Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 (8 page)

“Yes. Confound it, go.”

I went.

It had been twenty minutes to ten when Wolfe and I had left the gathering in Huck’s room to go and have a talk with our client. It was a quarter past twelve, more than two and a half hours later, that we were in Huck’s room again with a gathering—the same cast of characters with a few additions.

Meanwhile some two dozen highly trained city employees, including a deputy police commissioner and two assistant district attorneys, had put on an expert performance in the house that Herman Lewent’s father had built and that Herman had after all managed to die in. I witnessed very little of the performance, since for most of the 155 minutes I was up in the sewing room answering questions and explaining previous answers, but I knew it was expert because I had seen most of them in action before. In one way at least it was too damn expert to suit me, because at a couple of points I wouldn’t have minded a chance to exchange a few words with Wolfe, but I wasn’t allowed to. We were expertly kept apart, and I had no sight or sound of him between nine-forty-five, when I left him guarding the corpse, and twelve-fifteen, when Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who has called me Archie eight times over the years in fits of absent-mindedness, came up to the sewing room for me and escorted me down to Huck’s room.

It was the same cast of characters, but they were visibly the worse for wear. Huck himself, in his chair, still in the maroon tie and jacket, looked so pooped that I was surprised the official brass wasn’t showing more consideration for a guy in his bracket whose bum legs gave them such a good excuse. It seemed likely that Paul Thayer had shown some temperament which required a little handling, since his tie was crooked and his hair mussed and a dick was standing at his elbow. On the whole the three women were apparently taking it a little better than the men, but they were by no means jaunty. Mrs. O’Shea sat stiff, her cold
blue eyes directed at Inspector Cramer, who was seated near Wolfe. She didn’t bother to glance at Purley and me as we entered. And damned if Miss Riff and Miss Marcy weren’t holding hands! They were side by side on a couch, sharing it with Assistant DA Mandelbaum and Deputy Police Commissioner Boyle.

I had to hand it to Wolfe. He had the big chair he had had before, and this time I hadn’t been there to nab it for him. And he didn’t look fagged. As I came into range and caught his eye, I thought, oh-oh, here we go. I knew that look well. He was about to make some fur fly, or thought he was.

He snapped at me, “Archie!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sit down. I have told Mr. Cramer I want to go home, and as an inducement have offered some comments on this affair, insisting on your presence. You have of course answered all questions and given all the information you have.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So have I. Move your chair—it obstructs my view of Mr. Thayer. That’s better. Mr. Cramer, I could have done this much earlier—indeed, immediately after your arrival—but you were not then ready to listen, and besides, there was the possibility that your men would uncover something that would weaken or even negate my assumptions. I don’t know that they haven’t, so I need to ask a few questions.”

Inspector Cramer’s round red face was not sympathetic. He rasped, “You didn’t say you had questions, you said you had comments. You practically said you know who killed Lewent.”

“I do, unless you know better. That’s all my questions are for. Are you ready to charge anyone?”

“No.”

“Have you found a weapon that satisfies you?”

“No.”

“Have you any evidence that would contradict an assumption that Lewent was killed elsewhere and his body was transported to his room and dumped there?”

“No.”

“Have you evidence pointing to any other place in this house as the spot where he was killed?”

“No.”

“Have you for any reason, evidential or speculative, excluded any of these people from suspicion?”

“No.”

Boyle cut in from the couch. “How long do you intend to let this go on, Inspector?”

“You could have stopped it before it started,” Wolfe said dryly. “But here’s a comment. It is close to unbelievable that Lewent was killed where he was found. From such a blow he died instantly, and surely it was not struck in that narrow passage, particularly since it was moving upward at the moment of impact. With no sign of any struggle, with no displacement of the rug even, I can’t believe that such a blow could be struck—”

“Skip it,” Cramer growled. “Neither can we.”

“You think he was killed elsewhere?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know where?”

“No.”

Mandelbaum exploded, “What do you think this is, Wolfe, twenty questions?”

Wolfe ignored him. “My second comment. If he was killed elsewhere, why was the body moved? Because the murderer didn’t want it found where it was. How was it moved? That’s the real question. For vertical transport there was the elevator, but to and from the elevator, how? Was it dragged? That would leave marks, and of course you have looked for them. Have you found any?”

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t dragged. Carried? By whom? None of these women would be up to it. Lewent was undersized, but he weighed more than a hundred pounds. By Mr. Huck? It has been established that his legs will take him, with no burden, only a few steps. Then Mr. Thayer? He’s all we have left, but why? That’s another question I must ask you, Mr. Cramer. Why did Mr. Thayer kill Mr. Lewent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you even a decent surmise?”

“At present no.”

“Neither have I. But there’s another reason for excluding him, at least provisionally—that he’s not a lunatic.
Only a lunatic would carry the body of a man he had just murdered up and down these halls at that time of day, with so great a probability of being seen. No, I think we may conclude that the body was neither dragged nor carried. It only remains—”

“By God!”

That was me. It popped out. It is not often that I let myself interrupt Wolfe when he has steam up and is rolling, but that time it hit me so hard that I didn’t even know I was speaking. Eyes came to me, and Wolfe turned his head to inquire, “What is it, Archie?”

I shook my head. “I’ll save it.”

“No, we’re through saving. What is it?”

“Nothing much, only that I suddenly realized that I actually saw the murderer in the act of transporting the corpse. I stood and looked straight at him while he was moving it, and we exchanged words. I don’t like to brag, but don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I think it likely—”

“This is one hell of a time to realize it,” Sergeant Stebbins blurted at me.

“I suggest,” Wolfe told him, “that you post yourself near Mr. Huck. He could have almost anything hidden around that chair, especially under that quilt, and I don’t—”

“Just a minute, Wolfe.” Mandelbaum had left the couch and was marching. “If you have any evidence against anyone, including Mr. Huck, we want to hear it or see it first.”

“This is the man,” Huck said in a voice not very steady, “who tried to extort one hundred thousand dollars from me!”

“And succeeded,” Wolfe declared. “I’m by no means sure I couldn’t collect, though—”

He stopped, startled. So was I, and the others. Purley Stebbins, who knew Wolfe from away back, had quietly moved to Huck’s chair, at his right elbow, and all of a sudden Huck had jerked his head around and snarled at him in a spasm of fury, “Get away!” It was such a nasty snarl that Mandelbaum, also startled, forgot about Wolfe to stare at Huck. Purley, who had been snarled at by experts in his day, was unmoved.

“I offered comments, not evidence,” Wolfe reminded them. “Here is one regarding the location and nature of
the wound on Mr. Lewent’s head, and the direction of the blow. Suppose I am Mr. Huck; here I am in my wheelchair, in my study. It is shortly before five in the afternoon, and my brother-in-law, Mr. Lewent, is with me. I have decided that he must die because I believe that he is a deadly menace to me. He has engaged Nero Wolfe, a detective who does not waste his time or talent on inanities, to start an investigation in my household on a pretext so absurd that it is manifestly a fake. I not only know that my wife would not have left a sum of money secretly to be given to her brother; I also know that he knows she would not have done that. In addition, Wolfe’s assistant, Goodwin, in talking with my secretary and housekeeper and nurse, has dwelt on the possibility that one of them poisoned my wife, pretending that he is merely being facetious. One of them has told me about it. You might check that detail by inquiry.”

“We have,” Cramer admitted. “It was Miss Riff.”

“Good. So I am convinced that my brother-in-law has become suspicious about his sister’s death and therefore mortally threatens me. For the purpose of this comment, let us say the threat is possible disclosure of the fact that I poisoned his sister—my wife—by putting toxic material into a dish of artichokes. The inducement, which I realized, was inheritance of her wealth, amounting to millions. By the way, I don’t suppose Mr. Huck can prove that Mr. Lewent did not come to his study between four and five o’clock?”

“No. He sent Miss Riff for him about half-past four. He says Lewent was with him about ten minutes and then left.”

“Was Miss Riff present?”

“No. She left the house on an errand.”

Wolfe nodded. “Good again. And in fairness to you, Mr. Cramer and gentlemen, it should be said that I have had one big advantage which you lacked. You haven’t seen Mr. Huck propel himself in that vehicle, have you?”

They said no.

“I haven’t either, but I have heard Mr. Goodwin describe the operation and was impressed. It was my memory of that description that put me on the path of these comments. At present Mr. Huck does not look as if he would
care to demonstrate his machine, but you can manage that later. To go back: I am now Mr. Huck, here in my chair in my study, shortly before five o’clock.” Wolfe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wadded it in his right hand. “This is a paperweight, a heavy ball of green marble with a segment sliced off. Actually it isn’t in my hand, not quite yet; I merely have it ready, here on a shelf of my chair, holding down some papers. Archie, you are Mr. Lewent. Stand there in front of me, please—of course you could be either standing or sitting. A little closer would be more natural. Now I lift the paperweight with my right hand, and with my left pick up a paper to show you, but it slips from my fingers and falls to the floor. It’s quite likely that before sending for you I practiced dropping that paper. Of course you bend over to retrieve it for me—that would be automatic, with me a cripple—and when you do so I strike with the paperweight.”

I bent over, and he tapped me on the nape. I wasn’t in the mood to ham it by dropping dead, but it didn’t seem fitting to straighten up immediately, so I compromised by sinking to a knee.

“God save us,” muttered Mrs. O’Shea, and there was no other sound. Wolfe went on. “In our relative positions, me sitting and you stooping, the impact would be upward on your skull. I must now move as fast as my disability will permit. Twenty seconds is enough to satisfy me that no second blow is needed; you are dead. I am sound and strong from the hips up, and in another twenty seconds I have you lifted and draped over my legs and covered with the shawl that I am never without. I push a button and grasp the lever, and off we go. I must dump you on another floor. It is a risk, certainly, but I must take it.”

“Evidence, damn it,” Mandelbaum growled.

“By all means,” Wolfe conceded, “and the sooner the better. You might start by learning if the paperweight fits the dent in the skull; I think you’ll find that it does. Examine the plaid shawl that was used for a shroud; you may find hairs of Lewent’s head. You had already concluded that the murder was not committed in Lewent’s room; I challenge you to explain how the body was transported if not on Mr. Huck’s chair. I confess it is a pity that the day was dying and the light in the hall was dim when
Mr. Goodwin stood at the door of Lewent’s room and saw Mr. Huck, in his chair, emerge from the elevator and head for his room. Mr. Goodwin has sharp eyes, and in better light he would probably have noticed that the hump under the shawl was larger than it should have been. Of course his presence forced Mr. Huck to retreat to his own room with his cargo temporarily, but Mr. Goodwin left almost at once—left the house to phone me—and Mr. Huck finished the transport. That must have been the hardest part for him, since the door to Lewent’s room was too narrow for his chair.”

Wolfe tilted his head to Mandelbaum, who was still standing. “But I like this for evidence. To me, in fact, this alone is absolutely conclusive. You have questioned all of us at length, and you know what was said in this room immediately prior to the discovery of the body. You know that in the presence of five witnesses I extorted from Mr. Huck a promise to pay me a large sum of money—for what? For my reciprocal promise that Mr. Lewent would not again pester any of them with accusations! It is inconceivable that Mr. Huck could be such an ass as to agree to any such bargain if he had thought Lewent was still alive. Word of it, from Mr. Thayer if no one else, was sure to reach Lewent, and he, thinking I had betrayed him by taking a bribe from the enemy, would have had his suspicions redoubled instead of stilled.”

Wolfe shook his head. “No. Unquestionably Huck knew then that Lewent was dead; that certainty struck me the moment I saw the corpse. Not only that; by agreeing to my preposterous proposal Huck was confessing to his guilt. He thought I was blackmailing him, and, momentarily at least, he thought he had to submit. I had tackled him before witnesses, and he would have to get me alone to find out how much I knew and how I might be dealt with. But for the terror of his guilt, he would have scorned me as a witling; when I made my proposal and demand, he would have sent for his brother-in-law and denounced me to him. Instead—but you know what he did, and look at him now.”

Most of those present did look at him, but three did not, and it went to show how men’s minds work. The three were Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum, Deputy Police
Commissioner Boyle, and Inspector Cramer. They, three high-ranking officers of the law, were gazing resentfully and indignantly, not at the murderer who had just been exposed, but at the man who had exposed him. Not that you could blame them much. They would have to charge Huck and take him, that was clear, but they were by no means ready for a judge and jury; and Huck had enough dough to hire the ten best lawyers in town.