Death of a Dude

Chapter 12

I never got around to asking, so I still don’t know what happened to the rest of that snack.

The next time you’re in jail, try this. There are two steps. The first step is to determine whether there is anything helpful and practical that you can be using your mind for. If there is, okay, go ahead and use it. If there isn’t, proceed with the second step. Decide definitely and positively to cut all connections between your mind and you. I understand that something like that is used by people who are trying to go to sleep and can’t make it, but I don’t know how well it works because I never have that problem. Locked in a 6 by 9 cell and wide awake, you’ll be surprised at how the time will go. You will find, if you are anything like me, that your mind knows a thousand tricks and can sneak in through a crack that you didn’t even know was there. For instance, at one point that Monday afternoon, having another try at it, I decided to shut my eyes and look at girls’ and women’s knees, having learned hours ago that you have no chance at all unless you make your eyes see something or your ears hear something or your fingers touch something; and in a cell you have to see or hear or touch things that aren’t there. So I looked at dozens, maybe hundreds of females’ knees, all shapes and sizes and conditions, and was in control and doing fine when all of a sudden I realized that my mind had plugged in and was asking me if I thought that anyone was at that moment looking at Peggy Truett’s knees, and if so was it Nero Wolfe or Sheriff Haight... and what were they saying...

Nuts. I got up and kicked the stool clear to the far wall, at least three feet, and walked to the end wall, at least four feet, and reached to feel the rusty bars at the doll-size window. I knew them by heart.

I am not going to report on the food because you would think I’m prejudiced. I honestly believe they put disinfectant in the oatmeal and the stew.

When footsteps stopped at my door at twenty minutes to six I was lying on the cot with my shoes off, wondering if Jessup still had company in his office. I admit the remains of the snack were a factor, but I was hungrier for news than for grub. The footsteps stopping was nothing; he often stopped to look in to see if I was sawing the bars or making a bomb, but when I heard the key in the lock I moved. I swung my legs around and sat up. The door opened and a man entered and said, “You’re takin’ a walk. Get your shoes on and bring your coat.”

It was Evers, the other full-time deputy. He stood and watched me put my shoes on, and my jacket, and when he told me not to leave anything and stooped to look under the cot I knew I wasn’t going upstairs. I was going out and not coming back. He didn’t have handcuffs, and on the way down the corridor, and then down the side hall of the courthouse, he didn’t care whether I was in front or behind. He opened the door of the sheriff’s office and thumbed me in. There was no one in the anteroom, and he opened the gate in the railing and jerked his head and said, “On in.” I crossed to the door to the inner room and entered, and he followed.

Haight was there at his desk, busy with papers. The eminent lawyer who looked more like a working ranchman, Luther Dawson, was standing with his back to Haight, looking at a big wall map of Montana. At sight of me he came with a hand out and a hearty welcome. “Well, greetings!” He had a good grip. “I come to deliver you from bondage. All signed and sealed.”

“Fine. Next time I’ll pick a better day than Saturday.” I pointed. “I believe that’s mine.” It was a pile of objects on a table. I went and retrieved my possessions, with Evers at my elbow. Everything was there, including the contents of the card case, which belongs in my breast pocket, and the non-negotiable items in the wallet, which goes in my pants pocket. As I picked up the last item, the ignition key of the station wagon, Evers said, “Sign this,” put a sheet of paper on the table, and offered a pen.

Dawson said, “Let me see it,” and stuck a hand between Evers and me to take it.

“No matter what it says,” I said, “I don’t sign it. I sign nothing.”

Dawson asked, “Were you given a receipt for those things when they took them? An itemized receipt?”

“No, and even if I was, I sign nothing.” I headed for the exit. I didn’t give Haight even a glance, but I have good side vision, and the corner of my eye noted that he was too busy with the papers to look up. Probably Wyatt Earp. There were footsteps behind me, presumably Dawson’s, and out in the hall he came abreast and said, “Miss Rowan’s out in front. In a car. I have something to say, Goodwin.”

I stopped and faced him. Our eyes were exactly on a level. “Not to me,” I said. “Ten days ago today, on Friday, August second, I told you that I thought a man named Sam Peacock might know something that would help, but he had clammed up on me, and probably a famous Montana lawyer like you could pry him loose. And you said you were too busy with important matters. Now nobody is going—”

“I didn’t say that. I said only—”

“I know what you said. Now nobody is going to pry him loose. And Harvey Greve didn’t kill him. So that’s another important matter. Have you talked with Nero Wolfe?”

“No. He refuses to see me. I intend to—”

“I don’t give a damn what you intend, but if my name is in your script anywhere, cross it out. I had to shake hands with you in there because there were witnesses.” I moved.

I thought that should make it clear that I wanted to be alone to enjoy my liberty, and it did. Going down the hall I heard no footsteps behind me. There were a few people scattered around in the big lobby and I heard someone say, “There’s that Archie Goodwin,” but I didn’t stop to take a bow. On the walk outside I sent my eyes left and right but didn’t see Lily until the second try because she was half a block away, in a dark blue Dodge Coronet sedan. Her attention was on something down the street in the other direction, and she heard me before she saw me. I opened the car door and said, “You don’t look a day older, let alone two days.”

She squinted at me. “You do.”

“I’m two years older. Are there any errands for us?”

“No. Get in.”

She was in front but not behind the wheel. “You’d better move to the back,” I said. “And open both windows. I don’t smell, I stink. I doubt if you can stand it.”

“I’ll breathe through my mouth. Let’s go.”

I circled around to the other side, got in, started the engine, backed out, and headed east. I asked if the car was a rental, and she said yes, the sheriff had the station wagon, and anyway she didn’t want it. She didn’t want a car a man had been killed in.

“I couldn’t ask Dawson what my price tag is,” I said, “because I was dressing him down. How much?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me. For the record. The lowest so far was five hundred, and the highest thirty grand. What am I worth to the people of the State of Montana?”

“Ten thousand dollars. Dawson said five thousand and Jessup said fifteen and the judge split the difference. They didn’t ask me.”

“What would you have made it?”

“Fifty million.”

“That’s the way to talk.” I patted her knee.

We were in the open country. For a mile or so I played on the gas pedal to test the engine, and it was okay. Lily asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me any questions?”

“Yeah, plenty, but not between bumps. There’s a spot not far ahead.”

It was just beyond a gully, where the road went north for a stretch, with a stand of lodgepole on the left. I slowed and eased off of the blacktop into the shade the trees gave from the slanting sun, stopped, killed the engine, and twisted around to face her. “For two days and a night,” I said, “I’ve been wanting to ask people certain questions, and this is my first chance, so I’ll start with you. When I left the dance floor Saturday night about a quarter past eleven, soon after Sam Peacock arrived, you were dancing with Woody, Farnham had Mrs. Amory, DuBois had a woman in a black dress, and Wade had a girl I had seen before but can’t name. Did you see Peacock at all?”

“I saw him twice from a distance. Later I looked around but didn’t see him, and I didn’t see you either. I supposed you had taken him in to Nero Wolfe.”

“I hadn’t. With Haight and Welch there, we decided to skip it. Now this is important. After you danced with Woody, did you see Peacock talking with anyone you know?”

“No.” She frowned. “I only saw him from a distance, and I don’t... No.”

“Did you see anyone you know leave the dance floor? Go out to the Gallery?”

“If I did, I didn’t notice. No.”

“As I said, it’s important. It’s crucial. As you know, people often see something and don’t know they’re seeing it. If you’ll sit down, or lie down is better, and shut your eyes, and go over everything you saw and did, starting from when you were dancing with Woody, you might come up with something. Will you give it a try?”

“I doubt — but I’ll try, of course.”

“Okay. Now some things that you are aware of, but first a word of stomach-felt appreciation. You don’t like to give or receive thanks for things that should be taken for granted, and neither do I, but there’s a limit. Six bananas. A whole pie. The best caviar and the best pâté. And calling it a snack was false modesty deluxe. But you saved my life.”

“Go to hell, Escamillo. I got you into this.”

“You did not. X did, and he’s going to regret it. Now. Where is Mr. Wolfe?”

“I think at Woody’s. We’ll stop there. Yesterday and today he has spent more time at Woody’s, and at the ranch, than he has at the cabin.”

“Why the ranch?”

“Because that girl’s there. Peggy Truett. Carol got her last night — she lives in Timberburg — and brought her to the cabin. Jessup was there, and they questioned her for more than two hours. In your room. Around eleven o’clock Jessup came to the big room and phoned Carol and told her they were coming with Peggy Truett. They went in Jessup’s car. It was after midnight when he brought Wolfe back. They told me nothing, not a damn thing, and this morning I left for Helena before seven o’clock. With this car. I haven’t been back, but about two hours ago I called Carol, and she said Wolfe had been there nearly all day talking with Peggy Truett, and he was still there, and he had asked her if she would drive him to Woody’s around five o’clock. So I think he’s at Woody’s but he may still be at the ranch. You know him better than I do. Peggy Truett may be his type.”

“He hasn’t got a type. It’s a filter job.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s similar to what I asked you to do about Saturday night, only he steps it up by asking questions. It’s the opposite of filtering coffee. With coffee you’re after what goes right through, but with her he’s after what doesn’t go through, or doesn’t want to. Then you don’t know whether Haight has seen him or not.”

“No. Does that matter?”

“Probably not. Only if those two have conversed I have missed something I would have enjoyed. Let’s see, what else? Oh. Jessup said you went to Farnham’s and took pictures, and that nobody objected but Farnham, but of course he would. Did anybody want to object but decided not to? I assume you were aware that you were pinch-hitting for me.”

“Of course. You might have seen signs that I missed. Jessup made it an official request, but he explained that it was a request and anyone who wanted to could refuse without giving a reason. Very neat, I thought. You and the genius are making a man of him. Sitting still like this I do seem to notice a slight — uh — aroma. Kind of exotic. Will it go?”

“No, it’s permanent. Our future contacts will have to be outdoors in a strong wind. You sent the prints to Saul?”

“Did I. I was up and dressed at six o’clock, and I got them on the ten-o’clock plane. He should have them by now. You think it was one of them, don’t you?”

“I don’t think anything. I have no right to think until I earn it by doing a little work.” I started the engine and moved the pointer to D. “And take a bath.” We bumped back onto the blacktop.

It was ten minutes to seven when we rolled to a stop in front of the Hall of Culture and I climbed out and crossed to the screen door and entered. There was no one in the Gallery, but the door at the rear, to the kitchen, was standing open, and I went and stuck my head in. Woody was on a stool at the counter, stirring something in a bowl, and Wolfe was standing at his elbow, watching. With Wolfe in it, the kitchen looked smaller than it was. I stepped in and said, “Just in time.”

Wolfe looked at me, took a step for a closer look, and growled, “Satisfactory.”

My nerves were a little raw. “What’s so damn satisfactory about it?” I demanded.

“You’re here, you’re intact, and you have your tongue. ‘Just in time.’ Yes, you are. You are just in time for Mr. Stepanian’s favorite dish, hunkiav beyandi. He says it was originally Armenian, but the Turks have claimed it for centuries. It’s kebab served with eggplant stuffed with a purée which the Turks call Imam Baïldi — ‘Swooning Imam.’ Onions browned in oil, tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. Was that jail dirty?”

“Yes.”

“Are you hungry?”

It was understandable that he didn’t want to report with Woody there, and apparently there was nothing so urgent that it couldn’t wait until he had tasted hunkiav beyandi.

“Certainly I’m hungry,” I said, “but first I have to scrub, and Miss Rowan phoned Mimi to have some filets mignons out. She thought you might be hungry too.”

“If you will excuse me,” Woody said, “there is my tub and shower and plenty of hot water, and I would be honored. You know how glad I am to see you, Archie. As Mr. Wolfe says, it is satisfactory.”

“And I’m glad to see you, Woody.” To Wolfe: “So I’ll come back later. Around nine?”

He looked at the clock on the wall. Right at home. “I expect telephone calls. And I must make one. Nine or ten, any time. Or Mr. Stepanian can take me; he has kindly offered to. I suggest that you bathe and eat and go to bed.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “Gee, it’s a good thing I stopped, I never would have thought of it. See you tomorrow. Good night, Woody.” I turned and walked out.

As I opened the car door Lily said, “He’s not coming?” but I waited until we were on the way to answer.

“Some day,” I said, “I will brown him in oil and sprinkle garlic on him. He is expecting phone calls. He suggested that I bathe and eat and go to bed. So either he has got something hot started that he thinks he doesn’t need my help with, or he is cooking up one of his screwy charades that he knows I wouldn’t like. Listen to me. That shows the frame of mind I’m in. You don’t cook a charade. Now as I lie and soak in a tub of water just hot enough, I won’t be making careful plans for tomorrow; I’ll be wondering what the hell we’re in for. From now on ignore me. Pretend I’m not here. If there was a dog at the cabin to come bouncing to greet me, I’d kick it.”

She said nothing for a mile, then: “I could go and borrow Bill Farnham’s dog.”

“Fine. Do that.”

As we turned into the lane: “But you’re going to eat.”

“You’re damn right I am. I’m starving.”

The ignition-key routine at the cabin was not to bother about it in the daytime, but the last one using the car in the afternoon or evening was supposed to take it in and put it at a certain spot on a shelf in the big room. So I took it, to show Lily and whom it might concern, meaning me, that I was through with it for the night. If Woody reneged on his offer to drive Wolfe home, he could walk.

I ate. Clean as a scraped trout, shaved, shampooed, manicured, teeth brushed, clad in a handsome gray silk belted toga with black dots, over white pajamas with no dots, I sat in the kitchen with Lily and ate turtle soup, two filets mignons, hashed-brown potatoes, bread and butter, milk, spinach with mushrooms and Madeira, honeydew melon, and coffee. Twice Diana came and asked if she could get us anything and we said no thanks, and the third time, when Mimi was pouring coffee, she asked if she could have some and we said yes. As she sat she said she had been dying to ask me about being in jail, and so was Wade; and she called him and he came.

I told them about the jail, making it pretty damn grim, putting in some bugs that were apparently attracted by the disinfectant, and a couple of lizards. Then they asked about the finding of Sam Peacock’s body, and then the big question, who killed him and why? On that, of course, I said that their guess was as good as mine, or better, since I had been in the clink; and I suggested a game of pinochle. I said a friendly game of pinochle would help to get my mind off of the ordeal I had been through. I did not say that it would be satisfactory, for me, to have Wolfe come and find me enjoying myself, with no concern for trivial things like murders; I merely thought it. Lily knew, of course; as we rose to go to the big room a corner of her mouth was up with that understanding smile that means, any woman to any man, How well I know you.

But I didn’t get the satisfaction. Shortly after eleven o’clock sounds came: a car stopping out in front, the car door slamming, the car moving again, faint footsteps, a door opening and closing, and footsteps in the long hall, receding. We had been visible through the window, but he had gone to the door to the hall and to his room.

“Nero the great,” Wade said. “I’m not jeering, Archie, or if I am it’s not at his talents, only at his manners. If he doesn’t want to tell us about things he might at least take the trouble to say good night to his hostess. And you. Does he even know you’re out of jail?”

I nodded. “Oh, sure. Lily and I stopped at Woody’s and he was there. He was watching Woody cook something the Turks stole from the Armenians. Your deal, Diana.” I was entering the score. “If you’ll deal me a two-hundred meld we’ll collect.”

She did and we did, though I almost spoiled it by making a dumb lead.

My decision to go and tell Wolfe good night was not a wag of my tail. As I told Lily when Diana and Wade had gone to their rooms, it was just possible that he had had a reason for putting on an act with Woody there, and a broad-minded man like me should give him a chance to say so. Therefore I went down the long hall, quietly even on the tile in my soft deerskin slippers, knocked on the door at the end, barely heard the “Come in,” and entered. He was in his yellow pajamas, barefooted, in the chair by the window, which was closed.

“I may sleep until noon,” I said. “Good night.”

“Pfui. Sit down.”

“I need a lot of rest after—”

“Confound it, sit down!”

I went to a chair and sat.

“I assume,” he said, “that Miss Rowan has told you that Mrs. Greve brought that girl.”

“Yes. And she took some pictures and sent them to Saul, who is in St. Louis, and you and Jessup have been working on Peggy Truett practically nonstop. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“So am I. It should be a settled policy that all interviews with women are handled by you. Then you know that she is at the ranch. Mr. Jessup put her under arrest yesterday evening; the current euphemism is ‘protective custody.’ She is being protected from annoyance by Sheriff Haight, with Mrs. Greve and Miss Greve as her warders. She was and is an essential link. It’s worthy of remark that although you were confined you supplied a name that made it possible to arrange for the denouement.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“It’s arranged?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got it?”

“Yes. The last call from Saul, an hour ago, settled it, and I called Mr. Jessup to tell him. A man or men will arrive in Helena at nine tomorrow morning and proceed to Timberburg. I am stretching a point and telling you that. The circumstances do not permit that I tell you more at present.”

My mouth opened and shut again. My eyes took him in, from the high and wide forehead down across the sea of yellow to the bare feet, and back up again. “If this is one of your spectacular razzle-dazzles,” I said, “with a long and tricky fuse, and if you leave me out because I might refuse to play, and if it blows up in your face, you won’t lose a client or a fee, you’ll lose me, and after what you’ve gone through the last five days, that would be a shame.”

“It would indeed.” He shook his head. “It isn’t that, Archie. You’ll have to await the event. But I must consult you now on a detail. I observed that with the other car there was a key which had to be turned to make it start, as with my cars which you drive, and the key was not left in the car overnight. It was brought inside and placed on a shelf. Is there a similar key with the car Miss Rowan has now?”

Naturally I suspected him of changing the subject just to sidetrack me, but I said only, “Yes.”

“And the car can’t be started without it?”

“It can be, but you have to have a couple of tools and you have to know how. I could do it, but you couldn’t.”

“I couldn’t even with the key, and certainly wouldn’t. Is the key for Miss Rowan’s car on the shelf now?”

“It should be. I put it there.”

“Get it in the morning, before breakfast, and put it in your pocket. I could do that myself, but it would be awkward if Miss Rowan wanted to use the car. That’s the detail. It’s late. Good night.”

There was no point, absolutely none, in wasting my breath on either a comment or a question, and I was tired all over. I rose, said good night, and went. By the time I got to my room I had decided that either Wade Worthy or Diana Kadany was it, and by the time I was under the blanket with the light out I had decided it was Wade because I couldn’t see Diana smashing Sam Peacock’s skull with a rock.