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