Please Pass the Guilt

5

Most of the people who enter that office for the first time have something eating them, but even so they often notice one or more of the objects in view — the fourteen-by-twenty-six Keraghan rug or the three-foot globe or the floral display in the vase on Wolfe’s desk. Mrs. Peter J. Odell didn’t. When I escorted her to the office, her eyes fixed on Wolfe and stayed there as she crossed the rug and stopped just short of his desk. Of course he stayed put in his chair, as usual.

“Charlotte Haber is my secretary,” she said. “I have brought her because I may need her.” She went to the red leather chair, sat, and put her handbag on the little stand at her elbow. Meanwhile I had moved up one of the yellow chairs for the secretary. From the look Miss Haber had given me at the door, and the one she was now giving Wolfe, it was a good guess that she would rather have been somewhere else. The crease in her narrow forehead made it even narrower, and the way she was puckering her mouth, which was too small anyway, made it almost invisible.

“I have asked three men about you,” Mrs. Odell told Wolfe. “You’re highhanded and opinionated, and you charge high fees, but you’re dependable.”

Wolfe grunted. “You should have inquired further. Competence?”

“Oh, apparently you’re smart enough. I’ll decide that myself. Your man told me that you said the police are neglecting the most important question, why did my husband go to Browning’s room and open that drawer? I want to know why that is so important.” She got her bag and opened it and took out a checkfold. “How much for telling me that?”

He shook his head. “I discuss details only with clients and you haven’t hired me. But since Mr. Goodwin has presumed to quote me to you — without my prior knowledge — I’ll make an exception. On trial for murder, a man may be convicted without proof of motive. Establishment of motive of course helps with a jury, but it is not requisite. But in an investigation of a murder, motive is of first importance. The question was first asked in an ancient language many centuries ago: Cui bono? To try to learn who put that bomb in that drawer without knowing whom it was intended for is close to hopeless, and to learn whom it was intended for it is essential to know why your husband entered the room and opened the drawer, and who knew he was going to. Actually that’s the most important question: Who knew he was going to? Did anybody? If it were my problem I would begin by concentrating on that question to the exclusion of all others. I give you that, madam, with my compliments, since Mr. Goodwin quoted me without bothering to get permission.”

She still had the checkfold in her hand. “The police think it was intended for Amory Browning.”

“No doubt. A reasonable assumption. But if it was actually intended for your husband, they’re wasting their time and they’ll get nowhere.”

“Why do you think it was intended for my husband?”

“I don’t. But I think it might have been — and I repeat, I would want first to learn if anyone knew he was going to enter that room and open that drawer, and if so, who.”

She sat and looked at him. Then she turned her head to look at me, and turned it further to look at Charlotte Haber. I don’t know if that was any help, but probably she had already made up her mind and didn’t even know she was doing it. She opened the checkfold, slid a pen out of its loop, wrote, on both the stub and the check, and tore the check out. “You said I haven’t hired you,” she said. “Now I have. This twenty thousand dollars is for a retainer. I’m going to tell you something and ask you what to do, with the understanding that it is in confidence and you will never tell anyone about it — under any circumstances.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I can’t accept it on those terms.”

“My god, why not? A lawyer would.”

“I am not a member of the bar. What a client tells me is not a privileged communication. Archie. Your notebook.”

I got it from a drawer, and a pen.

“One carbon,” he said. “I acknowledge receipt of a check for twenty thousand dollars from Mrs. Peter J. Odell as a retainer for my services. Period. I guarantee that any information she gives me will be revealed to no one, comma, either by me or by Archie Goodwin, comma, without her consent, comma, unless circumstances arise that put me or him under legal compulsion to reveal it.” He turned to her. “I assure you that we do not invite or welcome legal compulsion. Will that do?”

“I don’t — I’ll look at it.”

I put paper in the typewriter and hit the keys. On the wall back of my desk is a mirror four feet high and six feet wide, and in it I could see that Miss Haber was looking surprised. No female secretary thinks a man can use eight fingers and two thumbs on a typewriter. I rolled it out, kept the carbon, and got up to hand Wolfe the original. He signed it and handed it back, and I took it to Mrs. Odell. She read it, pursed her lips, read it again, folded it and put it in her bag, and handed me the check. I gave it a look and took it to Wolfe, and without even a glance at it he dropped it on his desk.

He looked at the client: “I signed that receipt, madam, but I shall not consider myself definitely committed until I learn what you want me to do. I hope it won’t be necessary for me to return your check, but I can if I must. In any case, what you tell me will be held in confidence if possible. What do you want?”

“I want advice. I want to know what I can do. I know why my husband went to Amory Browning’s room and opened that drawer. So does Miss Haber. That’s why she’s here. I know the bomb was intended for him, and I know who put it there.”

I suppose Wolfe has been surprised by things people have said as often as you or me, but his ego has arranged with him not to show it and he rarely does. But that got him. His eyes stretched wide, as wide as I have ever seen them, then they narrowed at her, half closed, and he cleared his throat.

“Indeed,” he said. “Have you told the police?”

“No. I have told no one. No one knows about it except Miss Haber and me. I have hoped the police would get him. Why haven’t they found out where and how he got the bomb? My god, are they any good at all? It has been more than two weeks. Now, after what you have said, I have got to do something and I want you to tell me what. How much do you know? Do you know that there was to be a directors’ meeting at five o’clock that day to decide who would be the new president of CAN?”

“Yes. And that it would be either your husband or Mr. Browning.”

She nodded. “And they were both to be at the meeting, and give their ideas about policy and what they thought should be done, and answer questions, and then leave, and we would discuss it and then vote. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s how it was. If you have read the papers, you know that Amory Browning kept a certain brand of whisky in that bottom drawer of his desk.”

“Yes.”

“And that every afternoon around four o’clock he took a drink of it.”

“That has been said, yes.”

“Well, he did. Every afternoon, between four and five o’clock. Everybody knew it. All right, now I’m telling you what you have guaranteed not to repeat. My husband went to that room and opened that drawer to put something in the whisky. It was my idea. Do you know what LSD is?”

“Yes. Lysergic acid diethylamide.”

“My god, you can pronounce it. Well, I got some. You don’t need to know how I got it. Miss Haber knows. I got some, it was a powder, and I put it in a little plastic container, and I persuaded my husband to use it. The police know he had it. It was in a pocket of his jacket. You didn’t know about that.”

“No.”

“They haven’t told about it. I think they haven’t told anyone but me, and I told them I knew nothing about it. He was going to put it in the whisky. Almost certainly Browning would take a drink before he went to that meeting at five o’clock. We didn’t know what that amount of LSD would do to him — of course we didn’t know how full the bottle would be. But there was a good chance it would do enough for him to make a bad impression at that meeting, and it was understood and agreed that we would make a final decision that day. All right, now you know why he went to that room and opened that drawer.”

Wolfe nodded. “I probably do. It isn’t likely that you would trump up a tale of such an exploit — and the police have the LSD. You said that Miss Haber knows how you got it. Did she also know how you planned to use it?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone else know?”

“Yes. Amory Browning.”

Wolfe shook his head. “My credulity will stretch only so far, madam. Obviously you are going to tell me that Mr. Browning murdered your husband.”

“That’s right. He did.” Her head turned. “Charlotte?”

Miss Haber’s mouth opened, and closed. She lifted a hand, and dropped it. “Please, Mrs. Odell,” she said. “I don’t think — You tell him. Please?”

“Well, you’re here.” Mrs. Odell went back to Wolfe. “There are strong people,” she said, “and there are weak people, and Miss Haber is one of the weak ones. She’s extremely competent, but weak. She found out for me how to get some LSD, and in fact she got it for me, about a month ago. Then she found out what I was going to do with it by eavesdropping on us — my husband and me. Then she phoned Amory Browning and told him what we were going to do. I didn’t know that until three days after my husband died. So she was weak three times — getting the LSD for me without knowing what I wanted it for, and phoning Browning, and telling me. You said the most important question is who knew my husband was going to that room and open that drawer. All right, three people knew: Miss Haber and me, and Amory Browning. And she told Browning four days before it happened, so he had plenty of time to get the bomb.”

Wolfe was frowning at her with his chin down. “A remarkable performance,” he said. “Extraordinary. You seem not to be aware that—”

She cut in. “I’m not through. About Browning getting the bomb. Do you watch television?”

“Rarely.”

“About three months ago, CAN had a one-hour special they called ‘Where the Little Bombs Come From.’ Did you see it?”

“No.”

“Lots of people thought it told too much about what bombs are made of and who makes them, but it really didn’t, because they changed all the names and didn’t give any addresses. That program was Browning’s idea and his staff did all the research, so getting one would have been easy for him. If you mean it would have been remarkable for him to get a bomb in four days and know how to use it, it wouldn’t.”

Wolfe was still frowning. “I didn’t mean that. I meant your performance. That is of course one detail to be considered, but before considering details I must know if I’m going to be concerned with them. If I take the job, what do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to tell me what to do, and I suppose help me do it. I want Amory Browning indicted and tried and convicted, but I do not want what I have told you to be known. I am not going to sit in a witness chair and tell what my husband and I did and answer questions about it. How many things have you done that you wouldn’t want everyone to know about?”

“Perhaps a thousand. Adulterating a rival’s whisky is not one of them, but tastes and methods differ.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Miss Haber. Do you corroborate what Mrs. Odell has told me of your share in this affair?”

The secretary swallowed. I had her in profile, but apparently her eyes were straight at him. She said “Yes,” but it was barely audible, and she repeated it louder, “Yes, I do.”

“You got some LSD at her request?”

“Yes, but I’m not going to tell how I got it.”

“I don’t need to know, at least not now. And you learned how she was going to use it by overhearing conversations she had with her husband?”

“Yes. I thought I had a right to know. LSD is illegal. It can’t be sold legally and you can’t even have it in your possession.”

“And you decided to tell Mr. Browning about it? Why?”

“Because I was afraid it might kill him. The amount I got and gave Mrs. Odell — it was about four tablespoons — I didn’t know what it would do. If the whisky bottle was only half full, or even less, and Mr. Odell put all that LSD in it — from the little I knew I thought it would kill him. I would be an accessory to a murder, and anyway I didn’t want to help kill a man. It may be what Mrs. Odell said, that I’m one of the weak ones — anyhow, I didn’t want to be a murderer.”

“How did you communicate with Mr. Browning? Did you write to him?”

“I phoned him. I phoned him Friday evening, from a booth, at his place in the country. I didn’t tell him my name. I didn’t tell him any names. I just told him that Tuesday afternoon someone was going to put a dangerous drug in the whisky in his desk drawer and he had better not drink it. He wanted to ask questions, but I hung up. Of course I supposed he would suspect it would be Mr. Odell, but I certainly didn’t suppose he would do what he did.”

“Where is his country place?”

“In Connecticut. Westport.”

“You say you phoned him Friday evening. Which Friday?”

“The Friday before it happened. Four days before.”

“That was May sixteenth.”

“Was it?” It took her only a moment, not a long one, to figure it. “That’s right. May sixteenth.”

“You phoned him at what hour?”

“Around nine o’clock. A little after nine. When I thought he would have finished dinner.”

“How sure are you it was Mr. Browning?”

“Oh, quite sure. He answered the phone himself, and I know his voice. I have heard him on the phone at least a dozen times, when he has called Mr. Odell at home.”

Wolfe regarded her. “And you didn’t tell Mrs. Odell you had warned him.”

“Of course not.”

“But you did tell her, three days after Mr. Odell died. Why?”

“Because — well, I had to. I said I didn’t want to be a murderer, but I was one. If I hadn’t made that phone call, Mr. Odell would still be alive, and maybe Mr. Browning would too. The LSD might not have hurt him at all. To go right on being with Mrs. Odell every day — I had to tell her.”

Wolfe turned to the prospective client. “That was two weeks ago. Why haven’t you dismissed her?”

“That’s a silly question,” Mrs. Odell said. “She might tell anyone. She might tell the police. I’m not hiring you to analyze what Miss Haber has done — or what I have done. I want to know how we can make Browning pay for what he did without telling what we did.”

Wolfe closed his eyes, and the forefinger of his right hand started making little circles on his desk blotter. But he wasn’t tackling a tough one; his lips didn’t move. So he had made his decision and was merely considering whether he should ask more questions before announcing it. In half a minute he quit making circles, lifted his hand to give his forehead a rub, and swiveled to look at me. If they hadn’t been there he would have put it into words: “You got me into this. I concede the desirability of a fee, but you got me into this.”

Having looked it, long enough to count ten, he swiveled back to her. “Very well. It’s an impossible job, but I’ll accept the retainer. My fee will be based on effort and risk, not on accomplishment. I’ll need facts, many facts, but it’s nearly dinner time, and anyway I want them at first hand. Archie, list these names: Mr. Browning. Mr. Abbott. Mr. Falk. Mr. Meer. Mrs. Browning. Miss Lugos. Miss Venner.” Back to the client: “Will you have those people here tomorrow evening at nine o’clock?”

She stared at him. “I will not. How can I?”

“I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. They were associates of your husband, who was murdered. They should be willing to help you learn who murdered him, and you are concerned at the lack of progress in the official investigation and have engaged my services. Shouldn’t they sacrifice an evening at your request?”

“They might. I don’t want to ask them. And I won’t.”

Wolfe picked up the check and held it out. “Take it. You have wasted your time and mine. You want a miracle, and miracles are not in my repertory. Give me the receipt.”

“My god,” she said, “you are highhanded. What can they tell you?”

“I don’t know, and I need to know. If there is a fact that will help me do what you want done, I want it. If you think I may inadvertently disclose what you have told me, even a hint of it, if you think me capable of such ineptitude, you were a ninny to come to me at all.”

She was chewing her lip. “Is this the only — do you have to do this?”

“If I take the job as you defined it, yes.”

She looked at me, and saw only an open, intelligent, interested, sympathetic phiz.

“Damn it,” she said. “Give me the list.”