Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 (25 page)

“Yeah. All but me. I have to see Mrs. Burton.”

“But he said … the Inspector said she wouldn’t be bothered.”

“I’m sorry, I have to see her.”

“She’s lying down.”

“Tell her just a few questions.”

He opened his mouth and shut it, looked as if he thought he ought to do something, and turned and beat it. In a minute he came back and nodded me along. I followed.

We went through a room and a sort of a hall and
into another room. This was not so big, but was better lit and not so dolled up. A maid in uniform was going out another door with a tray. A woman was sitting on a couch, another woman in a chair, and the daughter I had seen in the reception hall was standing behind the couch. I walked over there.

I suppose Mrs. Loring A. Burton wasn’t at her best that evening, but she could have slipped a few more notches and still have been in the money. A glance was enough to show you she was quite a person. She had a straight thin nose, a warm mouth, fine dark eyes. Her hair was piled in braids at the back, pulled back just right for you to see her temples and brow, which maybe made most of the effect; that and the way she held her head. Her neck knew some artist’s trick that I?ve seen many a movie star try to copy without quite getting it. It had been born in her spine.

With her head up like that I could see it would take more than a murdered husband to overwhelm her into leaving decisions to daughters and so on, so I disregarded the others. I told her I had a few confidential questions to ask and I’d like to see her alone. The woman in the chair muttered something about cruel and unnecessary. The daughter stared at me with red eyes. Mrs. Burton asked:

“Confidential to whom?”

“To Paul Chapin. I’d rather not …” I looked around.

She looked around too. I saw that the kid wasn’t the son and heir after all, it was the daughter he was interested in, probably had it signed up. Mrs. Burton said, “What does it matter? Go to my room—you don’t mind, Alice?”

The woman in the chair said she didn’t, and got up.
The kid took hold of the daughter’s arm to steer her, by golly he wasn’t going to let her fall and hurt herself. They went on out.

Mrs. Burton said, “Well?”

I said, “The confidential part is really about me. Do you know who Nero Wolfe is?”

“Nero Wolfe? Yes.”

“Dr. Burton and his friends entered into an agreement—”

She interrupted me. “I know all about it. My husband …” She stopped. The way she suddenly clasped her fingers tight and tried to keep her lips from moving showed that a bust-up was nearer to coming through than I had supposed. But she soon got it shoved under again. “My husband told me all about it.”

I nodded. “That saves time. I’m not a city detective. I’m private. I work for Nero Wolfe, my name’s Goodwin. If you ask me what I’m here for there’s lots of ways to answer you, but you’d have to help me pick the right one. It depends on how you feel.” I had the innocence turned on, the candid eye. I was talking fast. “Of course you feel terrible, certainly, but no matter how bad it is inside of you right now, you’ll go on living. I’ve got some questions to ask for Nero Wolfe, and I can’t be polite and wait for a week until your nerves have had a chance to grow some new skin, I’ve got to ask them now or never. I’m here now, just tell me this and get rid of me. Did you see Paul Chapin shoot your husband?”

“No. But I’ve already—”

“Sure. Let’s get it done. Did anybody see him?”

“No.”

I took a breath. At least, then, we weren’t floating with our bellies up. I said, “All right. Then it’s a
question of how you feel. How you feel about this, for instance, that Paul Chapin didn’t shoot your husband at all.”

She stared at me. “What do you mean—I saw him—”

“You didn’t see him shoot. Here’s what I’m getting at, Mrs. Burton. I know your husband didn’t hate Paul Chapin. I know he felt sorry for him and was willing to go with the crowd because he saw no help for it. How about you, did you hate him? Disregard what happened tonight, how much did you hate him?”

For a second I thought I had carried her along; then I saw a change coming in her eyes and her lips beginning to tighten up. She was going to ritz me out. I rushed in ahead of it:

“Listen, Mrs. Burton, I’m not just a smart pup nosing around somebody’s back yard seeing what I can smell. I really know all about this, maybe even some things you don?t know. Right now, in a cabinet down in Nero Wolfe’s office, there is a leather box. I put it there. This big. It’s beautiful tan leather, with fine gold tooling on it, and it’s locked, and it’s full nearly to the top with your gloves and stockings. Some you’ve worn.—Now wait a minute, give me a chance. It belongs to Paul Chapin. Dora Ritter hooked them and gave them to him. It’s his treasure. Nero Wolfe says his soul is in that box. I wouldn’t know about that, I’m no expert on souls. I’m just telling you. The reason I want to know whether you hate Paul Chapin, regardless of his killing your husband, is this: what if he didn’t kill him? Would you like to see them hang it on him anyway?”

She was looking at me, with the idea of ritzing me out put aside for the moment. She said, “I don’t know
what you’re driving at. I saw him dead. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Neither do I. That’s what I’m here to find out. I’m trying to make you understand that I’m not annoying you just for curiosity, I’m here on business, and it may turn out to be your business as well as mine. I’m interested in seeing that Paul Chapin gets no more than is coming to him. Right now I don’t suppose you’re interested in anything. You’ve had a shock that would lay most women flat. Well, you’re not flat, and you might as well talk to me as sit and try not to think about it. I’d like to sit here and ask you a few things. If you look like you are going to faint I’ll call the family and get up and go.”

She unclasped her hands. She said, “I don’t faint. You may sit down.”

“Okay.” I used the chair Alice had left. “Now tell me how it happened. The shooting. Who was here?”

“My husband and I, and the cook and the maid. One of the maids was out.”

“No one else? What about the woman you called Alice?”

“That is my oldest friend. She came to … just a little while ago. There was no one else here.”

“And?”

“I was in my room dressing. We were dining out, my daughter was out somewhere. My husband came to my room for a cigarette; he always … he never remembered to have any, and the door between our rooms is always open. The maid came and said Paul Chapin was there. My husband left to go to the foyer to see him, but he didn’t go direct; he went back through his room and his study. I mention that because I stood and listened. The last time Paul had come my husband had told the maid to keep him in the
foyer, and before he went there he had gone to his study and got a revolver out of the drawer. I had thought it was childish. This time I listened to see if he did it again, and he did, I heard the drawer opening. Then he called to me, called my name, and I answered what is it, and he called back, nothing, never mind, he would tell me after he had speeded his guest. That was the last … those were his last words I heard. I heard him walking through the apartment—I listened, I suppose, because I was wondering what Paul could want. Then I heard noises—not loud, the foyer is so far away from my room, and then shots. I ran. The maid came out of the dining-room and followed me. We ran to the foyer. It was dark, and the light in the drawing-room was dim and we couldn’t see anything. I heard a noise, someone falling, and Paul’s voice saying my name. I turned on the light switch, and Paul was there on his knee trying to get up. He said my name again, and said he was trying to hop to the switch. Then I saw Lorrie, on the floor at the end of the table. I ran to him, and when I saw him I called to the maid to go for Dr. Foster, who lives a floor below us. I don’t know what Paul did then, I didn’t pay attention to him, the first I knew some men came—”

“All right, hold it.”

She stopped. I looked at her a minute, getting it. She had clasped her hands again and was doing some extra breathing, but not obtrusively. I quit worrying about her. I took out a pad and pencil, and said, “This thing, the way you tell it, needs a lot of fixing. The worst item, of course, is the light being out. That’s plain silly.—Now wait a minute, I’m just talking about what Nero Wolfe calls a feeling for phenomena, I’m trying to enjoy one. Let’s go back to the beginning. On his way to see Paul Chapin, your husband called to you
from the study, and then said never mind. Have you any idea what he was going to say?”

“No, how could I—”

“Okay. The way you told it, he called to you after he opened the drawer. Was that the way it was?”

She nodded. “I’m sure it was after I heard the drawer open. I was listening.”

“Yeah. Then you heard him walking to the foyer, and then you heard noises. What kind of noises?”

“I don’t know. Just noises, movements. It is far away, and doors were closed. The noises were faint.”

“Voices?”

“No. I didn’t hear any.”

“Did you hear your husband closing the foyer door after he got there?”

“No. I wouldn’t hear that unless it banged.”

“Then we’ll try this. Since you were listening to his footsteps, even if you couldn’t hear them any more after he got into the drawing-room, there was a moment when you figured that he had reached the foyer. You know what I mean, the feeling that he was there. When I say Now, that will mean that he has just reached the foyer, and you begin feeling the time, the passing of time. Feel it as near the same as you can, and when it’s time for the first shot to go off, you say
Now
.—Get it?
Now
.”

I looked at the second hand of my watch; it went crawling up from the 30. She said, “
Now
.”

I stared at her. “My God, that was only six seconds.”

She nodded. “It was as short as that, I’m sure it was.”

“In that case … all right. Then you ran to the foyer, and there was no light there. Of course you couldn’t be wrong about that.”

“No. The light was off.”

“And you switched it on and saw Chapin kneeling, getting up. Did he have a gun in his hand?”

“No. He had his coat and gloves on. I didn’t see a gun … anywhere.”

“Did Inspector Cramer tell you about the gun?”

She nodded. “It was my husband’s. He shot … it had been fired four times. They found it on the floor.”

“Cramer showed it to you.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s gone from the drawer in the study.”

“Of course.”

“When you turned on the light Chapin was saying something.”

“He was saying my name. After the light was on he said—I can tell you exactly what he said.
Anne, a cripple in the dark, my dear Anne, I was trying to hop to the switch
. He had fallen.”

“Yeah. Naturally.” I finished scratching on the pad, and looked up at her. She was sitting tight. I said, “Now to go back again. Were you at home all afternoon?”

“No. I was at a gallery looking at prints, and then at a tea. I got home around six.”

“Was your husband here when you got here?”

“Yes, he comes early … on Saturday. He was in his study with Ferdinand Bowen. I went in to say hello. We always … said hello, no matter who was here.”

“So Mr. Bowen was here. Do you know what for?”

“No. That is … no.”

“Now come, Mrs. Burton. You’ve decided to put up with this and it’s pretty swell of you, so come ahead. What was Bowen here for?”

“He was asking a favor. That’s all I know.”

“A financial favor?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Did he get it?”

“No. But this has no connection … no more of this.”

“Okay. When did Bowen leave?”

“Soon after I arrived, I should say a quarter past six. Perhaps twenty after; it was about ten minutes before Dora came, and she was punctual at six-thirty.”

“You don’t say so.” I looked at her. “You mean Dora Chapin.”

“Yes.”

“She came to do your hair.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be damned.—Excuse me. Nero Wolfe doesn’t permit me to swear in front of ladies. And Dora Chapin got here at six-thirty. Well. When did she leave?”

“It always takes her three-quarters of an hour, so she left at a quarter past seven.” She paused to calculate. “Yes, that would be right. A few minutes later, perhaps. I figured that I had fifteen minutes to finish dressing.”

“So Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty and Paul Chapin arrived at half past. That’s interesting; they almost collided. Who else was here after six o’clock?”

“No one. That’s all. My daughter left around half past six, a little before Dora came. Of course I don’t understand—what is it, Alice?”

A door had opened behind me, and I turned to see. It was the woman, the old friend. She said:

“Nick Cabot is on the phone—they notified him. He wants to know if you want to talk to him.”

Mrs. Burton’s dark eyes flashed aside for an instant, at me. I let my head go sideways enough for her to see it. She spoke to her friend, “No, there is nothing to say. I won’t talk to anyone. Are you folks finding something to eat?”

“We’ll make out. Really, Anne, I think—”

“Please, Alice. Please—”

After a pause the door closed again. I had a grin inside, a little cocky. I said, “You started to say, something you don’t understand …”

She didn’t go on. She sat looking at me with a frown in her eyes but her brow smooth and white. She got up and went to a table, took a cigarette from a box and lit it, and picked up an ash tray. She came back to the couch and sat down and took a couple of whiffs. Then she looked at the cigarette as if wondering where it had come from, and crushed it dead on the tray, and set the tray down. She straightened up and seemed to remember I was looking at her. She spoke suddenly:

“What did you say your name is?”

“Archie Goodwin.”

“Thank you. I should know your name. Strange things can happen, can’t they? Why did you tell me not to talk to Mr. Cabot?”

“No special reason. Right now I don’t want you to be talking to anybody but me.”

She nodded. “And I’m doing it. Mr. Goodwin, you’re not much over half my age and I never saw you before. You seem to be clever. You realized, I suppose, what the shock of seeing my husband dead, shot dead, has done to me. It has shaken things loose. I am doing something very remarkable, for me. I don’t usually talk, below the surface. I never have, since childhood, except with two people. My husband, my
dear husband, and Paul Chapin. But we aren’t talking about my husband, there’s nothing to say about him. He’s dead. He is dead … I shall have to tell myself many times … he is dead. He wants to go on living in me, or I want him to. I think—this is what I am really saying—I think I would want Paul to.—Oh, it’s impossible!” She jerked herself up, and her hands got clasped again. “It’s absurd to try to talk about this—even to a stranger—and with Lorrie dead—absurd …”