Before Midnight

Chapter 21

It rarely gets you anywhere, practically never, but you always do it. When four men enter a room and one of them sees six men grouped in front of a cabinet which has in it a bottle of poison out of which he has recently shaken a spoonful onto a piece of toilet paper, to be used for killing a man, you try to watch all their faces like a hawk for some sign of which one it is. That time it was more useless than usual. They had all had a hard and probably sleepless night, and maybe hadn’t been to bed at all. They looked it, and certainly none of them liked what he saw. Three of them — Buff, O’Garro, and Hansen — all spoke at once. They wanted to know who and what and why and when, oblivious of the presence of a customer who was seated across the room.

Wolfe was incisive. “It would be better, I think, to retire somewhere. This is rather public.”

“Who are these men?” Buff demanded.

“They are working for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa, through me. They are now—”

“Get them out of here!”

“No. They’re guarding an object in that cabinet. I intend shortly to tell the police to come and get the object, and meanwhile these four men will stay. They’re all armed, so I—”

“Why, goddam you—” O’Garro blurted, but Hansen gripped his arm and said, “Let’s go inside,” and turned him around. Buff seemed about to choke, but controlled it, and led the way, with his partner and lawyer following, then Heery, then Wolfe, and then me. As I passed through the door to the corridor I turned for a glance at the four sentries, and Orrie winked at me.

The executive committee room was much more presentable than it had been before, with everything in order. The second the door was shut O’Garro started yapping, but Hansen got his arm again and steered him around to a chair at the far side of the big table, and took one there himself, so they had the windows back of them. Wolfe and I took the near side, with Heery at one end, on Wolfe’s left, and Buff at the other, on my right.

“What’s this object in a cabinet?” O’Garro demanded as Wolfe sat. “What are you trying to pull?”

“It will be better,” Wolfe said, “if you let me describe the situation. Then we can—”

“We know the situation,” Hansen put in. “We want to know what you think you’re doing.”

“That’s simple. I’m preparing to learn which of you four men killed Louis Dahlmann, and took the wallet, and killed Vernon Assa.”

Three of them stared. Heery said, “Jesus. Is that simple?”

Hansen said, “I advise you, Mr. Wolfe, to choose your words — and also your acts. With more care. This could cost you your license and much of your reputation, and possibly more. Let’s have the facts. What is the object in the cabinet?”

“A bottle of cyanide of potassium, in the display of Allcoran Laboratories, with the cap seal broken and almost certainly some of the contents removed. That can be determined.”

“There in that cabinet?” Hansen couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, sir.”

“A deadly poison there on public display?”

“Oh, come, Mr. Hansen. Don’t feign an ignorance you can’t possibly own. Dozens of deadly poisons are available to the public at thousands of counters, including cyanide with its many uses. You must know that, but if you want it on the record that you were astonished by my announcement you have witnesses. Shall I ask the others if they were astonished too?”

“No. — I advise you, Oliver, and you too, Pat, to say nothing whatever and answer no questions. This man is treacherous.”

Wolfe skipped the tribute. “That will expedite matters,” he said approvingly. His eyes moved. “I must tell the police about that bottle of poison reasonably soon, so the less I’m interrupted the better, but if you all refuse to say anything whatever I’ll be wasting my time and might as well phone them now. There are one or two things I should know — for example, can I narrow it down? Of course Mr. Buff and Mr. O’Garro were on these premises yesterday afternoon. Were you, Mr. Hansen?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Roughly, from four o’clock until after six.”

“Were you, Mr. Heery?”

“I was here twice. I stopped in for a few minutes when I went to lunch, and around four-thirty I was here for half an hour.”

“That’s too bad.” Wolfe put his palms on the table. “Now, gentlemen, I’ll be as brief as may be. When I’m through we can consider whether I have to enter a defense against Mr. Hansen’s charge of treachery. Until the moment of Mr. Assa’s collapse in my office last evening I was concerned only with the job I had been hired for, not with murder. I invited Mr. Cramer to the meeting because I expected that developments to be contrived by me would remove both the contestants and yourselves as primary targets of his inquiry, which was surely desirable. My first objective was to demonstrate to the contestants that their receipt of the answers by mail had made it impossible to proceed with the verses that had been given them last week, and it would be futile for them to resist the inevitable; and to get their unanimous agreement to the distribution of new verses as soon as their freedom of movement was restored.”

“You say that now.” Hansen was buying nothing.

“It will be supported. I was confident I could do that, for they had no feasible alternative. Then I would be through with them and they would leave, and I would pursue the second objective with the rest of you. I confess that the second objective was not at all clear, and the path to it was poorly mapped, until nearly seven o’clock last evening, when Mr. Assa called. — Mr. Hansen, did you know that Mr. Assa came to see me at that hour yesterday?”

“No. I don’t know it now.”

“Did you, Mr. Buff?”

“No.”

“Mr. O’Garro?”

“No!”

“Mr. Heery?”

“I did not.”

Wolfe nodded. “One of you is lying, and that may help. He came and we talked. Mr. Goodwin was present, and he has typed a transcript of the conversation for Mr. Cramer. He could report it to you now, but it would take too long, so I’ll summarize it. Mr. Assa said he was speaking for himself, not for the firm; that he had not consulted his associates. He congratulated me for what he called my brilliant stroke in sending the answers to the contestants and thereby rescuing the contest from ruin. He offered his personal guarantee for payment of my fee. He took a drink of Pernod and poured another. And he began and ended with a demand that I call off the meeting for last evening. As for me, I denied sending the answers to the contestants, and I refused to call off the meeting. He left in a huff.”

Wolfe took a breath. “That was all I needed. Mr. Assa’s pretended certainty that I had sent the answers, and his eagerness to give me credit for it privately, could only mean that he had sent them himself, having got them from the paper in Dahlmann’s wallet, or that he knew who had. The former was much more probable. Now the second objective of the meeting, and the path to it, were quite clear. I would proceed as planned with the contestants, get their consent to a new agreement, and then dismiss them. After they had gone I would tackle Mr. Assa and the rest of you, in the presence of Mr. Cramer. I wasn’t assuming that Assa had killed Dahlmann; on the contrary, I was assuming that he hadn’t, since in that case he would hardly have dared expose himself as he did in coming to me. My supposition was that Assa had gone to Dahlmann’s apartment, found him dead, and took the wallet — one of Mr. Cramer’s theories, as you know. If so, it had to be disclosed to Mr. Cramer, and the sooner the better — the better not only for the demands of justice, but for my client, the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa. It would embarrass an individual, Vernon Assa, but it would be to the advantage of everyone else. It would eliminate the contestants as murder suspects, and would substantially lessen the burden of suspicion for the rest of you. I intended to expound that position to all of you and get you to help me exert pressure on Mr. Assa, and I expected to succeed.”

He took another deep breath, deeper. “I am, as you see, confessing to an egregious blunder. It came from my failure to consider sufficiently the possibility that Mr. Assa had himself been duped or had miscalculated. I now condemn myself, but on the other hand, if I had known at nine o’clock last evening exactly what—”

“You can omit the if’s,” Hansen said coldly. “Apologize to yourself, we’re not interested. How did Assa miscalculate?”

“By thinking that the man who had admitted to him that he had taken Dahlmann’s wallet was telling the truth when he said that he had found Dahlmann dead. By dismissing the possibility that in fact he had killed Dahlmann.”

“Wait a minute,” Heery objected. “You thought that yourself about Assa.”

“But Assa had come to me, and besides, I have said I blundered. It was painfully obvious, of course, when Assa died before my eyes. No effort was required to learn what had happened; the only question was, which one of you had made it happen. Which one—”

“Not obvious to me,” O’Garro said.

“Then I’ll describe it.” Wolfe shifted in the chair, which was almost big enough but not used to him. “Since that bottle is under guard, with great assurance. Yesterday afternoon Assa learned somehow that one of you had Dahlmann’s wallet in your possession. Whether he learned it by chance or by enterprise doesn’t matter; he learned it, and he confronted you. You—”

Heery put in, “You just said that you assumed Assa took the wallet from Dahlmann himself. And he had it in his pocket.”

“Pfui.” Wolfe was getting testy. “If Assa took it, who killed him and what for? His death changed everything, including my assumptions. He confronted one of you with his knowledge that you had the wallet. You explained that you had gone to Dahlmann’s apartment that night, found him dead, and took the wallet, and Assa believed you. Either you told him that you had sent the answers to the contestants, or that you hadn’t. If the former, Assa conceived the stratagem of giving me credit for it as a blind; if the latter, he really thought I had done it. You two discussed the situation and decided what to do, or perhaps you didn’t; Assa may have discussed it only with himself and made his own plans. It would be interesting to know whether he insisted on keeping the wallet or you insisted on his taking it. If I knew that I would have a better guess who you are.”

Wolfe’s tone sharpened. “Whether or not you knew of his visit to me beforehand, you knew its result. He told you that I had refused to cancel the meeting, and that both of you would of course have to come. This raises an interesting point. If it was his report of his talk with me that so heightened your alarm that you decided to kill him, then you went to the cabinet to get the poison after seven o’clock. If your fatal resolve was formed earlier, before he came to me, you might have gone to the cabinet earlier. The former seems more likely. Dread feeds on itself. At first you were satisfied that Assa believed you, that he had no slight suspicion that you had killed Dahlmann, but that sort of satisfaction is infested with cancer — the cancer of mortal fear. The fear that Assa might himself suspect you, or already did; the fear that if he didn’t suspect you, I would; the fear that if I didn’t suspect you, the police would. When Assa told you of his failure to persuade me to cancel the meeting, the fear became terror; though you believed him when he said that he had given me no hint of his knowledge regarding the wallet, there was no telling what he would do or say under pressure from me with the others present. As I said, it seems likely that it was then, when fear had festered into the panic of terror, that you resolved to kill him. Therefore it—”

“This is drivel,” Hansen said curtly. “Pure speculation. If you have a fact, what is it?”

“Out there, Mr. Hansen.” Wolfe aimed a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “It could even be conclusive if that bottle has identifiable fingerprints, but I doubt if you — one of you — had lost his mind utterly. That’s my fact, and it justifies a question. Mr. Assa left my office yesterday at ten minutes past seven. Who was on these premises later than that? Were you, Mr. Hansen?”

“No. I told you. I was here from four o’clock on, but left before six-thirty.”

“Were you, Mr. Heery?”

“No. I told you when I was here.”

“Mr. O’Garro?”

“Don’t answer, Pat,” Hansen commanded him.

“Pah.” Wolfe was disgusted. “Something so easy to explore? If you prefer the plague—”

“I prefer,” O’Garro said, “to have this out with you here and now.” His bluster was gone. He was being very careful and keeping his eyes straight at Wolfe. “I was here all yesterday afternoon. I saw Assa and spoke with him several times, but always with others present. Buff and I left together around half-past seven and met Assa at a restaurant. We ate something and went from there to your place — Buff and I did. Assa stopped off for an errand and came on alone.”

“What was his errand?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“At the restaurant, what did he say about his visit to me?”

“Nothing. He didn’t mention it. The first I heard of it was here from you.”

“When did you make the appointment to meet him at the restaurant?”

“I didn’t make it.”

“Who did?”

O’Garro’s jaw worked. His eyes hadn’t left Wolfe. “I’ll reserve that,” he said.

“You preferred,” Wolfe reminded him, “to have it out here and now.”

“That will do,” Hansen said, with authority. “As your counsel, Pat, I instruct you, and you too, Oliver, to answer no more questions. I said this man is treacherous and I repeat it. He was in your employ in a confidential capacity, and he is trying to put you in jeopardy on a capital charge. Don’t answer him. — If you have anything else to say, Wolfe, we’re listening.”

Wolfe ignored him and looked at Buff. “Fortunately, Mr. Buff, Mr. O’Garro has spared me the effort of persuading you to disobey your attorney, since he has told me that you left here with him around seven-thirty.” His eyes moved. “I deny that I am treacherous. My client is a business entity called Lippert, Buff and Assa. Until the moment of Mr. Assa’s death I devoted myself exclusively to my client’s interests by working on the job that had been given me. Indeed, I am still doing so, but the circumstances have altered. The question is, what will best serve the interests of that business entity under these new circumstances? Its corollary is, how can I finish my job and learn who took the wallet without exposing the murderer? I can’t.”

He flattened his palms on the desk. “Mr. Dahlmann, who was apparently equipped to furnish the vitality and vigor formerly supplied by Mr. Lippert, has been killed — by one of you. Mr. Assa, who rashly incurred great personal risk for the sake of the firm, has also been killed — by one of you. Who, then, is the traitor? Who has reduced the firm to a strait from which it may never recover? If it is reasonable for you to expect me to regard my client’s interests as paramount, as it is, it is equally reasonable for me to expect you to do the same; and you are simpletons if you don’t see that those interests demand the exposure of the murderer as quickly and surely as possible.”

His eyes fixed on the lawyer. “Mr. Hansen. You are counsel for the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa?”

“I am.”

“Are you Mr. Buff’s personal attorney?”

“Of record? No.”

“Or Mr. O’Garro’s?”

“No.”

“Then I charge you with treachery to your client. I assert that you betray your client’s vital interests when you instruct these men to withhold answers to my questions. — No no, don’t bother to reply. Draft a twenty-page brief tomorrow at your leisure.” He left him for the members of the firm. “I have noted that you have not raised the question of motive. I myself have not broached it because I know little or nothing about it — that is, the motive for killing Dahlmann. Mr. Cramer of course has a stack of them, good, bad, and indifferent. I have nothing at all for Mr. Hansen and next to nothing for Mr. Heery, and anyway the timetable shelves them tentatively. For Mr. O’Garro, nothing. For Mr. Buff, nothing conclusive, but material for speculation. I have gathered that he more or less inherited his eminence in the firm on the death of Mr. Lippert, who had trained him; that since Mr. Lippert’s death he has gloried in his status of senior partner and clung to it tenaciously; that his abilities are negligible except for one narrow field; and that there was a widespread expectation that before long Mr. Dahlmann would become the master instead of the servant. I don’t know how severely that prospect galled Mr. Buff, but you must know.” He focused on the senior partner. “Especially you, Mr. Buff. Would you care to tell me?”

Buff darted a glance at Hansen, but the lawyer had no instructions, and he went to Wolfe. His round red face was puffy and flabby, and a strand of his white hair, dangling over his brow, had been annoying me and I had been tempted to tell him to brush it back. Around the corner at the end of the table, at my right, he was close enough for me to do it myself.

He wasn’t indignant. He was a big man and an important man, and this was a very serious matter. “Your attempt to give me a motive,” he told Wolfe, “is not very successful. We all resented Dahlmann a little. He got on our nerves. I think some of us hated him — for instance, O’Garro here. O’Garro always did hate him. But in trying to give me a motive you’re overlooking something. If I killed him to keep him from crowding me out at LBA, I must have been crazy, because why did I take the wallet? Taking the wallet was what got LBA into these grave difficulties. Was I crazy?”

“By no means.” Wolfe met his eyes. “You may have gone there merely to get the wallet, and took the gun along because you were determined to get it, and the opportunity to get rid of him became irresistible after you were with him. Leaving, you would certainly take the wallet. That was what you had gone for; and in any case, you didn’t want it found on his body with that paper in it. You were not in a state of mind to consider calmly the consequences of your taking it. By the way, what have you done with the paper? It must have been in the wallet, since you sent the answers to the contestants.”

“That’s going too far, Wolfe.” Buff’s voice raised a little. “You only suggested a motive, but now you’re accusing me. With witnesses here, don’t forget that. But what you said about the vital interests of this firm, that they are paramount, that made sense and I agree with you. At a time like this personal considerations are of no account. So I must tell you of a little mistake O’Garro made — I don’t say he did it deliberately, it may have slipped his mind that he did make the appointment for us to meet Assa at the restaurant. He was in his office, and he came to my office and said that Assa had phoned and he had arranged for us to meet him at Grainger’s at a quarter to eight.”

I thought O’Garro was going to plug him, and O’Garro thought so too. He was across from me, at Buff’s right, and he was out of his chair, his eyes blazing, with two fists ready, but he didn’t swing. He put his fists on the table and leaned on them, toward Buff, until his face was only a foot away from the senior partner’s.

“You’re too old to hit,” he said, grinding it out between his teeth. “Too old and too goddam dirty. You said I hated Dahlmann. Maybe I didn’t love him, but I didn’t hate him. You did. Seeing him coming up on his way to take over and boot you out — no wonder you hated him — and by God, I felt sorry for you!”

O’Garro straightened up and looked at us. “I felt sorry for him, gentlemen. That’s how clever I was. I felt sorry for him.” He looked at Wolfe. “You asked me who made the appointment with Assa and I said I’d reserve it. Buff made it, and came to my room and told me. Any more questions?”

“One or two for Mr. Buff.” Wolfe regarded him with half-closed eyes. “Mr. Buff. When were you alone with Mr. Assa yesterday afternoon, and where and for how long?”

“I refuse to answer.” Buff was having trouble with his voice. “I decline to answer on advice of counsel.”

“Who is your counsel?”

“Rudolph Hansen.”

“He says he isn’t.” Wolfe’s eyes moved. “Mr. Hansen? Are you now counsel for Mr. Buff?”

“No.” It sounded final. “As it stands now I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, because of a possible conflict of interest. His attorney is named Arnold Duffen, with an office a few blocks from here.”

Buff looked at him. The round red face was puffier. “Arnold may not be immediately available, Rudolph. I want to consult you privately. Now.”

“No. Impossible.”

“Then I must try to get him.” Buff was leaving his chair. “Not here. From my room.”

I stopped him by taking his arm. He was going to pull away, but I don’t take a murderer’s arm the way I do a nymph’s, and he ended back in his chair. I released him, but got up and stood beside him.

“I wish,” Wolfe said, “to extend you gentlemen all possible courtesy, but I must transfer the responsibility for that bottle of poison as soon as may be. Need I wait longer?”

For three seconds no one spoke, and then O’Garro said, “Use the phone on your left.”