Trio for Blunt Instruments

“But if you knew who killed that man or had reason to suspect anyone you wouldn’t tell me-or the police.”

“I would not.”

“Then I won’t keep you. Good afternoon, sir.”

McLeod stayed put. “If you won’t tell me what my daughter came here for I can’t make you. But you can’t tell me she made false statements and not say what they were.”

Wolfe grunted. “I can and do. I will tell you nothing.” He slapped the desk. “Confound it, after sending me inedible corn you presume to come and make demands on me? Go!”

McLeod’s mouth opened and closed again. In no hurry, he got up. “I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right.” He turned to go and turned back. “Of course you won’t be wanting any more corn.”

Wolfe was scowling at him. “Why not? It’s only the middle of September.”

“I mean not from me.”

“Then from whom? Mr. Goodwin can’t go scouring the countryside with this imbroglio on our hands. I want corn this week. Tomorrow?”

“I don’t see… There’s nobody to bring it.”

“Friday, then?”

“I might. I’ve got a neighbor- Yes, I guess so. The restaurant too?”

Wolfe said yes, he would tell them to expect it, and McLeod turned and went. I stepped to the hall, got to the front ahead of him to hand him his hat, and saw him out. When I returned to the office Wolfe was leaning back, frowning at the ceiling. As I crossed to my desk and sat I felt a yawn coming, and I stopped it. A man expecting to be tagged for murder is in no position to yawn, even if he has had no sleep for thirty hours. I had my nose fill the order for more oxygen, swiveled, and said brightly, “That was a big help. Now we know about the corn.”

Wolfe straightened up. “Pfui. Call Felix and tell him to expect a delivery on Friday.”

“Yes, sir. Good. Then everything’s jake.”

“That’s bad slang. There is good slang and bad slang. How long will it take you to type a full report of our conversation with Miss McLeod, yours and mine, from the beginning?”

“Verbatim?”

“Yes.”

“The last half, more than half, is in the notebook. For the first part I’ll have to dig, and though my memory is as good as you think it is, that will be a little slower. Altogether, say four hours. But what’s the idea? Do you want it to remember me by?”

“No. Two carbons.”

I cocked my head. “Your memory is as good as mine-nearly. Are you actually telling me to type all that crap just to keep me off your neck until nine o’clock?”

“No. It may be useful.”

“Useful how? As your employee I’m supposed to do what I’m told, and I often do, but this is different. This is our joint affair, you said so, trying to save you from the calamity of losing me. Useful how?”

“I don’t know!” he bellowed. “I say it may be useful, if I decide to use it. Can you suggest something that may be more useful?”

“Offhand, no.”

“Then if you type it, two carbons.”

I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I might or might not start on it before four o’clock, when he would go up to the plant rooms for his afternoon session with the orchids.

4

AT FIVE MINUTES PAST NINE that evening the three men whose names had had checkmarks in front of them in Kenneth Faber’s little notebook were in the office, waiting for Wolfe to show. They hadn’t come together; Carl Heydt had arrived first, ten minutes early, then Peter Jay, on the dot at nine, and then Max Maslow. I had put Heydt in the red leather chair, and Jay and Maslow on two of the yellow ones facing Wolfe’s desk. Nearest me was Maslow.

I had seen Heydt before, of course, but you take a new look at a man when he becomes a homicide candidate. He looked the same as ever-medium height with a slight bulge in the middle, round face with a wide mouth, quick dark eyes that kept on the move. Peter Jay, the something important in the big advertising agency, tall as me but not as broad, with more than his share of chin and a thick dark mane that needed a comb, looked as if he had the regulation ulcer, but it could have been just the current difficulty. Max Maslow, the fashion photographer, was a surprise. With the twisted smile he must have practiced in front of a mirror, the trick haircut, the string tie dangling, and the jacket with four buttons buttoned, he was a screwball if I ever saw one, and I wouldn’t have supposed that Sue McLeod would let such a specimen hang on. I admit it could have been just that his ideas were different from mine, but I like mine.