The Second Confession

Chapter 18

When I swallowed the last of the milk it wasn’t five o’clock yet, and it would be more than an hour before Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, which was just as well since I needed to take time out for an overhaul. In my room up on the third floor I stripped. There was a long scrape on my left knee and a promising bruise on my left hip, and a square inch of skin was missing from my right elbow. The scratch on my cheek was developing nicely, getting new ideas about color every hour. Of course it might have been worse, at least nobody had run a car over me; but I was beginning to feel that it would be a welcome change to take on an enemy my own sex and size. I certainly wasn’t doing so well with women. In addition to the damage to my hide, my best Palm Beach suit was ruined, with a big tear in the sleeve of the coat. I showered, iodined, bandaged, dressed, and went down to the office.

A look in the safe told me that if I was right in supposing that the specialist to be hired was Mr. Jones, he hadn’t been hired yet, for the fifty grand was still all there. That was a deduction from a limited experience. I had never seen the guy, but I knew two things about him: that it was through him that Wolfe had got the dope on a couple of Commies that had sent them up the river, and that when you bought from him you paid in advance. So either it wasn’t to be him or Wolfe hadn’t been able to reach him yet.

I had been hoping for a phone call from Weinbach before Wolfe descended at six o’clock, but it didn’t come. When Wolfe entered, got seated behind his desk, and said “Well?” I thought I was still undecided about including the stone in my report before hearing from Weinbach, but he had to know about Connie, so I kept on to the end. I did not, however, tell him that it was a remark of Madeline’s that made me think of stones, thinking it might irritate him to know that a woman had helped out.

He sat frowning.

“I was a little surprised,” I said smugly, “that you didn’t think of a stone yourself. Doc Vollmer said something rough and heavy.”

“Pfui. Certainly I thought of a stone. But if he used a stone all he had to do was walk ten paces to the bridge and toss it into the water.”

“That’s what he thought. But he missed the water. Lucky I didn’t take the attitude you did. If I hadn’t—”

The phone rang. A voice that hissed its esses was in my ear. Weinbach of the Fisher Laboratories hissed his esses. Not only that, he told me who he was. As I motioned to Wolfe to get on, I was holding my breath.

“That stone you left with me,” Weinbach said. “Do you wish the technical terms?”

“I do not. I only want what I asked for. Is there anything on it to show it was used, or might have been used, to slam a man on the head?”

“There is.”

“What!” I hadn’t really expected it. “There is?”

“Yes. Everything is dried up, but there are four specks that are bloodstains, five more that may be bloodstains, one minute piece of skin, and two slightly larger pieces of skin. One of the larger pieces has an entire follicle. This is a preliminary report and none of it can be guaranteed. It will take forty-eight hours to complete all the tests.”

“Go to it, brother! If I was there I’d kiss you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forget it. I’ll get you a Nobel Prize. Write the report in red ink.”

I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “Okay. He was murdered. Connie did it or knows who did. She knew about the stone. She stalked me. I should have established a personal relationship with her and brought her down here. Do you want her? I’ll bet I can get her.”

“Good heavens, no.” His brows had gone up. “I must say, Archie, satisfactory.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

“I won’t. But though you used your time well, to the purpose you were sent for, all you got was corroboration. The stone proves that Mr. Kane’s statement was false, that Mr. Rony was killed deliberately, and that one of those people killed him, but there’s nothing new in that for us.”

“Excuse me,” I said coldly, “for bringing in something that doesn’t help.”

“I don’t say it doesn’t help. If and when this gets to a courtroom, it will unquestionably help there. Tell me again what Mrs. Emerson said.”

I did so, in a restrained manner. Looking back now, I can see that he was right, but at the time I was damn proud of that stone.

Since it gives the place an unpleasant atmosphere for one of us to be carrying a grudge, I thought it would be better if I got even immediately, and I did so by not eating dinner with him, giving as a reason my recent consumption of sandwiches. He loves to talk when he’s eating, business being taboo, so as I sat alone in the office, catching up with the chores, my humor kept getting better, and by the time he rejoined me I was perfectly willing to speak to him — in fact, I had thought up a few comments about the importance of evidence in criminal cases which would have been timely and appropriate.

I had to put off making them because he was still getting himself arranged to his after-dinner position in his chair when the doorbell rang and, Fritz being busy with the dishes, I went to answer it. It was Saul Panzer and Orrie Cather. I ushered them into the office. Orrie got comfortable, with his legs crossed, and took out a pipe and filled it, while Saul sat erect on the front half of the big red leather chair.

“I could have phoned,” Saul said, “but it’s a little complicated and we need instructions. We may have something and we may not.”

“The son or the mother?” Wolfe asked.

“The son. You said to take him first.” Saul took out a notebook and glanced at a page. “He knows a lot of people. How do you want it, dates and details?”

“Sketch it first.”

“Yes, sir.” Saul closed the notebook. “He spends about half his time in New York and the rest all over. Owns his own airplane, a Mecklin, and keeps it in New Jersey. Belongs to only one club, the Harvard. Has been arrested for speeding twice in the past three years, once—”

“Not a biography,” Wolfe protested. “Just items that might help.”

“Yes, sir. You might possibly want this: he has a half interest in a restaurant in Boston called the New Frontier. It was started in nineteen forty-six by a college classmate, and young Sperling furnished the capital, around forty thousand, probably from his father, but that’s not—”

“A night club?”

“No, sir. High-class, specializing in sea food.”

“A failure?”

“No, sir. Successful. Not spectacular, but going ahead and showed a good profit in nineteen forty-eight.”

Wolfe grunted. “Hardly a good basis for blackmail. What else?”

Saul looked at Orrie. “You tell him about the Manhattan Ballet.”

“Well,” Orrie said, “it’s a bunch of dancers that started two years ago. Jimmy Sperling and two other guys put up the dough, and I haven’t found out how much Jimmy’s share was, but I can. They do modern stuff. The first season they quit town after three weeks in a dump on Forty-eighth Street, and tried it in the sticks, but that wasn’t so good either. This last season they opened in November at the Herald Theater and kept going until the end of April. Everybody thinks the three angels got all their ante back and then some, but that will take checking. Anyhow they did all right.”

It was beginning to sound to me as if we were up against a new one. I had heard of threats to tell a rich man how much his son had sunk, but not to tell how much his son was piling up. My opinion of Jimmy needed some shuffling.

“Of course,” Orrie went on, “when you think of ballet you think of girls with legs. This ballet has got ’em all right; that’s been checked. Jimmy is interested in ballet or why would he kick in? He goes twice a week when he’s in New York. He also is personally interested in seeing that the girls get enough to eat. When I got that far I naturally thought I was on the way to something, and maybe I am but not yet. He likes the girls and they like him, but if that has led to anything he wouldn’t want put in the paper it’ll have to wait for another installment because I haven’t caught up to it yet. Shall I keep trying?”

“You might as well.” Wolfe went to Saul. “Is that all you have?”

“No, we’ve got plenty,” Saul told him, “but nothing you might want except maybe the item I wanted to ask about. Last fall he contributed twenty thousand dollars to the CPBM.”

“What’s that?”

“Committee of Progressive Business Men. One of the funny fronts. It was for Henry A. Wallace for President.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe’s eyes, which had been nearly closed, had opened a little. “Tell me about it.”

“I can’t tell you much, because it was afternoon when I scared it up. Apparently nobody was supposed to know about the contribution, but several people do, and I think I can get onto them if you say so. That’s what I wanted to ask about. I had a break and got a line on a man in the furniture business who was pro-Wallace at first but later broke loose. He claims to know all about Sperling’s contribution. He says Sperling made it in a personal check for twenty thousand, which he gave to a man called Caldecott one Thursday evening, and the next morning Sperling came to the CPBM office and wanted his check back. He wanted to give it in cash instead of a check. But he was too late because the check had already been deposited. And here’s what I thought made it interesting; this man says that since the first of the year photostats of three different checks — contributions from three other people — have turned up in peculiar circumstances. One of them was his own check, for two thousand dollars, but he wouldn’t give me the names of the other two.”

Wolfe’s brow was wrinkled. “Does he say that the people running the organization had the photostats made for later use — in peculiar circumstances?”

“No, sir. He thinks some clerk did it, either for personal use or as a Republican or Democratic spy. This man says he is now a political hermit. He doesn’t like Wallace, but he doesn’t like Republicans or Democrats either. He says he’s going to vote the Vegetarian ticket next time but go on eating meat. I let him talk. I wanted to get all I could because if there was a photostat of young Sperling’s check—”

“Certainly. Satisfactory.”

“Shall I follow up?”

“By all means. Get all you can. The clerk who had the photostats made would be a find.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie. You know that young man better than we do. Is he a ninny?”

“If I thought so,” I said emphatically, “I don’t now. Not if he’s raking in profits on a Boston restaurant and a Manhattan ballet. I misjudged him. Three to one I know where the photostat of Jimmy’s check is. In a safe at the office of Murphy, Kearfot and Rony.”

“I suppose so. Anything else, Saul?”

I wouldn’t have been surprised if the next item had been that Jimmy had cleaned up a million playing the ponies or running a chicken farm, but evidently he hadn’t tried them yet. Saul and Orrie stayed a while, long enough to have a drink and discuss ways and means of laying hands on the Republican or Democratic spy, and then left. When I returned to the office after letting them out I considered whether to get rid of the comments I had prepared regarding the importance of evidence in criminal cases, and decided to skip it.

I would just as soon have gone up to bed to give my bruises a rest, but it was only half past nine and my middle drawer was stuffed with memos and invoices connected with the repairs on the roof. I piled them on the desk and tackled them. It had begun to look as if Wolfe’s estimate of the amount of the damage wasn’t far off, and maybe too low if you included replacement of some of the rarer hybrids that had got rough treatment. Wolfe, seeing what I was at, offered to help, and I moved the papers over to his desk. But, as I had often discovered before, a man shouldn’t try to run a detective business and an orchid factory at the same time. They’re always tripping over each other. We hadn’t been at the papers five minutes when the doorbell rang. I usually go when it’s after nine o’clock, the hour when Fritz changes to his old slippers, so I went.

I switched on the stoop light, looked through the one-way glass panel, opened the door, said, “Hello, come in,” and Gwenn Sperling crossed the threshold.

I closed the door and turned to her. “Want to see the worm?” I gestured. “That way.”

“You don’t seem surprised!” she blurted.

“It’s my training. I hide it to impress you. Actually I’m overcome. That way?”

She moved and I followed. She entered the office, advanced three steps, and stopped, and I detoured around her.

“Good evening, Miss Sperling,” Wolfe said pointedly. He indicated the red leather chair. “That’s the best chair.”

“Did I phone you I was coming?” she demanded.

“I don’t think so. Did she, Archie?”

“No, sir. She’s just surprised that we’re not surprised.”

“I see. Won’t you sit down?”

For a second I thought she was going to turn and march out, as she had that afternoon in the library, but if the motion had been made she voted it down. Her eyes left Wolfe for a look at me, and I saw them stop at my scratched cheek, but she wasn’t enough interested to ask who did it. She dropped her fur neckpiece onto a yellow chair, went to the red leather one and sat, and spoke.

“I came because I couldn’t persuade myself not to. I want to confess something.”

My God, I thought. I hope she hasn’t already signed a statement. She looked harassed but not haggard, and her freckles showed hardly at all in that light.

“Confessions often help,” Wolfe said, “but it’s important to make them to the right person. Am I the one?”

“You’re just being nice because I called you a worm!”

“That would be a strange reason for being nice. Anyhow, I’m not. I’m only trying to help you get started.”

“You don’t need to.” Gwenn’s hands were clasped tight. “I’ve decided. I’m a conceited nosy little fool!”

“You use too many adjectives,” Wolfe said dryly. “For me it was cheap filthy little worm. Now, for you, it is conceited nosy little fool. Let’s just say fool. Why? What about?”

“About everything. About Louis Rony. I knew darned well I wasn’t really in love with him, but I thought I’d teach my father something. If I hadn’t had him there he wouldn’t have thought he could pique me by playing with Connie Emerson, and she wouldn’t have played with him, and he wouldn’t have got killed. Even if everything you said about him is true, it’s my fault he got killed, and what am I going to do?”

Wolfe grunted. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you. How was it your fault that Mr. Kane went to mail some letters and accidentally ran over Mr. Rony?”

She stared. “But you know that’s not true!”

“Yes, but you don’t — or do you?”

“Of course I do!” Her hands came unclasped. “I may be a fool, I guess I can’t go back on that, but I’ve known Webster a long time and I know he couldn’t possibly do such a thing!”

“Anyone can have an accident.”

“I know they can; I don’t mean that. But if he had run a car over Louis and saw he was dead, he would have gone back to the house, straight to a phone, and called a doctor and the police. You’ve met him. Couldn’t you see he was like that?”

This was a new development, a Sperling trying to persuade Wolfe that Kane’s statement was a phony.

“Yes,” Wolfe said mildly. “I thought I saw he was like that. Does your father know you’re here?”

“No. I–I didn’t want to quarrel with him.”

“It won’t be easy to avoid it when he finds out. What made you decide to come?”

“I wanted to yesterday, and I didn’t. I’m a coward.”

“A fool and a coward.” Wolfe shook his head. “Don’t rub it in. And today?”

“I heard someone say something. Now I’m an eavesdropper too. I used to be when I was a child, but I thought I was completely over it. Today I heard Connie saying something to Paul, and I stayed outside the door and listened.”

“What did she say?”

Gwenn’s face drew together. I thought she was going to cry, and so did she. That would have been bad, because Wolfe’s wits leave him when a woman cries.

I snapped at her. “What did you drive down here for?”

She pulled out of it and appealed to Wolfe. “Do I have to tell you?”

“No,” he said curtly.

Naturally that settled it. She proceeded to tell. She looked as if she would rather eat soap, but she didn’t stammer any.

“They were in their room and I was going by. But I didn’t just happen to overhear it; I stopped and listened deliberately. She hit him or he hit her, I don’t know which — with them you don’t know who is doing the hitting unless you see it. But she was doing the talking. She told him that she saw Goodwin—” Gwenn looked at me. “That was you.”

“My name’s Goodwin,” I admitted.

“She said she saw Goodwin finding a stone by the brook and she tried to get it and throw it in the water, but Goodwin knocked her down. She said Goodwin had the stone and would take it to Nero Wolfe, and she wanted to know what Paul was going to do, and he said he wasn’t going to do anything. She said she didn’t care what happened to him but she wasn’t going to have her reputation ruined if she could help it, and then he hit her, or maybe she hit him. I thought one of them was coming to the door and I ran down the hall.”

“When did this happen?” Wolfe growled.

“Just before dinner. Dad had just come home, and I was going to tell him about it, but I decided not to because I knew he must have got Webster to sign that statement, and he’s so stubborn — I knew what he would say. But I couldn’t just not do anything. I knew it was my fault Louis got killed, and after what you told us about him it didn’t matter about him but it did about me. I guess that sounds selfish, but I’ve decided that from now on I’m going to be perfectly honest. I’m going to be honest to everyone about everything. I’m going to quit being a fake. Take the way I acted the day you came. I should have just phoned Louis and told him I didn’t want to see him any more, that would have been the honest thing and that was what I really wanted to do; but no, I didn’t do that, I had to phone him to come and meet me so I could tell him face to face — and what happened? I honestly believe I was hoping that someone would listen in on one of the extensions so they would know how fine and noble I was! I knew Connie did that all the time, and maybe others did too. Anyhow someone did, and you know what happened. It was just as if I had phoned him to come and get killed!”

She stopped for breath. Wolfe suggested, “You may be taking too much credit, Miss Sperling.”

“That’s a nasty crack.” She wasn’t through. “I couldn’t say all this to my father or mother, not even to my sister, because — well, I couldn’t. But I wasn’t going to start being honest by hiding the worst thing I ever did. I thought it over very carefully, and I decided you were the one person who would know exactly what I meant. You knew I was afraid of you that afternoon, and you told me so. I think it was the first time anyone really understood me.”

I had to keep back a snort. A fine freckled girl saying that to Wolfe with me present was approaching the limit. If there was anything on earth he didn’t understand and I did, it was young women.

“So,” Gwenn went on, “I had to come and tell you. I know you can’t do anything about it, because Dad got Webster to sign that statement, and that ends it, but I felt I had to tell someone, and then when I heard what Paul and Connie said I knew I had to. But you’ve got to understand that I’m being absolutely honest. If this was me the way I was a year ago or a week ago I’d be pretending that I only came because I think I owe it to Louis to help to bring out the truth about how he died, but if he was the kind of man you said he was I don’t really believe I owe him anything. It’s only that if I’m going to be a genuine straightforward person I have to start now or I never will. I don’t want ever to be afraid of anyone again, not even you.”

Wolfe shook his head. “You’re expecting a good deal of yourself. I’m more than twice your age, and up with you in self-esteem, but I’m afraid of someone. Don’t overdo it. There are numerous layers of honesty, and the deepest should not have a monopoly. What else was said by Mr. and Mrs. Emerson?”

“Just what I told you.”

“Nothing more — uh, informative?”

“I told you everything I heard. I don’t—” She stopped, frowning. “Didn’t I? About his calling her an idiot?”

“No.”

“He did. When she said that about her reputation. He said, ‘You idiot, you might as well have told Goodwin you killed him, or that you knew I did.’ Then she hit him — or he hit her.”

“Anything else?”

“No. I ran.”

“Had you already suspected that Mr. Emerson had murdered Mr. Rony?”

“Why I—” Gwenn was shocked. “I don’t suspect that now. Do I?”

“Certainly you do. You merely hadn’t put it so boldly. You may have got to honesty, Miss Sperling, but there is still sagacity. If I understand you, and you say I do, you think that Mr. Emerson killed Mr. Rony because he was philandering with Mrs. Emerson. I don’t believe it. I’ve heard some of Mr. Emerson’s broadcasts, and met him at your home, and I consider him incapable of an emotion so warm and direct and explosive. You said I can do nothing about Mr. Rony’s death. I think I can, and I intend to try, but if I find myself reduced to so desperate an assumption as that Mr. Emerson was driven to kill by jealousy of his wife, I’ll quit.”

“Then—” Gwenn was frowning at him. “Then what?”

“I don’t know. Yet.” Wolfe put his hands on the edge of his desk, pushed his chair back, and arose. “Are you going to drive back home tonight?”

“Yes. But—”

“Then you’d better get started. It’s late. Your newborn passion for honesty is admirable, but in that, as in everything, moderation is often best. It would have been honest to tell your father you were coming here; it would be honest to tell him where you have been when you get home; but if you do so he will think that you have helped me to discredit Mr. Kane’s statement, and that would be false. So a better honesty would be to lie and tell him you went to see a friend.”

“I did,” Gwenn declared. “You are a friend. I want to stay and talk.”

“Not tonight.” Wolfe was emphatic. “I’m expecting a caller. Some other time.” He added hastily, “By appointment, of course.”

She didn’t want to go, but what could the poor girl do? After I handed her her neckpiece she stood and prolonged it a little, with questions that got answers in one syllable, but finally made the best of it.

When she had gone I proceeded immediately to tell Wolfe what I thought of him. “You couldn’t possibly ask for a better chance,” I protested hotly. “She may not be Miss America 1949, but she’s anything but an eyesore, and she’ll inherit millions, and she’s nuts about you. You could quit work and eat and drink all day. Evenings you could explain how well you understand her, which is apparently all she asks for. You’re hooked at last, and it was about time.” I extended a paw. “Congratulations!”

“Shut up.” He glanced at the clock.

“In a minute. I approve of your lie about expecting a caller. That’s the way to handle it, tease her on with the hard to get—”

“Go to bed. I am expecting a caller.”

I eyed him. “Another one?”

“A man. I’ll let him in. Put this stuff away and go to bed. At once.”

That had happened not more than twice in five years. Once in a while I get sent out of the room, and frequently I am flagged to get off of my phone, when something is supposed to be too profound for me, but practically never am I actually chased upstairs to keep me from even catching a glimpse of a visitor.

“Mr. Jones?” I asked.

“Put this stuff away.”

I gathered up the papers from his desk and returned them to my drawer before telling him, “I don’t like it, and you know I don’t. One of my functions is keeping you alive.” I started for the safe. “What if I come down in the morning and find you?”

“Some morning you may. Not this one. Don’t lock the safe.”

“There’s fifty grand in it.”

“I know. Don’t lock it.”

“Okay, I heard you. The guns are in my second drawer but not loaded.”

I told him good night and left him.