“Yes.” More silence, but after half a minute: “I’ll come now.”
“No. It will take some time and would run into the dinner hour. Nine o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.” The connection went.
We hung up, and I turned to Wolfe. “What’s all the hurry? You haven’t got a single solitary scrap.”
He was glaring at the phone and switched it to me. “I will not have you carted off to jail on a complaint by that silly wretch. It should be worth keeping. Is that thing in order?”
“I suppose so. It was the last time we used it.”
“Test it.”
I got up, slipped my hand in between my desk and the wall, and flipped a switch. Then I went and sat in the red leather chair and said in a fairly low voice, “Nero Wolfe is going to put on a charade, and let us hope he doesn’t break a leg.” I went to my desk and turned it off, then went to the kitchen, opened a cupboard door, did some manipulating, and flipped a switch, and in a few seconds my voice came out: “Nero Wolfe is going to put on a charade, and let us hope he doesn’t break a leg.” I reached in and turned it off, returned to the office, and reported, “It’s okay. Anything else?”
“Yes. That idiot may have a gun or a bomb or heaven knows what. Stay near her.”
“Or she may have a lawyer.”
“No. No indeed. She’s not that big an idiot.” He picked up the summons and scowled at it.
CHAPTER 15
She came at 8:50, ten minutes ahead of time. I was getting Wolfe’s okay on a change in the program when the doorbell rang. In order to stay near her I would have had to sit in one of the yellow chairs near the red leather chair, and I prefer to be at my desk, or I would have had to put her in one of the yellow chairs near me, and Wolfe prefers to have a caller in the red leather chair because the window is then at his back.
It was a pleasant May Day evening, and she had no wrap over her tailored suit, so the only problem was her handbag-a big black leather one with a trick clasp. I learned about the clasp when I tried to open it, after I had got it from her lap and taken it to my desk. Her reaction to my snatching it, which I did as soon as she was seated and had no hand on it, showed the condition of her nerves. She made no sound and no movement, but merely stared at me as I took it to my desk, and she said nothing while I fiddled with it, finding the trick clasp and opening it, and inspected the contents. Nothing in it seemed to be menacing, and when I went and put it back on her lap she had transferred the stare to Wolfe. I might have felt a little sorry for her if it hadn’t been for the warrant that Ben Dykes would be back with at noon tomorrow. When you grab a woman’s bag and open it and go through it, and all she does is sit and stare, she could certainly use a little sympathy.
There was no sympathy in Wolfe’s expression as he regarded her. “This isn’t an inquisition, Mrs Vail,” he said. “I have no questions to ask you. It will be a monologue, not a tˆte-…-tˆte, and it will be prolonged. I advise you to say nothing whatever.”
“I wouldn’t answer any questions if you did ask them,” she said. Her voice was good enough. “You said there was no Mr Knapp. That’s crazy.”
“Not as crazy as your invention of him.” Wolfe leaned back. “This will be easier to follow if I begin in the middle. Mr Goodwin has told you how I reached the conclusion that your husband was murdered. That didn’t help much unless I could identify the murderer, and as a first step I needed to see those who were at that gathering Wednesday evening. Let’s take them in the order in which I saw them.
“First, your son. When he came to hire me to find the money for him I suggested the possibility that he had had a hand in the kidnaping and knew where the money was, that he couldn’t very well just go and get it, and that he intended to supply hints that would lead to its discovery by me-or by Mr Goodwin. When I made that suggestion at the beginning of our conversation, I thought it was a real possibility, but by the time our talk ended I had discarded it. For such a finesse a subtle and agile mind would be needed, and also a ready tongue. Such a witling as your son couldn’t possibly have conceived it, much less execute it. So he had come to me in good faith; he hadn’t been involved in the kidnaping; he didn’t know where the money was; and he hadn’t killed Mr Vail.”
“You said you would tell me how you knew there was no Mr Knapp.”
“That will come in its place. Second, your daughter. But you may not know even now what led Mr Goodwin and me to suspect that Dinah Utley was a party to the kidnaping. Do you?”
“No.”
“Your brother hasn’t told you?”
“No.”
“Nor the police?”
“No.”
“The note that came in the mail. It had been typed by her. I won’t elucidate that; this will take long enough without such details. When Mr Goodwin saw that the other two notes which you had found in telephone books-I know now, of course, that they were not in the books, you had them with you and went to the books and pretended to find them-when Mr Goodwin saw that they too had been typed by her, the suspicion became a conclusion. And ten minutes’ talk with your daughter made it manifest that it was quite impossible that she had been allied with Dinah Utley in any kind of enterprise, let alone one as ambitious and hazardous as kidnaping. Your daughter is a vulgarian, a dunce, and a snob. Also she had come to demand that I find the money for her, but even without that it was plain that she, like her brother, had not been involved in the kidnaping; she didn’t know where the money was; and she hadn’t killed Mr Vail.
“Third, your brother. From Mr Goodwin’s report of his behavior Wednesday afternoon, or rather, his lack of behavior, his silence, I had tentatively marked him as the one who most needed watching. After twenty minutes with him, him in the chair you are in now, I had to conclude that it was impossible. You know his habit of looking at A when B starts to speak.”
“Yes.”
“His explanation of that habit was enough. A man with a reaction so hopelessly out of control cannot have effective and sustained control over any of his faculties. He would never trust himself to undertake an operation that required audacity, ingenuity, and mettle. There were many other indications. His parting words were `I guess I am a fool,’ and he meant them. Patently he was not the man.
“Fourth, Andrew Frost. As you know, he came yesterday morning, but I learned nothing from that interview. There was nothing in his words or tone or manner to challenge the possibility that he was the culprit, and, except for you, that was the only possibility that remained. But through an assistant I had already learned enough about him to exclude him-his record, his position in his profession and in society, his financial status. That didn’t exclude him as a possible murderer, but it was inconceivable that he had been involved in the kidnaping. He would have had to conspire with at least two others, Miss Utley and Mr Knapp, and probably more, with the only objective in view a share of the loot, and therefore he would have been at their mercy, in mortal danger indefinitely. What if one of his confederates had been caught and had talked? To suppose that such a man had incurred such a risk for such a return? No.”
Wolfe shook his head. “No. Therefore it was you. You had been a party to the kidnaping, you had killed Dinah Utley, and you had killed your husband. I reached that conclusion at ten o’clock Saturday evening, but I wanted to see Mr Frost before I acted on it. It was barely possible that after talking with him I would reconsider my decision about him. I didn’t. Will you have some refreshment? A drink? Coffee?”
No reply. No movement.
“Tell me if you want something. I’ll have some beer.” He pushed a button and leaned back again. “Also before I acted on it I had to examine it. I had to satisfy myself that no fact and no factor known to me rendered it untenable; and first came motive. What conceivable reason could you have had for getting half a million dollars in cash from your bank and going through that elaborate rigmarole to deliver it to a masked man at an isolated spot on a country road at midnight, other than your ostensible reason? Please bear in mind, Mrs Vail, that from here on I am not reporting; I am only telling you how I satisfied myself. If in this instance or that I chose the wrong alternative you may correct me, but I still advise you to say nothing.”