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  Three Men Out

  Rex Stout

  Three Men Out Rex Stout Series: Nero Wolfe [24] Published: 1954 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  Three Men OutRex StoutSeries: Nero Wolfe [24] Published: 1954 Tags: Vintage Mystery

  Vintage Mysteryttt

  Also available in Large Print by Rex Stout: The Broken Vase Prisoner's Base Three Men Out A PiERO WOLFE MYSTERY Rex Stout G.I<,HALL^CO. Boston^ Massachusetts 1990 �>THE . SCAH&OPO^H p^UCUBP^ BOABP Copyright 1952, 1953 by Rex Stout. All rights reserved. Acknowledgment is made to American Magazine, in which these short novels originally appeared. The magazine title for "The Zero Clue" was "Scared to Death"; "Invitation to Murder" was titled "Will to Murder." Published in Large Print by arrangement with Barbara Stout and Rebecca Stout Bradbury. G.K. Hall Large Print Book Series. Set in 16 pt. Plantin. Library of Congress Catahging in Publication Data Stout, Rex, 18861975. Three men out : a Nero Wolfe mystery / Rex Stout. p. cm.--(G.K. Hall large print book series) (Nightingale series) "Published in large print"--T.p. verso. ISBN 0-8161-4793-0 (Ig. print) 1. Large type books. I. Tide. [PS3537.T733T47 1990] 813'.52--dc20 8938093 Contents Invitation to Murder The Zero Clue This Won't Kill You Invitation to Murder The neat little man resented it. He was hurt. "No, sir," he protested, "you are wrong. It is not what you called it, sordid familial flimflam. It is perfectly legitimate for me to inquire into anything affecting the disposal of the fortune my father made, is it not?" Weighing rather less than half as much as Nero Wolfe, he was lost in the red leather chair three steps from the end of Wolfe's desk. Comfortably filling his own outsized chair behind the desk, Wolfe was scowling at the would-be client, Mr. Herman Lewent of New York and Paris. I, at my desk with notebook and pen, was neutral, because it was Friday and I had a weekend date, and if Lewent's job was urgent and we took it, good-by weekend. Wolfe, as usual when solicited, was torn. He hated to work, but he loved to eat and drink, and his domestic and professional establishment in the old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street, including the orchids in the plant rooms on the roof, had an awful appetite for dollars. The only source of dollars was his income as a private detective, and at that moment, there on his desk near the edge, was a little stack of lettuce with a rubber band around it. Herman Lewent, who had put it there, had stated that it was a thousand dollars. Nevertheless Wolfe, who hated to work and was torn, demanded, "Why is it legitimate?"

  Lewent was small all over. He was slim and short, his hands and feet were tiny, and his features were in scale, with a pinched little mouth that had no room at all for lips. Also he was old enough to have started to shrink some and show creases. Still I would not have called him a squirt. When his quick little gray eyes met yours straight, as they did, you had the feeling that he knew a lot of the answers and could supply good guesses on the ones he hadn't worked out. He was still resenting Wolfe but holding it in. "I came to you," he said, "because this is a very delicate matter, and the combination you have here, you and Mr. Goodwin, may be able to handle it. So I'm prepared to suffer your rudeness. The inquiry is legiti- 4 mate because it was my father who made the fortune--in mining, mostly copper mining. My mother died when I was a child, and I never learned how to behave myself. I have never learned, and I am now too old to. A few months ago I had three mistresses, one in Paris, one in Toulouse, and one in Rome, and one of them tried to poison me." I gave him an eye and decided to believe nothing he said. He just wasn't built for it. He was proceeding. "I am no longer wild; I'm too old; but I was wild when young. Though my father didn't approve of me and finally refused to see me, he didn't let me starve--in fact, he was fairly generous. But when he died--I was thirty-six then; that was twenty years ago--he left everything to my sister, Beryl, with a request that she consider my needs. She did so, up to a point, until she died a year ago. She was born knowing how to behave, my sister was. I was abroad when she died--I have lived mostly abroad--but of course I flew over for the funeral." He shrugged like a Frenchman, or anyhow not like an American. "Out of all the millions she had inherited from our father, she left me nothing. Not a cent, not a sou. 5 It all went to her husband, Theodore Huck, with a request that he consider my needs, worded exactly like the request in my father's will. As I said, my sister knew how to behave. I had a talk with Huck and suggested that it would be simpler to transfer a lump sum to me--say a million or even half a million--but he thought not. He said he knew what Beryl's wishes were and felt bound to carry them out, and he agreed to send me the same amount she had been sending the last two years, a thousand dollars a month. I didn't do what I should have done." He wanted a question, and Wolfe obliged. "What should you have done?" "I should have killed him. He sat there in his wheelchair--his arteries have gone bad, and he can't walk--he sat there in my father's house, the owner of it, and he said he would send me a thousand a month from the money my father had made. It was an invitation to murder. If I had killed him, with due precaution of course, under my sister's will I would have received for the rest of my life an annual income of some forty thousand dollars. The idea did occur to me, but I'm no good at all with any kind of intricacy, and though I have never learned 6 how to behave, my instinct of self-preservation is damned keen." He gestured. 'That's what brought me here, that instinct. If for any reason this creature, this brother-in-law, this Theodore Huck in a wheelchair, stopped considering my needs, I would shortly die of starvation. I am incapable of sustaining life, even my own--especially my own. So when, at my rooms in Paris, I received a communication warning me of possible danger, I took a plane to New York. My brother-in-law made me welcome at my father's house--damned gracious of him--and I've been there nearly two weeks now, and I'm stumped, and that's why I'm here. There are three--" He stopped abruptly, aimed the quick little gray eyes at me, sent them back to Wolfe, and said, "This is confidential." Wolfe nodded. "Things discussed in this room usually are. Your risk, sir." "Well." He screwed his pinched little mouth, making it even smaller. He shrugged. "Well. I think the warning I got was valid. There are three women in that house with him, besides the cook and maids: the housekeeper, Mrs. Cassie O'Shea, who is a widow; a nurse. Miss Sylvia Marcy; and a so-called secretary, Miss Dorothy Riff. They're all after him, and I think one of them is getting him, but I don't know which one and I can't find out. The trouble is, I have developed a formula for getting on terms with women, but in this case I can't use it and I'm lost. I need to know as soon as possible which one of those women is landing my brother-in-law." Wolfe snorted. "So you can intervene? With your formula?" "Good God, no." Lewent was shocked. "It would be a damned nuisance, and anyway there would soon be another one and I would have time for nothing else. Also I would like to get back to Europe before the holidays. I merely want to engage her sympathetic interest. I want to secure her friendship. I want to make absolutely certain that she will be permanently well disposed toward me after she lands Huck. That will take me three weeks if it is Miss Marcy or Miss Riff, four if it is Mrs. O'Shea. It is not a sordid familial flimflam. It's a perfectly legitimate inquiry. Isn't it?" "I suppose so," Wolfe conceded. "But it's fantastic." "Not at all. It's practical and damned sensible. My income for the rest of my life depends entirely on the goodwill of my 8 brother-in-law. If he marries, especially if he marries a woman considerably younger than he is, how long will his goodwill last--twelve thousand dollars' worth, year after year--if his wife hasn't got it too?" Wolfe grunted. "What precisely would be my engagement?" "To find out as soon as possible which one of them is hooking him." Lewent aimed a thumb at the little stack he had put on Wolfe's desk. "That thousand dollars is yours, succeed or fail, but it will have to cover everything because it's all I can afford. It might seem hardly worth your while, but actually, since you never leave this house on business, it will t
ake little of your time and talent. The work will be done by Mr. Goodwin, and you have to pay his salary anyhow, and the expense will be negligible--taxi fares to and from my father's house on Sixty-ninth Street, now owned by Theodore Huck. I know something of Goodwin's record and prowess, and one trip, one day, might be all he would require--with consultation with you, of course. He can go up there with me now." I didn't throw him a kiss. I can take a compliment raw, with no chaser, as well as 9 the next one, but I hope I have learned how to behave, and I had a weekend date. Wolfe's scowl had deteriorated to a mild frown. "You say you received a warning. From whom?" "From Paul Thayer, Huck's nephew. Huck lets him live there in the house. He's as useless as I am�he composes music that no one will listen to. He hopes to inherit some of my father's money from Huck, and he got alarmed and wrote me." "What alarmed him?" "Some little things and one big thing. A man with cases came from Tiffany's and was with Huck in his study for nearly an hour. That could mean only one thing: Huck was buying something expensive for a woman�one of those three." "Why? There are other women." Lewent shook his head. "Not for Huck. He can't walk, and he hasn't been out of the house more than two or three times since my sister died. No woman ever comes to see him. It's one of those three. You might think Paul or I could discover which one, but it's not so simple. He has his meals in his room or his study, and we see very little of him. Paul has tried approaching the women on it, and I have made a few little 10 efforts in that direction myself, but it's a delicate business." "Make friends with all three of them." "It couldn't be done. They're too jealous of one another." "Wait until you see one of them wearing the gift from Tiffany's. That will settle it." "It would settle me too. It would be too damned obvious. None of them is a numskull." "But," Wolfe objected, "it will be equally obvious if she is flushed by Mr. Goodwin� in consultation with me." "I don't expect him to flush her. I don't want him to." Lewent slid forward on the smooth leather seat. "My God, can't you find out things without people knowing it? I couldn't take Goodwin into that house to cross-examine them about their relations with Huck, even if I wanted to. It is my father's house, but Huck owns it. We'll have to use a subterfuge, especially for Goodwin to talk with Huck. I just decided�" He was stopped by a noise from Wolfe� an explosive noise, half grunt and half snort. It was meant for a stopper. Lewent's quick little gray eyes widened in startled inquiry. "What's the matter?" "You." Wolfe was mildly disgusted. "I 11 might conceivably engage to pry into the amatory designs of a wealthy widower if I were hard put and the bait was spectacular, but as it is you're wasting your time. And mine. Good day, sir." It sounded positively final. Lewent's pinched little mouth worked from side to side and up and down. "You mean you won't do it." "That's right." "I didn't think you would, but I thought I'd try it that way." He clasped his hands together. "So here goes. Now this is confidential."

  "You said that before." "I know I did, but this is different. My sister died here in New York, at my father's house, of ptomaine poisoning from something she ate. Huck cabled me in Paris, and I flew home for the funeral, as I said. I never had any suspicions about it until two things happened. First, Odelette, my mistress in Toulouse, tried to poison me when she was mad with jealousy, showing me that anyone may commit murder if the motive is good enough; and second, I was warned by Paul Thayer that Huck was being bagged by one of these women. That started me thinking, and I went to a library and read 12 up on ptomaines. Those women were all present when my sister was poisoned. I believe that one of them murdered her." "On what evidence?" "None. I believe that she already had Huck or was sure she could get him. I've been here nearly two weeks, and I firmly believe that, but what can I do? I don't even dare ask any questions of anyone. Of course the police would laugh at me. Naturally I thought of you, but the most I could scrape up was a thousand dollars, and that's small change for you, so I decided to try to get you started on it by not mentioning murder and just saying what I wanted--well, you heard me." He gestured. "I want to head her off, and I think maybe I can if I can find out which one it is." "How will you head her off without evidence?"

  "That's up to me. Leave that to me, if once I know her. For an absolutely legitimate purpose, I want to pay in advance for a thousand dollars' worth of Goodwin's time and talent and consultation with you as required. Ten hours of Goodwin and ten minutes of you? Whatever it is, I want to buy it." Abruptly Wolfe rolled his chair back and arose. "I have an important phone call to make," he told Lewent, "and will leave you with Mr. Goodwin. Since, as you say, the work will be done by him, I won't be needed, even for the decision whether to take the job." He marched across to the door to the hall and was gone, but not, as I knew, to make a phone call. Not wanting to refuse to take money, but not caring to shoulder the blame for spoiling my weekend for the sake of a measly grand, he was putting it up to me. As for him, he would go to the kitchen, open a bottle of beer, and make suggestions to Fritz about preparations for lunch. As for me, I was stuck. If I shooed Lewent out it would be months before I could again open my trap to ride Wolfe for turning down jobs. So I got the little stack which the little man had put on Wolfe's desk, counted it, and found that it was twenty fifties. "Okay," I told him, "I'll give you a receipt. First I think our approach to Huck will stand some discussion. Do you agree?" He did, and I sat, and we discussed. 14 2 Lewent's father's house of granite, on Sixtyninth Street between Fifth and Madison, had apparently not had its face washed since little Herman had been born there back in the nineteenth century, but inside there had unquestionably been changes. For one thing, the self-service elevator was so modern and so large that I guessed it had been installed since the present owner had been condemned to a wheelchair on account of his bum arteries.

  Though Lewent had insisted that we should delay the operation until Theodore Huck's lunch hour was past, and therefore it was after two o'clock when we arrived and were let in by a female viking who could have carried Herman around in her apron, I was still nursing the hope that I might earn the grand that day and evening and have my weekend. So when the viqueen had taken our hats I wasted no time for a glance at the luxuries of the big entrance 15 hall as Lewent led the way to the elevator. We left it one flight up and turned right down the hall, which was some narrower but longer than the one downstairs. I was surprised at the thickness of the rugs in a mansion whose master did all his moving in a wheelchair. The surprise left when we entered a large high-ceilinged room at the rear of the house and I saw the wheelchair. He could have parked it in a trailer camp and lived in it if it had had a roof. The seat was roomy enough for Nero Wolfe. At the sides were shelves, trays and compartments. A large metal box at the rear, low, was presumably a motor housing. A fluorescent light was attached to the frame at Huck's left, shining on a magazine Huck was reading. Lewent said, "This is Mr. Goodwin, as I phoned you," and turned and went. Theodore Huck said nothing. Tossing the magazine on a table nearby, he pressed a button, and the footrest of the chair came up, smoothly, until his legs, which were under a large plaid shawl, were straight and horizontal. He pressed another button, and the chair's back receded until he was half reclining. He pressed another button, and the part his legs were on began to move 16 from side to side, not very gently. He closed his eyes. I lowered myself onto a chair and did a sweeping take of the room, which was his study, with the parts of the wall left visible by pictures and rows of books showing old wood panels, and then went back to him. The upper half of him was perfectly presentable for a guy his age, with a discernible waistline, good broad shoulders, a face with all features in proportion and correctly placed, and his full share of hair that had been dark but was now mostly gray. I had plenty of time to take him in, for he stayed put for a good five minutes, with his legs going from side to side on the moving frame. Finally the motion stopped, he pressed buttons, his legs went down and his torso up, and he reached to pull the edge of the plaid shawl above his hips. He looked at me, but I couldn't meet him because he seemed to be focusing about a foot below my chin. "I do that sixteen times a day," he
said. "Every hour while I'm awake. It helps a little. A year ago I could barely stand, and now I can take five or six steps. Your name's Goodwin?" "Right." "My brother-in-law said you wanted to see me." 17 I nodded. "That's not strictly accurate, but it will do. He wanted me to see you. My name's Archie Goodwin, and I work for Nero Wolfe, the detective, and your�" "Oh! You're that Goodwin?" "Right. Your brother-in-law called at Mr. Wolfe's office today and wanted to engage his services. He says that his sister�" A door off to the right opened, and a young woman my age came stepping in, with papers in her hands. She was fair, with gray-green eyes, and as a spectacle there wasn't a thing wrong with her, at a glance. Halfway across to the wheelchair she stopped and inquired, "Will you sign the letters now, Mr. Huck?" "Later, Miss Riff." He was a little crisp. "Later will do." "You said�I thought perhaps�" "There's no hurry." "Very well. I'm sorry if I interrupted." She turned and was gone, closing the door behind her so gently that there was no noise at all. I asked Huck, "That was Dorothy Riff?" "Yes. Why?" "I was telling you. Mr. Lewent says his sister promised him that in case of her death he would get a substantial sum. That was 18 about a year before she died, and he is certain she would not have failed to arrange to keep her promise." Huck was shaking his head. "He heard her will read, and he saw it." "He says she told him she wouldn't put it in her will because that would have violated a promise she had made her father. He thinks she left it in someone's care for him-- not you, he says, for you would have followed her instructions fully and promptly. He suspects it was Miss Riff or Miss Marcy or Mrs. O'Shea, and he wants Mr. Wolfe to investigate the matter, but he says it can be investigated only with your knowledge and consent, and that's why he asked you to see me. Also Mr. Wolfe thought--" Another door swung open, this time the one by which Lewent and I had entered from the hall, and another female was with us. On a guess she was somewhat younger than Dorothy Riff, but it was hard to tell with her nurse's uniform setting off her big dark eyes and dark brown hair. Stopping for no questions, she crossed to a cabinet, got out a glass, a thermos carafe, and a bottle of Solway's twenty-year liqueur striped-label scotch, put one ounce from the bottle and two ounces from the carafe into 19 the glass, no ice, and went and handed it to Huck and got thanked. She asked him in a low, cooing voice, "Everything under control?" "Fine." "Your two-thirty exercise?" "Of course." She left us, having given me just one swift glance. When the door was closed again Huck spoke. "This is medicine for me every two hours, but will you have some?" "No, thanks. That was Sylvia Marcy?" "Yes. You were saying that Mr. Wolfe thought--" I resumed. "He thought that before I talk with the three women--with your permission, of course--you might be willing to let us have your opinion on a few points. For instance, do you think it likely that your wife made some such arrangement as Mr. Lewent suspects? Can you recall ever hearing her say anything hinting at such a thing? Her accounts for the months before she died--say a year--do they show a withdrawal of any unusual amount, either cash or securities? And most important, Mr. Wolfe thinks, which of those three women would your wife have been most likely to choose for such a purpose?" 20 Huck may have thought he was looking straight at me, but if so his aim was still low. "My brother-in-law has never mentioned this to me," he said stiffly. I nodded. "He says he was afraid of offending you. But now, since a year has passed and it is evident that all you have for him is the request in your wife's will that his needs be considered, he feels that the matter should be looked into, so far as it can be without any inconvenience or embarrassment to you." "How could it embarrass me?" "I don't know. You're a very wealthy man, and Miss Riff and Miss Marcy and Mrs. O'Shea work for you and live in your house, and I suppose Mr. Lewent thought you might not like my asking them an assortment of leading questions." "Miss Riff doesn't live here." "The other two do?" "Yes." "Do you regard them all as upright and trustworthy?" "Yes." "This might help. Are you yourself so certain of the character of any one of them that you would eliminate her entirely from consideration in a matter of this kind?" 21 He twisted and stretched an arm to put his medicine glass on the table, and, turning back to me, was opening his mouth to reply when the door to the hall opened again and we had another visitor. This time I wasn't sure. There had been no question about the secretary or nurse the moment they appeared, but I had not expected to see the housekeeper in a gay figured dress, white and two shades of blue. Also, though she was a little farther along than the other two, she was by no means a crone. She had medium brown hair and deep blue eyes, and there was a faint touch of hip-swinging in her walk. She came as for a purpose, straight to the front of the wheelchair, bent over from the hips, and tucked in the edge of the shawl around Huck's feet. I watched Huck's eyes. They went to her, naturally, but they seemed more preoccupied than pleased. She straightened up and spoke. "All right, sir?" "Yes, thank you, Mrs. CYShea." "Any orders?" "No, nothing." She wheeled a quarter-turn to face me, and did a take. Her look was too brief to be called deliberate, but there sure was nothing 22 furtive about it. I thought I might as well let her have a grin, but before my muscles reacted to deliver it she was through and was on her way. From the rear the hipswing was more perceptible than from the front. As I viewed it I reflected that they had certainly wasted no time in giving a stranger a once-over. Entering and ascending with Lewent, I had had sight, sound, or smell of none of them, but now all three had galloped in before I had been with Huck more than fifteen minutes. If they were too jealous for a mutual intelligence pact it must have been radar. When the door was shut again Huck spoke. "You asked some questions. I think it very unlikely that my wife made any such arrangement as you describe. She certainly never hinted at it to me. As far as I know, during the last year of her life she made no withdrawal of cash or securities not accounted for, but I'll be glad to tell the accountants to check it. Although I do not accuse my brother-in-law of fabrication, I strongly suspect that he grossly misunderstood something my wife said to him. However, since he has consulted Nero Wolfe and you are here, I'm willing to humor him, the I 23 poor devil. Do you want to see them separately or together?" "Together for a start." "How long will it take? You'll finish today?" "I hope to. I want to, but I don't know." He regarded me, started to say something, decided not to, and pressed a button. Instantly the shebang leaped forward like a bronco out of a chute, missing my feet by maybe eight inches with one of its big balloon tires as it swept by. Huck was steering with a lever. Stopping beside the door to the hall, he reached for the knob and pulled the door wide, and the chair circled and passed through. I was on my feet and following when his bellow came. "Herman! Come down here!" I know now what had put the whole household on the alert--Paul Thayer, Huck's nephew, had let it out that I was Nero Wolfe's Archie Goodwin--but I didn't know then, and it was a little spectacular to see them coming at us from all directions-- Dorothy Riff from a door on that floor, Mrs. O'Shea up the stairs from below, and Lewent and Sylvia Marcy down the stairs from above--none of them bothering with the elevator. They stopped flurrying when 24 they saw Huck sitting composed in his chair and me standing beside him at graceful ease, and approached in no apparent agitation. Lewent standing was exactly the same height as Huck sitting. He asked as he came, "You want me, Theodore?" The girls were closing in. "Yes, I do," Huck told his brother-inlaw. "Mr. Goodwin has described the situation to me, and I want you to hear what I say to Mrs. O'Shea and Miss Marcy and Miss Riff." His eyes moved to his womenfolk. "I suppose you have heard of a private detective named Nero Wolfe. Mr. Lewent went to see him this morning and engaged him to investigate something, and he has sent Mr. Goodwin here to make inquiries. Mr. Goodwin wishes to question you three ladies. You will answer at your discretion, as you please and think proper. That's all I have to say. I want to make it clear that I am imposing no restriction on what Mr. Goodwin asks or what you answer, but I also wish you to understand that this is a private inquiry instigated by Mr. Lewent, and you are free to judge for yourselves what is fitting and relevant." I didn't care for it a bit. You might have thought he knew what I was there for and
25 was making damn sure I wouldn't get it. Not by a flicker of an eyelash had he given any ground for a decent guess as to which one had him hooked. 5 They took me up in the elevator, two flights, to a room they called the sewing room. The name must have been a carry-over from bygone days, as there was no sign of sewing equipment or supplies in sight. Mrs. O'Shea was going to seat us around a-table, but I wanted it more informal and got it staged with her and me in easy chairs facing a couch on which the other two were comfortable against cushions. They were good listeners all right. I took my time about getting to the point, since there was no question about having my audience. I told of Lewent's coming to Wolfe's office. I touched upon his childhood and young manhood, with no mother, not making it actually maudlin. I admitted he had been irresponsible. I told of his having been left out of his father's will. Miss Riff's graygreen eyes, and Miss Marcy's dark eyes, and Mrs. O'Shea's deep blue ones, all con26 centrated on me, were pleasantly stimulating and made me rather eloquent but not fancy. I told of the promise Lewent's sister had made him a year before her death-- which was, of course, pure invention--of his conviction that she had kept it, and his suspicion that a substantial sum in cash or securities had been entrusted by her to someone to be given to him. I added that he thought it possible that the trustee was one of the women there present, and would they mind answering a few questions? Mrs. O'Shea stated that Lewent was a frightful little shrimp. Miss Marcy said it was utterly ridiculous. Miss Riff, with her nose turned up, asked, "Why a few questions? You can ask us one, did Mrs. Huck give any of us anything to give to her brother, and we say no, and that settles it." "It does for you," I conceded. "But as Mr. Huck told you, I'm here to investigate, and that's no way to do it. For instance, what if I were investigating something really tough, like a suspicion of murder? What if Lewent suspected that one of you poisoned his sister so you could marry Huck?" "That's more like it," Miss Marcy said approvingly, with the coo still in her voice. "Yeah. But then what? I ask if you did it, and you say no, and that settles it? Hardly. I ask plenty, about your relations with Mr. and Mrs. Huck and one another, and about your movements and what you saw and heard, not only the day she died, but a week, a month, a year. You can answer or refuse to answer. If you answer, I check you. If you refuse, I check you double." "Ask me something," Miss Marcy offered. "To be suspected of murder," Miss Riff declared, "would at least be exciting. But a thing like this, and from Herman Lewent�" She shivered elegantly. "No, really." "Okay." I was sociable. "But don't think I'm not going to grill you, because that's what I came for. First, though, I'd like to have your reaction to a little idea of my own. It seems to me that if Mrs. Huck wanted to leave something for her brother like that, the logical person for her to leave it with would have been her husband. Lewent is sure she didn't, because he says Huck is an honest man and would have turned it over. Which may satisfy Lewent, but not me. Huck could be entirely too honest. He could figure that in leaving a gob of dough for her brother his wife was ignoring her father's wishes, and that was wrong, and he wouldn't go through with it. 28 I think that's quite possible, but you ladies know him better than I do. What kind of a man is he? Do you think he might do that?" No reply. Nor was there any exchange of glances. I insisted, "What do you think, Mrs. O'Shea?" She shook her head, with a corner of her mouth turned up. "That's no kind of question to ask." "We work for Mr. Huck, you know," Sylvia Marcy cooed. "He's a very fine man," Dorothy Riff declared. "Very, very fine. That's why one of us poisoned Mrs. Huck so she could marry him. What is she waiting for? It's been a year." I upturned a palm. "That's only common sense. You have to watch your step on a thing like that, and besides, that might not have been the motive. In fact, here's one I like better: Mrs. Huck handed her a real bundle, say a hundred grand, to be given to Lewent if and when Mrs. Huck died. But as the months went by and Mrs. Huck stayed perfectly healthy, good for another twenty or thirty years, our heroine got impatient and acted. Of course she is now in a pickle. She has the hundred grand, but even after a 29 year has passed she doesn't dare to start spending it." Mrs. O'Shea permitted herself a refined snort. "It wouldn't surprise me if that Lewent creature actually believed that rot." Her tone was chilly, and her deep blue eyes were far from warm. "Mr. Huck said you would ask us questions and we would answer as we please and think proper. Go ahead." I stuck with them for an hour. I have had chores that were far more disagreeable, but none less fruitful. There were assorted indications that there was no love lost among them, and various hints that Huck was not regarded solely as a source of wages by any of them, but to pick one for Lewent at the end of the hour I would have had to use eeny, meeny, miny, mo. I was disappointed in me. Deciding that I had made a mistake to bunch them, I arose, thanked them for their patience and co-operation, said that I would like to talk with each of them singly a little later, asked where I would be apt to find Lewent, and was told that his room was on the floor below us, two flights up from the ground and one up from Huck's study. Sylvia Marcy offered to show me and preceded me out and down the stairs. She 30 had cooed throughout. It was a pleasant and even a musical coo, but what the hell. If I had been, like Huck, exposed to it continually, after a couple of days I would either have canned her or sent for a justice of the peace to perform a ceremony. To my knock Lewent opened the door of his room and invited me in. For the first four paces his room was only a narrow hall, as rooms frequently are in big old houses where bathrooms have been added later, but then it widened to a spacious chamber. He asked me to sit, but I declined, saying I had had a warming-up session with the suspects and would like to meet Paul Thayer, Huck's nephew, if he was available. He said he would see, and left the room, me following, mounted two flights of stairs, which put us on the floor above the sewing room, and went down a hall and knocked on a door. A voice within told us to enter. The room was comparatively small, and no inch was being wasted. There was a single bed, a grand piano, two small chairs, and a few tons of books and portfolios on shelves and tables and stacked on the floor. Thayer, who was about my age and built ^e a bull, thought he would bust my knuckles as we shook, and then decided not 31 to when I reacted. I had told Lewem on the way up that it might be better if I had Thayer to myself, and he had agreed, so he left us. Thayer flopped on the bed, and I took a chair. "You sure have bitched it up," he stated. "Yeah? How?" He waved a hand. "Do you know anything about music?" "No." "Then I won't put it in musical terms. Your idea of busting in with the fantasy of one of them sequestering a bale of kale intended for Lewent is sublimely cuckoo." "That's a pity. I offered it as a substitute for Lewent's fantasy of one of them poisoning your aunt." He threw his head back and haw-hawed. He was chock full of gusto. When he could speak he said, "Not my aunt really--yes, I suppose she was, since my Uncle Theodore married her. She died in great pain, and I was strongly affected by it. I couldn't eat properly for weeks. But the idea of one of those gals giving her poison--absolutely, you know, Herman the Midget is an imp of prodigious fancy! Dear God, such witless malice! Nevertheless, I am his staunch ally- He and I are one. Would you like to know 32 how ardently I covet a few of the Lewent millions, now in the grasp of my Uncle Theodore?" I told him I would love to, but he didn't hear me. He bounced to his feet, strode to the piano bench and sat, held his hands poised above the keyboard with the fingers spread, and tilted his head back with his eyes closed. Suddenly down his hands went, both to his left, and the air was split with a clap of thunder. Other claps and rumblings followed; then his hands started working their way to the right, and there was screeching and squealing. Abruptly it stopped, and he whirled to face me. "That's how I covet that money. That's how I feel." "Bad," I said emphatically. "Don't I know it. Say I had five million. With the income from it I could put a thirtypiece orchestra on the air an hour a week in a dozen key cities, playing the music of the future. I have some of it already written. If you think I'm touched, you're damn right I'm touched! So were Beethoven and Bizet touched, in their day. And the recordings. Dear God, the recordings I'll make! I mean I would make. In
stead of reveling in that Paradise, here I am. I spoke of millions. 33 Would you like to hear the actual facts of my personal financial status?" He turned and bent his head over the keyboard, and started two fingers of his right hand dancing over the black keys. He kept in one octave and touched so delicately that with my head cocked I could barely hear the faint discordant jangle. It set my teeth on edge, and I raised my voice. "I could lend you a buck." He stopped. "Thanks. I'll let you know. Of course I eat here, so I won't starve. Would you care for a comment from Miss Marcy?" He used both hands this time, and what came out was no jangle but a very pretty running coo. It was Miss Marcy to a T, with her variations and changes of pace, and he did it without any sign of a tune. "Check," I said when he stopped. "I'd know her with my eyes shut. Beautiful." "Thanks. Did Lewent tell you that I'm infatuated with Miss Riff?" "No. Are you?" "Oh, yes. If I played that for you, how I feel about Miss Riff, you'd be overcome, though I admit she isn't. That's why I wrote Lewent to come, because I was afraid she was going for my uncle, and I still am, I'm I shivering with terror. And now, between you, you and he have bitched it up." I told him that I disagreed and explained why. For one thing, I said, Lewent felt that getting the three suspects stirred up against him would not handicap him but help him. As soon as we found out which one it was he was going to start working on her, and he much preferred hostility to indifference as a base to start from. Thayer argued the point, but it was hard to hear him because he kept accompanying himself on the piano, and I requested him to move back to the bed, which he did. After more talk I decided I was wasting my time, since he couldn't furnish even a respectable guess on the question I was supposed to get answered, so I left him and moseyed back downstairs. On the landing one flight down a maid in uniform with lipstick an inch thick gave me a sidewise glance, and I thought of wrangling her into the sewing room and pumping her, but decided to reserve it. On the floor below that I was tempted. Off to the right was the door to Lewent's room, and ^e big door straight ahead, which had been widened to admit the wheelchair, as Lewent had informed me, led to Huck's room. I could go and knock on it and, if I got a 35 response, enter and ask him something. If there was no response, I could enter and take a look. A man who has been properly trained can do a lot of looking in five minutes, and it might be something quite simple, like a picture or a note in a drawer between shirts. But I reserved that too and descended another flight. That was the floor Huck's study was on, but I couldn't use him at the moment, and there was no sight or sound of anyone, so I continued my downward journey and was on the ground floor. No one was in sight there either, but a sound came through where a door was standing half open, and I went and passed in. I have a habit of not making an uproar when I move. On a TV screen a man and woman were going at each other, with her breathing hard and him saying something. On a chair with her back to me sat Mrs. O'Shea, sipping a liquid from a glass and looking at the TV. I stepped across to a chair not far from her, sat, and focused on the screen. She knew I was there, certainly, but gave no sign. For some twenty minutes we sat and watched and listened to the story unfold. When it ended and the commercial started she went and turned it off. 36 "Good reception," I said appreciatively. She eyed me. "You have your full share of gall, don't you? Did you want to see me?" "I thought we might have a little private talk." "Not now. I'll be busy in the kitchen for half an hour." "Then later. By the way, Mr. Lewent invited me to stay for dinner, but under the circumstances I think I should ask you if it will be inconvenient." "Mr. Lewent is Mr. Huck's guest, and if he invited you--of course. Mr. Huck eats in his room." I told her yes, I knew that, and she left. In a moment I followed. Thinking it advisable to let Lewent know that he had invited me to stay for dinner, I went back up two flights of stairs and to his door, and knocked. No result. I knocked louder, and still no result. As I stood there the door of the elevator, ten paces down the hall, slid open, and out came the wheelchair. Huck, seeing me, stopped his vehicle and called, "You still here?" "Yes, sir. If you don't mind." "Why should I?" He touched a button, and off it scooted, I . 37 to the door of his room. He opened it and rolled through, and the door swung shut. I looked at my wristwatch, lifting it to close range in the dim light; it was two minutes past five. Thinking that Lewent might be taking a nap, I knocked again and, getting no response, I gave it up and went back to the stairs, descended, left the house, walked to Madison and down a block to a drugstore, went into a phone booth, and dialed a number. Wolfe answered. I reported. "No progress. No nothing, except that if you get sick I've got a line on a nurse that can coo it out of you. I will not be home to dinner. God help me. I am calling to tell you that and to consult you." "What about?" "My brain. It must be leaking or I would never have let myself in for this." He grunted and hung up. I dialed another number, got Lily Rowan, and told her I had decided I'd rather stay home and do crossword puzzles than keep my weekend date with her. She finally wormed it out of me that I was stuck on a case, if you could call it that, and said she would hold her breath until I rang her again. Back at the house, admitted by the 38 viqueen, I asked her where Miss Riff was. She didn't know. Miss Marcy? She didn't luiow. Mr. Lewent? She didn't know. I thanked her warmly and made for the stairs, wondering where the hell the client had got to. Probably sound asleep, and I resented it. On the third floor I knocked good and loud on his door, waited five seconds, turned the knob, and entered. I darned near walked on him. He was lying just inside, barely clear of the swing of the door, flat on his back, with one leg bent a little and the other one straight. I closed the door, squatted, unbuttoned his vest, and got a hand inside his shirt. Nothing. His head was at a queer angle. I slipped my fingertips under it, and at the base of the skull, or rather where there should have been a base, there was no resistance to pressure at all. The smashed edge of the skull was halfway up. But I couldn't feel any break in the skin, and there was no blood on my fingers. I stood up and looked down at him, with niy hands shoved in my pants pockets and "iy jaw set. After enough of that I stepped to where the little hall ended and the room Proper began, and sent my eyes around slowly and thoroughly. Then I went and ^eit by Lewent's head, with my knees 39 spread, gripped his shoulders, and raised his torso till it was erect. There was nothing under him. I had a good look at the back of his head, then let him back down as before, got up and went and took his ankles and lifted his legs, and made sure there was nothing under that half of him. I moved to the door, held my ear to the crack for ten seconds, heard nothing, opened it and slipped through and pulled it shut, headed for the stairs, descended to the ground floor, and, no one appearing, let myself out. At the drugstore on Madison Avenue I got dimes for a half-dollar before I went to the phone booth. 4 When Wolfe heard my voice on the phone he was peevish on principle, since I'm not supposed to disturb him when he is up in the plant rooms, and this was the second time in twenty minutes. I was peevish too, but not on principle. "Hold it," I told him. "I am about to ask a favor. Twenty minutes ago I reported no progress, but I was wrong. We can't possi- 40 biy disappoint our client, because he's dead. Murdered." "Pfui." "No phooey. I'm telling you--from a booth in a drugstore. I found the body, and I want to ask a favor." "Mr. Lewent is dead?" "Yes. In order to ask the favor I'll have to lead up to it--not a full report, but the high spots." "Go ahead." I did. I gave him no conversations verbatim, but described the cast of characters and the setting, and covered movements and events up to opening the door of Lewent's room. At that point I got particular. "It would stand some questions," I told him. "The first ten feet inside the door it's not a room at all, merely a passage less than four feet wide. Beyond that is the room proper. The body is in that passage, diagonal, with the feet toward the door. When the door is opened wide its edge comes within ten inches of Lewent's right foot. There's a runner the length of the passage, ^ Oriental, not fastened down, and it's in place. The body's on it, of course. There is nothing disarranged in either the room or 41 the passage. Everything is just as it was when I was there an hour earlier." "Except Mr. Lewent." Wolfe's tone was
dry and disgusted. "Yeah. He was hit in the back of the head at the base of the skull with something heavy and hard enough to smash the whole bottom of the skull. The thing was comparatively smooth, because the skin is not broken, only bruised. No blood. I am not a laboratory, but on a bet there was only one blow and it came from beneath, traveling upward. The weapon is not in the passage--" "Under him." "No. I lifted him and put him back. Nor is it open to view in the room. Won't that stand some questions?" "It will indeed. No doubt the police will ask them." "I'm coming to that. I was not seen entering that room or leaving it. I might as well come on home, or, better still, go and keep my weekend date, if it weren't for one thing--the grand Lewent paid us. I've only been here three hours, and I doubt if I've been earning three hundred and thirtythree dollars and thirty-three cents an hour, considering what's happened. Our client may not have been one of nature's top products, 42 but to come here to do a job for him and just fiddle around while someone croaked him and then find his corpse is not my idea of a masterpiece. I don't like it. I won't like the remarks that will occur to Cramer and Stebbins if I phone the cops to say that Mr. Wolfe has had a client murdered while my back was turned and will they please come and take over. Nor will you." "I won't hear them. Is there an alternative?"