequent penalty by ascribing the deeds and the onus to another person. It was an adroit
and witty stratagem, and it would have triumphed if Mr. Wellman had not engaged my services and remained resolute in spite of repeated checks and disappointments.

“But I’m ahead of myself. This confession is all right as far as it goes, but it leaves gaps. By the day he went for Rachel Abrams, the twenty-sixth of February, two weeks ago today, she was more than a remote threat. He knew—”

“You still mean O’Malley?” Kustin cut in.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re talking too fast. O’Malley was in Atlanta two weeks ago today.”

Wolfe nodded. “I’ll get to that. By that day he knew that I was on the case and was concentrating on Baird Archer and the manuscript, and the possibility that I might find Rachel Abrams certainly did not escape him. He had to deal with her first, and he did—a scant two minutes before Mr. Goodwin reached her. And there he was. The preliminaries were completed. He was ready for what had always been his real objective: the murder of Corrigan. To abandon it was unthinkable, but now it was not so simple. Needing to learn how much I knew, he phoned Corrigan to suggest that all of you should come here and invite my questions, and you came. It may be that my asking to see Dykes’s letter of resignation first gave him the idea of putting it all onto Corrigan; that’s of no moment. In any case, he contrived to put that notation in Corrigan’s hand on the letter before it reached me, as the first step.”

Wolfe paused to glance at Wellman, but our client was merely gazing at O’Malley, with no apparent intention of taking part. He went on. “When the police confronted you with the notation, of course O’Malley had to join you in your claim of ignorance and your charge that I must have made the notation myself. Then came the
letter from Mrs. Potter, and naturally that suited him admirably. He knew it was a decoy, either mine or Mr. Cramer’s, for he was confident that all copies of the manuscript had been destroyed. I have had no report of your conference that day, but I would give odds that he maneuvered with all his dexterity to arrange that Corrigan should be the one to go to California. The result met his highest expectations. On Corrigan’s return you came together to see me again and, as it seemed to O’Malley, I played directly into his hand by refusing to say anything except that I was about ready to act. That made the threat, to whoever was its object, ominous and imminent; that made it most plausible that Corrigan, granting he was the object, would prefer self-destruction and would choose that moment for it; and O’Malley moved swiftly and ruthlessly. It was only ten hours after he left here with you that he dialed my number to let me hear the shot that killed Corrigan.”

“You foresaw that?” Kustin demanded.

“Certainly not. At the time you left here I had added only one presumption to my scanty collection: that Corrigan had never seen the manuscript and didn’t know what was in it. Regarding the rest of you I was still at sea. I was still merely trying to prod you into movement, and it can’t be denied that I succeeded. Are you ready to say something, Mr. O’Malley?”

“No. I’m still listening.”

“As you please. I’m about through.” Wolfe looked at Kustin. “You said that O’Malley was in Atlanta the day Rachel Abrams was killed. Can you certify that, or do you only mean that he was supposed to be?”

“He was there on business for the firm.”

“I know. In fact it is not true that my eye on you gentlemen has been totally impartial until two days ago. The first time you came here O’Malley managed to get it on the record with me that he had returned to
New York only that morning after a week in Georgia, and I noted it. I don’t suppose you know Saul Panzer?”

“Saul Panzer? No.”

“That is Mr. Panzer, there at the end of Mr. Goodwin’s desk. If he ever wants to know anything about you, tell him; you might as well. Four days ago I asked him to investigate O’Malley’s movements during the week in question, and he has done so. Saul, tell us about it.”

Saul got his mouth open but no words out, because Cramer suddenly came to life. He snapped, “Hold it, Panzer!” To Wolfe: “Is this what you got on the phone this morning?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to hand it to him like this? Just dump the bag for him? You are not!”

Wolfe shrugged. “Either I go on or you do. This morning you said you would take a hand and I said no. Now you’re welcome. Take it if you want it.”

“I want it.” Cramer was on his feet. “I want that letter and envelope. I want Panzer. I want statements from the three women. Mr. O’Malley, you’ll go downtown with Sergeant Stebbins for questioning.”

O’Malley was not impressed. “On what charge, Inspector?”

“I said for questioning. If you insist on a charge you’ll get one.”

“I would want my counsel present.”

“You can phone him from the District Attorney’s office.”