Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02 (26 page)

I said, “Maybe it’s absurd not to. Let it crack open once, spill it out.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to crack open. There’s no reason why I should want to talk about it, but I do. Otherwise why should I let you question me? I saw farther inside myself this evening than I have ever seen before. It wasn’t when I saw my husband dead, it wasn’t when I stood alone in my room, looking at a picture of him, trying to realize he was dead. It was sitting here with that police inspector, with him telling me that a plea of guilty is not accepted in first degree murder, and that I would have to talk with a representative of the District Attorney, and would have to testify in court so that Paul Chapin can be convicted and punished. I don’t want him punished. My husband is dead, isn’t that enough? And if I don’t want him punished, what is it I want to hold onto? Is it pity? I have never pitied him. I have been pretty insolent with life, but not insolent enough to pity Paul Chapin. You told me that he has a box filled with my gloves and stockings which Dora stole for him, and that Nero Wolfe said it holds his soul. Perhaps my soul has been put away in a box too, and I didn’t even know it …”

She got up, abruptly. The ash tray slid off the
couch to the floor. She stooped over, and with deliberate fingers that showed no sign of trembling picked up the burnt match stick and the cigarette and put them on the tray. I didn’t move to help her. She went to the table with the tray and then came back to the couch and sat down again. She said:

“I have always disliked Paul Chapin. Once, when I was eighteen years old, I promised to marry him. When I learned of his accident, that he was crippled for life, I was delighted because I wouldn’t have to keep my promise. I didn’t know that then but I realized it later. At no time have I pitied him. I claim no originality in that, I think no woman has ever pitied him, only men. Women do not like him—even those who have been briefly fascinated by him. I dislike him intensely. I have thought about this; I have had occasion to analyze it; it is his deformity that is intolerable. Not his physical deformity. The deformity of his nervous system, of his brain. You have heard of feminine cunning, but you don’t understand it as Paul does, for he has it himself. It is a hateful quality in a man. Women have been fascinated by it, but the two or three who surrendered to it—I not among them, not even at eighteen—got only contempt for a reward.

“He married Dora Ritter. She’s a woman?”

“Oh yes, Dora’s a woman. But she is consecrated to a denial of her womanhood. I am fond of her, I understand her. She knows what beauty is, and she sees herself. That forced her, long ago, to the denial, and her strength of will has maintained it. Paul understood her too. He married her to show his contempt for me; he told me so. He could risk it with Dora because she might be relied upon never to embarrass him with the only demand that he would find humiliating. And as for Dora—she hates him, but
she would die for him. Fiercely and secretly, against her denial, she longed for the dignity of marriage, and it was a miracle of luck that Paul offered it under the only circumstances that could make it acceptable to her. Oh, they understand each other!”

I said, “She hates him, and she married him.”

“Yes. Dora could do that.”

“I’m surprised she was here today. I understood she had a bad accident Wednesday morning. I saw her. She seems to have some character.”

“It could be called that. Dora is insane. Legally, I suppose not, but nevertheless she is insane. Paul has told her so many times. She tells me about it, in the same tone she uses for the weather. There are two things she can’t bear the thought of: that any woman should suspect her of being capable of tenderness, or that any man should regard her as a woman at all. Her character comes from her indifference to everything else, except Paul Chapin.”

“She bragged to Nero Wolfe that she was married.”

“Of course. It removes her from the field.—Oh, it is impossible to laugh at her, and you can’t pity her any more than you can Paul. A monkey might as well pity me because I haven’t got a tail.”

I said, “You were talking about your soul.”

“Was I? Yes. To you, Mr. Goodwin. I could not speak about it to my friend, Alice—I tried but nothing came. Wasn’t I saying that I don’t want Paul Chapin punished? Perhaps that’s wrong, perhaps I do want him punished, but not crudely by killing him. What have I in my mind? What is in my heart? God knows. But I started to answer your questions when you said something—something about his punishment—”

I nodded. “I said he shouldn’t get more than is
coming to him. Of course to you it looks open and shut, and apparently it looks the same way to the cops. You heard shots and ran to the foyer and there it was, a live man and a dead man and a gun. And of course Inspector Cramer has already got the other fixings, for instance the motive all dressed up and its shoes shined, not to mention a willingness to even up with Chapin for certain inconveniences he has been put to. But as Nero Wolfe says, a nurse that pushes the perambulator in the park without putting the baby in it has missed the point. Maybe if I look around I’ll find the baby. For example, Dora Chapin left here at seven-twenty. Chapin arrived at seven-thirty, ten minutes later. What if she waited in the hall outside and came back in with him? Or if she couldn’t do that because the maid let him in, he could have opened the door for her while the maid was gone to tell Dr. Burton. She could have snatched the gun from Burton’s pocket and done the shooting and beat it before you could get there. That might explain the light being out; she might have flipped the switch before she opened the outer door so if anyone happened to be passing in the outside hall they couldn’t see in. You say she hates Chapin. Maybe to him it was entirely unexpected, he had no idea what she was up to—”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t believe that. It’s possible, but I don’t believe it.”

“You say she’s crazy.”

“No. As far as Dora could like any man, she liked Lorrie. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Not to make a reservation for Chapin in the electric chair?”

Mrs. Burton looked at me, and a little shudder ran over her. She said, “That’s no better … than the other. That’s horrible.”

“Of course it’s horrible. Whatever we pull out of this bag, it won’t be a pleasant surprise for anyone concerned, except maybe Chapin. I ought to mention another possibility. Dr. Burton shot himself. He turned the light out so Chapin couldn’t see what he was doing in time to let out a yell that might have given it away. That’s horrible too, but it’s quite possible.”

That didn’t seem to discompose her as much as my first guess. She merely said, calmly, “No, Mr. Goodwin. It might be barely conceivable that Lorrie wanted … had some reason to kill himself without my knowing it, but that he would try to put the guilt on Paul … on anyone … No, that isn’t even possible.”

“Okay. You said it yourself a while ago, Mrs. Burton; strange things can happen. But as far as that’s concerned, anyone at all might have done it—anyone who could get into that foyer and who knew Chapin was there and that Dr. Burton would come.—By the way, what about the maid that’s out this evening? Does she have a key? What’s she like?”

“Yes, she has a key. She is fifty-six years old, has been with us nine years, and calls herself the housekeeper. You would waste time asking about her.”

“I could still be curious about her key.”

“She will have it when she comes in the morning. You may see her then if you wish.”

“Thanks. Now the other maid. Could I see her now?”

She got up and went to the table and pushed a button, and took another cigarette and lit it. I noticed that with her back turned you could have taken her for twenty, except for the coil of hair. But she was slumping a little; as she stood her shoulders sagged.
She pulled them up again and turned and came back to the couch, as the inner door opened and the whole outfit appeared: cook, maid, friend Alice, daughter and boy friend. The cook was carrying a tray. Mrs. Burton said:

“Thank you, Henny, not now. Don’t try it again, please don’t, I really couldn’t swallow. And the rest of you … if you don’t mind … we wish to see Rose a few minutes. Just Rose.”

“But, mother, really—”

“No, dear. Please, just a few minutes. Johnny, this is very nice of you. I appreciate it very much. Come here, Rose.”

The kid blushed. “Aw, don’t mention it, Mrs. Burton.”

They faded back through the door. The maid came and stood in front of us and tried some swallowing which didn’t seem to work. Her face looked quite peculiar because it intended to be sympathetic but she was too shocked and scared, and it would have been fairly peculiar at any time with its broad flat nose and plucked eyebrows. Mrs. Burton told her I wanted to ask her some questions, and she looked at me as if she had been informed that I was going to sell her down the river. Then she stared at the pad on my knee and looked even worse. I said:

“Rose. I know exactly what’s in your mind. You’re thinking that the other man wrote down your answers to his questions and now I’m going to do the same, and then we’ll compare them and if they’re not alike we’ll take you to the top of the Empire State Building and throw you off. Forget that silly stuff. Come on, forget it.—By the way.” I turned to Mrs. Burton: “Does Dora Chapin have a key to the apartment?”

“No.”

“Okay. Rose, did you go to the door when Dora Chapin came this evening?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You let her in and she was alone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“When she left did you let her out?”

“No, sir. I never do. Mrs. Kurtz don’t either. She just went.”

“Where were you when she went?”

“I was in the dining-room. I was there a long while. We weren’t serving dinner, and I was dusting the glasses in there.”

“Then I suppose you didn’t let Mr. Bowen out either. That was the man—”

“Yes, sir, I know Mr. Bowen. No, I didn’t let him out, but that was a long time before.”

“I know. All right, you let nobody out. Let’s get back to in. You answered the door when Mr. Chapin came.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You opened the door and he came in and you shut the door again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now see if you can remember this. It doesn’t matter much if you can’t, but maybe you can. What did Mr. Chapin say to you?”

She looked at me, and aside at Mrs. Burton, and down at the floor. At first I thought maybe she was trying to fix up a fake for an answer, then I saw that she was just bewildered at the terrible complexity of the problem I had confronted her with by asking her a question that couldn’t be answered
yes
or
no.
I said, “Come on, Rose. You know, Mr. Chapin came in, and you took his hat and coat, and he said—”

She looked up. “I didn’t take his hat and coat. He kept his coat on, and his gloves. He said to tell Dr. Burton he was there.”

“Did he stand there by the door or did he walk to a chair to sit down?”

“I don’t know. I think he would sit down. I think he came along behind me but he came slow and I came back in to tell Dr. Burton.”

“Was the light turned on in the foyer when you left there?”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“After you told Dr. Burton, where did you go?”

“I went back to the dining-room.”

“Where was the cook?”

“In the kitchen. She was there all the time.”

“Where was Mrs. Burton?”

“She was in her room dressing.—Wasn’t you, madam?”

I grinned. “Sure she was. I’m just getting all of you placed. Did Dr. Burton go to the foyer right away?”

She nodded. “Well … maybe not right away. He went pretty soon. I was in the dining-room and heard him go by the door.”

“Okay.” I got up from my chair. “Now I’m going to ask you to do something. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you it’s important, but it is. You go to the dining-room and start taking down the glasses, or whatever you were doing after you told Dr. Burton. I’ll walk past the dining-room door and on to the foyer. Was Dr. Burton going fast or slow?”

She shook her head and her lip began to quiver. “He was just going.”

“All right, I’ll just go. You hear me go by, and you decide when enough time has passed for the first shot to go off. When the time has come for the first shot,
you yell
Now
loud enough for me to hear you in the foyer. Do you understand? First you’d better tell—”

I stopped on account of her lip. It was getting into high. I snapped at her, “Come on out of that. Take a look at Mrs. Burton and learn how to behave yourself. You’re doing this for her. Come on now.”

She clamped her lips together and held them that way while she swallowed twice. Then she opened them to say:

“The shots all came together.”

“All right, say they did. You yell
Now
when the time comes. First you’d better go and tell the people inside that you’re going to yell or they’ll be running out here—”

Mrs. Burton interposed, “I’ll tell them. Rose, take Mr. Goodwin to the study and show him how to go.”

She was quite a person, that Mrs. Burton. I was getting so I liked her. Maybe her soul was put away in a box somewhere, but other items of her insides, meaning guts, were all where they ought to be. If I was the kind that collected things I wouldn’t have minded having one of her gloves myself.

Rose and I went out. Apparently she avoided the bedrooms by taking me around by a side hall, for we entered the study direct from that. She showed me how to go, by another door, and left me there. I looked around; books, leather chairs, radio, smoke stands, and a flat-top desk by a window. There was the drawer, of course, where the gat had been kept. I went over to it and pulled it open and shut it again. Then I went out by the other door and followed directions. I struck a medium pace, past the dining-room door, across the central hall, through a big room and from that through the drawing-room; got my eye
on my watch, opened the door into the foyer, went in and closed it—

It was a good thing the folks had been warned, for Rose yelling
Now
so I could hear it sounded even to me, away off in the foyer, like the last scream of doom. I went back in faster than I had come for fear she might try it again. She had beat it back to the room where Mrs. Burton was. When I entered she was standing by the couch with her face white as a sheet, looking seasick. Mrs. Burton was reaching up to pat her arm. I went over and sat down.