Plot It Yourself

Chapter 6

This time there were seven instead of six. In addition to the three from the BPA-Gerald Knapp, Thomas Dexter, and Reuben Imhof-and the three from NAAD-Amy Wynn, Mortimer Oshin, and Philip Harvey-there was a middle-aged woman named Cora Ballard whose spine stayed as stiff as a poker both standing and sitting. Harvey had explained that she was not a committee member but was there ex officio. She was the executive secretary of the NAAD. Harvey had seen to it that she was seated next to him, at his left. I had noted glances directed at her by Dexter and Knapp which led me to suspect that in a national poll to choose the Secretary of the Year the book publishers’ vote would not go to Cora Ballard, and her return glances indicated that she most certainly wouldn’t want it to. She had a stenographer’s notebook on her lap and a pencil in her hand.

Philip Harvey, in the red leather chair, was yawning, probably because he had had to get up and out before noon for the second time in a week. Gerald Knapp was explaining that he had been willing to cancel two appointments in order to be present because he agreed with Mr Imhof that the charge now made by Alice Porter against Amy Wynn and the Victory Press made it imperative that immediate and vigorous action be taken, and he agreed with Mr Harvey that they should see Mr Wolfe in a body to learn what progress had been made. Wolfe, his lips pressed tight, sat and scowled at him.

“That is,” Knapp finished, “if there has been any progress. Has there?”

“No,” Wolfe said. “To the contrary. There has been regress.”

They all stared. Cora Ballard said, “Really.” Mortimer Oshin demanded, “How the hell could there be?”

Wolfe took a breath. “I’ll explain briefly, and if you would like me to return the five thousand dollars you have advanced you have only to say so. I told you last Tuesday that this may be a laborious and costly operation; it now appears that it may take more labour than I am prepared to give, and cost more than you are prepared to pay. You were assuming that Alice Porter’s success in hoodwinking Ellen Sturdevant had led others to imitate her, but you were wrong. Alice Porter was merely a tool, and so were Simon Jacobs, Jane Ogilvy, and Kenneth Rennert.”

Cora Ballard looked up from her notebook. “Did you say ‘tool’?”

“I did. Two steps brought me to that conclusion. The first resulted from my examination of the stories used by the three first-named as the bases of their claims. They were all written by the same person. The internal evidence-diction, syntax, paragraphing-is ineluctable. You are professional word-and-language people; study those stories and you’ll all agree with me.”

“I’m not a writer,” Cora Ballard said. “I just work for writers.”

“Not for,” Harvey corrected her. “You work with writers and on writers.” To Wolfe: “This is important, if true. I want to compare those stories.”

“It’s not only important,” Knapp declared, “it’s remarkable. It seems to me you have made progress.”

“So it seemed to me,” Wolfe said, “until I took the next step. All that remained, it seemed, was to learn which of the three had written the stories; then it would be simple. I procured a book written by Alice Porter, and one written by Simon Jacobs, and studied them, and I re-read the testimony Jane Ogilvy had given on the witness stand, including the three poems she had recited. I shall not expound; I merely state that I am convinced that none of them wrote the stories.”

“But damn it,” Imhof objected, “somebody did! And now Alice Porter is repeating.”

“By God,” Oshin exclaimed, squashing a cigarette, “Rennert! Kenneth Rennert!”

Wolfe shook his head. “I doubt it. The reasons for my doubt are not conclusive, but they are cogent.” He upturned a palm. “So. When you left here six days ago I thought I had four culprits to expose. When I had read the stories I thought I had just one and he could be easily identified; the others were only tools. That was progress. Now there is still just one, but who and where is he? The only approach to him, the only hope of finding him, is through the contacts he must have made with his tools. That kind of investigation does not fit my talents, and it will probably be prolonged and expensive. It will demand an exhaustive and meticulous inquiry into the movements and associations of those three people-four, with Kenneth Rennert included. That is regress.”

“Do you mean you’re quitting?” Dexter asked.

“I mean that it no longer seems to be my kind of job. To do it properly and with expedition at least a dozen competent operatives will be needed, with competent supervision. That will cost six hundred dollars a day or more, plus expenses, seven days a week. I would not supervise such an operation. But I should finish my report. As I told Mr Harvey on the phone on Saturday, I sent Mr Goodwin to call on those four people, and he has seen them. Archie?”

I had tossed my notebook over my shoulder onto my desk. It looked as if we weren’t even going to send a bill for expenses, and in that case I was out three dollars, eighty for the fried chicken I had bought at the Green Fence. “Do you want it all?” I asked.

“Not I. They. Miss Ballard is taking notes. If it isn’t too extensive.”

“It isn’t. Two minutes with Simon Jacobs, seven with Kenneth Rennert, one with Jane Ogilvy, and eight with Alice Porter.”

“Then verbatim.”

I obliged. Since I had developed that faculty to a point where I could give Wolfe a full and accurate account of a two-hour conversation with three or four people, this little chore was nothing. As I went along I noticed that Mortimer Oshin was lighting no cigarettes, and I was taking it as a compliment until I realized that, being a dramatist, he was sizing up the dialogue. When I finished he reacted first.

“That Jane Ogilvy speech,” he said. “Of course you’ve dressed it up. Damn good.”

“No dressing,” I told him. “When I report I merely report.”

“And you think Kenneth Rennert is not the-the instigator?” Gerald Knapp asked.

“Right. For the reasons given.”

“It seems to me,” Philip Harvey said, “that this doesn’t alter the situation any. As Mr Wolfe described it.” His head moved to take them in. “So now what?”

They held a committee meeting. What made it a meeting was that when more than three of them talked at once Harvey yelled that he couldn’t hear anybody. After a quarter of an hour the consensus seemed to be that they were in a pickle, and I was thinking that if I were chairman I would ask for a motion to that effect.

Thomas Dexter raised his voice. “I would like to suggest,” he suggested, “that we take twenty-four hours to consider the matter as it now stands, and meet again tomorrow. It is possible that Mr Wolfe-”

“Wait a minute,” Oshin cut in. He had a cigarette going. “I’ve got an idea.” He stretched his neck to see around Gerald Knapp, to look at me. “A question for you. Mr Goodwin. Which one of those four people needs money most?”

“That depends on what you mean by ‘money,’ ” I told him. “A ten-spot or a grand or half a million?”

“Something in between. Here’s my idea, and I like it. We make one of them an offer. Nero Wolfe makes it for us. Say ten thousand dollars. What the hell, I’d be willing to kick in that much myself. My lawyer thinks I may have to pay Rennert between fifty and a hundred thousand, and if this works Rennert will be done. And you’re in the same position, Miss Wynn, with Alice Porter. She’s going to nick you-”

“Not the same,” Reuben Imhof objected. “There’s no evidence. Alice Porter has claimed that Miss Wynn plagiarized a story she wrote, but the story hasn’t been produced.”

“It will be. Miss Wynn, wouldn’t you be willing to pay ten thousand dollars to have Alice Porter stopped? Stopped for good?”

Amy Wynn looked at Imhof. He patted her on the shoulder. “Stopped how?” he asked Oshin. “What’s your idea?”

“Very simple. Brilliant but simple. We offer him, or her, twenty thousand dollars to spill it. Who wrote the story he based his claim on, how the manuscript was planted-everything. With evidence to back it up; that should be easy. We also offer to guarantee that he won’t be prosecuted and he won’t be asked to return his share of the loot. You’ve seen all four of them, Mr Goodwin. Which one would you pick?”

“Simon Jacobs,” I said.

“Why him?”

“Very simple. Not even brilliant. Rennert is going to collect a lot more than twenty grand from you, or thinks he is. The same goes for Alice Porter; she has just made her claim on Amy Wynn. As for Jane Ogilvy, God only knows. She testified in court that she wrote that story, ‘On Earth but Not in Heaven,’ because she was suffocating under the blanket of her father’s bounty and her mother’s devotion and sought another market for her soul, end of quotation. I suppose meaning that she wanted to get hold of some cash, and presumably this operator knew that and obliged her. When she got it she kicked loose and went to Europe, but in a month she came back to the blanket. She might grab at the twenty grand, or she might spurn it. Just talking about her I use words like‘spurn.’ ”

“Then that leaves Jacobs.”

“Right. He probably used up his share of the take long ago. He’s having a hard time placing his stories. He’s living in a dump with his wife and children. I don’t know if he’s in debt, but he probably is, and he’s not the kind of guy who would enjoy being in debt. He might open the bag for twenty grand if he had a tight guarantee that he wouldn’t be prosecuted and he wouldn’t be expected to repay what he got from Richard Echols more than two years ago. He hasn’t got it any more. Of course the guarantee would have to come from Echols.”

Oshin went to Thomas Dexter. “How about it, Mr Dexter? You know Echols; you published his book. Of course I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. Will he go along?”

The publisher passed his hand over his gray hair. “That’s hard to say. I will say this, if Mr Echols agrees to such an arrangement we at Title House will have no objection. We will concur, provided that Jacobs’s affidavit-I presume it would be in the form of an affidavit-makes it clear that his charge of plagiarism was false. Provided it removes from Title House the stigma of having published a book that was-uh-a fraud. We would engage to make no demand for the return of our contribution to the payment made to Jacobs, or any part of it.”

“That’s fine. But what about Echols?”

“I couldn’t say. He is a reasonable and sensible man in many respects. I think it quite possible that he would-uh-acquiesce, if properly approached.”

“What do you think, Cora?” Philip Harvey asked. “You know him better than anyone here.”

Cora Ballard pursed her lips. “Sure,” she said, “I know Dick. I helped him with his first book contract twenty years ago, before he had an agent. The publisher wanted thirty per cent of the movie rights and twenty per cent of the first serial, and that was ridiculous. Dick’s a little peculiar in some ways, but he likes to do the right thing and he’s very generous. I’ll ask him about this if you want me to, and see what he says. Actually, what he’ll do, he’ll go straight to Paul Norris, his agent, and ask him what he thinks. Of course I know Paul, and it might be better to take it up with him first. I could see him this afternoon.”

“That’s the kind of an executive secretary to have,” Gerald Knapp said. “No wonder you authors always get the best of it.”

Chairman Harvey snorted. “Comic relief. Always welcome. Speaking for myself, if I were Dick Echols I wouldn’t hesitate. Unfortunately I’m not in his class and never will be. I’ve had six books published, and my last one. Why the Gods Laugh, is in its ninth thousand, which is a record for me.” He looked around. “What about Mr Oshin’s idea? Do we like it?”

“I do,” Oshin said. “Ten thousand dollars’ worth, and I think Miss Wynn should match it.”

Amy Wynn looked at Reuben Imhof. “We’ll discuss it,” he told her, and turned to the chairman. “It certainly won’t do any harm for Miss Ballard to sound out Mr Echols and his agent. If they agree to co-operate, then we can decide whether to go ahead.”

“In my opinion,” Gerald Knapp said, “we should decide that now. I fully approve of Mr Oshin’s suggestion and move that we adopt it. If Mr Echols consents it shouldn’t be necessary to have another meeting. Mr Wolfe could proceed at once to have the necessary papers drawn and make the offer to Simon Jacobs.”

“Second the motion,” Oshin said.

“Further discussion?” Harvey asked. “If not, all in favour raise your hands. It seems to be unanimous. Miss Wynn, when can you let me know whether you will match Mr Oshin’s ten thousand? Today?”

“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “Certainly by five o’clock.”

“Good. If I’m not at home call Miss Ballard at the NAAD. Now, Mr Wolfe, I hope this has changed your mind. I hope you’ll agree that we’re making some progress, and of course you and Mr Goodwin made it possible. Have you any comment?”

“Yes,” Wolfe said. “I am a detective, not a conveyor of bait. However, since Mr Goodwin named Mr Jacobs as the prospective receiver, he and I have a responsibility. If the preparations are satisfactory, we will act.”