Gambit (9 page)

Wolfe nodded. “The dictionary would permit it.”

“Good enough. Miss Blount also told me that you’re acting independently of her father’s attorney. That seems to me a little difficult, a little awkward, but I’m not qualified to judge. The only profession I know anything about is medicine. She said you wanted to see me, and here I am. I would go much farther,

to see the devil himself, if it might be of assistance to Miss Blount’s father.”

Wolfe grunted. “Do you think he killed Paul Jerin?”

“No. I do not.” He didn’t glance at Sally as Yerkes had.

“How long have you been a member of the Gambit Club?”

“Fifteen years.”

“How well do you know Mr. Hausman?”

“Not well at all. I rarely see him except at the club. I see him once every year on Matthew Blount’s birthday. Mrs. Blount gives a party.”

“How well do you know Mr. Yerkes?”

“Not much better than I know Hausman. Except at the club, only casually.”

“Mr. Farrow?”

“I know him, certainly. You know he is Mrs. Blount’s nephew.”

“Yes. Mr. Kalmus?”

“I have known him for years. Aside from our friendship, I attend him professionally.” Avery shifted in the chair, settling back. “Those four men were the messengers, as of course you know.”

“Of course. More of them later. First the event itself. I understand it was Mr.

Kalmus who summoned you to go to Mr. Jerin.”

“That’s right. But I knew before that that Jerin was indisposed, about half an hour before, when Yerkes told Blount. I was at Table Five, next to Blount, Table Six.”

“It was then that Blount went to the library to take the pot and cup and clean them.”

“That’s right.”

“Did Yerkes suggest to Blount that he do that?”

“I don’t think so. If he did I didn’t hear him.”

“Did anyone else suggest it?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. Yerkes was the messenger for our tables,

and he had brought me Jerin’s sixth move, and I was concentrating on my reply. I was trying the Albin Counter Gambit. Houghteling had used it against Dodge in 1905 and had mated him on the sixteenth move. But perhaps you don’t play chess.”

“I don’t know that gambit.” From Wolfe’s tone he didn’t care to. “When you went in to Jerin, having been summoned by Kalmus, did you suspect poison at once?”

“Oh no, not at once. There was faintness, depression, and some nausea, and those symptoms can come from a variety of causes. It was only when he complained of intense thirst, and his mouth was dry, that I considered the possibility of poison, specifically arsenic, but the clinical picture of arsenical poisoning is by no means always the same. As a precaution I sent to a nearby drugstore for mustard, tinctura ferri chloridi, and magnesium oxide, and when they came I administered mustard water, but not the tincture. That’s the official arsenic antidote, and it should be used only after gastric lavage and a test of the washings. Of course there was no equipment at the club for that, and, when the symptoms became more acute, I sent for an ambulance and he was taken to a hospital. St Vincent’s.”

“You continued in attendance at the hospital?”

Avery nodded. “With members of the staff. They took over, actually.”

“But you were present?”

“Yes. Until he died.”

“At what point did he know he had been poisoned?”

“That’s hard to say.” Avery pursed his lips. “When I went to him he thought there had been something wrong with the chocolate, naturally, since he had taken nothing else, and of course anything swallowed by a man that makes him ill is toxic, but it was only after he had been at the hospital for some time that he voiced a suspicion that he had been poisoned deliberately. You asked when he knew. He never did know, but he suspected it.”

“Did he name anyone'Accuse anyone?”

“I prefer not to say.”

“Pfui. Did he name someone only in your hearing?”

“No.”

“Did he name someone in the hearing of yourself and another?”

“Yes. Others.”

“Then the police know about it, and presumably Mr. Kalmus. Why shouldn’t I know?”

Avery turned, slowly, to look at Sally. “I haven’t told you, Sally,” he said,

“nor your mother. But of course the police have been told - a doctor and two nurses were there and heard it. You asked me to come to see Wolfe, so I suppose you want him to know. Do you?”

“Yes,” Sally said, “I want him to know everything.”

Avery regarded her a moment, opened his mouth and closed it, turned to Wolfe,

and said, “He named Blount.”

“What did he say?”

“He said - these were his words: “Where’s that bastard Blount'He did this, he did it. Where is he'I want to see him. Where is the bastard?” Of course he was raving. It meant absolutely nothing. But he said it, and the police know it.”

Back to Sally: ‘Don’t tell your mother. It wouldn’t do any good, and it’s hard enough for her without that.”

Sally, staring at him, was shaking her head. “Why would he…” She looked at me,

and I had to say something.

“Nuts,” I said. “He was off the rails.” Having already swallowed a full-grown camel, though it was tough keeping it down, I wasn’t going to strain at a gnat.

Wolfe, focused on Avery, asked, “Did he elaborate on that?”

“No. That was all.”

“Or repeat it?”

“No.”

“Was he questioned about it'By you or another?”

“No. He was not in a condition to be questioned.”

“Then as information it has no value. To go back to the club. You said that when you went to him he thought there had been something wrong with the chocolate,

and naturally you shared that suspicion. Did you make any inquiry?”

“Yes, but it was fruitless because none of the chocolate that he had taken was left. The pot and cup had been taken - but you know about that. I went down to the kitchen and questioned the cook and steward and looked around some. However,

I didn’t do the one thing I should have done, and I regret it; I regret it deeply. I should have asked Jerin if he had put anything in the chocolate that he had brought with him. At the time that possibility didn’t occur to me, since he was saying there must have been something wrong with the chocolate as it was served. It only occurred to me later, two days later, when it developed that Blount was seriously suspected of deliberate murder. If I had been fully alert to the possibilities of the situation then and there, at the club, I would have questioned Jerin insistently. I would even have searched him, his pockets. I regret it deeply.”

“Are you suggesting that he committed suicide'And then, at the point of death,

accused Blount?”

“Not necessarily suicide. That’s conceivable, but more likely, he put something in the chocolate which he believed to be innocuous but wasn’t. It could have been some stimulant, either powder or liquid, or it could even have been some special form of sugar he fancied. And either by mistake or through the malign purpose of some other person, arsenic in one of its many forms had been substituted for the harmless substance. Of course it would have had to be in some kind of container, and I went to the club to search and inquire, but two days had passed and the police had already made a thorough inspection. The library had been put in order by the steward Tuesday night and the wastebasket emptied. I have been told by the police that there was no container on Jerin’s person, but they don’t really know, since he was undressed soon after his arrival at the hospital”

Wolfe grunted. “So all you have is a conjecture that can’t be supported.”

“I’m not so sure, and I’m sorry you say that.” Avery was leaning forward. “Your attitude is the same as Kalmus’s when I made the suggestion to him. Kalmus is an able lawyer, a brilliant lawyer, but naturally his approach to any problem is the legal approach. You’re right, my idea is no good if it can’t be supported,

but that’s just the point, perhaps it can be supported, and that’s why I wanted to tell you about it, because it’s a job for a detective, not a lawyer. I won’t try to tell you the dozen different ways it might be supported because that’s your profession, not mine. But I’ll say this, if I were a detective trying to get evidence that would clear Blount of the murder he has been charged with,

which he didn’t commit, or at least raise a strong enough doubt, I certainly wouldn’t ignore this as a conjecture that can’t be supported. I don’t want to be importunate, but you realize I’m deeply concerned.”

“Naturally.” Wolfe was patient. “I concede that your suggestion is worth considering. It has the great merit that if it can be established it will clear not only Blount but also the others who had access to the chocolate - the four messengers. I said more of them later. A detective must consider them too. You have advanced a suggestion; now I offer one. One of those four men killed Jerin,

not because of any malice toward him, but to destroy Blount. The malice was for Blount. That’s why I asked how well you know them. If it can be shown -“

“Good lord.” Avery was gawking. “That’s tommyrot. You’re not serious?”

“Why not'My suggestion is as worthy of consideration as yours and can be more easily investigated. Why is it tommyrot?”

“Why…” Avery turned his palms up. “Perhaps I should have said… implausible.

To kill a man like that, deliberately, a man who means nothing to you, in an attempt to injure another man… I may be naive for a man of my age and experience, but such depravity … it’s hard for me to believe. I can’t deny that it’s conceivable.”

“Then it’s not tommyrot. But apparently it would be futile to ask if you have any knowledge or suspicion that would single out one of them.”

“It certainly would.” He was emphatic. “Even if I had any I wouldn’t - ‘ He stopped abruptly, looked at Sally, and returned to Wolfe. “No, that isn’t true.

If I had any such knowledge or suspicion I’d tell you. Have you any?”

Wolfe shook his head. “If I have I’m reserving it. I have spoken with three of them - Hausman, Farrow, and Yerkes - and I expect to see Kalmus tomorrow. They all profess belief in Blount’s innocence, which is gratifying but not helpful. I not only profess it, I am committed to it; and whether through your suggestion or mine, or by some device not yet conceived, I intend to demonstrate it.”

Hooray.

Daniel Kalmus, counselor at law, arrived a little after noon Wednesday. It was a good thing he didn’t put it off until after lunch, as some extra fine lamb kidneys, skewered to keep them open, doused in olive oil seasoned with salt,

pepper, thyme, dry mustard, and mace, broiled five-and-three - five minutes on the skin side and three minutes on the cut side - and brushed twice with deviled butter, would have been practically wasted. I have said that Wolfe refuses to let anything whatever spoil a meal if the food is good, but that day, if there had been no reaction whatever, not even a phone call, to Sally’s ultimatum to Kalmus, the kidneys would of course have been chewed and swallowed, but they wouldn’t have been appreciated. They might as well have been served to Voltaire.

That was the first and only time Wolfe has given me instructions and then canceled them, without anything having happened to change his mind. While Sally and I were having breakfast, fresh-baked croissants and eggs poached in red wine and bouillon, he buzzed me on the house phone from his room and told me to call Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, and Orrie Catherine three good men he had mentioned to Yerkes - and ask them to come at six o’clock. That improved my appetite for breakfast. I hadn’t the dimmest notion what he was going to have them do, but it couldn’t be just to ask their opinion of Dr Avery’s suggestion, since together they came to twenty-five bucks an hour. Then only ten minutes later he buzzed me again and told me to skip it. Absolutely unheard of. If there’s one thing he never does it’s toss and turn. A hell of a way to start a day.

When he came down to the office at eleven o’clock and saw the client there, in a chair over by the filing cabinet, with the Times, he paused on the way to his desk to scowl at her for a couple of seconds, acknowledged her good morning with a curt nod, switched the scowl to me, went and put orchids in the vase, sat,

removed the paperweight, a chunk of petrified wood, from the little pile of morning mail, and picked up the first item, a letter from the president of a women’s club in Montclair asking if and when about a hundred of the members could come and look at the orchids. I had considered withholding it and answering it myself, in view of his current acute feeling about club members,

but had decided that if I could take it he could.

He looked through the mail, put the paperweight back on it, and looked at me.

“Any phone calls?”

He never asked that, knowing as he did that if there had been a call which he would want or need to know about I would report it without being asked. So I said, “Yes, sir. Lon Cohen wants to send a man to interview Miss Blount.”

“Why did you tell him she’s here?”

“I didn’t. You know damn well I didn’t. She went for a walk and some journalist probably saw her and tailed her. We can get Saul and Fred and Orrie and have them find out.”

“Archie. I am in no mood for raillery.”

“Neither am I.”

His eyes went to his client. “Miss Blount. When Mr. Kalmus comes you will of course retire before he enters.”

“I’d rather stay,” she said. “I want to.”

“No. Mr. Goodwin will tell you later what was said. You will please withdraw.”

She shook her head. “I’m going to stay.” Not arguing, just stating a fact.

If he had been anything like normal he would have exploded, and if she had stuck to it he would have instructed me to carry her upstairs and lock her in.

Instead, he merely glared at her, and then at me, removed the paperweight from the mail, picked up the top letter, and growled, “Your notebook, Archie.”

In the next hour he dictated sixteen letters, only three of them in reply to items that had come that morning. I still have the notebook, and it’s quite an assortment. Though they all got typed, nine of them were never signed and mailed. They were all quite polite. One, to a boy in Wichita, Kansas, apologized for not answering his letter, received two weeks back, asking two pages of questions about detective work, but he didn’t go so far as to answer the questions. He was in the middle of one to an orchid hunter in Ecuador when the doorbell rang; I stepped to the hall for a look, and turned to inform him,

“Kalmus.” It was ten minutes past noon.

Naturally I was curious to see how Sally would handle it, so when I ushered the caller to the office and he entered I was right behind. She stayed put, on the chair over by the cabinet, looking straight at him, but obviously not intending to move or speak. He was going to her but stopped halfway, muttered at her, “You silly little goose,” and about-faced. His eyes met Wolfe’s at eight paces, and I pronounced names and indicated the red leather chair.

Kalmus spoke. “So you got me here with a threat from a hysterical girl.”

That wasn’t so easy to meet, since Wolfe thinks that any calm and quiet woman is merely taking time out from her chronic hysteria, building up for the next outbreak. So he ignored it. “Since you are here,” he said, with no heat, “you might as well be seated. Eyes at a level are equal. Of course that’s why a judge’s bench is elevated.”

Kalmus went to the red leather chair, but he didn’t settle in it; he just perched on the front half of the seat. “I want to make one thing clear,” he declared. “If you think you can force me to take you as a colleague in handling the defense of Matthew Blount, you’re wrong. Anything I do or don’t do, I’ll decide it strictly on the only proper ground, is it in the interest of my client or isn’t it. Also I want to say that I’m not surprised at the tactics you’re using. It was partly because I know how you operate that I was against hiring you. I don’t blame Miss Blount because she doesn’t know any better. She doesn’t know that coercion by threat partakes of the nature of blackmail, or that if she did what she threatened to do it would be libel. You can’t deny that she wrote that letter at your direction.”

Wolfe nodded. “I dictated it to Mr. Goodwin, he typed it, and she copied it.”

From his expression as he regarded the lawyer you might have thought he was merely trying to decide whether I had exaggerated about skin and bones. “As for blackmail, the only thing extorted is half an hour or so of your time. As for intent to libel, her defense would be the truth of the libel, but I concede that she couldn’t possibly prove it. For you and me to discuss it would be pointless.

She mistrusts your good faith as her father’s counsel because she thinks you are capable of betraying him for your personal advantage, and of course you deny it.

The question is moot and can’t be resolved, so why waste time and words on it'

What I would -“

“It’s ridiculous! Childish nonsense!”

“That may be. You’re the only one who knows the real answer, since it is inside you, your head and heart. What I would like to discuss is the theory Miss Blount mentioned in her letter. It is based partly on a conclusion from established fact and partly on an assumption. The assumption is that Mr. Blount is innocent.

The conclusion is that -“

“I know all about the theory.”

Wolfe’s brows went up. “Indeed?”

“Yes. If it’s what you told Yerkes last evening. Is it?”

“It is.”

“He told me about it this morning. Not on the phone - he came to my office. He was impressed by it, and so am I. I was impressed when it first entered my mind,

a week ago, and when I told Blount about it he too was impressed. I didn’t do what you have done - speak of it to those who may be vitally concerned - at least one of them may be. Have you also told Farrow and Hausman?”

Wolfe’s brows were still up. “It had already occurred to you?”

“Certainly. It had to. If Blount didn’t put arsenic in that chocolate, and he didn’t, it had to be one of those three, and he had to have a reason. I don’t have to tell you that when a crime is committed the first and last question is cui bono'And the only result of the murder of Jerin that could possibly have benefited one of those three was the arrest of Blount on a capital charge. Of course you include me on the list, and I don’t. Is that why you told Yerkes'

Because you think this idiotic idea of Miss Blount’s points to me and he’s out of it?”

“No. At present you seem the most likely, but none of them is out of it. I told Yerkes to get talk started. Not just talk about you and Mrs. Blount; even if Miss Blount’s suspicion is valid you have probably been too discreet to give occasion for talk; talk about the other three and their relations with Blount.

The success of any investigation depends mainly on talk, as of course you know.”

Wolfe turned a hand. “You may not need it. You have known all of them for years.

You may already have known all of them for years. You may already have an inkling, more than an inkling, and, combining it with the fact known only to you and Blount, you may have your case secure. If so you don’t need me.”

Kalmus put his hands on the chair arms to lever himself back on the seat, cocked his head, and closed his eyes to look at something inside. Facing the window beyond Wolfe’s desk, he didn’t look quite as bony as he had in the firelight in the Blount living room, but he looked older; he did have creases, slanting down from the corners of his mouth and nose.

His eyes opened. “I haven’t got my case secure,” he said.

“Hmmmm,” Wolfe said.

“Not secure. That theory, it’s obvious enough if Blount is innocent, but why are you so sure he is'I know why I am, but why are you?”

Wolfe shook his head. “You can’t expect a candid answer to that, since we’re not colleagues. But if I have no other ground there is this: if Blount is guilty I can’t possibly earn the fee I have accepted from his daughter, and an unearned fee is like raw fish - it fills the stomach but is hard to digest. Therefore my client’s father didn’t kill that man.”

“You happen to be right. He didn’t.”

“Good. It’s gratifying to have concurrence from one who knows. It would be even more gratifying to be told how you know, but I can’t expect you to tell me.

Presumably it’s the fact known only to you and Mr. Blount.”

“That’s partly it. Chiefly.” Kalmus took a deep breath. “I’m going to ask you something. I’m going to see my client this afternoon. If I suggest to him that we engage you to investigate something, and he approves, will you do it'

Investigate one particular matter under my direction?”

“I can’t say. I doubt it. I would have to know first precisely what is to be investigated, and how much I would be restricted by the direction. You disapprove of my tactics on principle.”

“But they get results. If you were satisfied on those two points would you accept?”

“If there were no conflict of interest, if Miss Blount approved, and if it were stated in writing that Mr. Blount is my client, not you, yes. What would I investigate?”

“That will have to wait until I consult Blount. Will you be available this evening?”

“Yes. But I’ll commit myself, if at all, only upon written request from Mr.

Blount. I owe some deference to Miss Blount’s opinion of your probity, right or wrong. She is my client. And what of your abrupt somersault regarding me?”

“It wasn’t abrupt.” Kalmus twisted in the chair to face Sally, started to say something, vetoed it, and returned to Wolfe. “The fact you’ve mentioned twice,

the fact known only to Blount and me, required investigation - not the fact itself, but what it suggested. I thought I could handle it myself with the help of a couple of men in my office, but day before yesterday, Monday afternoon, I realized that it would take an expert investigator, and I decided to call on you. Then came that item in the paper, that you had been hired on behalf of Blount, and I thought you were trying to horn in, and my reaction to that was natural. But that evening Mrs. Blount phoned me that her daughter had hired you,

so you weren’t just trying to horn in, and when I went up there I intended to smooth it out and hire you myself, but you know what I ran into. That ridiculous idea of Miss Blount’s. I admit I acted like a damn fool. It wasn’t Goodwin’s fault, or yours; it was hers.”

He waved it away. “All right, that was stupid. Then yesterday that letter came,

obviously drafted by you. I forced myself to look at it objectively, and I had to admit that from your viewpoint you were acting in the legitimate interest of the person who had hired you. And this morning when Yerkes came and told me what you said to him last evening, the theory that I already had myself, it was obvious that you weren’t just making gestures to get a fee, you genuinely thought Blount was innocent. So I came here with the definite intention of engaging your services. It may not have sounded like it, the way I started off,

but I still resented that letter and you can’t blame me. I didn’t do any abrupt somersault about you.”

He got up and crossed over to Sally. “Where you got that fool notion,” he said,

“God only knows. If you have any sense at all you’ll go home where you belong.

Two different newspapers have phoned my office this morning to ask what you’re doing at Nero Wolfe’s house. For God’s sake get some sense.” He put out a hand,

pulled it back, and wheeled to face Wolfe. “I’ll see Blount this afternoon and you’ll hear from me either this evening or tomorrow morning. He’ll feel better if I tell him that you’re sending his daughter home. Can I tell him that?”

“No, sir. I don’t prescribe my clients’ movements.”

“Very well.” He thought he was going to add something, decided he wasn’t, and headed for the door. I followed him out, for the courtesies of the hall.

Back at the office door, I didn’t enter because Sally was there on the sill. “Do you believe him?’ she demanded. From her tone and expression it seemed likely that if I said yes I might get my face scratched, so I took her arm and turned her to escort her to the red leather chair, and darned if she didn’t balk. She wasn’t going to sit where it was still warm from Dan Kalmus. She jerked her arm away, stood at the corner of Wolfe’s desk, and demanded, “Do you believe him?”

“Confound it,” Wolfe snapped, “sit down! My neck isn’t rubber.”

“But if you’re going -“

“Sit down!”

She turned, saw I had moved up a chair, sat, and said, “You said I would have to approve. Well, I don’t. Not under his direction.”