I shook my head. “I can’t tell you what he means by telling them. I assume you know why your son came to see him yesterday.”
“Yes. To get him to help him find the money. When Noel asked me if he could have the money if he found it, I said yes. The money didn’t matter; my husband was back. Now he’s dead, and nothing matters. But he wasn’t murdered.”
So Noel had broached it. “Your son asked you again yesterday,” I said, “and you said yes again. Didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did. Nothing matters now, certainly that money doesn’t- No, I’m wrong, something does matter. If you can’t tell me why Nero Wolfe says my husband was murdered, then he will. If I have to go there, I will. I shouldn’t, my doctor has ordered me to stay in bed, but I will.”
I could see her tottering into the office supported by me, and Wolfe, after one look at her, getting up and marching out. He has done that more than once. “I can’t tell you why Mr Wolfe says it,” I said, “but I can tell you why he thinks it.” I might as well, since if I didn’t Noel could. “Your husband was asleep on the couch when the rest of you left the room, leaving a light on. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And the idea is that later he woke up, realized where he was, stood up, started for the door, lost his balance, grabbed at the statue, and pulled it down on him. Right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what Mr Wolfe won’t take. He doesn’t believe that a man awake enough to walk would be so befuddled that he couldn’t dodge a falling statue. He realizes that he couldn’t have been merely asleep when someone hauled him off the couch and over to the statue; he must have been unconscious. Since the autopsy found no sign that he had been slugged, he must have been doped. You had all been having drinks in the library, he had bourbon and water, so there had been opportunity to dope him. Therefore Mr Wolfe deduces that he was murdered.”
Her eyes were straight at me through the surrounding puffs. “That’s absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
I nodded. “Sure it is, to you. If Mr Wolfe is right, then your daughter or your son or your brother or your lawyer, or you yourself, murdered Jimmy Vail. I think he’s right, but I work for him. Granting that it wasn’t you, you’re up against a tough one. Naturally you would want whoever killed your husband to get what was coming to him, but naturally you wouldn’t want your son or daughter or brother to get tagged for murder, and maybe not your lawyer. I admit that’s tough, and I don’t wonder that you say it’s ridiculous. I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything; I was just telling you why Mr Wolfe thinks your husband was murdered. What else would you want to ask him if he was here?”
“I’d tell him he’s a fool. A stupid fool.”
“I’ll deliver the message. What else?”
“I’d tell him that I have told my son that I’m taking back what I told him about the money, that he can have it if he finds it. He can’t. I didn’t know he would go to Nero Wolfe.”
“You went to Nero Wolfe.”
“That was different. I would have gone to the devil himself to get my husband back.”
I gave my intelligence three seconds to be guided by experience before I spoke. “I’ll deliver that message too,” I said, “but I can tell you now what his reaction will be. He’s stubborn and he’s conceited, and he not only likes money, he needs it. Your son came to him and offered a deal, and he accepted it, and he won’t let go just because you’ve changed your mind. If he can find that money he will, and he’ll take his share. In my private opinion the chance of his finding it is about one in a million, but he won’t stop trying. On the contrary. He’s very sensitive. This attitude you’re taking will make him try harder, and he might even do something peevish like writing a piece for a newspaper explaining why he has deduced that Jimmy Vail was murdered. That would be just like him. If you want some free advice, I suggest that you have your son in, here and now, and tell him you’re not taking it back. I’ll report it to Mr Wolfe, and he’ll decide if he wants to risk his time and money on a wild-goose chase.”
It didn’t work. As I spoke her lips kept getting tighter, and when I stopped she snapped, “He wouldn’t get any share. Even if he found it. It’s my money.”
“That would be one for the lawyers. He would claim that his agreement with your son was based on an agreement your son had with you, made before witnesses. It would be the kind of mix-up lawyers love; they can juggle it around for years.”
“You may go,” she said.
“Sure.” I rose. “But you understand-”
“Get out!”
I can take a hint. I walked out, shutting the door behind me, and proceeded to the elevator. When I emerged on the ground floor, there was Noel. He came to me.
“What did she say?” he squeaked.
“This and that.” I caught a glimpse of someone through an arch. “She’s a little upset. How about a little walk? If there’s a bar handy, I could buy you a drink, provided it’s not champagne.”
He twisted his neck to glance up the stairs, brought his face back to me, said, “That’s an idea,” and went and opened the door. I passed through and onto the sidewalk, and he joined me. I suggested Barney’s, at 78th and Madison, and we turned downtown.
A booth in a bar and grill is not an ideal spot for a private conversation. You can see if there is anyone in the booth in front of you curious enough to listen in, but you have to leave the one behind to luck or keep interrupting to look back. Noel and I got a break at Barney’s. As we entered, a couple was leaving the booth at the far end, and we grabbed it, and I had a wall behind me. A white apron came and removed glasses and gave the table a swipe, and we ordered.
“So it’s off,” Noel said. “You couldn’t budge her.” I had told him en route how it stood.
“Not an inch.” I was regretful, even gloomy. “You know why I wanted to buy you a drink? Because I wanted one myself. That talk with your mother took me back, back years ago, in Ohio. My mother. How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“I was only seventeen, just out of high school. But of course the situation was different; it was easier for me than it would be for you. My mother wasn’t wealthy like yours. I couldn’t hit her for a hundred or a thousand or whatever I happened to need.”
“Hell, neither can I. It’s not that easy.”
“It may not be easy, but the fact remains that she has it, and all you have to do is use the right approach. With me, with my mother, that wasn’t the problem. She was a born female tyrant, and that was all there was to it. There wasn’t a single goddam thing, big or little, that I could decide on my own. While your mother was talking I couldn’t help thinking it was just too bad you couldn’t do what I did.”
The drinks came and we sampled them. Noel’s sample was a gulp. “What did you do?” he asked.
“I told her to go to hell. One nice hot June day, the day after I graduated from high school, I told her to go to hell, and beat it. Of course I don’t mean it literally, that it’s too bad you can’t do what I did. It’s a different situation. You wouldn’t have to. Now that Jimmy Vail’s dead, you’re the man of the house. All you’d have to do is just make it clear that you’ve got two feet of your own. Not in general terms like that, not just tell her to her face, `Mother, I’ve got two feet of my own,’ that wouldn’t get you anywhere. It would have to be on a specific issue, and you couldn’t ask for a better one than her taking back a definite promise she made you. That would be a beaut. You could tell her, `Mother, you said I could have that money if I found it, and on the strength of that I made a deal with Nero Wolfe, and he’ll hold me to it, and I’m going to hold you to it.’ ”
He took a swallow of gin and tonic. “She’d say it’s her money.”