Plot It Yourself (14 page)

'I am. I wish to God I had never seen her. She's a liar and a sneak and a double-crosser and a murderer, and I can prove it.'

'How?'

'Don't worry, I can prove it. I've got the typewriter that she used to write that story, 'There Is Only Love,' when she got me to make that claim against Ellen Sturdevant. And I know how she planted it in a bureau drawer in Ellen Sturdevant's house. And that's all I'm going to tell you. And if you're in it with her you're going to regret it.' She stood up, bumping me. 'You get out of my way.' Saul and I stayed put.

Wolfe's tone sharpened. 'I'm not in it with her, Miss Porter. On the contrary, I'm in it with you, up to a point. I ask one question, and there's no reason why you shouldn't answer it. Did you write an account of your association with Miss Wynn, put it in an envelope, and entrust the envelope to someone with instructions that it was to be opened if and when you died?'

She stared. She sat down. 'How did you know that?'

'I didn't. I surmised it. It was the simplest and best way to account for your remaining alive and not in trepidation. Where is it'You might as well tell me, now that its contents are no longer a secret. You have just revealed them, their essence. Where is it?'

'A woman named Garvin has it. Mrs Ruth Garvin.'

'Very well.' Wolfe leaned back and took a breath. 'It would have made things easier for both of us if you had been candid with me last evening. It would have saved me the trouble of all this hocus-pocus to force you to speak up. Miss Wynn did not put a manuscript in your house or a knife in your car. Mr Panzer did not go there last evening. He spent the day composing and typing the kind of story he described because I thought you might demand to see it. He also bought the kind of knife he described.'

Alice Porter was staring again. 'Then that was all lies. Then you were in it.'

Wolfe shook his head. 'If by 'in it' you mean a conspiracy with Miss Wynn to make you pay for her crimes, no. If you mean a trap to force the truth out of you, yes. As for Mr Cather and Miss Corbett and Mr Durkin, they told no lies; they merely permitted you to infer that the photographs they showed to various people were of you, but they weren't. They were photographs of Amy Wynn-and by the way, we can now hear from Miss Bonner. You needn't leave your chair. Miss Bonner. Report briefly.'

Dol Bonner cleared her throat. 'I showed a photograph of Amy Wynn to the woman who runs Collander House on West Eighty-second Street, Mrs Ruth Garvin. She said that Amy Wynn lived there for three months in the winter of 1954 and '55, and that Alice Porter also lived there at that time. Is that enough?'

'For the present, yes.' Wolfe's eyes moved to take in his client, the committee. 'That, I think, should suffice. I have established a link between Miss Wynn and each of her four accomplices. You have heard Miss Porter. If you wish, I can proceed to collect ample evidence to persuade a jury to convict Miss Wynn of her swindles, but it would be a waste of your money and my time, since she will go to trial not for extortion, but for murder, and that is not your concern. The police and the District Attorney will attend to that. As for-'

Reuben Imhof suddenly exploded. 'I can't believe it!' he cried. 'By God, I can't believe it!' He appealed to Amy Wynn. 'For God's sake, Amy! Say something! Don't just sit there! Say something!'

I was back in my chair, and by stretching an arm I could have touched her. She hadn't moved a muscle since Wolfe had asked Alice Porter about the envelope. Her hands were pressed flat against her breasts, as if to hold them up, and her shoulders were pulled back, far back. Down her right cheek, from just below the eye almost to her jaw, were two red streaks where Alice Porter's nails had scraped. She paid no attention to Imhof and probably she didn't hear him. Her eyes were fixed on Wolfe. Her lips moved but there was no sound. Someone muttered something. Mortimer Oshin took his empty glass from the stand, went to the table at the far wall, poured a triple portion of brandy, took a swallow, and came back.

Amy Wynn spoke to Wolfe, her voice so low that it was just audible. 'You knew that first day,' she said. 'The first time we came. Didn't you?'

Wolfe shook his head. 'No, madam. I had no inkling. I am not clairvoyant.'

'When did you know?' She might have been in a trance.

'Last evening. Alice Porter gave me the hint, unwittingly. When I showed her that her position was untenable and told her that I would advise you to prosecute, she was not concerned, she said you wouldn't dare, but when I added that I would also advise Mr Imhof to prosecute she took alarm. That was highly suggestive. Upon consideration I sent her home, and I did something I might have done much sooner if there had been the faintest reason to suspect you. I read your book. Knock at My Door, or enough of it to conclude that you had written the stories on which the first three claims had been based. That was manifest from the characteristics of your style.'

Her head moved, slowly, from side to side. 'No,' she said. 'You knew before that. You knew the third time we were here. You said it was possible it was one of us.'

'That was only talk. At that point anything was possible.'

'I was sure you knew,' she insisted. 'I was sure you had read my book. That was what I'd been afraid of since the second time we came, when you told us about comparing the stories. That was when I realized how stupid I had been not to write them in a different style, but you see I didn't really know I had a style. I thought only good writers had a style. But I was stupid. That was my big mistake. Wasn't it?'

They were all staring at her, and no wonder. From her tone and her expression you might have thought Wolfe was conducting a class in the technique of writing and she was anxious to learn. 'I doubt if it could properly be called a mistake,' he said. 'A little thoughtless, perhaps. After all, no one had ever compared the stories before I did, and I wouldn't have compared them with your book if I hadn't got that hint from Miss Porter. Indeed, Miss Wynn, I wouldn't say that you made any mistakes at all.'

'Of course I did.' She was quietly indignant. 'You're just being polite. All my life I've been making mistakes. The biggest one was when I decided I was going to be a writer, but of course I was young then. You don't mind if I talk about it'I want to.'

'Go ahead. But fourteen people are listening.'

'It's you I want to talk to. I've been wanting to ever since the first time we came and I thought you knew. If I had talked to you then I wouldn't have had to-to do what I did. But I didn't think you would say I didn't make any mistakes. I shouldn't have told Alice about you. You told us when you started, I mean when you started today, that she gave it away that she knew about our hiring you when Mr Goodwin told her he had an offer from a newspaper, and so your attention was focused on her. But I had made the worst mistake with her before that, when she claimed my book was plagiarized from a story she wrote. Of course I know that was poetic justice. I know I deserved it. But after so many years, when I actually had a book published, and the first printing sold out, and then three more printings, and it was actually third on the best-seller list, and then my publisher got that letter from Alice, I lost my head. That was an awful mistake. I should have told her I wouldn't pay her anything, not a cent. I should have dared her to try to make me. But I was so scared I gave in to her. Wasn't that a mistake?'

Wolfe grunted. 'If so, not an egregious one. She had the upper hand-especially after the manuscript of her story was found in a file in your publisher's office.'

'But that was part of the mistake, my putting it there. She made me. She said if I didn't she would tell everything-about the claim against Ellen Sturdevant, and of course that would bring it out about the others. And she told me-'

'My God.' Reuben Imhof groaned. He had gripped her arm. 'Amy, look at me. Damn it, look at me! You put that manuscript in that file?'

'You're hurting my arm,' she said.

'Look at me! You did that?'

'I'm talking to Mr Wolfe.'

'Incredible.' He groaned again. He let go of her arm. 'Absolutely incredible.'

Wolfe asked, 'You were saying, Miss Wynn?'

'I was saying that she told me about what she had put in an envelope and left with somebody to be opened if she died. I don't see how you can say I didn't make any mistakes. I hadn't realized how dangerous it was for her to have the typewriter I used to write that story for her to use, 'There Is Only Love.' We thought it would be a good idea for her to have it because she was supposed to have written the story, but I hadn't realized that it could be traced to me because I had bought it. I had bought it secondhand, but typewriters have numbers on them somewhere. You can't say I didn't make any mistakes. You ought to say I didn't do anything right. Did I?'

'If by 'right' you mean 'well,' you did indeed.'

'What'What did I do well'Tell me.'

'It would take an hour, Miss Wynn. You did a thousand things well. Your conception and execution of the swindles were impeccable, providing for all details and avoiding all pitfalls. Your choice of accomplices was admirable. Your handling of the situation these past two weeks has been superb. I have had some experience with people under stress wearing masks, both men and women, and I have never seen finer performances than yours-the first time you called on me with your fellow committee members, two weeks ago today, when I questioned you at some length; the second time, when Mr Oshin made his suggestion about Simon Jacobs and asked you to contribute ten thousand dollars; later that day at Mr Imhofs office when Mr Goodwin was told of the discovery of the manuscript which you had yourself put in the file; the third time you came with the committee, when the question whether to dismiss me was debated; the meeting of that council yesterday, when that question was again discussed in my presence-your performance on all of those occasions was extraordinary.'

Wolfe turned a palm up. 'On one occasion you showed ready and notable wit-on Friday, four days ago, when Miss Porter drove to New York to see you at your apartment. By then, of course, she was confronting you with a direr menace than exposure of your swindles; she was threatening to reveal you as a murderer. That is true?'

'Yes. That's why she came to see me. How did I show any wit?'

Wolfe shook his head. 'Mr Imhof used the right word for you. Miss Wynn. 'Incredible.' Apparently you have performed prodigies of sagacity and finesse without knowing it. Not surely by inadvertence; it must be that your singular faculties operate below the level of consciousness-or above it. Perhaps the psychologists should add a new term, superconscious. When Miss Porter came to your apartment on Friday afternoon did she tell you that she had been followed?'

'No. But I was afraid that maybe she had been.'

'That makes it even better. Brilliant. So you telephoned Mr Imhof and told him Miss Porter was there with an offer to settle her claim, and asked his advice. You don't call that brilliant?'

'Of course not.' She meant it. 'It was just common sense.'

Wolfe shook his head again. 'You are beyond me. Added to your other achievements, you committed three murders in an emergency with such resourcefulness and dexterity that a highly skilled police force is completely at sea. I offer a suggestion. I suggest that you request the District Attorney to arrange for your brain to be turned over to competent scientists. I shall myself suggest it to Mr Cramer of the police. Will you do that?'

A sound came from Cora Ballard, half gasp and half moan. It was the first sound from any of them except Imhof since Dol Bonner had reported. No one looked at her. No one was looking at anyone but Amy Wynn.

'You're just being polite,' Amy Wynn said. 'If I had any brains this wouldn't be happening. It's crazy to say I didn't make any mistakes.'

'You made one,' Wolfe said. 'Only one of any consequence. You shouldn't have allowed the committee to hire me. I don't know how you could have managed it, but I don't know how you have managed any of your miracles, and you don't either. If it had occurred to you, you would have done it somehow. I am not crowing; I merely say that it is unlikely that anyone else would have hit upon the combination of maneuvers by which you have been exposed. You wanted to talk. Have you anything else to say?'

Her nose twitched. 'You have never shaken hands with me.'

'I rarely shake hands with anyone. I beg you not to offer yours.'

'Oh, I wouldn't expect you to now.' She stood up. 'No, there's nothing else. I had some things to do before I-I have some things to do.' She was moving.

She was incredible. I was absolutely glued to my chair. I don't say that if there had been only the three of us, Wolfe and her and me, I would have sat there and let her walk out, but the fact remains that I didn't stir. She passed, in no hurry, in front of Philip Harvey and between Cora Ballard and Mortimer Oshin; and when, four paces from the door, she found her way blocked by Saul and Fred and Orrie, she turned square around and looked at Wolfe. Just looked. No more talk. Her nose twitched.

Wolfe turned his head to me. 'Get Mr Cramer, Archie.'

Another sound came from Cora Ballard, louder than before, as I swiveled to get the phone.