Rex Stout (19 page)

“Orlik?” Jean got to her feet. She brushed at her hair. “Orlik. Yes, that’s right.” She blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I want to see him. Send him in here.”

“You’ve had no lunch. You ought to be—”

“Ask Cora to bring me a sandwich and coffee. Two or three sandwiches. I realise I’m starving.”

After a few more protestations, which Jean waved aside, Eileen went. The door opened to admit Sam Orlik. He introduced himself, waited for Jean to offer a hand, took it with the proper flavour of formality, and accepted an invitation to a chair. The aim of his pale eyes at her face could not have been called a stare, but it made Jean uncomfortable. She had been stared at all night, with that maddening light blazing in her eyes….

He said conversationally, “I have a message for you
from my client, Mr. Guy Carew. He wishes to apologise for the trouble he has caused you. I told him it would be necessary for me to see you as soon as possible, and he wishes to apologise for that also.”

“That’s silly,” Jean declared. “Is he—did they keep him—”

“He’s under arrest, yes. For murder. He is now on his way to White Plains—the crime was in Westchester County.”

“That’s silly too. How can they arrest a man for murder when it’s obvious he didn’t do it?”

“Well, obvious—” Orlik shrugged. “I was a little surprised myself that they shot the murder charge, but of course their tongues have been hanging out for a month and their nerves are upset. I don’t know if I would say they’re silly. Mr. Carew had motive—aside from his father’s intended marriage and other complications, an heir to a great fortune always has motive, naturally. He had opportunity. The fact that the yarn came from a jacket which he owned is a damaging bit of circumstantial evidence. Very damaging. Worst of all—it would be for a jury—is his offering a false alibi.”

“He didn’t offer it! Portia Tritt—”

“He accepted it, he confirmed it, and later he repeated it.” Orlik shrugged, and added dryly, “Now he admits he lied. That’s very bad. I may be able to keep it away from the jury; I certainly intend to try.”

“That’s twice you’ve mentioned a jury.” Jean was frowning. “Surely—do you mean there’s a chance that there will actually be a trial? In a courtroom?”

“They hold them in courtrooms. Whether they can convict or not—they certainly have enough to make it a hard case.”

“My God.” Jean stared. “I hadn’t supposed—I supposed
their arresting him only meant he would have to explain—they couldn’t possibly
convict
him—”

“You’re quite an optimist. So is Mr. Carew.” Orlik sighed. “I’ll tell you, Miss Farris, I’m going to be pretty frank with you, and in case you wonder why I’ll tell you. I figure that after your performance last night, holding out against Cramer and Skinner, you can be trusted, and God knows Carew needs someone he can trust. I’d like to ask you, when they kept you for fourteen hours to tell them where you got that yarn, why didn’t you tell?”

“Because I had promised I wouldn’t.”

“Promised Mr. Carew?”

“Yes.”

“Then are you a good friend of his? A real friend? Right on through?”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘right on through.’ I’m a good and real friend of Guy Carew.”

“Enough so you’d go to some trouble to keep him from being tried and convicted and electrocuted for murdering his father?”

“Of course—” Jean shivered, then her shoulders were held rigid. “That’s incredible. It’s monstrous. But of course I would.”

“Good. That’s fine. As I said, I think you can be trusted. I hope to God you can. Don’t think I’m rushing you unnecessarily, because I’m not. I’m being frank with you. Cramer was a fool to let you go, and Skinner and Anderson are a pair of nincompoops not to nab you right now and get you under heavy bond. They’re apt to realise that any minute, and that’s why there’s no time to lose. Here’s what I want you to do. The
Rosaria
sails in less than five hours, at six o’clock. You go down there now, and I mean now, and get on board. I considered details in the taxi coming up here. Your name will be Ruth Gunther. There’ll be a man there within an hour
with a couple of thousand cash for you, and a ticket—now wait a minute, wait till I—”

“Nonsense! You mean run away? Me? Why should I?”

“Because you’re the key witness in the case against Guy Carew. Because if you don’t—”

He stopped abruptly at a knock on the door and the sound of the knob turning, and turned his head sharply. But it was only Eileen Delaney, with a tray holding three sandwiches, two éclairs, and a container of coffee. Jean tried to wave it away, but Miss Delaney paid no attention. She placed the tray before her partner, removed the lid of the container, made a curt remark about the foolishness of starving, and departed. Sam Orlik gazed at the door after it had closed behind her, listening to the retreating footsteps from the other side, and then turned to Jean:

“That your lunch? Go ahead, don’t mind me. Get it down. I was saying, you’re going to be the key witness for the state. Their most damaging piece of evidence, by far, will be the fact that the yarn found in Val Carew’s hand came from his son’s jacket. But they can’t possibly prove it without you. They can’t produce the jacket, because it doesn’t exist any more. Any piece of yarn or scrap of material they try to introduce, I can absolutely have it excluded, because they can’t show it came from Guy’s jacket. I understand you unravelled the jacket with your own hands, and you did the weaving yourself. That right?”

Jean nodded.

Orlik nodded back. “There you are. They’ll fuss around with it, but if I can’t keep it out I’d better start chasing ambulances. Without you on the witness stand, the yarn simply can’t get into the case at all. And with the yarn out, I’ll stand a better than even chance of licking
them. After it’s over you can come back. Of course all your expenses will be paid, and they don’t need to be modest expenses, since there’s plenty of money—now, what are you shaking your head for? Didn’t you say you’re a good friend of Guy Carew?”

“I am.”

“Well, haven’t I made it plain enough?”

“You’ve made it perfectly plain.” Jean’s gaze was level at him. “Several things. But maybe I’m wrong. You sound as if you believe Guy—Mr. Carew is guilty. And he isn’t.”

Orlik gestured impatiently. “That’s immaterial. We won’t get anywhere discussing that, though I might mention that he deceived me, his attorney, about that Portia Tritt alibi. But that has nothing to do with it. My job is to get him turned loose if I can, and if he is tried, get him acquitted. That’s all I’m interested in, and that’s all I want, and under the circumstances, believe me, that’s all any one has a right to expect. And if you are his friend, and if you are intelligent enough to take the judgment of a man who has been through—”

“No!” Jean was emphatic. “You mean run away. I won’t do that. I don’t even ask you if Guy knew you were going to ask me to, because I know he didn’t. Did he?”

“No. It’s our job, his friends’ job—”

“I knew he didn’t. He wouldn’t want me to run away. And if you, his lawyer, if you think he’s guilty, I think that’s shameful. I not only know he is innocent, I have proof of it. Written proof.”

Orlik’s eyes widened. “You have what? Written by whom?”

“I have proof. Wait.” Jean clambered from the stool, went to her desk for the papers she had left there, and returned with them and handed them to him. “There. Read those.”

The lawyer took them, got nose glasses from his pocket, and went through them, rapidly but methodically. He removed the glasses, holding them in his fingers, and demanded, “Well?”

“Well, that proves Guy is innocent.” Jean was back on the stool. “Did you know that on Thursday evening someone knocked me on the head and stole my skirt and jacket?”

“Yes. Carew told me about it yesterday, when he gave me the sample of yarn you gave him. I presume these are the reports of their activities made by the guests at Mrs. Barth’s request.”

“They are. Do you notice what Guy wrote? Do you notice that from half-past eight till nine o’clock he was with several people and it can be confirmed by them? Don’t you realise that the murderer had got in a panic because he had learned of the yarn found in Val Carew’s hand, and he knew the yarn in my suit must be the same and could be traced, and so he followed me, or found me, and took it?”

“And so?” Orlik asked calmly.

“So it couldn’t have been Guy Carew!” Jean was shrill. “Good Lord, don’t you see? If it was the murderer who took my suit, and if Guy was somewhere else when that happened—”

“Sure, I see.” Orlik thrust the papers into his pocket and sat back. “I’m going to ask you to let me take these; there might possibly be a use for them, though I doubt it. Your deductions from them are full of holes. Your hypothesis that it was the murderer himself who assaulted and robbed you is pure assumption; it might have been done for another reason, or it might have been done by a confederate—Buysse or Wilson or both of them, or even Kranz or Barth—and it has no effect on the evidence regarding the murder itself. And it’s so far from proving
Carew innocent that it would even add to the presumption of his guilt. Who else knew that the yarn in your suit had come from his jacket? If he was the only one who knew that—”

“He wasn’t. They all knew it. Someone asked me where I got the yarn—it was Portia Tritt—and I told them. They were all there together.”

The lawyer shrugged. “Even so, it doesn’t prove anything. Another point: I suppose you have a good memory, and if you go on the stand you will probably remember that Carew went to you and asked you to promise to say nothing about the jacket he had given you. Imagine a jury chewing on that. That will be just fine.”

“Well … I don’t know. I … I might not remember it … if I had to…. Oh, I hope it won’t come to that! Surely there is a way….”

“You
hope
!” Orlik jumped up and leaned at her; his voice was low compressed scorn. “You and your miserable feeble little hope! And you say you’re his friend! One hell of a friend you are, Miss Farris! One
hell
of a friend!” His pale eyes gleamed to annihilate her; she didn’t know that she was witnessing a sample of the famous spontaneous combustion of Sam Orlik, usually reserved for the courtroom. “No, I didn’t tell Guy Carew I was going to ask you to run away—thank God I didn’t! Thank God he’ll never know that you’re too brave and fine to run away! He won’t even know it when he’s sitting in the electric chair waiting for them to turn the juice on; he won’t know, unless I explain it to him, that of all the people who helped to put him there, you—” he pointed a rigid finger—“are the bravest and the finest! Friend! Good God!”

“That—” Jean stopped because she didn’t want her
voice to tremble. She tried to control it: “That won’t help any. That’s just silly heroics.”

Orlik had turned his back; he whirled again. “Oh, you sneer at heroics? You sneer, do you?” He lifted his hands and dropped them; the gleam faded from his eyes. “Let me tell you something, Miss Farris.” His voice was calm and persuasive. “I’ve seen this happen time and time again. It’s always with optimists like you. You won’t pay the price because you think you won’t have to. Then the day comes when panic hits you and you’d be willing to pay twice over, a hundred times, but you can’t, because you’re insolvent. In this case I hope to heaven that day never comes … but I always hope that, and sometimes it comes anyway. Now let’s discuss this thing like reasonable people….”

An hour later Sam Orlik departed, defeated. In the end he tried to compromise on something more temporary and less ambitious, a mere excursion to another state; but Jean resisted even that. She wouldn’t run away.

At half-past two she was still perched on her stool, chewing mechanically and methodically on the sandwiches and drinking lukewarm coffee from the container. Now and then a little shiver ran over her. The food had no taste at all, and it was an effort to swallow. A little thought flitted like a momentary shadow among all the others which were chasing around in her head: that she would probably have indigestion, and that too would be a new experience. She frowned it out of the way, and went on chewing and trying to think.

There must be some way, there simply must be, of learning the truth. Could facts actually be buried so that no one could ever find them? And, not finding them, could people actually go ahead and do something so horrible, so unspeakable … but that wouldn’t do. That
was hysterical drivel, and wouldn’t help any. Certainly facts could get buried and certainly people could do horrible things. The point was to prevent it. She must really
think.

Mechanically she reached for the last sandwich.

At three o’clock, with an air of decision, she pulled the telephone to her, put it to her ear and dialled a number. There was a wait of a few moments then she made an inquiry and a request, and after that a long wait followed. Finally she spoke again:

“Mrs. Barth? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important. This is Jean Farris. It’s much better, thank you, it still aches a little, nothing to speak of. Yes, I suppose you did. Yes, it is dreadful, in the papers like that, but there it is and I don’t suppose it will kill me. I want to ask you a favour, a very great favour. Of course you haven’t heard that Guy Carew is under arrest…. Oh, of course, the radio. Yes. Yes. I’m sure you didn’t, neither did I. What I want to ask you is to arrange to have Mr. Barth, Mr. Kranz, Mr. Buysse, and Mr. Wilson—the Indian—at your house this evening at half-past eight o’clock. I realise that perfectly, I said it is a very great favour, and you must know I wouldn’t ask it if it weren’t of vital importance. I know that, Mrs. Barth, and I assure you I wouldn’t make such a peculiar request…. Yes, it is connected with the arrest, in a way. No, certainly not. No, just those four, it won’t be necessary to include Miss Tritt. The newspapers and the police know nothing about it, and they won’t know, I give you my word. It will be a great favour to me, and I hope and believe it will also be one to Guy Carew. Yes, it will have to be at half-past eight, and they must all be there or it won’t do any good. No, thank you very much….”

She hung up, sat a moment frowning, looked in the book for a number, and dialled again.