Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 21 - Triple Jeopardy Read online

  “It don’t have to be dirty.” He went on glaring. “Goddam it, why did they have to pick Nero Wolfe?”

  I considered a moment, maybe two seconds. “I am glad to know,” I said pleasantly, “that the cops and the feds are collaborating so closely. Citizens can sleep sound. Wengert must have phoned the minute I left. What did he say?”

  “He spoke to the Inspector. What do you want?”

  “Maybe I should speak to the Inspector.”

  “He’s busy. So the Rackells have hired Wolfe?”

  I lifted my nose. “Mr. and Mrs. Rackell have asked Mr. Wolfe to investigate the death of their nephew. Before he starts to whiz through it like a cyclone he wants to know whether he will be cramping the style of those responsible for the national security. I’ve seen Wengert, and the heat has got him. He’s not interested. I am now seeing you because of the Commie angle, which has not appeared in the papers. If it is against the public interest for us to take the job, tell me why. I know you and Cramer think it’s against the public interest for us to eat, let alone detect, but that’s not enough. We would need facts.”

  “Uh-huh,” Purley growled. “We give ’em to you and Wolfe decides he can use ’em better than we can. Nuts. I’ll tell you one fact: this one has got stingers. Lay off.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “That’s probably good advice. I’ll tell Mr. Wolfe.” I arose. “We would like you to sign a statement covering the substance of this interview. Three copies, one—”

  “Go somewhere,” he rasped. “On out. Beat it.”

  I thought he was getting careless, but my escort, a paunchy old veteran with a pushed-in nose, was waiting in the hall. As I strode to the front and the entrance he waddled along behind.

  It was past eleven by the time I got back to the office, so Wolfe had finished his two hours in the plant rooms and was behind his desk, with beer. It would have been impossible for anything with life in it to look less like a cyclone.

  “Well?” he muttered at me.

  I sat. “We deposit the check. Wengert sends his regards. Purley doesn’t. They both think you sent me merely to get the dope for free and they sneer at the idea of our caring for the public welfare. Wengert phoned Cramer the minute I left. Not a peep from either one. We only know what we see in the papers.”

  He grunted. “Get Mr. Rackell.”

  So we had a case.

  III

  THERE were two open questions about the seven people gathered in the office after dinner that Wednesday evening: were any of them Commies, and was one of them a murderer? I make it seven, including our clients, not to seem prejudiced.

  I had given them the eye as they arrived and gathered and now, as I sat at my desk with them all in sight, I was placing no bets. There had been a time, years back, when I had had the notion that no murderer, man or woman, could stand exposed to view and not let it show somewhere if you had good enough eyes, but now I knew better. However, I was using my eyes.

  The one nearest me was a lanky middle-aged guy named Ormond Leddegard. He may have been expert at handling labor-management relations, which was how he made a living, but he was a fumbler with his fingers. Getting out a pack of cigarettes, and matches, and lighting up, he was all thumbs, and that would have put him low on the list if it hadn’t been for the possibility that he was being subtle. If I could figure that thumbs wouldn’t have been up to the job of sneaking a pillbox from a cluttered table, making a substitution, and returning the box without detection, so could he. Of course that little point could be easily settled by having a good man, say Saul Panzer, spend a couple of days interviewing a dozen or so of his friends and acquaintances.

  Next to him, with her legs crossed just right to be photographed from any angle, was Fifi Goheen. The leg-crossing technique was automatic, from an old habit. Seven or eight years ago she had been the Deb of the Year and no magazine would have dared to go to press without a shot of her; then it became all a memory; and now she was a front-page item as a murder suspect. She hadn’t married. It was said that a hundred males, lured by the attractions, opening their mouths for the big proposition, had seen the hard glint in her lovely dark eyes and lost their tongues. So she was still Miss Fifi Goheen, living with Pop and Mom on Park Avenue.

  Beyond her in the arc facing Wolfe’s desk was Benjamin Rackell, whose check had been deposited in our bank that afternoon, with his long narrow face more mournful even than the day before. At his right was a specimen who was a female anatomically but otherwise a what-is-it. Her name was Delia Devlin, and her age was beside the point. She was a resident buyer of novelties for out-of-town stores. There are ten thousand of her in midtown New York any weekday, and they’re all being imposed on. You see it in their faces. The problem is to find out who it is that’s imposing on them, and some day I may tackle it. Aside from that there was nothing visibly wrong with Delia Devlin, except her ears were too big.

  Next to her was a celebrity—though of course they were all celebrities for the time being, you might say ex officio. Henry Jameson Heath, now crowding fifty, had inherited money in his youth, quite a pile, but very few people in his financial bracket were speaking to him. There was no telling whether he had contributed dough to the Communist party or cause, or if so how much, but there was no secret about his being one of the chief providers and collecters of bail for the Commies who had been indicted. He had recently been indicted too, for contempt of Congress, and was probably headed for a modest stretch. He wore an old seersucker suit that was too small for him, had a round pudgy face, and couldn’t look at you without staring.

  Beyond Heath, at the end of the arc, was Carol Berk, the only one toward whom I had a personal attitude worth mentioning. Whenever we have a flock of guests I handle the seating, and if there is one who seems worthy of study I put her in the chair nearest mine. I had done so with this Carol Berk, but while I was in the hall admitting Leddegard, who had come last, she had switched on me, and I resented it. I felt that she deserved attention. Checking on her, along with the others, that afternoon with Lon Cohen of the Gazette, I had learned that she was supposed to be free-lancing as a TV contact specialist but no one actually claimed her, that she had a reputation as an extremely fast mover, and that there were six different versions of why she had left Hollywood three years ago. Added to that was the question whether it was a pleasure to look at her or not. In cases where it’s a quick no, the big majority, or a quick yes, the small minority, that settles it and what the hell; but the borderline numbers take application and sound judgment. I had listed Carol Berk as one when, crossing the doorsill, she had darted a sidewise glance at me with brown eyes that were dead dull from the front. Now, in the chair she had changed to, she was a good five paces away.

  Mrs. Benjamin Rackell, her lips tighter than ever, was in the red leather chair at the end of Wolfe’s desk.

  Wolfe’s gaze swept the arc. “I won’t thank you for coming,” he rumbled at them, “because it would be impertinent. You are here at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Rackell. Whether you came to oblige them or because you thought it unwise not to is immaterial.”

  Also, it seemed to me, it was close to immaterial whether they were there or not. Apparently, since he had sent me to Foley Square and Homicide to clear, Wolfe was proceeding on the Rackell theory that Arthur had got it because a Commie or Commies had discovered that he was an FBI plant. But that theory had not been published, and Wolfe couldn’t blurt it out. You don’t disclose the identity of FBI undercover men, even dead ones, if you make your living as a private detective and want to keep your license. And if by any chance Arthur had fed his aunt one with a worm in it, if he had actually had no more connection with the FBI than me with the DAR—no, that was one to steer clear of.

  So not only could Wolfe not come to the point, he couldn’t even let out a hint of what the point was. How could he talk at all?

  He talked. “I don’t know,” he said, “whether the police have made it clear to you how you stand. They don’t like it that I’m taking a hand in this. The entrance to my house has been under surveillance since this morning, when they learned that Mr. and Mrs. Rackell had consulted me. One or more of you were probably followed here this evening. But Mr. Rackell may properly hire me, I may properly work for him, and you may properly give me information if you feel like it.”

  “We don’t know whether we do or not.” Leddegard shifted in his chair, stretching his lanky legs. “At least I don’t. I came as a courtesy to people in bereavement.”

  “It is appreciated,” Wolfe assured him. “Now for how you stand. I talked with Mr. and Mrs. Rackell yesterday, and with Mrs. Rackell again this afternoon. It is characteristic of the newspapers to focus attention on you five people; it’s obvious and dramatic, and, after all, you were there when Arthur Rackell swallowed poison and died. But beyond the obvious, why you? Have the police been candid?”

  “That’s a damn silly question,” Heath declared. He had a flat but aggressive baritone. “The police are never candid.”

  “I knew a candid cop once,” Fifi Goheen said helpfully.

  “It seems to me,” Carol Berk told Wolfe, “that you’re being dramatic too, getting us down here. It would have taken a slight-of-hand artist to get the pillbox from his pocket and switch a capsule and put it back, without being seen. And while the box was on the table it was right under our eyes.”

  Wolfe grunted. “You were all staring at it? For twelve minutes straight?”

  “She didn’t say we were staring at it,” Leddegard blurted offensively.

  “Pfui.” Wolfe was disgusted. “A lummox could have managed it. Reaching for something—a roll, a cocktail glass—dropping the hand onto the box, checking glances while withdrawing the hand, changing capsules beneath the table, returning the box with another casual unnoticeable gesture. I would undertake it myself with thin inducement, and I’m not Houdini.”

  “Tell me something,” Leddegard demanded. “I may be thick, but why did it have to be done at the restaurant? Why not before?”

  Wolfe nodded. “That’s not excluded, certainly. You five people were not the only ones intimate enough with Arthur Rackell to know about his pink vitamin capsules and that he took three a day, one before each meal. Nor did you have a monopoly of opportunity. However—” His glance went left. “Mrs. Rackell, will you repeat what you told me this afternoon? About Saturday evening?”

  She had been keeping her eyes at Wolfe but now moved her head to take the others in. Judging from her expression as she went down the line, apparently she was convinced not that one of them was a Commie and a murderer, but that they all were—excluding her husband, of course.

  She returned to Wolfe. “My husband and Arthur had spent the afternoon getting an important shipment released, and got home a little before six. They went to their rooms to take a shower and change. While Arthur was in the shower my cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Kremp, went to his room to get things out for him, shirt and socks and underwear—she’s like that; she’s been doing it for years. The articles he had taken from his pockets were on the bureau, and she looked in the pillbox and saw it was empty, and she got three capsules from the bottle in a drawer—it held a hundred and was half full—and put them in the box. She did that too, every day. She is a competent woman, but she’s extremely sentimental.”

  “And she had no reason,” Wolfe inquired, “for wishing your nephew dead?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “She has of course told the police?”

  “Of course.”

  “Was there anyone in the apartment other than you four—you, your husband, your nephew, and Mrs. Kremp?”

  “No. No one. The maid was away. My husband and I were going to the country for the weekend.”

  “After Mrs. Kremp put the capsules in the box, and before your nephew came from the shower to dress—did you enter your nephew’s room during that period?”

  “No. I didn’t enter it at all.”

  “Did you, Mr. Rackell?”

  “I did not.” He sounded as mournful as he looked.

  Wolfe’s eyes went left to right, from Carol Berk at one end to Leddegard at the other. “Then we have Arthur Rackell bathed and dressed, the pillbox in his pocket. The police are not confiding in me, but I read newspapers. Leaving the apartment, he went down in the elevator and out to the sidewalk, and the doorman got a taxi for him. He was alone in the taxi, and it took him straight to the restaurant. The capsules left in the bottle have been examined and had not been tampered with. There we are. Are you prepared to impeach Mrs. Kremp, or Mr. or Mrs. Rackell? Can you support the assumption that one of them murdered Arthur Rackell?”

  “It’s not inconceivable,” Delia Devlin murmured.

  “No,” Wolfe conceded. “Nor is it inconceivable that he chose that moment and method to kill himself, nor even that a capsule of poison got into the bottle by accident. But I exclude them as too improbable for consideration, and so will everyone else, including the police. The inquiring mind is rarely blessed with a certainty; it must make shift with assumptions; and I am assuming, on the evidence, that when Arthui arrived at the restaurant the capsules in the box in his pocket were innocent. I invite you to challenge it. If you can’t the substitution was made at the restaurant, and you see how you stand. The police are after you, and so am I. One of you? Or all of you? I intend to find out.”

  “You’re scaring me stiff,” Fifi Goheen said. “I’m frail and I may collapse.” She stood up. “Come on, Leddy, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Leddegard reached for her elbow and gave it a little shake. “Hold it, Fee,” he told her gruffly. “This guy has been known to do flips. Let’s see. Sit down.”

  “Blah. You are scared. You’ve got a reputation.” She jerked her arm loose and took two quick steps to the edge of Wolfe’s desk. Her voice rose a little. “I don’t like the atmosphere here. You’re too fat to look at. Orchids, for God’s sake!” Her hand darted to the bowl of Miltonias, and with a flip of the wrist she sent it skidding along the slick surface and off to the floor.

  There was some commotion. Mrs. Rackell jerked her feet back, away from the tumbling bowl. Carol Berk said something. Leddegard left his chair and started for Fifi, but she whirled away to Henry Jameson Heath, pressed her palms to his cheeks, and bent to him. She implored him, “Hank, I love you! Do you love me? Take me somewhere and buy me a drink.”

  Delia Devlin sprang up, hauled off, and smacked Fifi on the side of the head. It was not merely a tap, and Fifi, off balance, nearly toppled. Heath came upright and was between them. Delia stood, glaring and panting. They held the tableau long enough for a take, then Fifi broke it up by addressing Delia past Heath’s shoulder.

  “That won’t help any, Del. Can he help it when he’s with you if he wishes it was me? Can I help it? This only makes it worse. If he’ll buy a new suit and quit bailing out Commies and stay out of jail, I may make him happy.” She touched Heath’s cheek with her fingertips. “Say when, Hank.” She swerved around him to the desk and told Wolfe, “Look, you buy me a drink.”

  I was there, retrieving the bowl. The water wouldn’t hurt the rug. Taking her arm firmly, I escorted her across to the table by the big globe, which Fritz and I had outfitted, and told her to name it. She said Scotch on the rocks, and I made it ample. The others, invited, stated their preferences, and Carol Berk came to help me. Rackell, who had been between Delia and Fifi, decided to move and went to Carol’s chair, so when we had finished serving she took his.

  Throughout the interlude two had neither moved nor spoken—Mrs. Rackell and Wolfe. Now Wolfe sent his eyes from left to right and back again.

  “I trust,” he said sourly, “that Miss Goheen has completed her impromptu performance. I was trying to make it clear that you five people are in a fix. I’m not going to pester you about your positions and movements at the restaurant that evening, what you saw or didn’t see; if there was anything in that to point or eliminate the police would have already acted on it and I’m too far behind. I might spend a few hours digging at you, trying to find a reason why one or more of you wanted Arthur Rackell dead, but the police have had four days on that too, and I doubt if I could catch up. Since you were good enough to come here at Mrs. Rackeh’s request, I suppose you would be willing to answer some questions, but there doesn’t seem to be any worth asking. Have you people been together at any time since Saturday evening?”

  Glances were exchanged. Leddegard inquired, “Do you mean all five of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “Then I should think you would want to talk. Go ahead. I’ll drink some beer and eavesdrop. Of course at least one of you will be on guard, but the others can speak freely. You might say something useful.”

  Carol Berk, now nearer me, let out a little snort. Fritz had brought a tray, and Wolfe opened a bottle, poured, waited for the foam to reach the right level, and drank. Nobody said a word.

  Leddegard spoke. “It doesn’t seem to work. Did you expect it to?”

  “We ought to make it work,” Fifi declared. “I think he’s damn considerate even if he is fat, and we should help.” Her head turned. “Carol, let’s talk.”

  “Glad to,” Carol agreed. “You start. Shoot.”

  “Well, how’s this? We all knew Arthur was practically a commissar, I always called him comrade, and we knew his aunt and uncle hated it, and he was afraid he might lose his job and have to go on relief but he was so damn brave and honest he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. We all knew that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you know this too? He told me—a week ago today, I think it was. His aunt put it to him, reform or out on the street, and he told her he was secretly working for the FBI, spying on the Commies, but he wasn’t. He thought the FBI was practically the Gestapo. I told him he shouldn’t—”

  “That’s a lie!”

  Mrs. Rackell didn’t shout but she put lots of feeling in it. All eyes went to her. Her husband got up and put a hand on her shoulder. There were murmurs.