Please Pass the Guilt Read online

  Please Pass the Guilt

  Rex Stout

  Please Pass the Guilt Rex Stout Series: Nero Wolfe [45] Published: 1995 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  Please Pass the GuiltRex StoutSeries: Nero Wolfe [45] Published: 1995 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  please pass Hie guilt A NERO WOLFE NOVEL rex�tout THE VIKING PRESS NEW YORK Copyright � 1973 by Rex Stout All rights reserved First published in 1973 by The Viking Press, Inc. 625 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022 Published simultaneously in Canada by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited Printed in U.S.A. p1ea�e p��� the guilt I I he GRUNTED--the low brief rumble that isn't meant to be heard --turned his head to dart a glance at me, and turned back to Dr. Volhner, who was in the red leather chair facing the end of Wolfe's desk. It wasn't just that he was being asked for a favor. If there was a man alive who could say no to a request for a favor easier than Nero Wolfe, I hadn't met him. The trouble was that it was Dr. VoUmer, whose house and office was only a few doors away, who had said he wanted one, and the favor score between him and us was close to a tie. So Wolfe was probably going to be stuck, and therefore the grunt. Volhner crossed his long, lean legs and rubbed his narrow, lean jaw with a knuckle. "It's really for a friend of mine," he said, "a man I would like to oblige. His name is h-win Ostrow, a psychiatrist--not a Freudian. He's interested in a new approach to psychiatric therapy, and he's working at it. Crisis intervention, they call it. I'll have to explain how it works. It's based on--" "First aid," Wolfe said. "Emotional tourniquet." "How--you know about it?" "I read. I read for various purposes, and one of them is to learn what my fellow beings are up to. There are several thousand emergency-treatment centers now operating in this country. The Detroit Psychiatric Institute has a Suicide Prevention Center. The crisis center at Grady Memorial Hospital in At2 Please Pass the Guilt lanta is staffed by psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, lay therapists, and clergymen. The director of clinical psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital has written and spoken at length about it. His name is Decker." "What's his first name?" "Barry." Vollmer shook his head. "You know," he said, "you are the most improbable combination of ignorance and knowledge on earth. You don't know what a linebacker does. You don't know what a fugue is." "I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know." "What if it's unknowable?" "Only philosophers and fools waste time on the unknowable. I am neither. What does Dr. Ostrow want to know?" Vollmer slid back in the red leather chair, which was deep. "Well. I don't want to bore you with things you already know. If I do, stop me. The Washington Heights Crisis Clinic is on 178th Street, near Broadway. It's a storefront operation; people can just walk in, and they do. A woman who can't stop beating her two-year-old daughter. A man who keeps getting up in the middle of the night and going outdoors in his pajamas. Most of them are on the way to a mental hospital if they're not headed off quick, and the clinic--but you know all that. Eight days ago, a week ago yesterday, a young man came and told a nurse he needed help and she sent him in to Irwin--Dr. Ostrow. He gave the nurse his name, Ronald Seaver." Vollmer looked at me with his brows up. "I hope they don't have to go to a crisis clinic," I said, and turned to Wolfe. "One of your ignorance areas, baseball. Ron Swoboda is an outfielder and Torn Seaver is a pitcher. 'Ron Seaver' is obviously a phony, but it might help to know he's a Met fan, if a clue is needed." "It is," Vollmer said. "Of course Irwin knew it was an alias, but people often do that their first visit. But he came back five Please Pass the Guilt 3 days later, Saturday morning, and again the next day, Sunday, and he not only hasn't told his real name, he won't give any facts at all except what his crisis is. It's blood on his hands. His hands get covered with blood, not visible to anybody else, and he goes and washes them. The first time, ten days ago�no, twelve�it was in the middle of the night and he had to go to the bathroom and wash his hands. It happens any time, no pattern, day or night, but usually when he's alone. A nurse there says it's the Lady Macbeth syndrome. He says he knows of no event or experience that could have caused it, but Irwin is sure he's lying." He turned a palm up. "So that's his crisis. Irwin says he really has one, a severe one; the possibility of a complete mental breakup is indicated. But they can't get through to him. One of L-win's colleagues there is a woman, a lay therapist, who has had remarkable success with some tough ones, even catatonics, but after two hours with bun�that was Sunday, day before yesterday�she told him he was wasting his time and theirs. Then she said she had alternative suggestions: either he could go to a surgeon and have his hands amputated, or he could go to a detective, perhaps Nero Wolfe, and try to dodge his questions. And do you know what he said? He said. Til do that. I'll go to Nero Wolfe.'" My brows were up. "He tried to," I said. "So that was Ron Seaver. He phoned yesterday around noon and said he wanted to come and pay Nero Wolfe a hundred dollars an hour to ask him questions. He wouldn't give his name and didn't mention bloody hands. Naturally I thought he was a nut and said no and hung up." Vollmer nodded. "And he phoned Irwin and Irwin phoned me." To Wolfe: "Of course the hundred dollars an hour wouldn't tempt you, but I didn't come to tempt you, I came to ask a favor for a friend. You said you make sure to know what you want to know. Well, Dr. Ostrow thinks it's possible that this man did have blood on his hands, and he wants to 4 Please Pass the Guilt know if he can and should be helped. I admit I do too. I've dealt with people in crises myself, any doctor has, but this is a new one to me." Wolfe looked at the wall clock. Twenty minutes to seven. "Will you dine with us? Shad roe Creole. Fritz uses shallots instead of onion and no cayenne. Chablis, not sherry." Vollmer smiled, broad. "Knowing how few people get invited to your table, I should beam. But I know it's only compassion for my--" "I am not compassionate." "Hah. You think my meals are like the one Johnson described to Boswell: 'ill-killed, ill-dressed, ill-cooked, and illserved,' and you feel sorry for me. Thank you, but I have things to do before I eat. If I could come tomorrow and bring that man . . ." Wolfe made a face. "Not for dinner. I suppose he'll see Dr. Ostrow tomorrow, or telephone. If he does, tell him to come tomorrow evening at nine o'clock. There will be no fee. And no compassion." 2 that was Tuesday, the third of June. The next morning there was a little problem. When we haven't got a job or jobs going, I usually get out for a walk after breakfast, with or without an excuse like a trip to the bank, but that Wednesday I didn't. I don't know if I have ever mentioned that the three employes of the Midtown Home Service Corporation who come once a week are always male because Wolfe insists on it. That Wednesday Andy and Sam came at nine o'clock as usual, but they had a woman along, a husky coal-black female with shoulders nearly as broad as mine. Andy, who was white but broadminded, explained that it was tougher than ever to get men, and repeated one of his favorite remarks, "Goddam it, TV men and carpet layers work in homes." He called the woman Lucile and started her on the dining room, across the hall from the office on the ground floor of the old brownstone. Of course Wolfe, up in the plant rooms on the roof for his morning session with the orchids, hadn't seen her. I went back to the kitchen, sat at my little breakfast table for my second cup of coffee, and told Fritz, "We'll tell him it's a man in disguise because he's wanted." "There's batter for another cake, Archie." "No, thanks. They're extra good, they always are, but I've had five. He's wanted for peddling pot. Or maybe acid." "But his front? The monts?" 6 Please Pass the Guilt "Part of the disguise. King-size bra. Is this the Brazilian coffee?" "No, Colombian. Of course you're just talking. If he sees her--" He threw his hands, and aimed his eyes, up. "But he probably will. He often comes to the kitchen while you're giving them lunch." I sipped hot coffee. "I'll tell him when he comes down. Have your ear plugs in, he may let out a roar." So I didn't go for a walk. Anything c
ould happen; Lucile might know about the orchids and sneak up for a look. I was at my desk in the office when the sound of the elevator came at eleven o'clock, and when Wolfe entered and told me good morning and went to put a cluster of Acampe pachyglossa in the vase on his desk, I said, "There's an amendment to the by-laws. Andy is here with Sam and a woman, a black one named Lucile. She is now up in your room with Andy. He says that more and more men think housework isn't manly, which is silly since Fritz and Theodore and I work in your house and we're as manly as they come. It looks like a case of circumstances beyond our control, but if you don't agree, control it." He sat, got his nineteen stone (it looks better in stone than in pounds) arranged in his made-to-order chair, glanced at his desk calendar, and picked up the stack the mailman had brought. He looked at me. "Are there female Black Panthers?" "I'll look it up. If there are, Lucile isn't one. She would be a black mare, Clydesdale or Percheron. She can pick up the vacuum cleaner with one finger." "She is in my house by invitation. 111 have to speak with her, at least a nod and a word." But he didn't. He didn't go to the kitchen while they were there at lunch, and Andy, who knew Wolfe's habits, kept their paths from crossing. Their regular leaving time was four o'clock, but that was also the time for Wolfe's afternoon turn in the plant rooms, and Andy waited until he was in the elevator on his way up. With them gone, I relaxed. In view of Wolfe's basic Please Pass the Guilt 7 attitude on women, there's no telling what will happen when one is in that house. I was making entries, from notes supplied by Theodore, on the germination and performance cards, when Dr. Vollmer phoned to say that Ronald Seaver would come at nine o'clock. The only preparation needed took about six minutes-- going to a cabinet for a fancy glass-and-metal jar with the sharpened ends of a dozen pencils protruding at the top, and placing it at a certain spot and a certain angle near the right edge of my desk, and putting a certain plug in a certain hidden outlet. He was nearly half an hour late. It was 9:23, and we had just finished with after-dinner coffee in the office, when the doorbell rang and I went. Going down the hall, what I saw on the stoop through the one-way glass panel was commonplace for anyone who knows midtown Manhattan: a junior executive, medium-sized, with a poorly designed face tired too young, in a dark gray suit that had been cut to fit, no hat. I opened the door and invited him in, and added as he entered, "If you had told me on the phone you were Ron Seaver I would have asked you to come and discuss the outlook." He smiled--the kind of smile that comes quick and goes quicker--and mumbled, "They're doing better." I agreed and ushered him down the hall. In the office, he stopped about three steps in and one foot backed up a little. I thought that at sight of Wolfe he was deciding to call it off, and so did he, but when I indicated the red leather chair, he came to Wolfe's desk, muttered something, and put out a hand, and Wolfe said, "No, there's blood on it. Sit down." He went to the red leather chair, sat, met Wolfe's eyes, and said, "If you could see it, if you could actually see it." As I went to my chair at my desk I glanced at the jar of pencils; it was in position. Wolfe nodded. "But I can't. If Dr. Vollmer has described the situation accurately it must be assumed that you are either obtuse or deranged. In your right mind, if you have one, you 8 Please Pass the Guilt couldn't possibly expect the people at the clinic to help you unless you supplied some facts. Are you going to tell me your name?" "No." It wasn't a mumble. "Are you going to tell me anything at all? Where you live, where you work, where you have seen blood that other people saw or could have seen?" "No." His jaw worked a little. "I explained to Dr. Ostrow that I couldn't. I knew that that clinic had done some remarkable things for people. I had been�I had heard about it. I thought it was just possible�1 thought it was worth trying." Wolfe turned to me. "How much did his suit cost?" "Two hundred or more. Probably more. The shoes, at least forty." "How much would a magazine or newspaper pay him for an article about that clinic?" "My god," Ronald Seaver blurted, "that's not-" He bit it off and clamped his jaw. "It's merely one of the valid conjectures." Wolfe shook his head. "I don't like to be imposed on, and I doubt if Dr. Ostrow does. The simplest way to learn if you are an impostor is to discover who and what you are. For Mr. Goodwin to follow you when you leave would take time and trouble, and it isn't necessary. �Archie?" I picked up the jar and told Ronald Seaver, "Candid camera inside." I removed a couple of the pencils and held them up; they were only two-inch stubs. "Leaving room for the camera below. It now has eight shots of you. Tomorrow I'll show them to people I know�a newspaper man, a couple of cops�" When you are sitting in a chair and a man comes at you, your reaction depends on what he has in mind. If he has an idea of hurting you, with or without a weapon, you get on your feet fast. But if he merely intends to take something from you, for instance a jar of pencils, and if you have decided that you are stronger and quicker than he is, you merely pull your feet back. Please Pass the Guilt 9 Actually he didn't even come close. He stopped three steps short, turned to Wolfe, and said, "You can't do that. Dr. Os- trow wouldn't permit it." Wolfe nodded. "Of course he wouldn't, but this office is not in his jurisdiction. You have presumed to take an evening of my time, and I want to know why. Are you desperately in need of help, or are you playing some silly game? I'll soon know, probably tomorrow, depending on how long it takes Mr. Goodwin to get you identified from the photographs. I hope it won't be prolonged; I am merely doing a favor for a friend. Good evening, sir. I'll communicate with Dr. Ostrow, not with you." With me it had been a tossup whether the guy was in some kind of bad jam or was merely on a complicated caper. His long, pointed nose, which didn't go well with his wide, square chin, had twitched a couple of times, but that didn't prove anything. Now, however, he gave evidence. His half-closed, unblinking eyes, steady at me, with a deep crease across his forehead, showed that something was really hurting. "I don't believe it," he said, louder than necessary, since he was only two arm's lengths away. Without letting my eyes leave him, I reached for the jar, which I had put back on my desk, stood, removed the top that held the pencil stubs, tilted the jar to show him what was inside, and said, "Autophoton, made in Japan. Electronic control. One will get you ten I'll have you tagged by sundown tomorrow." His lips parted to let words out, but none came. His head turned to Wolfe, then back to me, and then he turned clear around and took a slow, short step, and another, and I thought he was heading out. But he veered to the right, toward the big globe near the book shelves, stopped halfway to it, and stood. Apparently he wanted his face to himself while he decided something. It took him a good two minutes, maybe three. He turned, got a leather case from his breast pocket, took things from it, selected one--a card--went to Wolfe's desk, and handed it to him. By the time Wolfe had given it a look, I was there, 10 Please Pass the Guilt and he passed it to me. It was a New York driver's license: Kenneth Meer, 5 feet 11, age 32, 147 Clover Street, New York 10012. "Saving you the trouble of asking questions," he said, and extended a hand. I gave him the card and he put it back in the case and the case in his pocket; and he turned and went. Not slow short steps; be marched. I followed out to the hall, and when he had opened the front door and crossed the sill and pulled the door shut, not banging it, I went back to my desk, sat, cocked my head at Wolfe, and spoke: "You told Doc Vollmer yesterday that you read to learn what your fellow beings are up to. Well?" He scowled. "I have told you a dozen times that 'Doc' is an obnoxious vulgarism." "I keep forgetting." "Pfui. You never forget anything. It was deliberate. As for Kenneth Meer, there has been no picture of him in the Times. Has there been one in the Gazette?" "No. His name several times, but no picture. Nor any report that he got blood on his hands, but of course he saw plenty. I suppose, since it's a favor for a friend, I'll have to see a couple of people and find out�" "No. Get Dr. Vollmer." "But shouldn't I-" "No." I swiveled and swung the phone around. Of VoUmer's three numbers, the most likely one at that hour was the unlisted one on the third floor of his house, and when I dialed it he answered himself. Wolfe got at his phone and I stayed on. "Good evening, doctor. That man came, half an hour late, and has just left. He ref
used to give us any information, even his name, and we had to coerce him by a ruse with a concealed camera. Under constraint he identified himself by showing us his motor vehicle operator's license, and then departed without a word. His name has recently been in the news in connection Please Pass the Guilt 11 with a murder, but only as one of those present at the scene; there has been no published indication that he is under suspicion or is likely to be. Do you want his name, for Dr. Ostrow?" "Well." Silence for at least ten seconds. "You got it by--uh --coercion?" "Yes. As I said." "Then I don't think-" Another silence, shorter. "I doubt if Irwin would want it. He never uses coercion. May I ask him and let you know?" "Certainly." "Do you intend-- Are you interested in the murder? Professionally?"

  "Only as a spectator. I am not involved and don't expect to be." Vollmer thanked him for the favor, not enthusiastically, and they hung up. Wolfe looked at the wall clock--five past ten-- and reached for his current book. Grant Takes Command, by Bruce Catton. I went to the hall and up the two flights to my room, to catch the last inning or two at Shea Stadium on television. 3 we keep both the Times and the Gazette for three weeks, sometimes longer, and even if the bank balance had been at a record high I would probably have had another go at the accounts of the Odell murder just for curiosity, since I had now met one of the cast of characters. But we needed a job. In the past five months, the first five of 1969, we had had only six cases, and the fee had gone to five figures in only one of them--getting a damn fool out of a nasty mess with a bunch of smoothies he should have been on to at the first contact. So the checking account balance had lost a lot of weight, and to meet the upkeep of the old brownstone, including the weekly payroll for Theodore and Fritz and me, by about the middle of July Wolfe would have to turn some documents into cash, and that should be prevented if possible. So it wasn't just curiosity that sent me to the basement Thursday morning for old newspapers. The murder was two weeks old, but what had happened, and how, had been plain and clear in the first reports and had not been substantially revised or amended. At 3:17 p.m. on Tuesday, May 20, a man named Peter J. Odell had entered a room on the sixth floor of the CAN building on West Fifty-fourth Street, pulled open the bottom drawer of a desk, and died instantly. The bomb that shredded him was so powerful that it not only blew the metal desk up to the ceiling but even buckled two of the walls. CAN stood for Continental Air Network, which occupied the whole building, and Peter J. Odell had been Please Pass the Guilt 13 its vice-president in charge of development. The room and desk were not his; they belonged to Amory Browning, the vice- president in charge of programming. All right, that was what happened, but in addition to the main question, who had put the bomb in the drawer, there were others that had still not been answered, at least not for publication. It wasn't unheard of for a vice-president to enter another vice-president's room, but why had Odell opened that drawer? That drawer. It was known to enough people at CAN to get into both the Times and the Gazette that that drawer had rarely, possibly never, been opened by anyone but Browning himself because nothing was kept in it but a bottle or bottles of twelve-year-old Ten-Mile Creek bourbon. It had almost certainly been known to Odell. No one had admitted seeing Odell enter Browning's room. Helen Lugos, Browning's secretary, whose room adjoined his, had been down the hall in a file room. Kenneth Meer, Browning's chief assistant, had been down on the ground floor in conference with some technicians. Browning himself had been with Cass R. Abbott, the president of CAN, in his office--the corner office on that floor. If anyone knew why Odell had gone to Browning's room, he wasn't saying. So the answer to the question. Who put the bomb in the drawer? depended partly on the answer to another question: Whom did he expect to open the drawer? Rereading the accounts in fifteen copies of the Times and fifteen of the Gazette, I was impressed by how well I had absorbed the details of an event we had not been involved in, and by nothing else. There was nothing to give me a nudge on a start of what I had in mind. It was after eleven o'clock when I finished, so Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms, and I went up to the phone in my room to dial a number--the switchboard of the Gazette. It was an afternoon paper and Lon Cohen's line was usually busy from 10 a.m. to 4:20 p.m., but 14 Please Pass the Guilt I finally got him. I told him I wanted thirty seconds and he said I could have five. "Then," I said, "I won't tell you about the steer that grew the Chateaubriands that Felix is saving for us. Can you meet me at Rusterman's at a quarter past six?" "I can if I have to. Bringing what?" "Just your tongue. And of course plenty of lettuce for later." The "later" meant the poker game at Saul Panzer's apartment which started at eight o'clock Thursday evenings. Lon made an appropriate retort about lettuce and hung up, and I dialed another number I didn't have to look up and got Felix, and told him that this time my request for the small room upstairs was strictly personal, not on behalf of Wolfe, and that if he was short on Chateaubriands, tornados would be fine. He asked what kind of flowers would be preferred, and I said my guest would be a man from whom I hoped to get some useful information, so instead of flowers make it four-leaf clovers for luck. An announcement to Wolfe that I wouldn't be there for dinner was not required, since I never was on Thursdays. Since his dinner time was 7:15, I couldn't eat at his table and be at Saul's poker table at eight. I merely mentioned casually, after we had finished with the morning mail, that I would be leaving around a quarter to six, before he came down from the plant rooms. I did not mention Kenneth Meer, and neither did he, but around the middle of the afternoon Vollmer phoned to say that Dr. Ostrow didn't want to know what Ronald Seaver's name was. Which of course was a polite lie. Dr. Ostrow would certainly have liked to know the name, but not from Wolfe if he had got it by a trick. The small room upstairs at Rusterman's had many memories for me, back to the days when Marko Vukcic was still alive and making it the best restaurant in New York, with frequent meals with his old friend Nero Wolfe helping to keep it the best. It was still better than good, as Lon Cohen remarked that evening after his third spoonful of Germiny & POseille, and Please Pass the Guilt 15 again after his second bite of Chateaubriand and his first sip of the claret. With about his fourth sip he said, "I'd be enjoying this more --or less, I don't know which--if I knew the price. Of course you want something, or Nero Wolfe does. What?" I swallowed meat. "Not Nero Wolfe. Me. He doesn't know about it and I don't want him to. I need some facts. I spent two hours this morning reading everything two great newspapers have printed about the murder of Peter J. Odell and I still don't know enough for my personal satisfaction. I thought a chat with you might be helpful." He squinted at me. "How straight is that? That Wolfe doesn't know you're feeding me." "As straight as from a ten to an ace." His eyes aimed about a foot above my head, as they often did when he was deciding whether to call or raise, stayed there while I buttered a bite of roll, and leveled down to mine. "Well, well," he said. "You could just put an ad in the Gazette. Of course with a box number since Wolfe mustn't know you're drumming." Just looking at Lon you would never guess, from his neat little face and his slick black hair, how sharp he is. But people who know him know, including the publisher of the Gazette, which is why he has a room to himself two doors down the hall from the publisher's room. I shook my head. "The kind of people I want to reach don't read Gazette ads. To be perfectly frank, I'm going stale and I need exercise. There must be plenty about that crowd that isn't fit to print. This room isn't bugged and neither am I. Have Cramer and the DA got a lead that they're saving?" "No." He forked peas. "Almost certainly not. Of course the hitch is that they don't know who the bomb was intended for." He put the peas where he wanted them. "Probably no one does but the guy who planted it. It's reasonable to suppose it was meant for Browning, but after all it was Odell who got it. A 16 Please Pass the Guilt fact is a fact. Did Browning plant it for Odell? He did have a motive." "Good enough?" "Apparently. Of course you know that Abbott is retiring the last of August and the board of directors was going to decide on his successor at a meeting scheduled for five o'clock that afternoon, and it would be either Browning or Od
ell. Odell certainly didn't plant the bomb for Browning and then open the drawer himself, but did Browning plant it and somehow get Odell to open it?" I sipped claret. "Of course your best men are on it, or have been. What do they think?" "They've quit thinking. All they have is guesses. Landry's guess is that Mrs. Browning put the bomb there for Helen Lugos, her husband's secretary, knowing, or thinking she knew, that Helen checked the bourbon supply every morning." "Did she? Check the bourbon supply every morning?" "I don't know and I doubt if Cramer does. Helen isn't speaking to reporters and it is said that she isn't wasting any words with the law. Also I don't know for sure that Helen and Browning were bedding, but Landry thinks he does. Ask Inspector Cramer, he may know. Another guess, Gahagan's, is that Odell was setting the bomb for Browning and fumbled it. He has been trying for a week to trace where and how Odell got the bomb. Perlman's guess is that Abbott did it because he thought they were going to pick Browning for the new president and he was for Odell. He has three theories on why Odell went to Browning's room and opened the drawer, none of them much good. Damiano's guess is that Helen Lugos did it, to get Browning, but he is no better than Permian on why Odell homed in." "Why would Helen want to get Browning?" "Sex." "That's not responsive." "Certainly it's responsive. When sex comes in by the window, logic leaves by the door. When two people collaborate Please Pass the Guilt 17 sexually, either one is capable of doing anything and nobody can be sure he knows why he did it. I think Damiano's guess is based on something a man named Meer, Kenneth Meer, told him. Meer is Browning's chief of staff. Damiano got him talking the day after it happened--they had been choir boys together at St. Andrew's--and Meer said that anyone who wanted to know how it happened should concentrate on Helen Lugos. Of course Damiano kept at him then, but Meer backed off. And as I said, Helen isn't doing any talking." "Has Damiano told Inspector Cramer what Meer said?" "Of course not. He didn't even tell us until a couple of days ago. He was hoping to earn a medal." "Does anybody guess that Meer did it?" "No one at the Gazette does. Naturally he has been considered, everybody has, but even for a wild guess you've got to have a motive. Meer certainly wouldn't have wanted to get Browning; if Browning is made president, Meer will be right up near the top. And how could he have got Odell to go to Browning's room and open that drawer? Of course guesses are a dime a dozen. If the bomb was intended for Browning, there are at least a dozen possible candidates. For instance, Made- line Odell, now the widow Odell. She had been expecting her husband to be the CAN president ever since she married him, twenty years ago, and it looked as if Browning was going to get it instead. Or Theodore Falk, the Wall Street Falk, old friend of the Odells and a member of the CAN board of directors. Of course he didn't do it himself, but millionaires don't have to do things themselves. Or Sylvia Venner. You know?" I nodded. " "The Big Town.'" "Right. She had that program for two years and Browning bounced her. Now she does chores, and she hates Browning's guts. I could name more. Of course if the bomb was intended for Odell, there are candidates for that too, but for them there's the problem of getting Odell to enter that room and open that drawer." 18 Please Pass the Guilt I swallowed my last bite of Chateaubriand and pushed the button for Pierre. "You said Odell's wife had been expecting him to be president ever since she married him. Had she been doing anything about it?" "Plenty. She inherited a big block of CAN stock from her father, Carl Hartig, along with a lot of oil wells and miscellaneous items, and she's been on the board of directors for ten years. She would probably have given half of her seventy or eighty million to have Browning removed from competition, but if she had known that bomb was in that drawer she would have made damn sure that her husband wouldn't go near that room that day. That's why she's not my guess--or anybody else's as far as I know." "Seventy or eighty million?" "At least that. She's really loaded." "Huh. What kind of sauce do you want on your souffle? Brandy ginger or mocha rum?" "Mocha rum sounds better." Pierre had come and was removing empty dishes. I told him what we would have and waited until he was gone to resume with Lon. You never know. Abbott or Browning or Madeline Odell might be one of Pierre's pet customers. When, at a quarter to eight, out on the sidewalk, we decided to walk the eleven blocks to Saul Panzer's instead of scouting for a taxi, I had collected around a hundred more facts and guesses, but it would be a waste of paper and ink to list them for you since none of them was any help to my program. Also I will not report on the course of events at the poker table, except to say that having a complicated operation on my mind was no help to my wallet. I lost sixty-eight bucks. 4 the first problem was how to get to her, and the second one was what to say when I did. "Her" was of course Madeline Odell, the widow. She was almost certainly in the clear on the bomb, she had the best reason for wanting the bomber to be caught and nailed, and she had the biggest stack. It was those two problems trying to take over that had caused me to make three big mistakes and several small ones at the poker game, and cost me money. They did not keep me from getting a good eight hours' sleep, nothing ever does, and they didn't affect my appetite at breakfast, but I skipped things in the Times that I usually cover, and I guess I was short with Fritz. In the office I actually forgot to put fresh water in the vase on Wolfe's desk. I still hadn't decided at lunchtime. Of course any one of a dozen dodges would have got me to her; no one is inaccessible if you put your mind on it; but then what? If possible the approach should lead naturally to the proposition. After lunch I went for a walk with a couple of unnecessary errands for an excuse, and didn't get back until after four o'clock, so Wolfe was up in the plant rooms and I had the office to myself. I swung the typewriter around and rolled paper in and gave it a try. Dear Mrs. Odell: This is on Nero Wolfe's letterhead because I work for him and am writing it in his office, but it is strictly personal, from me, and Mr. Wolfe doesn't know I am writing you. I do so because I am 20 Please Pass the Guilt an experienced professional detective and it hurts me to see or read about poor detective work, especially in an important case like the murder of your husband. Mr. Wolfe and I have of course followed the published accounts of the investigation, and yesterday he remarked to me that apparently the most crucial fact was being ignored, or at least not getting the priority it deserved, and I agreed with him. Such a criticism from him to the police or the District Attorney would probably have no effect, but it occurred to me this morning that it might have some effect if it came from you. If you wish to reach me the address and telephone number are above. I read it over twice and made five improvements: I took out "strictly" and "professional," changed "poor" to "inferior," "crucial" to "important," and "priority" to "attention." I read it again, changed "an important case like" to "such a vital case as," typed it on a letterhead with two carbons, signed it, and addressed an envelope to a number on East Sixty-third Street. I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was going out for air, and walked to the post office on Eighth Avenue. Since it was a Friday afternoon in June, it was possible, even probable, that she wouldn't get it until Monday, and nothing would interfere with my weekend pleasures at Shea Stadium, but a little after eleven o'clock Saturday morning, when Wolfe was dictating a long letter to an orchid collector in Malaysia, the phone rang and I swiveled and took it. "Nero Wolfe's office, Archie Goodwin speaking." A businesslike female voice: "This is Mrs. Peter Odell's secretary. She has received your letter and wishes to speak to Mr. Wolfe." Of course I had known that might happen, with Wolfe right there. "I'm sorry," I said, "but Mr. Wolfe isn't available and won't be until Monday. Anyway I made it clear that the letter was personal." Please Pass the Guilt 21 She covered the transmitter and I heard nothing. In a couple of minutes she was back: "Mr. Goodwin?" "Here." "Mrs. Odell wishes to see you. Will you be here promptly at three o'clock?" One of my basic opinions is that people who take things for granted should be helped to a better understanding of democracy, and at three o'clock it would be about the fourth inning, but I hadn't been asked to write that letter. "Yes," I said, "I'll be there," and hung up, and swiveled. "Someone using your name in vain," I told Wolfe. "People should re
ad letters at least three times." I looked at my notebook. "The last I have is 'in spite of all the crosses hybridizers have tried.'" It took another full page of the notebook. My intention had been to get to Shea Stadium a little after one and enjoy a couple of hot dogs and a pint of milk while watching batting practice. Instead, I got to Sam's diner on Tenth Avenue a little after one and enjoyed rye bread and baked beans, two items that never appear at Wolfe's table, and then walked the nearly two miles from West Thirty-fifth Street to East Sixty-third. The people you see on midtown sidewalks Saturday afternoons are completely different from other days. It was a five-story, forty-foot-wide stone mansion, between Fifth and Madison, and I was stopped at the entrance to the vestibule by a broad-shouldered husky with a Lathrop Protective Service badge on his buttoned-up jacket. Apparently after more than two weeks, pests--for instance, journalists--were still a problem, or Mrs. Odell thought they were. He said grimly, "Well, sir?" I pronounced my name and said I was expected, and produced evidence of my identity from my card case. He entered the vestibule and pushed the button, and the door was opened by a woman in a neat gray uniform with a skirt that reached a good four inches below her knees who accepted my name with22 Please Pass the Guilt out evidence. She crossed the marble floor to an intercom on a marble table and told it Mr. Goodwin was there, and in a couple of minutes there was the sound of an elevator about one- tenth as noisy as Wolfe's. A door at the far end of the large entrance hall slid open, and a woman stuck her head out and invited me to join her. We went up past two doors and stopped at the third, and she led me down the hall to an open door at the front and stood aside for me to enter. It was a big room, the whole width of the house, and my sweeping glance saw desks, working chairs and easy chairs, two couches, oil paintings, filing cabinets, a color television-- and my glance stopped there because a ball game was on, Ralph Kiner was talking, and his audience was a woman propped against a bank of cushions on an oversized couch. Even if it hadn't been her house I would have recognized her from pictures in the Times and Gazette: a face bulged in the middle by wide cheek bones, and a wide full-lipped mouth. Her loose, pale blue dress or robe or sack was zippered shut in front, top to bottom. I crossed over to her and asked politely, "What's the score?" Her brown eyes darted to me and back to the game. "Mets two. Pirates four, last of the fourth. Sit down." I went to a chair not far from the couch that faced the TV set. Ed Kranepool was at bat. He went to three and two and then grounded out, ending the inning, and a commercial started yapping. As I looked around for the secretary and saw she wasn't there, the sound quit and I turned back to Mrs. Odell. Remote control; she had pushed a button. "I'll leave the picture on," she said. She sized me up head to foot, taking her time. My pants were pressed. "That was a poor excuse for a letter you sent me. 'The most important fact,' you said, but you didn't say what it is." "Of course I didn't." "Why 'of course'?" The commercial had finished and a Pirate was coming to Please Pass the Guilt 23 bat. She left the sound off but sent her eyes back to the game, so I sent mine, too. "I work for Nero Wolfe," I told the Pirate as he swung and missed. "He makes a living solving problems for people, and part of what they pay him pays my salary. It would be pretty dumb for me to tell people for free what he has said about their problems. I wrote that letter only because I hate to see a case hobbled." "Oh, come off it." Her eyes darted to me and back to the game. "You invited me to reach you and wouldn't put him on when I phoned. How much do you want?" "You might try a million. No one has ever bid high enough to make it tough for me. But I did invite you to reach me, didn't I? Do you know what I suspect? I'll bet that at the back of my mind, down in the subconscious, there was a sneaking idea that after two weeks and three days of the cops and the DA getting nowhere, you might want to discuss it with Nero Wolfe. Do you know anything about him?" "Personally and definitely, no. I know his reputation, certainly."