Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 46 (11 page)

Damn it, we were and are different. But Fritz knows us. He ought to.

Before going to the dining room I rang Saul’s number, got his answering service, and left a message that I couldn’t make it to the weekly poker game and give Lon Cohen my love.

T
he only visible evidence in the office that we had company was six men on chairs. Since this was a family affair, not business, it could be mentioned at the table, and after the cognac flames on a roast duck Mr. Richards had died, and Wolfe had carved it, and Fritz had brought me mine and taken his, we had discussed the question of setting up a refreshment table and had vetoed it. It would have made them think they were welcome and we wished them well, which would have been only half true. They were welcome, but we did not wish them well—at least not one of them.

To a stranger entering the office it’s obvious at a glance that the red leather chair is the place. I had intended to put Benjamin Igoe in it, but a bishop with a splendid mop of white hair and quick gray eyes went to it even before he pronounced his name. Ernest Urquhart, the lobbyist. They all pronounced their names for Wolfe before they sat—the other five on two rows of yellow chairs facing Wolfe’s desk, three in front and two back. Like this:

“I’m not really arrogant or impudent, Mr. Wolfe,” Urquhart said. “I took this chair only because these gentlemen decided that, since we are all willing talkers, it would be wise to name a spokesman, and they chose me. Not that their tongues are tied. Two of them are lawyers. I can’t say with Sir Thomas More, ‘and not a lawyer among them.’ ”

Not a good start. Wolfe didn’t like quoters, and he was down on More because he had smeared Richard III. I was wondering whether Urquhart was a lobbyist because he looked like a tolerant and sympathetic bishop, or looked like that because he was a lobbyist. He had the voice for it, too.

“I have all night,” Wolfe said.

“It shouldn’t take all night. We certainly hope not. As you must have gathered from what Mr. Vilar said on the phone, we’re concerned about what Mr. Igoe told Mr. Goodwin about Mr. Bassett—and what Mr. Goodwin told him. Frankly, we think it was unnecessary and indiscreet, and—”

“Leave that out! Goddam it, I told you.” It was Igoe’s strong baritone, even stronger.

“That was understood, Ernie.” Ackerman. Francis Ackerman, lawyer, Washington. I am not going to drag in Watergate, it certainly doesn’t need any dragging in by me, but when they had single-filed in from the stoop he had struck me as a fairly good take-off of John Mitchell, with his saggy jowls and scanty chin. His calling Ackerman “Ernie” showed that he was the kind
of Washington lawyer who is on nickname terms with lobbyists. Anyhow, one lobbyist.

Urquhart nodded. Not to Ackerman or Igoe or Wolfe; he just nodded. “That slipped out,” he told Wolfe. “Please ignore it. What concerns us is the possible
result
of what Mr. Igoe told Mr. Goodwin. And he gave him our names, and today men have been making inquiries about two of us, and apparently they were sent by you. Were they? Sent by you?”

“Yes,” Wolfe said.

“You admit it?”

Wolfe wiggled a finger. That was regression—I just looked it up. He had quit finger-wiggling a couple of years back. “Don’t do that,” he said. “Calling a statement an admission is one of the oldest and scrubbiest lawyers’ tricks, and you’re not a lawyer. I state it.”

“You’ll have to make allowances,” Urquhart said. “We are not only concerned, we are disturbed. Apprehensive. Mr. Goodwin told Mr. Igoe that at that dinner at Rusterman’s one of us handed Mr. Bassett a slip of paper, and—”

“No.”

“No?”

“He told Mr. Igoe that Pierre Ducos had
told him
that he had seen one of you hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper. Also that that was the one fact that Pierre had mentioned, and that therefore we considered it significant.”

“Significant of what?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I intend to find out. One week after that dinner Mr. Bassett was shot and killed. Ten minutes after Pierre told Mr. Goodwin that he saw one of you hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper at that dinner—told him that and nothing else—he was killed
by a bomb in this house. Mr. Urquhart, did you hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper at that dinner?”

“No. And I want to make—”

“No is enough.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Did you, Mr. Judd?”

“No.”

“Did you, Mr. Ackerman?”

“No.”

“Did you, Mr. Vilar?”

“No. I am—”

“Did you, Mr. Hahn?”

“No.”

“You told Mr. Goodwin no, Mr. Igoe. I ask you again. Did you?”

“Huh. No.”

Wolfe’s head went left and right to take them in. “There you are, gentlemen. Rather, there I am. Either Pierre lied to Mr. Goodwin or one of you lies. I don’t think Pierre lied; why would he? Another question: did any of you see one of the others hand Mr. Bassett a slip of paper? I don’t need another round of noes; I invite a yes. Any of you?”

No yes. Roman Vilar said, “We can’t ask Pierre about it. He’s dead.” Vilar, euphemistic security, was all points—pointed chin, pointed nose, pointed ears, even pointed shoulders. He was probably the youngest of them—at a guess, early forties. His saying that they couldn’t ask Pierre also pointed, for me, to the fact that when Wolfe had told me Wednesday morning what to say to them, or one of them, if I got the chance, I hadn’t fully realized how much dust could be kicked up by one little lie. One more mention by anybody that Pierre had told me that he had seen one of them hand Bassett a slip of paper and I would begin to believe it myself.

“Yes,” Wolfe said, “Pierre Ducos is dead. I saw him,
on his back, with no face. I can’t ask him either. If I could, almost certainly you would not be here, not all of you. Only one.” He focused on Urquhart. “You said you are concerned not only about what Mr. Goodwin told Mr. Igoe but also about what Mr. Igoe told him. So am I. That’s why I am having inquiries made about you—all of you. Mr. Igoe used the term ‘obsession.’ I don’t have obsessions, but I too am attentive to the skulduggery of Richard Nixon and his crew. And the purpose of that gathering, arranged by Mr. Bassett, was to discuss it. Yes?”

“I suppose you might—”

“Hold it, Urquhart. Is this being recorded, Wolfe?”

Albert O. Judd, the other lawyer. He was about the same age as Vilar. He looked like a smoothie, but not the oily kind, and he had paid somebody a good four C’s for cutting and fitting his light-gray coat and pants, the kind of fabric that suggests stripes but doesn’t actually have any. Marvelous.

Wolfe eyed him. “You must know, Mr. Judd, that that question is cogent only if the one who asks it can rely on the one who answers, and why should you rely on me? It isn’t to be expected that I’ll say yes, and what good is my no? However, I say it. No.” His eyes took them in, from Judd around to Urquhart. “Mr. Vilar asked me on the telephone if I had told the police or the District Attorney what Mr. Igoe told Mr. Goodwin, and I said no. He asked me if I intended to but withdrew the question because he couldn’t expect me to answer. But I
will
answer. Again no. At present I intend to tell no one. I do intend to learn who killed Pierre Ducos, and I have reason to surmise that in doing so I’ll also learn who killed Harvey Bassett.”

He turned a palm up. “Gentlemen. I know why you’re here, of course. At present the officers of the law
have no reason to assume that any of you were implicated in a homicide. Two homicides. Naturally they have inquired about Mr. Bassett’s movements and activities immediately prior to his death, but he was a busy man of affairs, and they probably know nothing of that dinner a week earlier. If they knew what I know, they would not merely assume that one or more of you might be implicated; you would be the main focus of their investigation.” He turned to me. “Your notebook, Archie.”

I got it, and a pen. He had closed his eyes. He opened them to see that I was equipped, and closed them again. “Not a letterhead, plain paper. Merely a list of questions. How long had you known Mr. Bassett and what were your relations with him? Why were you included in a meeting called by him to discuss Richard Nixon’s use or abuse of tape recorders? Did you know that Mr. Bassett felt that Mr. Nixon had debased and polluted tape recorders, comma, and did you agree with him? Have you ever been involved in any activity connected with the phenomenon called Watergate, comma, and if so what and how and when? Have you ever had any contact with anyone connected with Watergate? To your knowledge, comma, even hearsay, comma, have any of the other five guests ever been connected in any way with Watergate, comma, and if so why? Where were you and what were you doing last Friday night, comma, October twenty-fifth, comma, from six p.m. to two a.m.? Where were you and what were you doing last Monday, comma, October twenty-eighth, comma, from twelve noon to twelve midnight?”

He opened his eyes. “Six carbons. No, only five, we won’t need one. No hurry.” He turned to them. “That, gentlemen, is a sample of the questions you are going to
be asked. Either by me or by the police. You have a choice. You realize that—”

“This has gone far enough. Too far. Wolfe, I am a senior vice-president of the fourth largest bank in New York. We will pay you one hundred thousand dollars to represent our interests. One half tomorrow in cash, and the remainder guaranteed—probably by us jointly and certainly by me personally. Orally. Not in writing.”

Willard K. Hahn’s voice was soft and low, but the kind of soft and low you don’t have to strain to hear. He was a square. He would have been obviously a square even without his square jaw and square shoulders—the opposite of Vilar with his points.

Wolfe was looking down his nose at him. “Not a good offer, Mr. Hahn. If as payment for services, too much. If as a bribe to muzzle me, not enough.”

“It’s for services. Too much?
You
saying too much, when you have just said we would be the main focus of a murder investigation? Vilar says you charge the highest fees in New York. If I need something, I buy it and I pay for it. I knew Harvey Bassett for twenty years. He was a good customer of my bank. And he’s dead. Ben Igoe says he had an obsession about Richard Nixon and the tapes, and that’s true, he did, but that wasn’t his only obsession. When I heard of his death, how he died, my first thought was his wife—his obsession about
her
. Have you—”

“Goddam it, Hahn, you would!” Igoe’s strong baritone. “You would drag her in!”

“You’re damn right I would.
He
would drag her in, he always did, you know that, you ought to. Or he would drag her out.” Back to Wolfe. “That slip of paper. If one of us handed him a slip of paper, it wouldn’t have been about Nixon and tapes. That was what we were talking about, Nixon and tapes, why hand him a slip of paper,
why not just say it? Evidently you think that slip of paper had something to do with his being murdered. If it did, it wasn’t about tapes. I know nothing about it. I never heard of it until Ben Igoe told me what Goodwin told him, but when he did I—What did I say, Ben?”

“You said it was probably about Dora. Huh. You would.”

“I think,” Roman Vilar said, “that we should stick to what brought us here. The list of questions, Mr. Wolfe. You say they’ll be asked either by you or by the police. Asked by you now? Here and now?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “It would take a night and a day. I didn’t invite you to come in a body; you invited yourselves. I intended to see you, but singly, after getting reports from the men I sent to make inquiries. I suggest that—”

“You won’t see
me
singly.” Ackerman, the Washington lawyer. He sounded like John Mitchell, too—at least the way Mitchell sounded on television. “You won’t see me at all. I’m surprised that you don’t seem to realize what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get us to go along with you on a cover-up, and not a cover-up of a break-in to look at some papers, a cover-up of a murder. You say two murders. Of course I don’t want to be involved in a murder investigation, nobody does, but at least I’m not guilty. But the way you’re playing it, if I go along with you, I
would
be guilty. A cover-up of a murder. Obstruction of justice. Urquhart asked you if this is being recorded. I hope it is. When I talk to the District Attorney I would enjoy being able to tell him that this is on tape and he can—”

“No,” Hahn, the banker, said. You wouldn’t think such a low, soft voice could cut in, but it did. “You’re not going to talk to the District Attorney or anyone else. I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think we’ll be charged with
obstruction of justice merely because a private detective told us that a man said something about a slip of paper, and I do
not
want to be involved in a murder investigation. I don’t think any of us—”

Two or three voices, not soft and low, stopped him. I could try to sort it out and report it, but I won’t because it wouldn’t decide anything. Wolfe just sat and took it in. I got his eye and asked a question by pointing to my notebook and then the typewriter, but he shook his head.

But it did decide something. When it became obvious that they were all stringing along with Hahn, and Ackerman was a minority of one, Wolfe stopped the yapping by raising his voice.