Gambit

6

At a quarter past nine Tuesday morning, seated with Sally at the side table in the kitchen, I passed her the guava butter for her third griddlecake. I had told her the household morning routine when I had taken her and the suitcase up to the south room an hour after midnight — Wolfe, breakfast in his room at 8:15 from a tray taken up by Fritz, and to the plant rooms at nine o’clock for two hours with the orchids; and me, breakfast in the kitchen whenever I got down for it, no set time, and then, unless there was an outside errand, to the office for dusting, putting fresh water in the vase on Wolfe’s desk, opening the mail, finishing with the morning Times if I hadn’t done so at breakfast, and performing whatever chores were called for.

Wolfe had done pretty well, for him. He had been at his desk with African Genesis when I had entered with Sally at eleven-thirty, and at least he hadn’t got up and marched out when I announced that we had a house guest. After a growl and a couple of deep breaths he had put his book down, and when I asked if he wanted just a summary or the whole crop, verbatim, he said verbatim. It’s more satisfactory to report a lot of conversation in the presence of someone who was in on it, just as a kid named Archie, years ago out in Ohio, got a bigger kick climbing to the top of the tree if a girl was there watching. Or fifteen or twenty girls. When I was through and he had asked a few questions, he told the client about the caller we had had earlier in the evening, Ernst Hausman, her godfather — not verbatim, but the gist of it. The end of that was for me too, since the phone call from Sally had come just as Wolfe was conjecturing that Hausman had put the arsenic in the chocolate himself. He had not broken down and confessed. After a few rude remarks he had got up and gone.

Wolfe had had no instructions and no comments before going up to bed.

The Times had a two-inch paragraph on page twenty-seven, saying that Archie Goodwin had told a Times reporter that Nero Wolfe had been retained in connection with the Jerin murder case, but that Daniel Kalmus, Matthew Blount’s attorney, had stated that he had not engaged Wolfe’s services and he doubted if anyone had.

At breakfast Sally and I had decided a) that it was desirable for her mother to know where she was, b) that she would phone to tell her, c) that she would go out and around at will but would be in her room at eleven o’clock, in case Wolfe wanted her when he came down from the plant rooms, d) that she would help herself to any of the books on the shelves in the office except African Genesis, e) that she would not go along when I walked to the bank to deposit the twenty-two grand, and f) that she would join us in the dining room for lunch at 1:15.

I was at my desk at eleven o’clock when the sound came of the elevator, which Wolfe always uses and I never do. He entered, with the day’s desk orchids as usual, said good morning, went and put the branch of Laelia gouldiana in the vase, sat, glanced through the morning mail, focused on me and demanded, “Where is she?”

I swiveled. “In her room. Breakfast with me in the kitchen. Good table manners. She phoned her mother to tell her where she is, went to Eighth Avenue to buy facial tissues because she doesn’t like the brand we have, returned, and took three books from the shelves with my permission. I have been to the bank.”

He left his chair and went across to the shelves for a look. I doubt if he could really tell, from the vacant spaces among the twelve hundred or so books, which ones she had taken, but I wouldn’t have bet on it either way. He went back to his desk, sat, narrowed his eyes at me, and spoke. “Not another coup for you. Not this time.”

“Maybe not,” I conceded. “But when Mrs. Blount said you could keep whatever her daughter had paid you it looked ticklish, so I spilled it. Or do you mean my telling Kalmus?”

“Neither one. I mean your bringing her here. You did it, of course, to press me. Pfui. Knowing I would sooner have a tiger in my house than a woman, you thought I would—”

“No, sir. Not guilty.” I was emphatic. “I start pressing, or trying to, only when you’re soldiering, and you’ve had this only twenty-four hours. I brought her because if she went to a hotel there was no telling what might happen. She might cave in. She might even lam. I told Mrs. Blount you only keep money you earn. It would be embarrassing not to have the client available to return the fee to when you decide you can’t earn it. I admit you have stirred up some dust by having me toss it to Lon Cohen, you even got an offer of fifty grand from maybe the murderer, but what next? Hope for a better offer from one of the others?”

He made a face. “I’ll speak with Miss Blount after lunch. I must first see them — Mr. Yerkes, Mr. Farrow, Dr. Avery, and, if possible, Mr. Kalmus. It may not be—”

“Avery wasn’t a messenger.”

“But he was at the hospital with Jerin until he died. He told Mr. Blount that even at the Gambit Club he had considered the possibility of poison and looked around; he had gone down to the kitchen. If there is any hope of getting—”

The doorbell rang. I rose and went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass panel in the front door, stepped back into the office, and said, “More dust. Cramer.”

He grunted. “Why? He has his murderer.”

“Yeah. Maybe for Miss Blount. To take her as an accessory.”

“Pah. Bring him.”

Going to the front, I took a couple of seconds to observe him through the one-way glass before opening the door. With Inspector Cramer of Homicide West there are signs I am familiar with — the set of his broad burly shoulders, the redness of his big round face, the angle of his old felt hat. When it’s obvious, as it often is, that he intends to dingdong, I open the door a crack and say something with a point to it, such as, “A man’s house is his castle.” But that time he looked fairly human, so I swung the door wide and greeted him without prejudice, and, entering, he let me take his coat and hat, and even made a remark about the weather before proceeding to the office. You might have thought we had signed up for peaceful coexistence. In the office, of course he didn’t offer Wolfe a hand, since he knows how he feels about shaking, but, as he lowered his big fanny onto the red leather chair, he said, “I suppose I should have phoned, but you’re always here. I wish to God I could always be somewhere. What I want to ask, the Jerin case. Matthew Blount. According to the papers, you’ve been hired to work on it. According to Goodwin.”

“Yes,” Wolfe said.

“But according to Blount’s attorney you haven’t been hired. Who’s right?”

“Possibly both of us.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Mr. Cramer. There are alternatives. Mr. Kalmus has hired me but prefers not to avow it, or Mr. Blount has hired me independently of his attorney, or someone else has hired me. In any case, I have been hired.”

“By whom?”

“By someone with a legitimate interest.”

“Who?”

“No.”

“You’re working on it?”

“Yes.”

“You refuse to tell me who hired you?”

“Yes. That has no bearing on your performance of your duty or the demands of justice.”

Cramer got a cigar from a pocket, rolled it between his palms, and stuck it in his mouth. Since he never lights one, the palm-rolling is irrelevant and immaterial. He looked at me, went back to Wolfe, and said, “I think I know you as well as anybody else, except maybe Goodwin. I don’t believe Kalmus would hire you and then say he hadn’t. What possible reason could he have to deny it? I don’t believe Blount would hire you without his lawyer’s approval. What the hell, if it was like that he’d get another lawyer. As for someone else, who? The wife or daughter or nephew wouldn’t unless Blount and Kalmus approved, and neither would anyone else. I don’t believe it. Nobody has hired you.”

A corner of Wolfe’s mouth was up. “Then why bother to pay me a call?”

“Because I know you. Because you may be on to something. You had Goodwin pass that to his friend Lon Cohen, that you had been hired, to start something that would result in your being hired and getting a fee. I don’t know what you expected to start, I don’t know why you played it like that instead of going to Kalmus with it, whatever you’ve got, but the point is that you’ve got something or you wouldn’t have played it at all. You’ve got something that you think will get you a fat fee, and the only way to get a fat fee would be to spring Blount. So what have you got?”

Wolfe’s brows were up. “You actually believe that, don’t you?”

“You’re damn right I do. I think you know something that you think will get Blount out, or at least that there’s a good chance. Understand me, I don’t object to your copping a fee. But if there’s any reason to think Blount didn’t murder Paul Jerin I want to know it. We got the evidence that put him in, and if there’s anything wrong with it I have a right to know it. Do you have any kind of an idea that I would like to see an innocent man take a murder rap?”

“That you would like to, no.”

“Well, I wouldn’t.” Cramer pointed the cigar at Wolfe and waggled it. “I’ll be frank. Do you know that Blount went down to the kitchen for the chocolate and took it up to Jerin?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that when Jerin drank most of it and got sick Blount went and got the pot and cup and took them down to the kitchen and rinsed them out, and got fresh chocolate and took it up?”

“Yes.”

“Then is he the biggest goddam fool on earth?”

“I haven’t met him. Is he?”

“No. He’s a very intelligent man. He’s anything but a fool. And he’s level-headed. Some men fixed like him, men of wealth and standing, have the idea that they can do anything they please, and get away with it, because they’re above suspicion, but not him. He’s not like that, not at all. So I took it easy — or rather, I didn’t. It was hard to believe that such a man had put poison in the chocolate and took it to Jerin and then went and got the cup and pot and rinsed them out. I don’t have to spell that out.”

“No.”

“So we covered it good, every angle. We eliminated the possibility that the arsenic had been in something else, not in the chocolate, and I mean eliminated. We established that no one besides Blount and those four men, the messengers, had entered that room, the library, after the chess games started, and the games had been going for about seven minutes when Blount went to see about the chocolate — and I mean established. So that left it absolutely that the arsenic had been put in the chocolate by one of seven men: the four messengers, the cook, the steward, and Blount. Okay. Which one of them, or which ones, had some kind of connection with Jerin? I put eleven of my men on that angle, and the District Attorney put eight from the Homicide Bureau. For that kind of job there are no better men anywhere. You know that.”

“They’re competent,” Wolfe conceded.

“They’re better than competent. We got Blount’s connection right away, from Blount himself. Of course you know about that. The daughter.”

“Yes.”

“But we kept the nineteen men on the other six. In four days and nights they didn’t get a smell. Even after the District Attorney decided it had to be Blount and charged him, I kept nine of my men on the others. A full week. Okay. You know how it is with negatives, you can’t nail it down, but I’ll bet a year’s pay to one of the flowers in that vase that none of those six men had ever met Paul Jerin or had any connection with him or his.”

“I won’t risk the flower,” Wolfe said.

“You won’t?”

“No.”

“Then do you think one of them happened to have arsenic with him and put it in the chocolate just because he didn’t like the way Jerin played chess?”

“No.”

“Then what kind of game are you playing? What can you possibly have that makes you think you can spring Blount?”

“I haven’t said I have anything.”

“Nuts. Damn it, I know you!”

Wolfe cleared his throat. “Mr. Cramer. I admit that I know something you don’t know about one aspect of this matter: I know who hired me and why. You have concluded that no one has hired me, that, having somehow learned of a circumstance not known to you, I am arranging to use it for my private gain. You’re wrong; you are incomparably better acquainted than I am with all the circumstances — all of them — surrounding the death of Paul Jerin. But you don’t believe me.”

“I do not.”

“Then there’s nothing more to say. I’m sorry I have nothing for you because you have put me in your debt. You have just furnished me with a fact which suggests an entirely different approach to the problem. It will save me—”

“What fact?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir. You wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t accept my interpretation of it. But I’m obliged to you, and I don’t forget an obligation. If and when I learn something significant I’ll stretch a point to share it with you as soon as may be. At present I have nothing to share.”

“Like hell you haven’t.” Cramer got to his feet. He threw the cigar at my wastebasket, twelve feet away, and missed as usual. “One little point, Wolfe. Anyone has a right to hire you to investigate something, even a homicide. But if you haven’t been hired, and I know damn well you haven’t, if you’re horning in on your own, that’s different. And if you are in possession of information the law is entitled to — I don’t have to tell you.” He turned and marched out.

I got up and went to the hall, decided he wouldn’t properly appreciate help with his coat, and stood and watched until he was out and the door was closed. Turning back to the office, I started, “So he gave you...,” and stopped. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes shut and his lips pushed out. He drew his lips in, then out again, in and out, in and out. I stood and regarded him. That is supposed to be a sign that he’s hard at work, but I hadn’t the dimmest idea what he was working on. If it was the fact Cramer had just furnished, which one? Running over them in my mind, I stood and waited. The lip exercise is not to be interrupted. I had decided it was going to take a while and was starting for my desk when he opened his eyes, straightened up, and issued a command: “Bring Miss Blount.”

I obeyed. As I said, I don’t use the elevator; I took the stairs, two flights. Finding the door of the south room closed, I knocked. I heard no footsteps, but in a moment the door opened. There had been no footsteps because she had no shoes on. “Mr. Wolfe wants you,” I said. “With or without shoes, as you prefer.”

“Has anything happened?”

Not knowing if he wanted her to know we had had a caller, I said, “He just did lip exercises, but of course you don’t know how important that is. Don’t bother with your lips and hair, he wouldn’t know the difference.”

Of course that was ignored. She went to the dresser to use comb and lipstick, then to the chair near a window to put on her shoes, and then came. You get a new angle on a figure when it precedes you down stairs; she had nice shoulders, and her neck curved into them with a good line. As we entered the office Wolfe was frowning at a corner of his desk, rubbing his nose with a finger tip, and we got no attention from him. Sally went to the red leather chair and, after sitting in silence for a full minute, said, “Good morning.”

He moved the frown to her, blinked, and demanded, “Why did you take a volume of Voltaire?”

Her eyes widened. “Archie said I could take any book except the one you’re reading.”

“But why Voltaire?”

“No special reason. Just that I’ve never read him...”

“Unh,” Wolfe said. “We’ll discuss it at lunch. There has been a development. Did Archie tell—” He stopped short. He had thoughtlessly allowed himself to speak familiarly to a woman. He corrected it. “Did Mr. Goodwin tell you that a policeman has been here? Inspector Cramer?”

“No.”

“He has. Uninvited and unexpected. He just left. Mr. Goodwin can tell you later why he came and what was said. What I must tell you, he gave me some information that changes the situation substantially. The police have established, for Mr. Cramer beyond question, three facts. One, that the arsenic was in the chocolate. Two, that no one had an opportunity to put it in the chocolate besides the cook, the steward, the four messengers, and your father. Three, that only your father could have had a motive. None of the other six — I quote Mr. Cramer — ‘had ever met Paul Jerin or had any connection with him or his.’ Though all—”

“I told you that. Didn’t I?”

“Yes, but based only on your knowledge, which was deficient. Mr. Cramer’s conclusions are based on a thorough and prolonged inquiry by an army of trained men. Though all three of those facts are important, the significant one is the third, that none of those six could have had a motive to kill Jerin. But Jerin was killed — with premeditation, since the arsenic was in hand. Do you play chess?”

“Not really. I know the moves. Do you mean you—”

“If you please. Do you know what a gambit is?”

“Why... vaguely...”

“It’s an opening in which a player gives up a pawn or a piece to gain an advantage. The murder of Paul Jerin was a gambit. Jerin was the pawn or piece. The advantage the murderer gained was that your father was placed in mortal peril — a charge of murder and probable conviction. He had no animus for Jerin. Jerin wasn’t the target, he was merely a pawn. The target was your father. You see how that alters the situation, how it affects the job you hired me for.”

“I don’t... I’m not sure...”

“You deserve candor, Miss Blount. Till half an hour ago the difficulties seemed all but insurmountable. To take the job and your money I had to assume your father’s innocence, but to demonstrate it I had to find evidence that one of those six men had had sufficient motive to kill Jerin and had acted on it. And the three most telling points against your father — that he had taken the chocolate to Jerin, that he had taken the pot and cup and rinsed them, and that he knew Jerin and could possibly have had a motive — those were merely accidental and had to be ignored. In candor, it seemed hopeless, and, conceiving nothing better for a start, I merely made a gesture; I had Mr. Goodwin arrange for a public notice that I had been hired.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to.”

“I seldom tell a client what I’m going to do. I tell you now because I need your help. That gesture brought Mr. Cramer and he brought the fact that it would be fatuous to proceed on the assumption that one of the others had premeditated the murder of Paul Jerin. But, holding to my assumption that your father hadn’t, one of the others must have. Why? Jerin was nothing to him, but he went there, with the poison, prepared to kill him, and he did; and what happened? A chain of circumstances pointed so clearly to your father as the culprit that he is in custody without bail, in grave jeopardy. By the operation of cause, calculated cause, and effect. The three most telling points against your father were not accidental; they were essential factors in the calculation. Is that clear?”

“I think... yes.” She looked at me, and back at Wolfe. “You mean someone killed Paul because he knew they would think my father did it.”

“I do. And if it was Mr. Kalmus he also knew he would be in a position, as your father’s counsel, to protect his gain from his gambit.”

“Yes.” Her hands were clenched. “Of course.”

“So I propose to proceed on that theory, that Jerin was merely a pawn in a gambit and the true target was your father. If I continue to assume your father’s innocence, no other theory is tenable. That gives me a totally new situation, for I now have indications, if the theory is to hold — some facts and some surmises. We’ll test them. To avoid verbal complexities I’ll call the murderer Kalmus, though I may be slandering him.”

He stuck a finger up. “The first fact. Kalmus knew that Jerin would drink or eat something during the game into which arsenic could be put. Preferably, he knew that Jerin would drink chocolate. Did he?”

Sally was frowning. “I don’t know. He may have. He may have heard me mention it, or father may have told him. Paul always drank chocolate when he played chess with father.”

“That will serve.” Another finger. “The second fact. Kalmus knew what the arrangements were. He knew that Jerin would be alone in the library, and that he would be a messenger and so would have an opportunity to use the arsenic. Did he?”

“I don’t know, but he must have. Father must have told all of them, the messengers.”

Another finger. “The third fact. Kalmus knew that investigation would disclose an acceptable motive for your father. He knew of your association with Jerin and of your father’s attitude toward it. Did he?”

“He knew I knew Paul, of course. But my father’s attitude — if you mean he might have wanted to kill him, that’s just silly. He thought he was — well, what you called him yourself, a freak.”

“He disapproved of your associating with him?”

“He disapproved of my associating with various people. But he certainly didn’t have any—”

“If you please.” Wolfe snapped it. “This isn’t a court, and I’m not a prosecutor trying to convict your father. I’m merely asking if Kalmus knew that inquiry would reveal circumstances that could be regarded as a possible motive for your father. I take it that he did. Yes?”

“Well... yes.”

“That will do. So much for the facts. I call them facts because if one or more of them can be successfully challenged my theory is untenable. Now the surmises, two of them. They can’t be tested, merely stated. They are desirable but not essential. First, Kalmus knew that your father would himself take the chocolate to Jerin. Ideally, he suggested it, but I’ll take less than the ideal. Second, when Mr. Yerkes brought word that Jerin was indisposed, Kalmus suggested to your father that it might be well to dispose of the pot and cup. Since Kalmus was a messenger, he had had opportunity to observe that Jerin had drunk most of the chocolate. And he ran no risk of arousing suspicion of his good faith. Since Jerin had been taken ill suddenly, it was a natural precaution to suggest. You said yesterday that your father told you and your mother exactly what had happened. Did he say that anyone had suggested that he see to the pot and cup?”

“No.” Sally’s fists were so tight I could see the white on her knuckles. “I don’t believe it, Mr. Wolfe. I can’t believe it. Of course Archie was right, I thought Dan Kalmus might want... I thought he wouldn’t do everything he could, everything he ought to do... but now you’re saying he killed Paul, he planned it, so my father would be arrested and convicted. I can’t believe it!”

“You need not. As I said, I specified Kalmus only to avoid verbal complexities. It could have been one of the others — Hausman, Yerkes, Farrow — or even the cook or steward, though they are less probable. He must fit my three facts, and he should be eligible for my two surmises. Above all, he must meet the most obvious requirement, that he had a compelling reason to wish to ruin your father, to take his liberty if not his life. Do any of the others qualify? Hausman, Yerkes, Farrow, the cook, or steward?”

She shook her head. Her mouth opened and shut, but no words came.

“One of them might, of course, without your knowledge. But that was another reason for specifying Kalmus; you had yourself supplied a possible inducement for him. And now, with this theory, I must of course see him in any case. If he is guiltless and is proceeding on the assumption that the death of Jerin was the sole and final objective of the murderer, unless I intervene your father is doomed. It may be that the fact known only to Kalmus and your father, mentioned in the note to your mother which Mr. Goodwin read, is relevant, but speculation on that would be futile. I must see Mr. Kalmus, peccant or not, and for that I need your help.” He swiveled. “Your notebook, Archie.”

I got it, and my pen. “Shoot.”

“Just a draft for Miss Blount. Any paper, no carbon. She will supply the salutation. I suppose my mother has told you that I am at Nero Wolfe’s house, comma, and I am going to stay here until I am sure I have done all I can for my father. Period. Mr. Wolfe has a theory you should know about, comma, and you must come and talk with him tomorrow, comma, Wednesday. Period. He will be here all day and evening, comma, but is not available from nine to eleven in the morning and from four to six in the afternoon. Period. If you haven’t come by noon Thursday I shall see a newspaper reporter and tell him why I came here and why I don’t trust you to represent my father effectively.”

He turned to her. “From you to Mr. Kalmus, handwritten. On my letterhead or plain paper, as you prefer. Mr. Goodwin will take it to his office after lunch.”

“I won’t,” she said positively. “I couldn’t tell a reporter that. I couldn’t. I won’t.”

“Certainly you won’t. You won’t have to. He’ll come.”

“But if he doesn’t?”

“He will. If he doesn’t we’ll try something else. Notify him that you have engaged an attorney to take legal steps to have him superseded as your father’s counsel. I’m not a lawyer, but I know a good one, and the law has room for many stratagems.” He flattened his palm on the desk. “Miss Blount. I shall see Mr. Kalmus, or quit. As you please.”

“Not quit.” She looked at me. “How does it... will you read it, Archie?”

I did so, including commas and periods.

She shook her head. “It’s not like me. He’ll know I didn’t write it.” She looked at Wolfe. “He’ll know you did.”

“Certainly he will. That is intended.”

“Well.” She took a breath. “But I won’t tell any reporter, no matter what happens.”

“That is not intended.” Wolfe twisted his head to look up at the wall clock. “Before you write it, please make a phone call or two. Mr. Yerkes, Mr. Farrow, Dr. Avery. It’s just as well I didn’t see them before Mr. Cramer brought me that fact; it would have been wasted time and effort. Can you get them to come? At six o’clock or, preferably, after dinner, say at nine-thirty. Either separately or together.”

“I can try. What phone do I use? There isn’t one in my room.”

Wolfe’s lips tightened. A woman saying casually “my room,” meaning a room in his house, was hard to take. I told her she could use my phone and went to get another chair to sit on while I typed the letter to Kalmus for her to copy.