If Death Ever Slept (13 page)

He read it. My notes were in the wastebasket, but my memory is good too, and not a word was changed. It was just as he had dictated it. He even finished the last sentence, which he had left hanging: ''In the unlikely event that you wish me to continue to act for you, let me know at once. Sincerely.' That's the letter. It occurs to me-'

'You can't do that! What's the circumstance?'

'No, sir. As I said in the letter, I'm not at liberty to reveal it, at least not in a letter, and certainly not on the telephone. But it occurs-'

'Get this straight, Wolfe. If you give anybody information about my private affairs that you got working for me in a confidential capacity, you'll be sorry for it as long as you live!'

'I'm already sorry. I'm sorry I ever saw you, Mr. Jarrell. Let me finish, please. It occurs to me that there is a chance, however slim, that a reason can be found for ignoring the circumstance. I doubt it, but I'm willing to try. When I dictated the letter I intended to ask Mr. Cramer to visit me here at six o'clock, three hours from now. I'll postpone it on one condition, that you come at that hour and bring with you everyone who was here on Friday-except Mr. Brigham, who is dead-with the-'

'What for'What good will that do?'

'If you'll let me finish. With the understanding that you stay, all of you, until I am ready to adjourn, and that I will insist on answers to any questions I ask. I can't compel answers, but I can insist, and I may learn more from refusals to answer than from the answers I get. That's the condition. Will you come?'

'What do you want to ask about'They have already told you they didn't take my gun!'

'And you have told me that you know your daughter-in-law took it. Anyway, one of them lied, and I told them so. You'll know what I want to ask about when you hear me. Will you come?'

He balked for another five minutes, among other things demanding to know what the circumstance was that had made Wolfe write the letter, but only because he was used to being at the other end of the whip and it was a new experience for him. He had no choice and knew it.

Wolfe hung up, shook his head like a bull trying to chase a fly, and rang for beer.

WOLFE STARTED IT OFF with a bang. He surveyed them with the air of a judge about to impose a stiff one, and spoke, in a tone that was meant to be offensive and succeeded.

'There is nothing to be crafty about so I won't try. When you were here on Friday my main purpose was to learn which of you had taken Mr. Jarrell's gun; today it is to learn which of you used it to kill Mr. Eber and Mr. Brigham. I am convinced that one of you did. First I'll- Don't interrupt me!'

He glared at Jarrell, but it was more the voice than the glare that stopped Jarrell with only two words out. Wolfe doesn't often bellow, and almost never at anyone but Cramer or me, but when he does he means it. Having corked the client, who was in the red leather chair, he gave the others the glare. In front were Susan, Wyman, Trella, and Lois, as before. With Brigham no longer available and me back where I belonged, there were only two in the rear, Nora Kent and Roger Foote. 'I will not be interrupted.' It was as positive as the bellow, though not so loud. 'I have no more patience for you people-including you, Mr. Jarrell. Especially you. First I'll explain why I am convinced that one of you is a murderer. To do so I'll have to disclose a fact that the police have discovered but are keeping to themselves. If they learn that I've told you about it and are annoyed, then they'll be annoyed. I am past regard for trivialities. The fact is that the bullets that killed Eber and Brigham came from the same gun. That, Mr. Jarrell, is the circumstance I spoke of on the phone.'

'How do-'

'Don't interrupt. The technical basis of the fact is of course a comparison of the bullets in the police laboratory. How I learned it is not material. So much for the fact; now for my conclusion from it. The bullets are thirty-eights; the gun that was taken from Mr. Jarrell's desk was a thirty-eight. On Friday I appealed to all of you to help me find Mr. Jarrell's gun, and told you how, if it was innocent, it could be recovered with no stigma for anyone. Surely, if it was innocent, one of you would have acted on that appeal, but you didn't, and it was therefore a permissible conjecture that the gun had been used to kill Eber, but only a conjecture. Now it is no longer a conjecture; it has reached the status of a reasonable assumption. For Brigham was killed by a bullet from the gun that killed Eber, and those two men were both closely associated with you people. Eber lived with you for five years, and Brigham was in your familiar circle. Not only that, they were both concerned in the matter which I was hired to investigate one week ago today, the matter which took Mr. Goodwin there-'

'That'll do! You know what-'

'Don't interrupt!' It was close to a bellow again. 'The matter which took Mr. Goodwin there under another name. I need not unfold that matter; enough that it was both grave and exigent, and that both Eber and Brigham were involved in it. So consider a hypothesis: that those two men were killed by some outsider with his own private motive, and it is merely a chain of coincidences that they were both in your circle, that the gun was the same caliber as Mr. Jarrell's, that Mr. Jarrell's gun was taken by one of you the day before Eber was killed, and that in spite of my appeal the gun has not been found. If you can swallow that hypothesis, I can't. I reject it, and I conclude that one of you is a murderer. That is our starting point.'

'Just a minute.' It was Wyman. His thin nose looked thinner, and the deep creases in his brow looked deeper. 'That may be your starting point, but it's not mine. Your man Goodwin was there. What for'All this racket about a stolen gun-what if he took it'That's your kind of stunt, and his too, and of course my father was in on it. That's my starting point.'

Wolfe didn't waste a bellow on him. He merely shook his head. 'No, sir. Apparently you don't know what you're here for. You're here to give me a chance to wriggle out of a predicament. I am desperate. I dislike acting under compulsion in any case, and I abominate being obliged to divulge information about a client's affairs that I have received in confidence. The starting point is my conclusion that one of you is a murderer, not to go on from there to identify the culprit and expose him-that isn't what I was hired for-but to show you the fix I'm in. What I desperately need is not sanction for my conclusion, but plausible ground for rejecting it. I want to impeach it. As for your notion that Mr. Goodwin took the gun, in a stratagem devised by me with your father's knowledge, that is mere drivel and is no credit to your wit. If it had happened that way I would be in no predicament at all; I would produce the gun myself, demonstrate its innocence, and have a good night's sleep.'

'If death ever slept,' Lois blurted.

Their heads all turned to her. Not, probably, that they expected her to supply anything helpful; they were glad to have an excuse to take their eyes off Wolfe and relieve the strain. They hadn't been exchanging glances. Apparently no one felt like meeting other eyes.

'That's all,' Lois said. 'What are you all looking at me for'That just came out.'

The heads went back to Wolfe. Trella asked, 'Am I dumb'Or did you say you want us to prove you're wrong?'

'That's one way of putting it, Mrs. Jarrell. Yes.'

'How do we prove it?'

Wolfe nodded. 'That's the difficulty. I don't expect you to prove a negative. The simplest way would be to produce the gun, but I've abandoned hope of that. I don't intend to go through the dreary routine of inquiry on opportunity; that would take all night, and checking your answers would take an army a week, and I have no army. But I have gathered from the public reports that Eber died between two o'clock and six o'clock Thursday afternoon, and Brigham died between ten o'clock Sunday morning and three o'clock that afternoon, so it may be possible to exclude one or more of you. Has anyone an alibi for either of those periods?'

'You've stretched the periods,' Roger Foote declared. 'It's three to five Thursday and eleven to two Sunday.'

'I gave the extremes, Mr. Foote. The extremes are the safest. You seem well informed.'

'My God, I ought to be. The cops.'

'No doubt. You'll soon see much more of them if we don't discredit my conclusion.'

'You can start by excluding me,' Otis Jarrell said. 'Thursday afternoon I had business appointments, three of them, and got home a little before six. Sunday-'

'Were the appointments all at the same place?'

'No. One downtown and two midtown. Sunday morning I was with the police commissioner at the Penguin Club for an hour, from ten-thirty to eleven-thirty, went straight home, was in my library until lunch time at one-thirty, returned to the library and was there until five o'clock. So you can exclude me.'

'Pfui.' Wolfe was disgusted. 'You can't be as fatuous as you sound, Mr. Jarrell. Your Thursday is hopeless, and your Sunday isn't much better. Not only were you loose between the Penguin Club and your home, but what about the library'Were you alone there?'

'Most of the time, yes. But if I had gone out I would have been seen.'

'Nonsense. Is there a rear entrance to your premises?'

'There's a service entrance.'

'Then it isn't even worth discussing. A man with your talents and your money, resolved on murder, could certainly devise a way of getting down to the ground without exposure.' Wolfe's head moved. 'When I invited exclusion by alibis I didn't mean to court inanities. Can any of you furnish invulnerable proof that you must be eliminated for either of those periods?'

'On Sunday,' Roger Foote said, 'I went to Belmont to look at horses. I got there at nine o'clock and I didn't leave until after five.'

'With company'Continuously?'

'No. I was always in sight of somebody, but a lot of different people.'

'Then you're not better off than Mr. Jarrell. Does anyone else want to try, now that you know the requirements?'

Apparently nobody did. Wyman and Susan, who were holding hands, looked at each other but said nothing. Trella turned around to look at her brother and muttered something I didn't catch. Lois just sat, and so did Jarrell.

Then Nora Kent spoke. 'I want to say something, Mr. Wolfe.'

'Go ahead, Miss Kent. You can't make it any worse.'

'I'd like to make it better-for me. If you're making an exception of me you haven't said so, and I think you should. I think you should tell them that I came to see you Friday afternoon and what I said.'

'You tell them. I'll listen.'

But she kept focused on him. 'I came right after lunch on Friday. I told you that I had recognized the new secretary as Archie Goodwin as soon as I saw him, and I asked why you had sent him, and whether Mr. Jarrell had hired you or someone else had. I told you that the murder of Jim Eber had made me think I had better try to find out what the situation was. I told you I had discovered that Mr. Jarrell's gun was missing from the drawer of his desk, and that I had just found out that the caliber of the bullet that killed Jim Eber was the same as Mr. Jarrell's gun. I told you that I wasn't frightened, but I didn't want to just wait and see what happened, and I wanted to hire you to protect my interests and pay you a retainer. Is that correct?'

'It is indeed, madam. And well reported. And?'

'And I wanted Mr. Jarrell to know. I wanted them all to know. And I wanted to be sure that you hadn't forgotten.'

'You may be. And?'

'And I wanted it on the record. I don't think they're going to discredit your conclusion. I think you're going to tell the police about the gun, and I know what will happen then. I would appreciate it if you'll tell them that I came to see you Friday and what I said. I'll tell them myself, of course, but I wish you would. I'm not frightened, but-'

Jarrell had been controlling himself. Now he exploded. 'Damn you, Nora! You saw Wolfe Friday, three days ago'And didn't tell me?'

She sent the gray eyes at him. 'Don't yell at me, Mr. Jarrell. I won't have you yelling at me, not even now. Will you tell the police, Mr. Wolfe?'

'I will if I see them, Miss Kent, and I agree with you, reluctantly, that I'm probably going to.' He took in the audience. 'There is a third period, a brief one, which I haven't mentioned, because we covered it on Friday-from six to six-thirty Wednesday afternoon, when the gun was taken. None of you was excluded from that, either, not even Mr. Brigham, but he is now.' He went to Jarrell. 'I bring that up, sir, because you stated explicitly that your daughter-in-law took the gun, but you admitted that you had no proof. Have you any now?'

'No. Proof that you would accept, no.'

'Have you proof that anyone would accept?'

'Certainly he hasn't.' It was Wyman. He was looking, not at Wolfe, but at his father. But he said 'he,' not 'you,' though he was looking at him. 'And now it's a little too much. Now it may not be just taking a gun, it may be killing two men with it. Of course he has no proof. He hates her, that's all. He wants to smear her. He made passes at her, he kept it up for a year, and she wouldn't let him touch her, and so he hates her. That's all there is to it.'

Wolfe made a face. 'Mrs. Jarrell. You heard what your husband said?'

Susan nodded, just perceptibly. 'Yes, I heard.'

'Is it true?'

'Yes. I don't want-' She closed her mouth and opened it again. 'Yes, it's true.'

Wolfe's head jerked left. 'Mr. Jarrell. Did you make improper advances to your son's wife?'

'No!'

Wyman looked straight at his father and said distinctly, 'You're a liar.'

'Oh, my God,' Trella said. 'This is fine. This is wonderful.'

If I know any man who doesn't need feeling sorry for it's Nero Wolfe, but I came close to it then. After all the trouble he had taken to get them there to help him out of his predicament, they had turned his office into a laundromat for washing dirty linen.

He turned and snapped at me, 'Archie, draw a check to Mr. Jarrell for ten thousand dollars.' As I got up and went to the safe for the checkbook he snapped at them, 'Then it's hopeless. I was afraid it would be, but it was worth trying. I admit I made the effort chiefly for the sake of my own self-esteem, but also I felt that you deserved this last chance, at least some of you. Now you're all in for it, and one of you is doomed. Mr. Jarrell, you don't want me anymore, and heaven knows I don't want you. Some of Mr. Goodwin's things are up there in the room he occupied, and he'll send or go for them. The check, Archie?'

I gave it to him, he signed it, and I went to hand it to Jarrell. I had to go to the far side of the red leather chair to keep from being bumped by Wolfe, who was on his way out and who needs plenty of room whether at rest or in motion. Jarrell was saying something, but Wolfe ignored it and kept going.

They left in a bunch, not a lively bunch. I accompanied them to the hall, and opened the door, but no one paid any attention to me except Lois, who offered a hand and frowned at me-not a hostile frown, but the kind you use instead of a smile when you are out of smiles for reasons beyond your control. I frowned back to show that there was no hard feeling as far as she was concerned.

I watched them down the stoop to the sidewalk through the one-way glass panel, and when I got back to the office Wolfe was there behind his desk. As I crossed to mine he growled at me, 'Get Mr. Cramer.'

'You're riled,' I told him. 'It might be a good idea to count ten first.'

'No. Get him.'

I sat and dialed WA 9-8241, Manhattan Homicide West, asked for Inspector Cramer, and got Sergeant Purley Stebbins. He said Cramer was in conference downtown and not approachable. I asked how soon he would be, and Purley said he didn't know and what did I want.

Wolfe got impatient and picked up his receiver. 'Mr. Stebbins'Nero Wolfe. Please tell Mr. Cramer that I shall greatly appreciate it if he will call on me this evening at half past nine-or, failing that, as soon as his convenience will permit. Tell him I have important information for him regarding the Eber and Brigham murders& No, I'm sorry, but it must be Mr. Cramer& I know you are, but if you come without Mr. Cramer you will not be admitted. With him you will be welcome& As soon as he can make it, then.'

As I hung up I spoke. 'One thing, anyhow, there is no longer-'