Before I Die

X

Schwartz opened the flap of his brief case, then let it drop back again, and kept it on his lap.

“In the past,” he said, “I have attended to a few little matters for Mr. Perrit of a purely legal nature. I know law, but on account of my temperament I am not a successful lawyer. Last evening he came to my home — a modest little apartment on Perry Street — he has never been to my office — and asked me to draw up some papers at once, in his presence. Luckily I have a typewriter at home but it isn’t very good and you’ll have to overlook typographical deficiencies. It took a long while because I am not fast on a typewriter, and also because of the special conditions to be covered. It’s a difficult business, extremely difficult, to convey property by testament to a daughter without naming her and indeed without identifying her in any way.”

The lawyer blinked. “I should tell you right off that there will be no problems of administration. The property consists exclusively of government bonds and cash in banks, a little over a million dollars. In that respect there are no intricacies. All other property owned by Mr. Perrit, including his interest in various enterprises, goes to others — his associates — in another document. Your functions are limited strictly to the legacy to his daughter. There are only two other provisions in the document under consideration: fifty thousand dollars to you as executor, and the same amount to me. The witnesses to it were a man who owns a delicatessen and a young woman who runs a rental library, both of whom are known to me. I have the original in my possession. Mr. Perrit took a copy.”

Wolfe lifted a hand. “Let me see it.”

Schwartz blinked again. “In a moment, yes, sir. I should explain that the large sum left to me was not to compensate me for drawing up some papers. It was Mr. Perrit’s way of insuring my performance of an act mentioned nowhere in writing, but only orally. I drafted another document of which no copy was made. It was put into an envelope along with other sheets of paper on which Mr. Perrit had written something, I don’t know what, and the envelope was sealed with wax. I was given the function and the responsibility, in the event of Mr. Perrit’s death, of delivering the envelope to you personally at the earliest possible moment, together with the information, already delivered, regarding the will. I would put it this way: of the fifty thousand dollars left to me, one hundred dollars was for drafting the documents, another hundred was for making the delivery to you — reasonable sums — and the remainder was to pay me for not opening the envelope and examining the contents. He misjudged me entirely. One-tenth that amount, even one-fiftieth, would have been enough.”

He opened his brief case, took out folded papers, and put them on Wolfe’s desk. “That’s the will, which I must take with me for probate.” He produced a bulky envelope with red blotches of wax and put it beside the papers. “That’s the envelope.”

He sat back and pulled at his ear.

Wolfe reached for the envelope and papers. First he went through the will, thoroughly — he is never a fast reader — then handed it to me and slit the envelope with his paper knife. As he finished with a page of the contents of the envelope he slid it across to my reach; apparently I was back in again. I read faster than he does, so I was only a couple of minutes behind him at the end.

The will was certainly involved. It was hard for me to tell whether the cash and bonds were left to Nero Wolfe or to the unnamed and unidentified “my daughter,” but I’m not a lawyer and I suppose it was legally hers, though it seemed to me to leave room for a lot of antics by him if his mind worked that way. The other document drawn up by Schwartz, the one in the envelope, was very technical. It contained a long list of bonds and balances in banks, and its chief purpose seemed to be to make them available to Wolfe if, as, and when he felt like taking them over. In places it sounded like a power of attorney, and in other places like blessings and absolution for Wolfe no matter what he did. If Dazy Perrit had sat around while Schwartz composed all that and typed it out, one of the problems the police were working on — how and where Perrit had spent the hours preceding his death — was certainly solved.

But he hadn’t merely sat. He had done some composing too, namely, the papers he had written on himself and put in the envelope. I read that last and slowest. It began:

There was a line and a half crossed out and then he went on. I have it in front of me now, but it covers seven pages and what the hell. All it amounted to was this, that the fifty thousand bucks was to pay Wolfe for seeing that Beulah got the cash and bonds, for keeping it all under his hat, and for using his best judgment as to how much Beulah should ever be told, and, if so, when. Then there were a lot of facts, about who the mother was and so on, and dates, and the last two pages might have been classed as philosophy. Dazy Perrit’s philosophy. The two other papers in the envelope were a marriage certificate, dated St. Louis, September 4, 1924, and a birth certificate, dated July 26, 1925.

I folded things up again and stuck them in the envelope.

“Put it in the safe,” Wolfe said.

I did so.

Schwartz quit pulling at his ear and began talking. “There might be some reluctance about handling money accumulated by the methods used by Mr. Perrit.

But it would be a great responsibility to deprive a young woman—”

He stopped because Wolfe was waving it away with a finger. “Bah,” Wolfe said. “If an oil marauder or a steel bandit gets respect for his wishes regarding the disposal of his loot, why shouldn’t Mr. Perrit?”

“Then you accept the— ah— office?”

“I do.”

Instead of looking relieved and satisfied, the lawyer frowned. “In that case, I have a question. With the daughter dead, how do you propose to perform the functions of your office?”

“That, sir, is my affair. I don’t—” Wolfe stopped himself, cocking an eye. “No. I’m wrong. Since Mr. Perrit trusted you he would expect me to give you this much satisfaction: the daughter is not dead. Beyond that Mr. Perrit left it to me, and so will you.”

“I see.” Schwartz blinked. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I mention another detail. My personal interest is concerned, because fifty thousand dollars is for me an extremely large sum, and if I don’t get it through you I may not get it at all. I understand that your assistant — this gentleman here — was present when Miss Perrit was killed, and was also present when Mr. Perrit and his companion were killed, and that he, your assistant, was not injured. I do not know whether you fully realize the inferences that will be drawn and the consequences that may reasonably be expected. Those inferences will be greatly strengthened when this will—” he tapped a finger on his brief case, to which the will had been returned — “is probated and becomes public knowledge, as the law requires. With over a million dollars entrusted to your hands and you accountable to no one. Mr. Perrit’s associates will inevitably draw those inferences, which will seem obvious to them, and they—”

The phone rang, and I took it. It was the hoarse man who had previously invited me to meet him at the Seven-Eleven Club, and he still hadn’t found time to clear his throat. This time he wanted Wolfe, and Wolfe, after I had covered the transmitter and told him about the previous call, got on. I stayed on too, as I always do when not told to get off, but I’ll only report one end.

“Nero Wolfe speaking... Your name, please?... I’m sorry, sir, I never speak to people without a name; I must have your name... F-A-B-I-A-N?... Thank you. Hold the line a moment, please.”

Wolfe asked Schwartz, “Have you ever heard of a man named Fabian?”

“Yes.” Schwartz was frowning and all his fingers were gripping the edge of his brief case.

“So have I,” I said emphatically.

“Yes, Mr. Fabian, what is it?... I see. I never make appointments outside my house... No, no indeed, I assure you I’m not frightened at all... Yes, I realize that, but I seldom go out... Well, I have a suggestion. Why don’t you come to my office, say at two o’clock today?... Good... That’s right. You have the address?... Good.”

He hung up. I did likewise, with a vicious bang.

Schwartz said, in a different tone from any he had used, “I was about to say when the phone rang that Mr. Perrit’s associates are men of action. To put it baldly, they will kill both you and your assistant the first chance they get. I was about to suggest certain precautions. Frankly, as I said, my personal interest is concerned. The best way—”

“Mr. Fabian says he wants to ask me something.”

“But great heavens!” Schwartz was looking green. “He’s the most notorious — to invite him — to let him in—”

“If he is really dangerous,” Wolfe said stiffly, “and if he has drawn the sort of inferences you fear, my own office is the only safe place to meet him. This business has to be settled sooner—”

The phone rang again. I reached for it, told it, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking,” and got a shock in my ear in the shape of an agitated voice declaring loud enough to be heard out in the kitchen, “You said your name was Harold Stevens!”

I said sharply, “Hold it a second. Stay on,” and turned to Wolfe and told him in a bored tone, “It’s the friend of that law student. May go on for an hour. Shall I go upstairs and take it?”

“Yes. We might as well get it over with. She can come any time. Arrange it properly.”

I never bothered with the elevator, and anyhow, up three steps at a time was quicker. Up in my room, with the door shut, I didn’t take time to make myself comfortable in a chair, but grabbed the phone and told it, “Sorry to keep you waiting, but there were people around and I came upstairs. What’s the trouble?”

“You said your name was Stevens!”

“Yeah. Of all the millions of details in the world, one of the most unimportant right now is my name. My name is mud. Stevens or Goodwin, mud.”

“It’s important to me.”

“Thank you very much. Is that what you called to say?”

“No, it isn’t. I want to know about the man that got killed and how you happened—”

“Wait a minute. Collect yourself and start at the beginning. What have you seen, heard, and done?”

“I’ve seen pictures, just now in the Gazette. One is of a man named Dazy Perrit, and I know him — I don’t really know him well, but I know him in a certain way, and he has been killed, and for a certain reason that’s bad news for me. Another picture is of you, it’s a very good likeness, and it says your name is Archie Goodwin and you work for Nero Wolfe — it calls you his legman — and it says you were with Dazy Perrit when he was killed. So I want to know—”

“Excuse me,” I cut her off, “but the kind of things you want to know are not a good kind for a telephone. I would like to come up there for a talk but I have things to do. Why don’t you hop on the subway and come down here? Will you do that?”

“I certainly will! I will be there—”

“Excuse me again. The sidewalk in front of our house is the scene of two murders and therefore temporarily conspicuous. Get this. From Thirty-fourth Street and Eleventh Avenue go east on Thirty-fourth Street. It’s ninety-two paces for me, so it will be about a hundred and twenty for you. At that point there is a narrow passage between two buildings — a loading platform on the left of it and a wholesale paper products place on the right. Go in along the passageway and I’ll meet you at the far end of it and let you in at our back door. Have you got it?”

“Certainly. It ought to take me about half an hour.”

“Okay. I’ll be there, but if I’m not, wait for me.”

“All right. Tell me just one thing, was Dazy Perrit’s daughter—”

I told her nothing doing and ended it. A glance at my wristwatch, on the fly as I headed for the stairs, showed me eleven-fifty-two. At the bottom I slowed to a normal pace, to enter the office with an attitude of indifference, but that proved unnecessary because L. A. Schwartz was gone. Wolfe sat at his desk pouring beer.

“She saw pictures of Perrit and me in the Gazette” I reported. “She’ll come the back way and be here in half an hour.”

“Satisfactory.” He put the bottle down. “Take her straight upstairs to the south room. She must be seen by no one.” He scowled at me. “Confound it, I suppose she must be invited to lunch. Sit down and tell me everything that happened last night.”

“I thought I was out of it. When did I get in again?”

“Pfui. Go ahead.”

Having been reporting uncombed events to Wolfe for over ten years, I had got expert at it, but this called for extra concentration since the time was limited. I tried to get it all in and make a clean job of it, but he had questions to put as usual, and was still asking them when the clock said twelve-twenty and I had to go. I left by way of the kitchen and the back stairs, emerging into our little private yard where Fritz grows chives and tarragon and other vegetation. Leaving the door through the solid board fence unlocked, since it wouldn’t get out of my sight, I skirted piles of rubbish on the premises south of us, and another twenty steps got me to the entrance of the passage. There was no one there. But I didn’t wait long. Within a couple of minutes a figure appeared at the other end of the passage, looked in, and started toward me. Only it wasn’t Beulah. It was the law student. She was right behind him, and as they approached me she darted around to the front and spoke first.

“It’s all right that Morton came along, isn’t it? He wouldn’t let me come alone.”

“Well, he’s here,” I growled. “Hello.” My impulse was to tell him to go home and study, because we already had complications enough, but since we had made him so welcome the night before, and him practically a member of the family, I decided not to make an issue of it.

“Watch where you step,” I told them and led the way back around the rubbish piles, through the door in the fence, which I locked, into the basement, up to the kitchen, and on up two more flights to the south room, which was on the same floor as mine, at the other end of the hall. It wasn’t often used, but was by no means wasted space. On various occasions all kinds had slept in it, from a Secretary of State to a woman who had poisoned three husbands and was making a fourth one very sick.

Wolfe was there, standing by a window. There was no chair in that room that would take him without complaints from both him and the chair. He did his little bow, head forward eleven-sixteenths of an inch.

“How do you do, Miss Page. And Morton. You came along?”

“Yes, sir.” Morton was firm. “I would like to know what this is all about. Goodwin saying his name was Stevens—”

“Of course. Not illegal, no felony, but at least odd. Miss Page deserves an explanation, and she’ll get it. Doubtless you’ll get it too, later, from her. Mr. Goodwin and I are taking Miss Page up to the plant rooms to show her my orchids and have a talk with her,” He waved a hand. “There are books and magazines here, or you may go down to the office if you prefer.”

The muscles of Morton’s jaw had set. “I must insist—”

“No. Don’t try.” Wolfe was curt. “Since this concerns Miss Page, I do not intend to substitute my discretion for hers. We’ll rejoin you in half an hour or so. Archie, tell Fritz that there will be two luncheon guests, at one sharp.”