Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 39 - A Right to Die by Rex Stout

Author:Rex Stout [Stout, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-75614-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

A problem like Dolly Brooke’s lie is plain ornery. Even if we could get the garage man to play along and he said it to her face, a big if, she could say that he was mistaken, it had been another evening, or that she had gone on a personal errand which she preferred to keep to herself; and if she had actually driven to 128th Street and killed Susan Brooke it wouldn’t help any to let her know we had caught her in a lie just to show her how smart we were. You might like to know how Nero Wolfe would handle such a problem, but I can’t tell you in this particular case because he didn’t handle it at all. Luck did. The luck rang the doorbell of the old brownstone at five minutes to ten Tuesday morning.

But first William Magnus. Rae Kallman phoned while I was at my breakfast table in the kitchen, on my fourth homemade Creole pork sausage and my third Creole fritter. She had discovered that she had Magnus’s phone number in a notebook at home, and she had called him early, to get him before he left. By now he had gone for a day at school. He would have no free time until four-thirty, and we could expect him a little before five. As I resumed with the sausage and fritters I considered the fact that Miss Kallman was cooperating beyond the call of duty; she had promised only to supply his address and phone number. Sometimes—not often, but it does happen—such a little detail has a point. Had she wanted to brief him, and if so, why? A corner of my mind was still considering it in the office as I opened the morning mail.

When luck rang the doorbell at 9:55 I didn’t know it was luck, even after I went to the hall and saw him on the stoop. Peter Vaughn was merely the long and lanky specimen who was still trying to hang on to the notion that he had been going to marry Susan Brooke after she got rid of her kink. As a candidate for the tag, at least 100 to 1. But when I opened the door and saw him closer, it was obvious that something really sharp was biting him. His bony face looked even narrower, and he had to unclamp his jaw to speak, to say that he knew Wolfe wasn’t available at that hour, but he would rather see me anyway. That was grease, or it wasn’t. I took him to the office and moved a chair up to face mine. He sat, clamped his jaw again, and rubbed his eyes, which were red and puffy, first with his fingertips and then with the heels of his palms.

“I haven’t slept for four nights,” he said.

I nodded. “You look it.” Four nights had passed since he had been there with his future in-laws. If I had been Wolfe I would have asked if he had eaten.

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