Trio for Blunt Instruments

She had told Carl Heydt that what Ken had told him wasn’t true, but she wasn’t sure that he had believed her. She couldn’t remember exactly what Peter Jay and Max Maslow had said that made her think that Ken had told them too; she hadn’t had the suspicion until Monday, when Carl had told her what Ken had told him. She had told no one that she was going to Rusterman’s Tuesday to see Ken. All three of them knew about the corn delivery to Rusterman’s and Nero Wolfe; they knew she had made the deliveries for two summers and had kidded her about it; Peter Jay had tried to get her to pose in a cornfield, in an evening gown, for a client of his. They knew Ken was working at the farm and was making the deliveries. From the notebook, Wolfe speaking: “You know those men quite well. You know their temperaments and bents. If one of them, enraged beyond endurance by Mr. Faber’s conduct, went there and killed him, which one? Remembering it was not a sudden fit of passion, it was premeditated, planned. From your knowledge of them, which one?”

She was staring. “They didn’t.”

“Not ‘they.’ One of them. Which?”

She shook her head. “None of them.”

Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “That’s twaddle, Miss McLeod. You may be shocked at the notion that someone close to you is a murderer; anyone would be; but you may not reject it as inconceivable. By your foolish subterfuge you have made it impossible to satisfy the police that neither you nor Mr. Goodwin killed that man except by one procedure: demonstrate that someone else killed him, and identify him. I must see those three men, and, since I never leave my house on business, they must come to me. Will you get them here? At nine o’clock this evening?”

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

He glared at her. If she had been merely a client, with nothing but a fee at stake, he would have told her to either do as she was told or clear out, but the stake was an errand boy it would be a calamity to lose, me, as he had admitted in my hearing. So he turned the glare off and turned a palm up. “Miss McLeod. I concede that your refusal to think ill of a friend is commendable. I concede that Mr. Faber may have been killed by someone you have never heard of with a motive you can’t even conjecture-and by the way, I haven’t asked you: do you know of anyone who might have had a ponderable reason for killing him?”

“No.”

“But it’s possible that Mr. Heydt does, or Mr. Jay or Mr. Maslow. Even accepting your conclusion that none of them killed him, I must see them. I must also see your father, but separately-I’ll attend to that. My only possible path to the murderer is the motive, and one or more of those four men, who knew Mr. Faber, may start me on it. I ask you to have those three here this evening. Not you with them.”

She was frowning. “But you can’t… you said identify him. How can you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I can’t, but I must try. Nine o’clock?”

She didn’t want to, even after the concessions he had made, but she had to admit that we had to get some kind of information from somebody, and who else was there to start with? So she finally agreed, definitely, and Wolfe leaned back with his eyes shut and his lips tight, and Fritz came to announce lunch. Sue got up to go, and when I returned after seeing her to the door and out, Wolfe had crossed to the dining room and was at the table. Instead of joining him, I stood and said, “Ordinarily I would think I was well worth it, but right now I’m no bargain at any price. Have we a program for the afternoon?”

“No. Except to telephone Mr. McLeod.”

“I saw him at the DA’s office. Then I’m going up and rinse off before I eat. I think I smell. Tell Fritz to save me a bite in the kitchen.”

I went to the hall and mounted the two flights to my room. During the forty minutes it took to do the job I kept telling my brain to lay off until it caught up, but it wouldn’t. It insisted on trying to analyze the situation, with the emphasis on Sue McLeod. If I had her figured wrong, if she was it, it would almost certainly be a waste of time to try to get anything from three guys who were absolutely hooked, and if there was no program for the afternoon I had damn well better think one up. If it would be a calamity for Wolfe to lose me for good, what would it be for me? By the time I stepped into the shower the brain had it doped that the main point was the piece of pipe. She had not gone into that alley toting that pipe; that was out. But I hadn’t got that point settled conclusively by Cramer or Mandel, and I hadn’t seen a morning paper. I would consult the Times when I went downstairs. But the brain wanted to know now, and when I left the shower I dried in a hurry, went to the phone on the bedtable, dialed the Gazette, got Lon Cohen, and asked him. Of course he knew I had spent the night downtown and he wanted a page or two of facts, but I told him I was naked and would catch cold, and how final was it that whoever had conked Faber had brought the pipe with him? Sewed up, Lon said. Positively. The pipe was at the laboratory, revealing-maybe-its past to the scientists, and three or four dicks with color photos of it were trying to pick up its trail. I thanked him and promised him something for a headline if and when. So that was settled. As I went to a drawer for clean shorts the brain started in on Carl Heydt, but it had darned little to work on, and by the time I tied my tie it was buzzing around trying to find a place to land.

Downstairs, Wolfe was still in the dining room, but I went on by to the kitchen, got at my breakfast table with the Times, and was served by Fritz with what do you think? Corn fritters. There had been eight perfectly good ears, and Fritz hates to throw good food away. With bacon and homemade blackberry jam they were ambrosia, and in the Times report on the Faber murder Wolfe’s name was mentioned twice and mine four times, so it was a fine meal. I had finished the eighth fritter and was deciding whether to take on another one and a third cup of coffee when the doorbell rang, and I got up and went to the hall for a look. Wolfe was back in the office, and I stuck my head in and said, “McLeod.”

He let out a growl. True, he had told Sue he must see her father and was even going to phone to ask him to come in from the country, but he always resents an unexpected visitor, no matter who. Ignoring the growl, I went to the front and opened the door, and when McLeod said he wanted to see Mr. Wolfe, with his burr on the r, I invited him in, took his Sunday hat, a dark gray antique fedora in good condition, put it on the shelf, and took him to the office. Wolfe, who is no hand-shaker, told him good afternoon and motioned to the red leather chair.

McLeod stood. “No need to sit,” he said. “I’ve been told about the corn and I came to apologize. I’m to blame, and I’d like to explain how it happened. I didn’t pick it; that young man did. Kenneth Faber.”

Wolfe grunted. “Wasn’t that heedless? I telephoned the restaurant this morning and was told that theirs was as bad as mine. You know what we require.”

He nodded. “I ought to by now. You pay a good price, and I want to say it’ll never happen again. I’d