Chapter 5
At six o’clock, when the sound came of Wolfe’s elevator descending, I was in my chair in the office, my feet up on the desk, my weight on the base of my spine, and my head back.
For twenty minutes I had been playing a guessing game, which was all it amounted to, since we had nothing to do but sit on it, and since I didn’t have enough bones to make a skeleton, let alone meat. But some day all the details of the Jimmy Vail kidnaping, including the murder of Dinah Utley, would be uncovered, whether they got Mr Knapp or not, and if I could dope it here and now with what little I had, and it turned out that I was right, I could pin a medal on myself. So I worked at it.
Question: Was Dinah Utley in on it?
Answer: Certainly. She typed the note that came by mail and those Mrs Vail found in the phone books.
Q: Who took the typewriter?
A: Dinah Utley. When she learned that Mrs Vail had gone to Nero Wolfe, and when I took her prints and asked about her fingers, she got leery and ditched the typewriter.
Q: Was she with the man who got the suitcase from Mrs Vail?
A: No. She was in her car somewhere along Iron Mine Road, and when Mrs Vail drove back out she drove on in. She wanted to be sure of getting her cut. The man who had got the suitcase, probably Mr Knapp, didn’t care for that and killed her.
Q: Was anyone at the Vail house in on it besides Dinah Utley?
A: Yes. Jimmy Vail. He kidnaped himself. He had another man in it too, because he wasn’t Mr Knapp on the phone; it would have been too risky trying to disguise his voice. But he might have been the man who got the suitcase and therefore the man who killed Dinah Utley. That disagrees with the “probably Mr Knapp” in the preceding answer, but we’re not in court. Items: Jimmy scooted from this office when he heard Wolfe tell Mrs Vail that we suspected Dinah Utley, he told her she’d better call a halt when she produced the notes she had got from the phone books, and he tried to take the notes from me. Also his reactions in general. Also his insisting on saving it until Friday.
Q: Why did he have Dinah in on it?
A: Pass. No bone. A dozen possible reasons.
Q: Wouldn’t he have been a sap to have Dinah type the notes on that typewriter?
A: No. The state of mind Mrs Vail would be in when she got the note by mail, he knew she wouldn’t inspect the typing. When he got back he would destroy the notes. He would say he had promised Mr Knapp he would and he was afraid not to. She had to use
Q: Could Ralph Purcell or Andrew Frost or Noel Tedder be Mr Knapp?
A: No. Mrs Vail knows their voices too well.
Q: Friday, if not sooner, Jimmy will have to open up. Where and how they took him, and kept him, and turned him loose. With the cops and the FBI both at him, won’t he be sure to slip?
A: No. He’ll say they blindfolded him and he doesn’t know where they took him and kept him. Last night, early this morning, they took him somewhere blindfolded and turned him loose.
Q: Then how are they going to uncover it so you can check it with these guesses and get your medal? How would you?
I was working on that one when the sound of the elevator came. Wolfe entered, crossed to his desk, sat, and said, “Report?”
I took my feet down and pulled my spine up. “Yes, sir. It’s Dinah Utley. I told District Attorney Clark Hobart that I had seen her yesterday afternoon when she came here in connection with a job Mrs Vail had hired you to do. When he asked me what the job was it would have been rude just to tell him to go to hell, so I said that if he would tell me when and where and how Dinah Utley had died, and if I relayed it to you, you would decide what to do. Of course there’s no point in relaying it, since you said we don’t care what happened to her and are not concerned. I have informed Mrs Vail and told her we’ll stand pat until eleven P.M. Friday.”
I swiveled, pulled the typewriter around, inserted paper and carbons, got the notebook from my pocket, and hit the keys. Perfect harmony. It helps a lot, with two people as much together as he and I were, if they understand each other. He understood that I was too strong-minded to add another word unless he told me to, and I understood that he was too pigheaded to tell me to. Of course I had to keep busy; I couldn’t just sit and be strong-minded. I typed the texts of the two notes and other jottings I had made in my book, then went and opened the safe and got the note Mr Knapp had sent by mail. It seemed likely that Jimmy Vail would be wanting it, and it was quite possible that developments would make it desirable for us to have something to show someone. I clipped the note to the edge of my desk pad, propped the pad against the back of a chair, got one of the cameras-the Tollens, which I have better luck with-and took half a dozen shots. All this time, of course, Wolfe was at his book, with no glance at me. I had returned the note to the safe and put the camera away, and was putting the film in a drawer, when the doorbell rang. I went to the hall door for a look, turned, and told Wolfe, “Excuse me for interrupting. Ben Dykes, head of the Westchester County detectives. He was there this afternoon. He’s a little fatter than when you saw him some years ago at the home of James U. Sperling near Chappaqua.” [see
He finished a sentence before he turned his head. “Confound it,” he muttered. “Must I?”
“No. I can tell him we’re not concerned. Of course in a week or so they might get desperate and take
