Too Many Clients (15 page)

“I didn’t arrange it!” Too loud again. “Nine o’clock was the usual time! And I only told Mr. Aiken because�”

“Hold your tongue!” Aiken was on his feet, confronting her. “He tricked you once and he’s trying it again. We’re going. I’m going, and you’re going with me!”

I was up. If she had left her chair I would have moved between them and the door, but she stayed put. She tilted her head back to look up at him, and I have never seen a stonier face. “You’re a fool,” she said. I have never heard a harder voice. “A bungling old fool. I suspected you had killed him but I didn’t want to believe it. If you had had any brains� Don’t stand there glaring at me!” He was in front of her, and she moved her chair to send her eyes to Wolfe. “Yes, he borrowed my keys. He said he wanted to see the room. He had them two days. And I told him I was going there Sunday night at nine o’clock. I had promised to keep him informed. Informed! I was a fool too.” Her voice stayed hard but it was also bitter. “God, what a fool.”

Wolfe shook his head. ” ‘Fool’ doesn’t do you justice, Miss McGee. Say rather harpy or lamia. I’m not judging you, merely classifying you. Pfui.” He turned to Aiken. “So much for what is done; now what to do.”

Aiken had returned to the red leather chair. With his hands, fists, on his thighs, and his jaw clamped, he was trying to pretend he wasn’t licked, but he knew he was. Knowing what was ahead after Wolfe had dictated the draft for a document, I had got the Marley from the drawer and loaded it and slipped it in my pocket, but now I knew it wouldn’t be needed. I sat down.

Wolfe addressed him. “I am in a quandary. The simplest and safest course would be to telephone Mr. Cramer of the police to come and get you. But under the terms of your employment of me on behalf of your corporation I am obliged to make every effort to protect the reputation and interests of the corporation, and to disclose no facts or information that will harm the corporation’s repute or prestige unless I am compelled to do so by my legal obligation as a citizen and a licensed private detective. That is verbatim. Of course it isn’t possible to suppress the fact that the corporation’s president murdered its executive vice-president; that isn’t discussible. You are doomed. With the evidence I already possess and the further evidence the police would gather, your position is hopeless.”

He opened a drawer and took out a paper. “But it may be feasible to prevent disclosure of the existence of that room and Yeager’s connection with it, and that was your expressed primary concern when you came here Tuesday night. I doubt if you care much now, but I do. I want to meet the terms of my engagement as far as possible, and with that in mind I prepared a draft of a document for you to sign. I’ll read it to you.” He lifted the paper and read:

“I, Benedict Aiken, make and sign this statement because it has been made clear to me by Nero Wolfe that there is no hope of preventing disclosure of my malefaction. But I make it of my own free will and choice, under the coercion not of Nero Wolfe but only of the circumstances. On the night of May 8, 1960, I killed Thomas G. Yeager by shooting him in the head. I transported his body to West 82nd Street, Manhattan, and put it in a hole in the street. There was a tarpaulin in the hole, and to postpone discovery of the body I covered it with the tarpaulin. I killed Thomas G. Yeager because he threatened to supersede me in my office of president of Continental Plastic Products and deprive me of effective control of the affairs of the corporation. Since I was responsible for the development and progress of the corporation for the last ten years, that prospect was intolerable. I feel that Yeager deserved his fate, and I express no regret or remorse for my deed.”

Wolfe leaned back. “I included no mention of Maria Perez because that is not essential and it would require a lengthy explanation, and there is no danger of an innocent person being held to account for her death. The police will in time file it, along with other unsolved problems. You may of course suggest changes�for example, if you do feel regret or remorse and wish to say so, I offer no objection.”

He held the paper up. “Of course this, written on my typewriter, will not do. Anyhow, such a document should be a holograph to make it indubitably authentic, so I suggest that you write it by hand on a plain sheet of paper, with the date and your signature. Here and now. Also address an envelope by hand to me at this address and put a postage stamp on it. Mr. Panzer will go to a mailbox near your home and mail it. When he phones that it has been mailed you will be free to go your way.” His head turned. “Is there any chance that it will be delivered here today, Archie?”

“No, sir. Tomorrow morning.”

He went back to Aiken. “I shall of course communicate with the police without undue delay�say around ten o’clock.” He cocked his head. “The advantage to me of this procedure is obvious; I shall be able to collect a fee from the corporation; but the advantage to you is no less clear. Surely it is to be preferred to the only alternative: immediate arrest and constraint, indictment on a murder charge, indeed two murders, disclosure of the existence of that room and of the efforts of yourself and your associates to prevent the disclosure, the ordeal of the trial, the probable conviction. Even if you are not convicted, the years ahead, at your age, are not attractive. I am merely�”

“Shut up!” Aiken barked.

Wolfe shut up. I raised my brows at Aiken. Had he actually, there under the screw, the nerve to think he might tear loose'His face answered me. The bark had come not from nerve, but from nerves, nerves that had had all they could take. I must hand it to him that he didn’t wriggle or try to crawl. He didn’t even stall, try to get another day or even an hour. He didn’t speak; he just put out a hand, palm up. I went and got the document and gave it to him, then got a sheet of typewriter paper and a blank envelope and took them to him. He had a pen; he had taken it from his pocket. His hand was steady as he put the paper on the stand at his elbow, but it shook a little as he put pen to paper. He sat stiff and still for ten seconds, then tried again, and the hand obeyed orders.

Wolfe looked at Julia McGee and said in a voice as hard as hers had been, “You’re no longer needed. Go.” She started to speak, and he snapped at her, “No. My eyes are inured to ugliness, but you offend them. Get out. Go!”

She got up and went. Aiken, hunched over, writing steadily, his teeth clamped on his lip, probably hadn’t heard Wolfe speak and wasn’t aware that she had moved. I know I wouldn’t have been, in his place.

At 9:04 Saturday morning I buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, and when Wolfe answered I told him, “It’s here. I’ve opened it. Do I phone Cramer?”

“No. Any news?”

“No.”

* * * *

At 9:52 Saturday morning I buzzed the plant rooms again and told Wolfe, “Lon Cohen just phoned. About an hour ago a maid in Benedict Aiken’s home found his body on the floor of his bedroom. Shot through the roof of the mouth. The gun was there on the floor. No further details at present. Do I phone Cramer?”

“Yes. Eleven o’clock.”

“Certainly. If I also phoned Lon he would appreciate it. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“No. The substance, not the text.” “Right.”

* * * *

At 11:08 Saturday morning Inspector Cramer, seated in the red leather chair, looked up from the paper he held in his hand and growled at Wolfe, “You wrote this.”

Wolfe, at his desk, shook his head. “Not my hand.”

“Nuts. You know damn well. This word ‘malefaction.’ Other words. It sounds like you. You did it deliberately. You let it sound like you so I would know you wrote it. Thumbing your nose at me, telling me to kiss your ass. Oh, I know it will check with his handwriting. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote it right here, sitting in this chair.”

“Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe turned a hand over. “If I granted your inference I would challenge your interpretation. I would suggest that I let it sound like me out of regard for your sensibility and respect for your talents; that I wanted to make it plain that I knew you wouldn’t be gulled.”

“Yeah. You can have that.” He looked at the paper. “It says ‘it has been made clear to me by Nero Wolfe that there is no hope of preventing disclosure.’ So you had evidence. You must have had damned good evidence. What?”

Wolfe nodded. “It was impossible to prevent that question. If Mr. Aiken were still alive I would of course have to answer it. You would need the evidence and I would have to surrender it. But he’s dead. I’m not a lawyer, but I have consulted one. I am not obliged to reveal evidence that is not needed and could not be used in the public interest.”

“It’s in the public interest to know where and when the murder was committed.”

“No, sir. In the police interest, not in the public interest. It’s a nice point. If you want to test it you’ll have to charge me, serve a warrant on me, persuade the District Attorney to prosecute, and let a judge and jury decide. With Mr. Aiken dead and his confession in hand, I doubt if you’d get a verdict.”

“So do I.” Cramer folded the paper and put it in the envelope,

and stuck the envelope in a pocket. “Your goddam brass.” He

got up. “We’ll see.” He turned and marched out.

* * * *

At 3:47 Saturday afternoon three men and a woman were in the office with Wolfe and me. The men, in yellow chairs, were members of the board of directors of Continental Plastic Products. The woman, in the red leather chair, was Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager. In their hands were sheets of paper, copies I had typed of the document we had received in the mail that morning. Wolfe was speaking.

“No. I will not. In the terms of my engagement it was neither specified nor implied that I would report the particulars of my performance. It would serve no end to display to you the evidence with which I confronted Mr. Aiken, or to tell you how I got it. As for the result, that was determined by the situation, not by me; I merely arranged the style of the denouement. If it had been left to the police, they would certainly have discovered that room, given time; once learning about the room, they would have learned everything; and Mr. Aiken, your president, would have been, instead of the object of a brief sensation, the center of a prolonged hullabaloo. As for my fee, do you question my evaluation of my services at fifty thousand dollars?”

“No,” a director said, “I don’t.” Another said, “We haven’t questioned that.” The third one grunted.

“I owe you a fee too,” Mrs. Yeager said.

Wolfe shook his head. “I have your dollar; I’ll keep that. I told you I don’t expect a payment from two different clients for the same services.” He looked up at the clock; he had his date with the orchids at four. He pushed back his chair and rose. “You may keep those copies of Mr. Aiken’s statement. They’re cheap at the price.”

* * * *

At 5:14 Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the kitchen in the basement of the house at 156 West 82nd Street. Cesar Perez was slumped in a chair. His wife was sitting straight, her shoulders back. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but it can’t be helped. The man who killed Maria is dead, but the police don’t know it. If they did they would also know about this house and about your taking Yeager’s body out of it and dumping it in the hole. So they’ll be bothering you some more, but probably not for long. I’d like to go to the funeral tomorrow, but I’d better not. There will probably be a policeman there. They attend the funerals of people who have been murdered when they haven’t caught the murderer. I think I’ve told you everything you’d want to know, but do you want to ask anything?”

He shook his head. She said, “We said we would pay you one hundred dollars.”

“Forget it. We had too many clients anyway. I’ll keep the dollar, and I’ll also keep the keys, if you don’t mind, as a souvenir. You’d better have a new lock put on the door.” I left the chair and stepped to the table to get a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “This is the only thing I took from the room, a woman’s umbrella. I’ll return it to its owner.” I shook hands, with her and then with him, and blew.

I didn’t go to Eden Street. I had no overwhelming desire to see the Houghs again, or Meg Duncan offstage. On Monday I sent the umbrella and the cigarette case by messenger.

* * * *

I should add a note, in case anyone reading this report takes a notion to go and take a look at the bower. You won’t find it on 82nd Street. Nor will you find any of the people where I have put them. The particulars of the performance were exactly as I have reported them, but for obvious reasons I have changed names and addresses and a few other details�for instance, the title of the play Meg Duncan was starring in. It’s still on and she’s as good as ever; I went one night last week just to see.

If Cramer reads this and drops in to inquire, I’ll tell him I made it up, including this note.