Fer-de-Lance

CHAPTER 19

It certainly didn’t look like much. It was a sick-looking pale blue, and was so small you could get it in an ordinary envelope without folding it. It looked even smaller than it was because the writing in the blank spaces was tall and scrawly; but it was writing with character in it. That, I guessed, was Sarah Barstow. The signature below, Ellen Barstow, was quite different--fine and precise. It was Saturday morning, and the check had come in the first mail; I was giving it a last fond look as I handed it in at the teller’s window. I had phoned Wolfe upstairs that a Barstow envelope was there and he had told me to go ahead and open it and deposit the check.

At eleven o’clock Wolfe entered the office and went to his desk and rang for Fritz and beer. I had the Barstow case expense list all typed out for his inspection, and as soon as he had finished glancing through the scanty mail I handed it to him. He took a pencil and went over it slowly, checking each item. I waited. When I saw him hit the third item from the bottom and stop at it, I swallowed.

Wolfe raised his head. "Archie. We must get a new typewriter."

I just cleared my throat. He went on, "This one is too impulsive. Perhaps you didn’t notice: it has inserted an extra cipher before the decimal point in the amount opposite Anna Fiore’s name. I observe that you carelessly included the error in summing up."

I managed a grin. "Oh! Now I get you. I forgot to mention it before. Anna’s nest-egg has hatched babies, it’s a thousand dollars now. I’m taking it down to her this afternoon."

Wolfe sighed. The beer came, and he opened a bottle and gulped a glass. He put the expense list under the paperweight with the mail and leaned back in his chair. "Tomorrow I shall cut down to five quarts."

My grin felt better. I said, "You don’t have to change the subject. I wouldn’t make the mistake of calling you generous even if you said to double it; you’d still be getting a bargain. Do you know what Anna will do with it? Buy herself a husband. Look at all the good you’re doing."

"Confound it. Don’t give her anything. Tell her the money cannot be found."

"No, sir. I’ll give her the money and let her dig her own grave. I’m not violent, the way you are, and I don’t put myself up as a substitute for fate."

Wolfe opened his eyes. He had been drowsy for three days, and I thought it was about time something woke him up. He murmured, "Do you think you’re saying something, Archie?"

"Yes, sir. I’m asking where you got the breezy notion of killing E.D. Kimball."

"Where his son got the notion, you mean?"

‘No, you. Don’t quibble. You killed him."

Wolfe shook his head. "Wrong, Archie. I quibble? E.D. Kimball was killed by the infant son whom he deserted sitting on the floor among his toys in a pool of his mother’s blood.--If you please. Properly speaking, E.D. Kimball was not killed last Wednesday morning, but on Sunday June fourth. Through one of the unfortunate accidents by which blind chance interferes with the natural processes of life and death, Barstow died instead. It is true that I helped to remedy that error. I had Durkin deliver to Manuel Kimball copies of our evidence against him, and I telephoned Manuel Kimball that he was surrounded, on the earth and above the earth. I left it to nature to proceed, having ascertained that E.D. Kimball was at home and would not leave that morning."

I said, "You told me once that I couldn’t conceal truth by building a glass house around it. What are you trying it for? You killed him."

Wolfe’s cheeks folded. He poured another glass of beer and leaned back again and watched the foam. When nothing was left of it but a thin white rim he looked at me and sighed.

"The trouble is," he murmured, "that as usual you are so engrossed in the fact that you are oblivious to its environment. You stick to it, Archie, like a leech on an udder. Consider the situation that faced me. Manuel had tried to kill his father. By an accident beyond his control the innocent Barstow had been killed instead. Evidence that would convict Manuel of murder was in my possession. How should I use it? Had I been able to afford the luxury of a philosophic attitude, I should of course not have used it at all, but that attitude was beyond my means, it was an affair of business. Put myself up as a substitute for fate? Certainly; we do it constantly; we could avoid it only by complete inaction. I was forced to act. If I had permitted you to get Manuel Kimball, without warning, and deliver him alive to the vengeance of the people of the State of New York, he would have gone to the chair of judicial murder a bitter and defeated man, his heart empty of one deep satisfaction life had offered to it; and his father equally bitter and no less defeated, would have tottered through some few last years with nothing left to trade. If I had brought that about I would have been responsible for it, to myself, and the prospect was not pleasing. Still I had to act. I did so, and incurred a responsibility which is vastly less displeasing. You woull encompass the entire complex phenomenon by stating bluntly that I killed E.D. Kimball. Well, Archie. I will take the responsibility for my own actions; I will not also assume the burden of your simplicity. Somehow you must bear it."

I grinned. "Maybe. I don’t mean maybe I can bear it, I mean maybe all you’ve just said. Also, maybe I’m simple. I’m so simple that a simple thought occurred to me as I was walking back from the bank this morning."

"Indeed." Wolfe gulped his glass of beer.

"Yes, sir. It occurred to me that if Manuel Kimball had been arrested and brought to trial you would have had to put on your hat and gloves, leave the house, walk to an automobile, ride clear to White Plains, and sit around a courtroom waiting for your turn to testify. Whereas now, natural processes being what they are, and you having such a good feeling for phenomena. you can just sit and hold your responsibilities on your lap."

"Indeed," Wolfe murmured.