Home to Roost

IV

It didn’t work out as scheduled. The program called for getting Mrs. Rackell to the office at eleven o’clock the next morning, Thursday, but when I phoned a little before nine the maid said it was too early to disturb her. At ten she hadn’t called back, and I tried again and got her. I explained that Wolfe had an important confidential question to put to her, and she said she would be at the office not later than eleven-thirty. Shortly before eleven she phoned again to say that she had called her husband at his office, and it had been decided if the question was important and confidential they should both be present to consider it. Her husband would be free for an hour or so after lunch but had a four-o’clock appointment he would have to keep. We finally settled for six o’clock, and I called Rackell at his office and confirmed it.

Henry Jameson Heath was on the front page of the Gazette again that morning, not in connection with homicide. Once more he had refused to disclose the names of contributors to the fund for bail for the indicted Communists and apparently he was going to stick to it no matter how much contempt he rolled up. The day’s installment on the Rackell murder was on page seven, and there wasn’t enough meat in it to feed a cricket. As for me, after an hour at the phone, locating Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather and passing them the word, I might as well have gone to the ball game. Wolfe had given me plenty of instructions, but I couldn’t act on them until and unless the clients agreed to string along.

Mrs. Rackell arrived first, at six on the dot. A minute later Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, and she started in on him. She had the idea that he was responsible for Fifi Goheen’s slanderous lie about her dead nephew, since it had been uttered in his office, and what did he propose to do about it? Why didn’t he have her arrested? Wolfe controlled himself fairly well, but his tone was beginning to get sharp when the doorbell rang and I beat it to the front to let Rackell in. He jogged past me to the office on his short legs, nodded at Wolfe, kissed his wife on the cheek, dropped onto a chair, wiped his long narrow face with a handkerchief, and asked wearily, “What is it? Did you get anywhere with them?”

“No.” Wolfe was short. “Not to any conclusion.”

“What’s this important question?”

“It’s blunt and simple. I need to know whether you want the truth enough to pay for it, and if so how much.”

Rackell looked at his wife. “What’s he talking about?”

“We haven’t discussed it,” Wolfe told him. “We’ve been considering a point your wife raised, which I regard as frivolous. This question of mine — perhaps I should call it a suggestion. I have one to offer.”

“What?”

“First I’ll give you the basis for it.” Wolfe leaned back and half closed his eyes. “You heard me tell those five people yesterday why it is assumed that one of them substituted the capsules. On that assumption, after further talk with them, I stack another: that it is highly improbable that the substitution could have been made, under the circumstances as established, entirely unobserved. It would have required a coincidence of remarkable dexterity and uncommon luck, and I will not accept such a coincidence except on weighty evidence. So, assuming that the substitution was made in the restaurant, I also assume, for a test at least, that one of the others saw it and knows who did it. In short, that there was an eyewitness to the murder.”

Rackell’s mournful face did not light up with interest. His lips were puckered, making the droop at the corners more pronounced. “That may be,” he conceded, “but what good does it do if he won’t talk?”

“I propose to make him talk. Or her.”

“How?”

Wolfe rubbed his chin with a thumb and forefinger. His eyes moved to Mrs. Rackell and back to the husband. “This sort of thing,” he said, “requires delicacy, discretion, and reticence. I’ll put it this way. I will not conspire to get a man punished for a crime he did not commit. It is true that all five of those people may be Communists and therefore enemies of this country, but that does not justify framing one of them for murder. My purpose is clear and innocent — to expose the real murderer and bring him to account; and I suggest a devious method only because no other seems likely to succeed. Evidently the police, after five days on it, are up a tree, and so is the FBI — if it is engaged, and you think it is. I want to earn my fee, and I wouldn’t mind the kudos.”

Rackell was frowning. “I still don’t know exactly what you’re suggesting.”

“I know it; I’ve been long-winded. I didn’t want you to misunderstand.” Wolfe came forward in his chair and put his palms on the desk. “The eyewitness is obviously reluctant. I suggest that you consent to provide twenty thousand dollars, to be paid only if my method succeeds. That will cover my fee for the unusual service I will render and also any extraordinary expense I may incur. Two things must be understood: you approve the expenditure in your interest, and the express purpose is to catch the guilty person.” He upturned his palms. “There it is.”

“My God. Twenty thousand.” Rackell shook his head. “That’s a lot of money. You mean you want a check for that amount now?”

“No. To be paid if and when earned. An oral commitment will do. Mr. Goodwin hears us and has a good memory.”

Rackell opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked at his wife. He looked back at Wolfe. “Look here,” he said earnestly, “maybe I’m thickheaded. It sounds to me as if what this amounts to is bribing a witness. With my money.”

“Don’t be a fool, Ben,” his wife said sharply.

“I think you misunderstand,” Wolfe told him. “To bribe is to influence corruptly by some consideration. Anyone who receives any of your money through me will get it only as an inducement to tell the truth. Influence, yes. Corrupt, surely not. As for the amount, I don’t wonder that you hesitate. It’s quite a sum, but I wouldn’t undertake it for less.”

Rackell looked at his wife again. “What did you mean, Pauline, don’t be a fool?”

“I meant you’d be a fool not to do it, of course.” She felt so strongly about it that her lips moved. “It was you who wanted to come to Mr. Wolfe in the first place, and now when he really wants to do something you talk about bribing. If it’s the money, I have plenty of my own and I’ll pay—” She stopped abruptly, tightening her lips. “I’ll pay half,” she said. “That’s fair enough; we’ll each pay half.” She went to Wolfe. “Who is it, that Goheen woman?”

Wolfe ignored her. He asked Rackell, “Well, sir? How about it?”

Rackell didn’t like it. He avoided his wife’s gaze, but he knew it was on him, and it was pressing. He even looked at me, as if my eye might somehow help, but I was deadpan. Then he returned to Wolfe.

“All right,” he said.

“You accept the proposal as I made it?”

“Yes. Only I’ll pay it. I’d rather not — I’d rather pay it myself. You said to be paid if and when earned. Who decides whether you’ve earned it or not?”

“You do. I doubt if that will be a bone to pick.”

“A question my wife asked — do you know who the eyewitness is?”

“Your wife was witless to ask it. If I knew would I tell you? Or would you want me to? Now?”

Rackell shook his head. “No, I guess not. No, I can see that it’s better just to let you—” He left it hanging. “Is there anything else you want to say about it?”

Wolfe said there wasn’t. Rackell got up and stood there as if he would like to say something but didn’t know what. I arose and moved toward the door. I didn’t want to be rude to a client who had just bought a suggestion that would cost him twenty grand, but now that he had okayed it I had a job to do and I wanted to get going. I still didn’t know where Wolfe thought he was headed for, but the sooner I got started on my instructions the sooner I would know. They finally came, and I went ahead and opened the front door for them. She held his elbow going down the stoop. I shut the door and rejoined Wolfe in the office.

“Well?” I demanded. “Do I proceed?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nearly half-past six. If I offer to buy her a meal — I doubt if that’s the right approach.”

“You know the approaches to women, I don’t.”

“Yeah.” I sat at my desk and pulled the phone to me. “If you ask me this stunt you’ve hatched is a swell approach to a trip to the hoosegow. For both of us.”

He grunted. I started dialing a number.