Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 45 (18 page)

Wolfe looked at Rowcliff and back at Cramer. “There are several ways I could do this, and I’m taking the quickest, which should also be the most effective. As you know, a friend of Mr. Goodwin’s, Mr. Cohen, is in a position of authority and influence at the
Gazette
.” He turned. “Your notebook, Archie.”

With no idea what was coming, I got it, and a pen, and crossed my legs.

“A suggested draft for an article in tomorrow’s
Gazette
. ‘In an interview yesterday afternoon Nero Wolfe, comma, the private investigator, comma, stated that an attempt has been made by Dennis Copes, comma, an employee of the Continental Air Network, comma, to get the sixty-five thousand dollars offered in a recent advertisement by Mrs. Peter Odell, comma, by fraud. Period.’—No. Instead of ‘fraud’ make it ‘by subreption.’ It’s more precise and will add to vocabularies. ‘Paragraph.’

“‘Mr. Wolfe said, comma, quote, “Dennis Copes came to my office last Thursday evening and disclosed that he had knowledge of a certain fact relevant to the explosion of a bomb in the office of a CAN executive on the twentieth of May that caused the death of Peter Odell. Period. It was a fact known to me and to the police but had never been divulged, comma, by them or by me. Period. It was a closely guarded secret. Period. Mr. Copes’s explanation of how and where he had learned it made it highly probable that the bomb had been placed in the drawer by another employee of CAN, comma, named by him. Paragraph.

“‘Quote. “I had reason to suspect that Mr. Copes’s account of how he had learned the fact was false, comma, and I undertood to discover if he might have learned it some other way. Period. This morning I learned that there was indeed another way. Period. Mr. Copes has a twin sister named Diana who is the wife of a police lieutenant named J.M. Rowcliff. Period. I think it highly probable, comma, in fact I am satisfied, comma, that Mr. Rowcliff—”’”

“Why, goddamn you—” Rowcliff was up and moving.

“Back up!” Cramer snapped.

“Let me finish,” Wolfe said.

“
I’ll
finish you! You—”

“Can it!” Cramer snapped. “Sit down. Sit down and shut your trap.” To Wolfe: “You know damn well you can’t do this. We’d tear your guts out. You’d be done.”

“I doubt it,” Wolfe said. “The spotlight of public interest. I would be a cynosure, a man of mark. And my client’s resources are considerable. I would have handled this differently if it were not Mr. Rowcliff. If it were Mr. Stebbins, for instance, I would have asked him to come and I would have told him that I wanted merely his private acknowledgment that he had told his wife about the LSD. That would have satisfied
me
that Mr. Copes had learned of the LSD from his sister, and no further proof would have been required. It would not have been necessary even for you to be told, either by him or by me. But with Mr. Rowcliff that would not have been possible. Would it? You know him. You know his animus against me.”

“You could have asked
me
to come. And discuss it.”

“Certainly. I have. Here we are.”

“Balls. Discuss, my ass. ‘In an interview yesterday afternoon Nero Wolfe, the private investigator.’ That crap. All right, I’ll discuss it with Rowcliff and you’ll hear from me later. Probably today.”

“No.” Emphatic. “That won’t do. It’s urgent. There’s a certain step I intend to take without delay. I’ll postpone it only if I must. If you and Mr. Rowcliff leave without satisfying me, Mr. Goodwin will leave ten minutes later with the suggested draft for that article. It may be possible to get it in the late edition of today’s paper. And of course reporters will be wanting to see Mr. and Mrs. Rowcliff—and you, I suppose. This is probably a resort to coercion, but I make no apology; the fact that I have Mr. Rowcliff to deal with makes it imperative. Actually I don’t ask much. I require only a statement by him, unequivocal, that he told his wife about the LSD found in Peter Odell’s pocket. I don’t need an admission by his wife that she told her brother. That is a plausible assumption that for me will suffice.”

Wolfe turned to Rowcliff. “You may know—or you may not—that there is an understanding between Mr. Cramer and me which he knows I observe. No conversation in this office with him present is recorded without his express consent. This is not being recorded.”

“You goddamn ape,” Rowcliff said.

Cramer asked him, “Did you hear me tell you to shut your trap?”

No reply.

“Say ‘yes, sir,’” Cramer said.

Rowcliff licked his lips. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re a good cop,” Cramer said. “I know what you’re good for and what you’re not good for. I even agree with your opinion of Wolfe up to a point, but
only
up to a point. That understanding he mentioned, you wouldn’t trust him to keep it, but I do. That’s a flaw you’ve got. Anyway the point right now is not our opinion of Wolfe, it’s what he wants from you. There are aspects of this that you and I can discuss privately, and we will, but if you
did
tell your wife about the LSD, and you can be damn sure I’m going to
know
if you did, the best thing you can do is to say so here and now. You don’t have to tell Wolfe, tell me. Did you?”

“Goddam it, Inspector, I’m not—”

“
Did you
?”

“Yes. I’m not going—”

“Shut up.” Cramer turned to Wolfe. “I call that unequivocal, damn you.”

“So do I,” Wolfe said. “Thank you for coming.”

“You can shove your thanks.” He stood up. “You said something on the phone about a useful hint. You can shove that too. You and your useful hints.” He turned to Rowcliff. “You, move. Move!”

It was an order and Rowcliff obeyed it. Anyone else I could name, I would have felt sorry for him. I knew what he had coming and so did he. Saul followed them to the hall; he had let them in, so he would check them out.

As Saul came back in, Wolfe told me, “Get Mr. Browning.”

He was certainly making up for lost time, but it had worked with Cramer and Rowcliff so it might work with the next president of CAN too, whatever it was, I pulled the phone around and dialed, and told the switchboard I wanted to speak to Mr. Browning’s secretary. When you ask for secretaries usually you aren’t asked who you are, and in a minute I had her.

“Mr. Browning’s office.”

“Miss Lugos, please.”

“This is Miss Lugos.”

“This is Archie Goodwin. Mr. Wolfe would like to speak to Mr. Browning.”

“Nero Wolfe?”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. It must be important, since Mr. Browning called him a cheap bully only a couple of hours ago.”

“I’ll see. Hold the wire.”

Of course she would tell me either that Mr. Browning was not available or to put Mr. Wolfe on. But she didn’t. After a wait of only a couple of minutes, his voice: “What do you want?”

I didn’t have to answer because Wolfe was on.

“Mr. Browning?”

“Yes.”

“Nero Wolfe. I have just spoken at some length with Inspector Cramer of the police. He left my office five minutes ago. This afternoon, not later than four o’clock, I am going to tell him who put a bomb in a drawer of your desk, and I think it fitting and desirable that I tell you first. I would also like to tell Miss Lugos why I told her that she lied. Will you come, with her, at half past two?”

Silence, a long minute, then, “I think
you’re
lying.”

“No. A lie that would be exposed in three hours? No.”

“You know who did that? You know now?”

“Yes.”

A shorter silence. “I’ll call you back.”

He hung up. Of course that meant yes. He wouldn’t call Cramer, and even if he did, what would that get him? I looked at Wolfe. Sometimes you can tell pretty well how good his hand is by the way he holds his head, and his mouth. That time I couldn’t. No sign. I asked him, “Must we leave the room while you’re telling them? We’re curious. We’d like to know too.”

“You will.” He looked at the wall clock. 12:25. “Now. Saul, ask Fritz to bring the champagne.”

As Saul left, the doorbell rang, and I went. It was Orrie Cather. I opened the door and said, “Greetings. Go ahead and tell me you know who Dennis Copes’s twin sister’s husband is.”

“Huh?” He stepped in. “I didn’t know he had a sister. I got bounced from the CAN building.”

“Sure. They knew you like champagne. Go right in.”

So Orrie was there for the briefing too.

19

t
he vice-president and his secretary came on the dot at half past two. Precisely.

We were well-filled. Inside our bellies were three bottles of Dom Perignon champagne, braised sweetbreads with chicken quenelles (small portions because of the unexpected guests), crab meat omelets (added attraction), celery and mushroom salad, and four kinds of cheese. Inside our skulls were the details of where it stood according to Wolfe and the program for the next hour or two. For where it stood I would have given good odds, say ten to one, and so would the other three. For the program, no bet. It was a typical Wolfe concoction. It assumed—
he
assumed—that if an unexpected snag interfered, he would be able to handle it no matter what it was, and your ego has to be riding high to assume that.

To prepare for it only two props were needed. One was the Copes tape in the playback on my desk. For the other all four of us went to the basement. I could have done it alone, but they wanted to help. In a corner of the big storage room there were two thick, old mattresses, no springs in them, which I had used a few times for targets to get bullets for comparison purposes. We decided the best place for them was under the pool table in the adjoining room, where it had been installed when Wolfe had decided that he needed some violent exercise. Doubled, the mattresses were a tight fit under it.

The three were to be in the front room, but when the doorbell rang Saul went to receive the guests and show them in. They didn’t have their war paint on. Browning was not a dragon snorting fire, and Helen Lugos was not set to use her claws on someone who had called her a liar. He sat in the red leather chair and said he had an appointment at a quarter past three, and she sat in a yellow one and said nothing.

“This will take a while,” Wolfe told Browning. “Perhaps an hour.”

“I can’t stay an hour.”

“We’ll see. I’ll make it as brief as possible. First you must hear a recording of a conversation I had recently with a member of your staff, Dennis Copes. Here. He came last Thursday evening.—Archie?”

I flipped the switch, and for the fifth time I heard Copes speak highly of that ad. Another time or two and I would begin to think I had picked the wrong line of work, that by now I could have been a vice-president myself, at one of the big agencies. As I had with Cramer and Rowcliff, I watched their faces. Their reaction was very different from the cops’. They looked at Wolfe hardly at all. Mostly they looked at each other, him with a frown that developed into what you might call a gawk, and her first with her eyes wide and then with her lips parted. Twice she started to say something but realized she had to hold it. When it came to the end and I turned it off, they both started to speak at once, he to her and she to him, but Wolfe stopped them. “Don’t,” he said, loud enough and decisive enough to stop anybody. “Don’t waste your breath and your time and mine, I know he lied. It was all a fabrication. That has been established, with the help of Inspector Cramer. He heard the recording this morning. I should tell you, and I do, that this conversation is not being recorded. I give you that assurance on my word of honor, and those who know me would tell you that I would not tarnish that fine old pledge.”

Browning demanded, “If you know he lied why bother us with it? Why do
you
waste our time?”

“I don’t. You
had
to hear part of it, and to appreciate that part you needed to hear the whole. I have—”

“What part?”

“You said your time is limited.”

“It is.”

“Then don’t interrupt. I have a good deal to say and I am not garrulous. The kernel of Mr. Copes’s fabrication was of course the quotation—what he said he heard Kenneth Meer say.” To Helen Lugos: “You say he didn’t say that? That that conversation didn’t occur?”

“I certainly do. It didn’t.”

“I believe you. But his invention of it told me something that he did not intend and was not aware of. It told me who put the bomb in the drawer, and I’m going to tell you how and why. As I said, I’ll make it brief as possible, but you should know that Kenneth Meer is responsible for my concern in this affair. On May twenty-sixth, a Monday, he went to a clinic, gave a false name, and told a doctor that he needed help; that he got blood on his hands recurrently, frequently, not visible to anyone else. He refused—”

Browning demanded, “A clinic? What clinic?”

“Don’t interrupt! To include all details would take all day. I assure you that anything I do include can be verified. He refused to give any information about himself. A friend of that doctor, another doctor, consulted me, and Kenneth Meer, still using an alias, came to see me. He still refused to supply any information about himself, but by a ruse, Mr. Goodwin and I learned who he was, and of course we had seen his name in the published reports of the death of Peter Odell. That led to my being consulted by Mrs. Odell and her hiring me. Naturally—”

“So that’s how—”

“Don’t interrupt! Naturally I considered the possibility that Meer had supplied the bomb and was racked by his sense of guilt. But surely not intending it for you, and information given me by Mrs. Odell made it extremely unlikely that he could have known that Peter Odell intended to go to your room and open that drawer. I will not elaborate on that. I have included that detail, how I first saw Kenneth Meer, only to explain why he has been of special interest throughout. There has always been for me that special reason to suspect him, but there was no plausible basis for a charge. Or rather, there was, but I hadn’t the wit to see it. I admit I should have. Mr. Copes revealed it to me.”