Please Pass the Guilt

17

Kenneth Meer was early too. When I answered the doorbell a little before three, I saw his car down at the curb, a dark green Jaguar. He had an oversized brief case, brown leather, under his arm, presumably to save the trouble of locking the car, and when I asked if he wanted to leave it on the hall bench, he said no and took it along to the office. I said before, when I first saw him, that his poorly designed face was tired too young, and now, as he sat in the red leather chair and blinked at Wolfe, his long, pointed nose above his wide square chin looked like an exclamation point with a long line crossing at the bottom instead of a dot.

He kept the brief case on his lap. “I resent this,” he said. He sounded as peevish as he looked. “Why couldn’t I come yesterday — last evening? Why today?”

Wolfe nodded. “I owe you an apology, Mr. Meer. You have it. I hoped to have by now definite information on a point I wanted to discuss with you, but it hasn’t come. However, since you’re here, we may as well consider another point. Your bloody hands. A week after the explosion of that bomb you were in distress, severe enough to take you to that clinic and then to me. Later, when I became professionally involved, the nature of your distress was of course of interest. There were various possibilities: You had yourself put the bomb in the drawer and the burden of guilt was too heavy for you. Or you hadn’t, but you knew or suspected who had, and your conscience was galling you; your imagined bloody hands were insisting, please pass the guilt. Or merely the event itself had hit you too hard; the sight of the havoc and the actual blood on your hands had put you in shock. Those were all valid guesses, but Mr. Goodwin and I didn’t bother to discuss them; we rarely waste time discussing guesses.”

“I like that, please pass the guilt,” Meer said. “I like that.”

“So do I. Mr. Goodwin will too. He once said that I ride words bareback. But the devil of it is that after more than three weeks the guesses are still guesses, and it may possibly help to mention them to you. Have you a comment?”

“No.”

“None at all?”

“No.”

“Does the distress persist? Do you still get up in the middle of the night to wash your hands?”

“No.”

“Then something that has been done or said must have removed the pressure, or at least eased it. What? Do you know?

“No.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I can’t accept that. This morning I was blunt with Miss Lugos and told her I thought she was lying. Now I think you are. There is another point concerning you that I haven’t broached that I’ll mention now. Why did you tell a man that anyone who wanted to know how it happened should concentrate on Helen Lugos?”

Meer didn’t frown or cock his head or even blink. He merely said, “I didn’t.”

Wolfe’s head turned. “Archie?”

“You said it,” I told Meer, “to Pete Damiano. I can’t name the day, but it was soon after it happened. About a month ago.”

“Oh, him.” He grinned, or make it that he probably thought he grinned. “Pete would say anything.”

“That’s witless,” Wolfe said. “You knew it was likely, at least possible, that that would be remembered and you would be asked about it, and you should have had a plausible reply ready. Merely to deny it won’t do. It’s obvious that you’re implicated, either by something you know or something you did, and you should be prepared to deal with contingencies. I am, and I believe one is imminent. I ask you the same question I asked Miss Lugos this morning, in the same terms: In the early afternoon of Monday, May nineteenth, shortly after lunch, you were with Miss Lugos in her room, tête-à-tête. What did you talk about? What was said?”

That got a frown. “You asked her that? What did she say?”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I don’t remember.”

“Pfui. I’ve asked you seven questions and got only no’s and nothings. I’ve apologized to you; now I apologize to myself. Another time, Mr. Meer. Mr. Goodwin will show you out.”

I rose, but stood, because Meer thought he was going to say something. His lips parted twice but closed again. He looked up at me, saw only an impassive mug, got up, tucked the brief case under his arm, and moved. I followed him, but got ahead in the hall, opened the front door, and waited until he was down and at the door of the Jaguar to close it. Back in the office, I asked, “Do we need to discuss any guesses?”

Wolfe grunted. “You might as well have gone before lunch. Shall I apologize to you?”

“No, thanks. The phone number is on your pad, as usual.” I went and got my bag from the hall and let myself out, on my way to the garage for the Heron and then to the West Side Highway, headed for Lily Rowan’s glade in Westchester. That’s what she calls it, The Glade.