Gambit

been anything like normal lit; 124 would have exploded, and if she had stuck to it he would have instructed me to carry her upstairs and lock her in. Instead, he merely glared at her, and then at me, removed the paperweight from the mail, picked up the top letter, and growled, 'Your notebook, Archie.' In the next hour he dictated sixteen letters, only three of them in reply to items that had come that morning. I still have the notebook, and it's quite an assortment. Though they all got typed, nine of them were never signed and mailed. They were all quite polite. One, to a boy in Wichita, Kansas, apologized for not answering his letter, received two weeks back, asking two pages of questions about detective work, but he didn't go so far as to answer the questions. He was in the middle of one to an orchid hunter in Ecuador when the doorbell rang; I stepped to the hall for a look, and turned to inform him, 'Kalmus.' It was ten minutes past noon. Naturally I was curious to see how Sally would handle it, so when I ushered the caller to the office and he entered I was right behind. She stayed put, on the chair over by the cabinet, looking straight at him, but obviously not intending to move or speak. He was going to her but stopped halfway, muttered at her, 'You silly little goose,' and about-faced. His eyes met Wolfe's at eight paces, and I pronounced names and indicated the red leather chair. Kalmus spoke. 'So you got me 125 here with a threat from a hysterical girl.' That wasn't so easy to meet, since Wolfe thinks that any calm and quiet woman is merely taking time out from her chronic hysteria, building up for the next outbreak. So he ignored it. 'Since you are here,' he said, with no heat, 'you might as well be seated. Eyes at a level are equal. Of course that's why a judge's bench is elevated.' Kalmus went to the red leather chair, but he didn't settle in it; he just perched on the front half of the seat. 'I want to make one thing clear,' he declared. 'If you think you can force me to take you as a colleague in handling the defense of Matthew Blount, you're wrong. Anything I do or don't do, I'll decide it strictly on the only proper ground, is it in the interest of my client or isn't it. Also I want to say that I'm not surprised at the tactics you're using. It was partly because I know how you operate that I was against hiring you. I don't blame Miss Blount because she doesn't know any better. She doesn't know that coercion by threat partakes of the nature of blackmail, or that if she did what she threatened to do it would be libel. You can't deny that she wrote that letter at your direction.' Wolfe nodded. 'I dictated it to Mr Goodwin, he typed it, and she copied it.' From his expression as he regarded the lawyer you might have thought he was merely trying to decide whether I had exaggerated about skin and 126 bones. 'As for blackmail, the only thing extorted is half an hour or so of your time. As for intent to libel, her defense would be the truth of the libel, but I concede that she couldn't possibly prove it. For you and me to discuss it would be pointless. She mistrusts your good faith as her father's counsel because she thinks you are capable of betraying him for your personal advantage, and of course you deny it. The question is moot and can't be resolved, so why waste time and words on it? What I would?' 'It's ridiculous! Childish nonsense!' 'That may be. You're the only one who knows the real answer, since it is inside you, your head and heart. What I would like to discuss is the theory Miss Blount mentioned in her letter. It is based partly on a conclusion from established fact and partly on an assumption. The assumption is that Mr Blount is innocent. The conclusion is that?' 'I know all about the theory.' Wolfe's brows went up. 'Indeed?' 'Yes. If it's what you told Yerkes last evening. Is it?' 'It is.' 'He told me about it this morning. Not on the phone?he came to my office. He was impressed by it, and so am 1.1 was impressed when it first entered my mind, a week ago, and when I told Blount about it he too was impressed. I didn't do what you have done? 127 speak of it to those who may be vitally concerned?at least one of them may be. Have you also told Farrow and Hausman?' Wolfe's brows were still up. 'It had already occurred to you?' 'Certainly. It had to. If Blount didn't put arsenic in that chocolate, and he didn't, it had to be one of those three, and he had to have a reason. I don't have to tell you that when a crime is committed the first and last question is cui boncP. And the only result of the murder of Jerin that could possibly have benefited one of those three was the arrest of Blount on a capital charge. Of course you include me on the list, and I don't. Is that why you told Yerkes? Because you think this idiotic idea of Miss Blount's points to me and he's out of it?' 'No. At present you seem the most likely, but none of them is out of it. I told Yerkes to get talk started. Not just talk about you and Mrs Blount; even if Miss Blount's suspicion is valid you have probably been too discreet to give occasion for talk; talk about the other three and their relations with Blount. The success of any investigation depends mainly on talk, as of course you know.' Wolfe turned a hand. 'You may not need it. You have known all of them for years. You may already have known all of them for years. You may already have an inkling, more than an inkling, and, combining it with the fact known only to you and Blount, you may have your case secure. If so you don'^ 128 need me.' Kalmus put his hands on the chair arms to lever himself back on the seat, cocked his head, and closed his eyes to look at something inside. Facing the window beyond Wolfe's desk, he didn't look quite as bony as he had in the firelight in the Blount living room, but he looked older; he did have creases, slanting down from the corners of his mouth and nose. His eyes opened. 'I haven't got my case secure,' he said. 'Hmmmm,' Wolfe said. 'Not secure. That theory, it's obvious enough if Blount is innocent, but why are you so sure he is? I know why I am, but why are you?' Wolfe shook his head. 'You can't expect a candid answer to that, since we're not colleagues. But if I have no other ground there is this: if Blount is guilty I can't possibly earn the fee I have accepted from his daughter, and an unearned fee is like raw fish?it fills the stomach but is hard to digest. Therefore my client's father didn't kill that man.' 'You happen to be right. He didn't.' 'Good. It's gratifying to have concurrence from one who knows. It would be even more gratifying to be told how you know, but I can't expect you to tell me. Presumably it's the fact known only to you and Mr Blount.' 'That's partly it. Chiefly.' Kalmus took a deep breath. 'I'm going to ask you something. 129 I'm going to see my client this afternoon. If l suggest to him that we engage you to investigate something, and he approves, will you do it? Investigate one particular matter under my direction?' 'I can't say. I doubt it. I would have to know first precisely what is to be investigated, and how much I would be restricted by the direction. You disapprove of my tactics on principle.' 'But they get results. If you were satisfied on those two points would you accept?' 'If there were no conflict of interest, if Miss Blount approved, and if it were stated in writing that Mr Blount is my client, not you, yes. What would I investigate?' 'That will have to wait until I consult Blount. Will you be available this evening?' 'Yes. But I'll commit myself, if at all, only upon written request from Mr Blount. I owe some deference to Miss Blount's opinion of your probity, right or wrong. She is my client. And what of your abrupt somersault regarding me?' 'It wasn't abrupt.' Kalmus twisted in the chair to face Sally, started to say something, vetoed it, and returned to Wolfe. 'The fact you've mentioned twice, the fact known only to Blount and me, required investigation?not the fact itself, but what it suggested. I thought I could handle it myself with the help of a couple of men in my office, but day before yesterday, 130 Monday afternoon, I realized that it would take an expert investigator, and I decided to call on you. Then came that item in the paper, that you had been hired on behalf of Blount, and I thought you were trying to horn in, and my reaction to that was natural. But that evening Mrs Blount phoned me that her daughter had hired you, so you weren't just trying to horn in, and when I went up there I intended to smooth it out and hire you myself, but you know what I ran into. That ridiculous idea of Miss Blount's. I admit I acted like a damn fool. It wasn't Goodwin's fault, or yours; it was hers.' He waved it away. 'All right, that was stupid. Then yesterday that letter came, obviously drafted by you. I forced myself to look at it objectively, and I had to admit that from your viewpoint you were acting in the legitimate interest of the person who had hired you. And this morning when Yerkes came and told me what you said to him last evening, the theory that I already had myself, it was obvious that you weren't just making gestures to get a fee, you genuinely thought Blount was innocent. So I came here with the definite intention of engaging your services. It may not have sounded like it, the way I started off, but I still resented that letter and you can't blame me. I didn't do any abrupt somersault about you.' He got up and crossed over to Sally. 'Where you got that fool notion,' he said, 'God only 131 knows. If you have any sense at all you'll go home where you belong. Two different newspapers have phoned my office this morning to ask what you're doing at Nero Wolfe's house. For God's sake get some sense.' He put out a hand, pulled it back, and wheeled to face Wolfe. 'I'll see Blount this afternoon and you'll hear from me either this evening or tomorrow morning. He'll feel better if I tell him that you're sending his daughter home. Can I tell him that?' 'No, sir. I don't prescribe my clients' movements.' 'Very well.' He thought he was going to add something, decided he wasn't, and headed for the door. I followed him out, for the courtesies of the hall. Back at the office door, I didn't enter because Sally was there on the sill. 'Do you believe him?' she demanded. From her tone and expression it seemed likely that if I said yes I might get my face scratched, so I took her arm and turned her to escort her to the red leather chair, and darned if she didn't balk. She wasn't going to sit where it was still warm from Clan Kalmus. She jerked her arm away, stood at the corner of Wolfe's desk, and demanded, 'Do you believe him?' 'Confound it,' Wolfe snapped, 'sit down! My neck isn't rubber.' 'But if you're going--' 'Sit down!' 132 She turned, saw I had moved up a chair, sat, and said, 'You said I would have to approve. Well, I don't. Not under his direction.' Wolfe regarded her, not with enthusiasm. 'He made one excellent suggestion,' he declared. 'That I send you home. But if I put you out you probably wouldn't go home, there's no telling where you'd go, and I need you. I need you now, and I may need you again at any moment. I neither believe him nor disbelieve him.' He turned. 'Archie?' I was