Death of a Dude

Chapter 13

At five minutes past nine Tuesday morning I concluded that it couldn’t be either Wade or Diana. The conclusion was on good and sufficient grounds. As you know, having murder suspects for fellow guests had been hard for Wolfe to take, and if one of them was no longer merely a possible candidate, if the denouement he had arranged for was to put the tag on one of them, he certainly wouldn’t show up for a sociable breakfast, even if it meant going without. But when I entered the kitchen, with the car key in my pocket, there he was, seated across from Wade, drinking orange juice, talking man to man. Mimi was at the range turning French toast, Lily was arranging bacon on a platter, and Diana was pouring coffee. As I exchanged good mornings and joined Wolfe and Wade at the table I was not in a mood to be the life of the party. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t be eating breakfast with a murderer, but in that case why did I have that car key in my pocket?

The answer came with the second batch of French toast. The conversation had been mostly about jails, which apparently had a fascination for Diana. Wolfe was telling about one in Austria he had once escaped from, and he turned to Lily and said, “Speaking of escape, Miss Rowan, it would be ungracious to regard my departure from here as an escape, but I didn’t come for pleasure, and I won’t pretend that I shall be sorry to get back to my proper milieu. Mr. Goodwin and I will be leaving soon, probably tomorrow morning. Your hospitality and your tolerance of my temperament have been the mitigation.”

Lily was gawking at him, and she is not a gawker. She looked at me, saw nothing helpful, and looked at him. “You say...” She returned to me. “You’re going too, Archie?”

I don’t know what I would have said, with the other two guests there, if Wolfe hadn’t fielded it. “It’s barely possible,” he said, “that the event will not meet my expectation, but I don’t think so. I spoke on the telephone yesterday, several times, with a man in St. Louis — a man named Saul Panzer, whom I sent there — and there seems to be no doubt. Mr. Panzer had photographs of people who are now in Montana, and one of them has been identified by several people in St. Louis. Six years ago, in the summer of nineteen sixty-two, a young woman met a violent death. She was strangled, throttled with a man’s belt. The belt and other evidence pointed to a man named Carl Yaeger as the probable culprit, but he wasn’t apprehended because he couldn’t be found. He had decamped. He has never been found — until now. One of the photographs Mr. Panzer had was of Carl Yaeger, and a St. Louis policeman is now on his way to Montana. Indeed — what time is it, Archie?”

“Nine-thirty-seven.”

“Then he arrived at Helena half an hour ago and is now en route to Timberburg.” He focused on Lily. “So it is reasonable to suppose that my expectation will be realized. I don’t give you the man’s name — the name you know him by — because of my semi-official status. My commitment to Mr. Jessup. But I can tell you that certain evidence indicates that Carl Yaeger is remarkably versatile in method. He strangled a woman, shot a man, and crushed another man’s skull with a rock. Not many murderers have so patly fitted the crime to the occasion. So Mr. Greve will soon be released, probably in time for Mr. Goodwin and me to greet him before we leave.”

Lily was squinting at him. “Then you... you really—”

“We really have brought it off. Yes. I tell you now because I would like to exchange favors with you. I need some trout. I know there are more and larger trout in the river, but there are some in the creek, and the size I prefer. If you and Miss Kadany and Mimi will take the day for it you can reasonably expect to be back by five o’clock with enough for my purpose. Can’t you?”

Lily was still squinting. “That depends on your purpose.”

“That’s my favor. Yours, for me, is to get the trout. Mine, for you, is to serve a real Nero Wolfe trout deal at your table. It can’t be true truite Montbarry because some of the ingredients are not at hand, but I’ll manage. If you will?”

Lily sent me a look that asked, “Is this part of a screwy charade that you don’t like?” I answered out loud, “Of course if I went along we’d be sure of getting enough, but I may be needed to run an errand. Anyway, three of you — you only have to get five or six ten-inchers apiece.”

I had had to change my conclusion again, the second time in less than an hour, since it was now obvious: I had the car key in my pocket because Wade Worthy was it and he had been tipped off. But what came next? Was Wolfe sending the females off to spare them the sight of one guest being forcibly detained by another guest? If so, why hadn’t he waited until they were gone to raise the curtain? Those questions, and others like them, were in my mind as Wolfe finished his fifth or sixth piece of French toast, and Wade decided he had had enough toast and bacon but kept his hand steady as he lifted his coffee cup, and Lily and Diana and Mimi agreed that they had better leave by ten o’clock and take a can of salmon eggs just in case. I said Wade and I would clean up but was ignored, and as they started operations we left— Wade to the right, to his room, and Wolfe across to the outside door. I followed him out to the terrace and across it. Apparently he was going to the car to make sure the key wasn’t there, but he went on by, nearly to the beginning of the lane, stopped, and said, “We’re out of earshot.”

“Yeah. We’re also out of step. I wait until Miss Rowan is even further out of earshot and then show him my credentials and take him? Is that it?”

“No. If it were, I would have told you beforehand. There is nothing for you to do, or me either, until Mr. Haight comes for him, with the St. Louis policeman. That will probably be around one o’clock. The St. Louis man will get to Timberburg about noon, and according to Mr. Jessup he will go to the sheriffs office. That’s the normal procedure. And Mr. Haight will bring him here.”

I was staring at him. “And meanwhile, I do not take Carl Yaeger alias Wade Worthy?”

“Yes. You do not. I presume he will not be here when they arrive. How and where he will have gone, I don’t know. Finding that the key to Miss Rowan’s car is not available, he will probably cross the creek and go to the ranch, hoping to take one of the cars there, but Mrs. Greve and Mr. Fox will have made sure that he can’t. Therefore he will have to walk — or run — presumably to Lame Horse. Stop staring at me. If I don’t tell you the details of the arrangement you’ll probably go dashing off in pursuit, so I had better tell you.”

He told me.