A Right to Die

Chapter 14

At ten minutes past two Friday morning I sat on a wooden chair at the end of a glass-topped desk in a room with two windows, being sized up by a cop. I wasn’t exactly in the pink, after the day in New York, the plane ride to Louisville, and the three-hour drive in a rented car to Evansville, but since I now knew which diphthong it was, and I would sleep better after I got the answers to a few questions, and police headquarters is open all night, I had stopped at the hotel only long enough to sign in. I admit that as I sat I had to tell myself to keep my shoulders up.

The cop’s name was Sievers, Lieutenant Sievers, an old pro with very little hair but plenty of jaw. He gave my New York State detective license a thorough look, handed it back, and frowned at me. “Archie Goodwin,” he said. “Haven’t I seen that name somewhere?”

“I hope not on a hot dodger. You may have seen the name of the man I work for, Nero Wolfe.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “That one. Yeah. How do you stand him?”

“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times, and damned if I can answer it.”

“Don’t expect me to. What’s your problem here?”

“Just a little information we need, about a man named Richard Ault, or I should say his family. He’s dead. He committed suicide in Racine, Wisconsin, on August fourteenth, nineteen fifty-nine.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“This was his home town, wasn’t it?”

“It was. He was born here.”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew him by sight. I don’t know if I ever spoke to him. He wasn’t the kind we have to speak to much. Why are you interested in him now?”

“We’re not, in him. A point has come up in a case we’re on that his family might know about. I’ll see them tomorrow — I mean today — but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to find out what they’re like first. How do they stand locally?”

“They don’t stand. You won’t see them tomorrow. There’s no one to see.”

“No one at all?”

“No. If you want details, Richard Ault’s father, Benjamin Ault, Junior, has a furniture factory, a big one. He inherited it from his father, Benjamin Senior. Benjamin Junior died about ten years ago. Let’s see...” He shut his eyes and lowered his head. He looked up. “That’s right, nineteen fifty-three. You don’t believe in making notes, huh? Out here we always make notes.”

“So do I when they may be needed. What about brothers or sisters?”

He shook his head. “Richard was an only.”

“There’s still Mrs. Ault. Where is she?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know who does. There’s a lawyer who might named Littauer, H. Ernest Littauer. He handled it when she sold the factory.”

I had my notebook out and was scribbling. When in Evansville do as the Romans do. “I need all the dope I can get,” I said. “Am I keeping you from anything important?”

“Hell no. Not until the phone rings to report a hit and run.”

“I hope it won’t. When did Mrs. Ault sell the factory?”

“About three years ago. When Benjamin Junior died, her husband, she changed the name of the business to M. and R. Ault, Inc. M for Marjorie and R for Richard. Then a couple of years after Richard’s death she sold it and left town. As far as I know she has never been back, and I don’t know where she is. You do shorthand, huh?”

“I guess you could call it that to be polite. I understand Richard went to Harvard University.”

“I believe he did. Let’s see.” In a moment: “Yes, he did.”

“Do you happen to know if his mother ever went to visit him there?”

He cocked his head and eyed me. “You know, maybe I’m not as sharp as you are, out here in the sticks, but I can count up to ten. A point in a case his family might know about, nuts. Suppose you open up a little, huh?”

I nodded. “I intend to, but I wasn’t being sharp. If you had told me she’s here in Evansville I wouldn’t even have bothered to take a look at her. I’m about done. Did she ever visit him at Harvard?”

“I don’t know, but it would be a good bet. He was the apple of her eye.”

I took a breath. “Now. I hate to ask it. I’m afraid to ask it, but here goes. Describe her.”

“I thought so,” he said.

“I only hope you’ll still think so after you describe her.”

“Well, three years ago, about a hundred and forty pounds. Late forties or early fifties. Five feet six. Light brown hair with a little gray. Brown eyes, a little close. Not much of a mouth. Long narrow nose, extra narrow. Not exactly a double chin, but a crease in it. That enough?”

“I’m not much at paying compliments,” I said, “but you are absolutely the best describer south of the North Pole. I could have saved wear and tear on my nerves by asking for it sooner. One more question. Would you care to take a trip to New York this morning, expenses paid and honored guest treatment?”

“You’re damn right I would. But I’m an employee of the city of Evansville. What have you got on Mrs. Ault?”

“You’re an officer of the law, dedicated to the service of justice, and you’re needed to identify a murderer — a double murderer. I’m sticking my neck out. If you call the New York Police Department and spill it, my name is mud, and I doubt if you’ll be needed. If you come with me, justice will be served just as well or better, you can hang around a day or two if you care to, and if you like to see your picture in the paper, the Gazette has a circulation of over a million. Of course if Evansville couldn’t manage even for an hour without you...”

“You don’t have to clown it, Goodwin. Is this straight, Marjorie Ault is a murderer?”

“My neck’s out far enough.”

“When are you leaving?”

“There’s a plane from Louisville at five p.m. I have a car I rented there. I’d like to ask that lawyer, Littauer, a couple of questions.” I stood. “How long have you been on the force?”

“Twenty-six years.”

“Then what the hell, you don’t have to spell your name. I would deeply appreciate it if you’d leave the monkey wrench in the drawer. Say we leave at one-thirty?”

He wasn’t sure, he would ring me around noon, but from the look in his eye and the grip in his hand as we shook I was satisfied that I would have a companion for the trip home.

It was exactly three o’clock when, after leaving a call for seven-forty-five, I got between sheets in the hotel room, and I certainly needed a nap, but there was something on my mind. Not whether it was in the bag, that was okay, but how we got it. Had it been luck or genius or what? It had been years since I had given up trying to figure how Wolfe’s mind worked, but this was special. I hadn’t happened to notice that there was an au in four of the names: Paul, Ault, Maud, and Vaughn, but I might have; anybody might. That was nothing special. The point was, if I had noticed it, then what? I would have filed it as just coincidence, and probably Wolfe had too. But although filed, that au in four of the names was still somewhere in his mind later, when it got really tough, so in going over and over it, every detail and every factor, that popped up. Okay, but then what? Did he deliberately team them up?

Then did he consider each pair and finally decide that the one that might not be just coincidence was Ault and Maud, because if a woman named Ault changed her name she might pick one that had au in it? No. I could have done that myself. I hadn’t, but I could. What had happened in his mind that had made him phone Samuel Vaughn and Otto Drucker, and send me to Evansville, was something that had never happened in mine and never would. He had said “tenuous almost to nullity.” But there I was in Evansville, and I knew who had killed Susan Brooke and Peter Vaughn, and probably I never would have known if Wolfe hadn’t started reflecting on a diphthong. Reflecting that I had been wasting some precious time, I turned over to go to sleep, but jor butted in. She had not only used the Ault au in Maud, she had also used the Marjorie jor in Jordan. If Wolfe had known Mrs. Ault’s name was Marjorie he would have sewed it up a week ago. On that I slept.

I had left a call for 7:45 because on 35th Street it would be 8:45 and I wanted to get Wolfe before he went up to the plant rooms. I did. Fritz answered and relayed it to Wolfe’s room, and his voice came, gruff.

“Yes?”

“Me. I’ve had four hours’ sleep and I need more, so I’ll make it brief. If I talked for an hour you’d like every word of it. Wrapped up. Not a single snag. Reserve a room at the Churchill for Mr. George Sievers.” I spelled it. “He’ll arrive around eight-thirty this evening and so will I. Tell Fritz not to keep my dinner warm; I’ll eat with Sievers on the plane.”

“Are there any relatives in Evansville?”

“No. She’s alone in the world, as she told you.”

He grunted. “Very satisfactory.” He hung up.

Sometimes I think he overdoes it. I admit everything had been said that needed saying, but he might at least have asked how the weather was or if my bed was all right. It was. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

It wasn’t absolutely essential to see H. Ernest Littauer, and I don’t know when I would have moved again if the phone hadn’t rung. As I reached for it I glanced at my wrist: 10:42. It was Lieutenant Sievers. He said he had fixed it to go, and there was an hour’s difference between Evansville and Louisville, so we should roll by one o’clock to make the five-o’clock plane. I made it to my feet with the help of a healthy groan and headed for the bathroom.

Perhaps the trouble with my experiences with lawyers is that I am never a prospective client, ready with a checkbook for a retainer. All I ever have is questions, usually questions they would prefer not to answer, and so it was with H. Ernest Littauer, in a big sunny room with a fine view of the Ohio River. I merely wanted to know if he had been in communication with Mrs. Marjorie Ault during the past year or so, and he merely didn’t want to tell me. And he didn’t, but I gathered that he had no idea where she was and didn’t care.

When I got to the parking lot at a quarter to one, Sievers was already there, with a suitcase big enough to last at least a week, and I suspected I had been a little too hospitable. It wasn’t going to be billed to a client. But he was going to help clean up the mess, so he was welcome. He was good enough company, though not in the class of Otto Drucker. By the time we touched concrete at Idlewild — I mean Kennedy International Airport — it was obvious that he was only a good working cop, which was why after twenty-six years he was still a lieutenant. He said he preferred to handle his evening himself if he wasn’t needed, so I taxied him to the Churchill and proceeded to 35th Street.

It was only eight-forty, but Wolfe was in the office with coffee, and that deserved a grin. Business was not to be mentioned at meals, so he had either started dinner early or speeded it up in order to be away from the table when I arrived. There was a hint of feeling in his look and voice as he greeted me, as there always is when I return safe and sound from a trip in long-distance machines. I stood in the middle of the rug and took a good stretch, and said, “My God, it’s cold around here, much colder than down on the Ohio River. The warmth in this room is wonderful, even if I had no personal connection with its production. I admit that the rapid advance of automation may result—”

“Sit down and report!”

I did so, verbatim. He didn’t lean back and shut his eyes; there was no need to, since it was only the happy ending. When I finished by saying that we might be stuck for a week in town by Lieutenant Sievers he didn’t bat an eye.

He picked up his coffee cup and emptied it and put it down. “Archie,” he said, “I tender my apologies. I noticed that confounded diphthong Monday evening, and I could have sent you to Evansville then. Three wretched days.”

“Yeah. Well, you finally got around to it. I accept the apology. It’s too bad it’s Friday night, the weekend, and some of them may not be available tomorrow, maybe none of them. I suggest that they deserve to be present, all the ROCC crowd, even Oster. Also Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Brooke. And why not Susan’s mother? In a way, her more than anyone else. She was there in the house with Susan when Richard Ault shot himself on the porch. According to Drucker, she helped Susan give him the boot. She ought to—”

I stopped short.

Wolfe asked, “What?”

“Nothing. But that’s what you thought about the diphthong: it wasn’t worth considering. What if she decided to get the mother too and picked tonight for it? That would be just great.”

I swiveled. I didn’t have Mrs. Matthew Brooke’s number on the card and had to look in the book. I got it, and dialed, and sat and listened to fourteen buzzes, two more than my usual allowance. I don’t dial wrong numbers, so I didn’t try again but dialed another number, one that was on the card, and that time got an answer, a voice that I recognized, saying, “Mrs. Brooke’s residence.”

“This is Archie Goodwin,” I said, “at Nero Wolfe’s office. Mr. Wolfe wants to ask Mrs. Matthew Brooke a question, and I just dialed her number and got no answer. I thought she might be with you. Is she?”

“No. What does he want to ask her?”

“Nothing very important, just a routine question, but it would help to have the answer now. Do you know where I can get her?”

“No, I don’t. But it’s odd...”

Silence. After five seconds of it I asked, “What’s odd?”

“I thought perhaps— Where are you?”

“Nero Wolfe’s office.”

“She isn’t there?”

“No.”

“I thought perhaps it was him she was going to see. She phoned about an hour ago and asked to use my car — she often does — and she said she was going to see someone who could tell her something about Susan, and I asked her if it was Nero Wolfe, and she wouldn’t say. She said she had promised not to. Are you sure—”

“And she took the car?”

“I suppose so, of course. Have you—”

“The blue sedan?”

“Yes. Have you—”

“Sorry, I’m being interrupted.” I hung up and turned. “As I said, just great. About an hour ago Mrs. Matthew Brooke took Mrs. Kenneth Brooke’s car to go to meet someone who had phoned her that she could tell her something about Susan. She may still be alive. Of all the lousy breaks. Do I talk to Cramer or do you?”

“What for?”

“For God’s sake! A stop-and-take on the goddam car!”

“It isn’t necessary. Saul.”

“What do you mean, Saul? He can’t—”

“He is covering Miss Jordan. As you know, he was told yesterday to inquire about her. He telephoned this morning shortly after you had reported from Evansville, and I told him to get Fred and Orrie and keep her under constant surveillance.”

I returned to my pocket the key ring I had got out. Its collection included the key to the locked drawer from which I had been going to get the license number of the blue sedan. “Damn it, you might have told me.”

“That’s querulous, Archie.”

“If that means peevish, I am. How would you feel or I feel or Cramer feel if she added another one to the list after we had her tagged? And you realize that any dimwit can lose a tail, even if it’s Saul Panzer. You’d like to deliver her wrapped up, sure, so would I. But it would be nearly as good and a lot safer to ring him now and say the woman who killed Susan Brooke and Peter Vaughn is now somewhere in your territory in a blue Heron sedan with Mrs. Matthew Brooke and is going to kill her. The car’s number is here in the drawer.”

He called me. He asked, merely wanting information, “Do you wish to do that?”

“Of course I don’t wish to!”

“Would Saul?”

“If he has lost her, yes. If he’s still on her, no.”

He turned a palm up. “Then it’s simple. We determine our action or inaction by the extent of our confidence in Saul’s craft and sagacity. Mine, though not infinite, is considerable, and he knows she has killed two people. Yours?”

“I don’t have to tell you. When did he last call in?”

“At twenty minutes past six, from a booth on Lexington Avenue. She was in the building where she lives. Fred and Orrie had followed her there from the building where she works, and Saul had relieved Fred at six o’clock. He had—”

The doorbell rang.

I went to the hall for a look, swallowed something that had been wanting to be swallowed for ten minutes, turned my head, and said, “Mr. Panzer and Miss Jordan. Have they an appointment?”