The Second Confession

Chapter 19

In the morning three-tenths of the fifty grand was no longer there. Fifteen thousand bucks. I told myself that before I died I must manage at least a look from a distance at Mr. Jones. A guy who could demand that kind of dough for piecework, and collect in advance, was something not to be missed.

When I arose at seven I had had only five hours’ sleep. I had not imitated Gwenn and taken to eaves-dropping, but I certainly didn’t intend to snooze peacefully while Wolfe was down in the office with a character so mysterious I couldn’t be allowed to see him or hear him. Therefore, not undressing, I got the gun I keep on my table and went to the hall and sat at the top of the stairs. From there, two flights up, I heard his arrival, and voices in the hall — Wolfe’s and one other — and the office door closing, and then, for nearly three hours, a faint mumble that I had to strain my ears to catch at all. For the last hour of it I had to resort to measures to keep myself awake. Finally the office door opened and the voices were louder, and in half a minute he had gone and I heard Wolfe’s elevator. I beat it to my room. After my head touched the pillow I tossed and turned for nearly three seconds.

In the morning my custom is not to enter the office until after my half an hour in the kitchen with Fritz and food and the morning paper, but that Friday I went there first and opened the safe. Wolfe is not the man to dish out fifteen grand of anybody’s money without having a clear idea of what for, so it seemed likely that something might need attention at any moment, and when, a little after eight, Fritz came down from taking Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him, I fully expected to be told that I was wanted on the second floor. Nothing doing. According to Fritz, my name hadn’t been mentioned. At the regular time, three minutes to nine, then at my desk in the office, I heard the sound of the elevator ascending. Apparently his sacred schedule, nine to eleven in the plant rooms, was not to be interrupted. He and Theodore were now handling the situation, no more outside help being needed.

There was one little cheep from him. Shortly after nine the house phone buzzed. He asked if any of the boys had called and I said no, and he said that when they did I was to call them off. I asked if that included Fred, and he said yes, all of them. I asked if there were fresh instructions, and he said no, just tell them to quit.

That was all for then. I spent two hours with the morning mail and the accumulation in my drawer. At 11:02 he entered, told me good morning as he always did no matter how much we had talked on the phone, got installed behind his desk, and inquired grumpily, “Is there anything you must ask me?”

“Nothing I can’t hold, no, sir.”

“Then I don’t want to be interrupted. By anyone.”

“Yes, sir. Are you in pain?”

“Yes. I know who killed Mr. Rony, and how and why.”

“You do. Does it hurt?”

“Yes.” He sighed deep. “It’s the very devil. When you know all you need to know about a murderer, what is ordinarily the easiest thing to prove?”

“That’s a cinch. Motive.”

He nodded. “But not here. I doubt if it can be done. You have known me, in the past, to devise a stratagem that entailed a hazard. Haven’t you?”

“That’s understanding it. I have known you to take chances that have given me nightmares.”

“They were nothing to this. I have devised a stratagem and spent fifteen thousand dollars on it. But if I can think of a better way I’m not going to risk it.” He sighed again, leaned back, closed his eyes, and muttered, “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

That was the last of him for more than nine hours. I don’t think he uttered more than eighty words between 11:09 in the morning and 8:20 in the evening. While he was in the office he sat with eyes closed, his lips pushing out and in from time to time, and his chest expanding every now and then, I would say five inches, with a deep sigh. At the table, during lunch and dinner, there was nothing wrong with his appetite, but he had nothing to offer in the way of conversation. At four o’clock he went up to the plant rooms for his customary two hours, but when I had occasion to ascend to check on a few items with Theodore, Wolfe was planted in his chair in the potting room, and Theodore spoke to me only in a whisper. I have never been able to get it into Theodore’s head that when Wolfe is concentrating on a business problem he wouldn’t hear us yelling right across his nose, so long as we don’t try to drag him into it.

Of the eighty words he used during those nine hours, only nine of them — one to an hour — had to do with the stratagem he was working on. Shortly before dinner he muttered at me, “What time is Mr. Cohen free in the evening?”

I told him a little before midnight.

When, in the office after dinner, he once more settled back and shut his eyes, I thought my God, this is going to be Nero Wolfe’s last case. He’s going to spend the rest of his life at it. I had myself done a good day’s work and saw no sense in sitting on my fanny all evening listening to him breathe. Considering alternatives, and deciding for Phil’s and a few games of pool, I was just opening my mouth to announce my intention when Wolfe opened his.

“Archie. Get Mr. Cohen down here as soon as possible. Ask him to bring a Gazette letterhead and envelope.”

“Yes, sir. Is the ironing done?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see. Get him.”

At last, I thought, we’re off. I dialed the number, and after some waiting because that was a busy hour for a morning paper, got him.

His voice came. “Archie? Buy me a drink?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Tonight you stay sober. What time can you get here?”

“Where is here?”

“Nero Wolfe’s office. He thinks he wants to tell you something.”

“Too late.” Lon was crisp. “If it will rate the Late City, tell me now.”

“It’s not that kind. It hasn’t come to a boil. But it’s good enough so that instead of sending an errand boy, meaning me, he wants to see you himself, so when can you get here?”

“I can send a man.”

“No. You.”

“Is it worth it?”

“Yes. Possibly.”

“In about three hours. Not less, maybe more.”

“Okay. Don’t stop for a drink, I’ll have one ready, and a sandwich. Oh yes, bring along a Gazette letterhead and envelope. We’ve run out of stationery.”

“What is it, a gag?”

“No, sir. Far from. It may even get you a raise.”

I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “May I make a suggestion? If you want him tender and it’s worth a steak, I’ll tell Fritz to take one from the freezer and start it thawing.”

He said to do so and I went to the kitchen and had a conference with Fritz. Then, back in the office, I sat and listened to Wolfe breathe some more. It went on for minutes that added up to an hour. Finally he opened his eyes, straightened up, and took from his pocket some folded papers which I recognized as sheets torn from his memo pad.

“Your notebook, Archie,” he said like a man who has made up his mind.

I got it from the drawer and uncapped my pen.

“If this doesn’t work,” he growled at me, as if it were all my fault, “there will be no other recourse. I have tried to twist it so as to leave an alternative if it fails, but it can’t be done. We’ll either get him with this or not at all. On plain paper, double-spaced, two carbons.”

“Heading or date?”

“None.” He gazed, frowning, at the sheets he had taken from his pocket. “First paragraph:

Wolfe, referring frequently to the sheets he had taken from his pocket, kept on until I had filled thirty-two pages of my notebook, then stopped, sat a while with his lips puckered, and told me to type it. I did so, double spacing as instructed. As I finished a page I handed it over to him and he went to work on it with a pencil. He rarely made changes in anything he had dictated and I had typed, but apparently he regarded this as something extra special. I fully agreed with him. That stuff, getting warmer as it went along, contained dozens of details that nobody lower than a Deputy Commissar had any right to know about — provided they were true. That was a point I would have liked to ask Wolfe about, but if the job was supposed to be finished when Lon Cohen arrived there was no time to spare, so I postponed it.

I had the last page out of the typewriter, but Wolfe was still fussing with it, when the bell rang and I went to the front and let Lon in.

Lon had been rank and file, or maybe only rank, when I first met him, but was now second in command at the Gazette’s city desk. As far as I knew his elevation had gone to his head only in one little way: he kept a hairbrush in his desk, and every night when he was through, before making a dash for the refreshment counter he favored, he brushed his hair good. Except for that there wasn’t a thing wrong with him.

He shook hands with Wolfe and turned on me.

“You crook, you told me if I didn’t stop — oh, here it is. Hello, Fritz. You’re the only one here I can trust.” He lifted the highball from the tray, nodded at Wolfe, swallowed a third of it, and sat in the red leather chair.

“I brought the stationery,” he announced. “Three sheets. You can have it and welcome if you’ll give me a first on how someone named Sperling willfully and deliberately did one Louis Rony to death.”

“That,” Wolfe said, “is precisely what I have to offer.”

Lon’s head jerked up. “Someone named Sperling?” he snapped.

“No. I shouldn’t have said ‘precisely.’ The name will have to wait. But the rest of it, yes.”

“Damn it, it’s midnight! You can’t expect—”

“Not tonight. Nor tomorrow. But if and when I have it, you’ll get it first.”

Lon looked at him. He had entered the room loose and carefree and thirsty, but now he was back at work again. An exclusive on the murder of Louis Rony was nothing to relax about.

“For that,” he said, “you’d want more than three letterheads, even with envelopes. What if I throw in postage stamps?”

Wolfe nodded. “That would be generous. But I have something else to offer. How would you like to have, for your paper only, a series of articles, authenticated for you, describing secret meetings of the group that controls the American Communist party, giving the details of discussions and decisions?”

Lon cocked his head to one side. “All you need,” he declared, “is long white whiskers and a red suit.”

“No, I’m too fat. Would that interest you?”

“It ought to. Who would do the authenticating?”

“I would.”

“You mean with your by-line?”

“Good heavens, no. The articles would be anonymous. But I would give my warranty, in writing if desired, that the source of information is competent and reliable.”

“Who would have to be paid and how much?”

“No one. Nothing.”

“Hell, you don’t even need whiskers. What would the details be like?”

Wolfe turned. “Let him read it, Archie.”

I took Lon the original copy of what I had typed, and he put his glass down on the table at his elbow, to have two hands. There were seven pages. He started reading fast, then went slower, and when he reached the end returned to the first page and reread it. Meanwhile I refilled his glass and, knowing that Fritz was busy, went to the kitchen for beer for Wolfe. Also I thought I could stand a highball myself, and supplied one.

Lon put the sheets on the table, saw that his glass had been attended to, and helped himself.

“It’s hot,” he admitted.

“Fit to print, I think,” Wolfe said modestly.

“Sure it is. How about libel?”

“There is none. There will be none. No names or addresses are used.”

“Yeah, I know, but an action might be brought anyhow. Your source would have to be available for testimony.”

“No, sir.” Wolfe was emphatic. “My source is covered and will stay covered. You may have my warranty, and a bond for libel damages if you want it, but that’s all.”

“Well—” Lon drank. “I love it. But I’ve got bosses, and on a thing like this they would have to decide. Tomorrow is Friday, and they — good God, what’s this? Don’t tell me — Archie, come and look!”

I had to go anyway, to remove the papers so Fritz could put the tray on the table. It was really a handsome platter. The steak was thick and brown with charcoal braid, the grilled slices of sweet potato and sautéed mushrooms were just right, the watercress was high at one end out of danger, and the overall smell made me wish I had asked Fritz to make a carbon.

“Now I know,” Lon said, “it’s all a dream. Archie, I would have sworn you phoned me to come down here. Okay, I’ll dream on.” He sliced through the steak, letting the juice come, cut off a bite, and opened wide for it. Next came a bite of sweet potato, followed by a mushroom. I watched him the way I have seen dogs watch when they’re allowed near the table. It was too much. I went to the kitchen, came back with two slices of bread on a plate, and thrust it at him.

“Come on, brother, divvy. You can’t eat three pounds of steak.”

“It’s under two pounds.”

“Like hell it is. Fix me up.”

After all he was a guest, so he had to give in.

When he left a while later the platter was clean except for the bone, the level in the bottle of Scotch was down another three inches, the letterheads and envelopes were in my desk drawer, and the arrangement was all set, pending an okay by the Gazette high brass. Since the weekend was nearly on us, getting the okay might hold it up, but Lon thought there was a fair chance for Saturday and a good one for Sunday. The big drawback, in his opinion, was the fact that Wolfe would give no guarantee of the life of the series. He gave a firm promise for two articles, and said a third was likely, but that was as far as he would commit himself. Lon tried to get him to sign up for a minimum of six, but nothing doing.

Alone with Wolfe again, I gave him a look.

“Quit staring,” he said gruffly.

“I beg your pardon. I was figuring something. Two pieces of two thousand words each, four thousand words. Fifteen thousand — that comes to three seventy-five a word. And he doesn’t even write the pieces. If you’re going to ghost—”

“It’s bedtime.”

“Yes, sir. Besides writing the second piece, what comes next?”

“Nothing. We sit and wait. Confound it, if this doesn’t work...”

He told me good night and marched out to the elevator.