The Gun with Wings

VIII

It took a solid hour on the phone to get it fixed for that evening, but I finally managed it. I never did catch up with Gifford James, but his daughter agreed to find him and deliver him, and made good on it. The others I tracked down myself.

The only ones that gave me an argument were the clients, especially Peggy Mion. She balked hard at sitting in at a meeting for the ostensible purpose of collecting from Gifford James, and I had to appeal to Wolfe. Fred and Peggy were invited to come ahead of the others for a private briefing and then decide whether to stay or not. She bought that.

They got there in time to help out with the afterdinner coffee. Peggy had presumably brushed her teeth and had a nap and a bath, and manifestly she had changed her clothes, but even so she did not sparkle. She was wary, weary, removed, and skeptical. She didn’t say in so many words that she wished she had never gone near Nero Wolfe, but she might as well have. I had a notion that Fred Weppler felt the same way about it but was being gallant and loyal. It was Peggy who had insisted on coming to Wolfe, and Fred didn’t want her to feel that he thought she had made things worse instead of better.

They didn’t perk up even when Wolfe showed them the statement with Clara James’ name signed to it. They read it together, with her in the red leather chair and him perched on the arm.

They looked up together, at Wolfe.

“So what?” Fred demanded.

“My dear sir.” Wolfe pushed his cup and saucer back. “My dear madam. Why did you come to me? Because the fact that the gun was not on the floor when you two entered the studio convinced you that Mion had not killed himself but had been murdered. If the circumstances had permitted you to believe that he had killed himself, you would be married by now and never have needed me. Very well. That is now precisely what the circumstances are. What more do you want? You wanted your minds cleared. I have cleared them.”

Fred twisted his lips, tight.

“I don’t believe it,” Peggy said glumly.

“You don’t believe this statement?” Wolfe reached for the document and put it in his desk drawer, which struck me as a wise precaution, since it was getting close to nine o’clock. “Do you think Miss James would sign a thing like that if it weren’t true? Why would—”

“I don’t mean that,” Peggy said. “I mean I don’t believe my husband killed himself, no matter where the gun was. I knew him too well. He would never have killed himself — never.” She twisted her head to look up at her fellow client. “Would he, Fred?”

“It’s hard to believe,” Fred admitted grudgingly.

“I see.” Wolfe was caustic. “Then the job you hired me for was not as you described it. At least, you must concede that I have satisfied you about the gun; you can’t wiggle out of that. So that job’s done, but now you want more. You want a murder disclosed, which means, of necessity, a murderer caught. You want—”

“I only mean,” Peggy insisted forlornly, “that I don’t believe he killed himself, and nothing would make me believe it. I see now what I really—”

The doorbell sounded, and I went to answer it.