The Second Confession

Chapter 23

Later, long after midnight, after everyone else had gone, James U. Sperling was still there. He sat in the red leather chair, eating nuts, drinking Scotch, and getting things clear.

What kept him, of course, was the need to get his self-respect back in condition before he went home and to bed, and after the terrific jolt of learning that he had nurtured a Commie in his bosom for years it wasn’t so simple. The detail that seemed to hurt most of all was the first confession — the one he had got Kane to sign. He had drafted it himself — he admitted it; he had thought it was a masterpiece that even a Chairman of the Board could be proud of; and now it turned out that, except for the minor item that Rony had been flat instead of erect when the car hit him, it had been the truth! No wonder he had trouble getting it down.

He insisted on going back over everything. He even wanted answers to questions such as whether Kane had seen Rony pour his doped drink in the ice bucket, which of course we couldn’t give him. Wolfe generously supplied answers when he had them. For instance, why had Kane signed the repudiation of his statement that he had killed Rony accidentally? Because, Wolfe explained, Sperling had told him to, and Kane’s only hope had been to stick to the role of Webster Kane in spite of hell. True, within ten breaths he was going to be torn loose from it by the cold malign stares of his former comrades, but he didn’t know that when he took the pen to sign his name.

When Sperling finally left he was more himself again, but I suspected he would need more than one night’s sleep before anyone would see him smiling like an angel.

That was all except the tail. Every murder case, like a kite, has a tail. The tail to this one had three sections, the first one public and the other two private.

Section One became public the first week in July, when it was announced that Paul Emerson’s contract was not being renewed. I happened to know about it in advance because I was in the office when, one day the preceding week, James U. Sperling phoned Wolfe to say that the Continental Mines Corporation was grateful to him for removing a Communist tumor from its internal organs and would be glad to pay a bill if he sent one. Wolfe said he would like to send a bill but didn’t know how to word it, and Sperling asked him why. Because, Wolfe said, the bill would ask for payment not in dollars but in kind. Sperling wanted to know what he meant.

“As you put it,” Wolfe explained, “I removed a tumor from your staff. What I would want in return is the removal of a tumor from my radio. Six-thirty is a convenient time for me to listen to the radio, and even if I don’t turn it to that station I know that Paul Emerson is there, only a few notches away, and it annoys me. Remove him. He might get another sponsor, but I doubt it. Stop paying him for that malicious gibberish.”

“He has a high rating,” Sperling objected.

“So had Goebbels,” Wolfe snapped. “And Mussolini.”

A short silence.

“I admit,” Sperling conceded, “that he irritates me. I think it’s chiefly his ulcers.”

“Then find someone without them. You’ll be saving money, too. If I sent you a bill in dollars it wouldn’t be modest, in view of the difficulties you made.”

“His contract expires next week.”

“Good. Let it.”

“Well — I’ll see. We’ll talk it over here.”

That was how it happened.

The tail’s second section, private, was also in the form of a phone call, some weeks later. Just yesterday, the day after Webster Kane, alias William Reynolds, was sentenced on his conviction for the first degree murder of Louis Rony, I put the receiver to my ear and once more heard a hard cold precise voice that used only the best grammar. I told Wolfe who it was and he got on.

“How are you, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Well, thank you.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’m calling to congratulate you. I have ways of learning things, so I know how superbly you handled it. I am highly gratified that the killer of that fine young man will be properly punished, thanks to you.”

“My purpose was not to gratify you.”

“Of course not. All the same, I warmly appreciate it, and my admiration of your talents has increased. I wanted to tell you that, and also that you will receive another package tomorrow morning. In view of the turn events took the damage your property suffered is all the more regrettable.”

The connection went dead. I turned to Wolfe.

“He sure likes to keep a call down to a nickel. By the way, do you mind if I call him Whosis instead of X? It reminds me of algebra and I was rotten at it.”

“I sincerely hope,” Wolfe muttered, “that there will never be another occasion to refer to him.”

But one came the very next day, this morning, when the package arrived, and its contents raised a question that has not been answered and probably never will be. Did X have so many ways of learning things that he knew how much had been shelled out to Mr. Jones, or was it just a coincidence that the package contained exactly fifteen grand? Anyhow, tomorrow I’ll make my second trip to a certain city in New Jersey, and then the total in the safe deposit box will be a nice round figure. The name I go by there need not be told, but I can say that it is not William Reynolds.

The tail’s third section is not only private but strictly personal, and it goes beyond phone calls, though there are those too. This coming weekend at Stony Acres I expect no complications like dope in the drinks, and I won’t have to bother with a camera. Recently I quit calling her ma’am.