Free Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 31 by Champagne for One

nettle the police we are not at all reluctant. In this affair Mr. Goodwin is involved solely because he happened to be there, just as you are, and I am not involved at all. It is not a question of fear or of animus. I am merely detached. I will not, for instance, tell the police of the offers you have made Mr. Goodwin and me because it would stimulate their curiosity about you, and since I assume you have made the offers in good faith I am not disposed to do you an ill turn.”
    “But you’re turning me down.”
    “Yes. Flatly. In the circumstances I have no choice. Mr. Goodwin can speak for himself.”
    Laidlaw’s head turned to me and I had the eyesagain. I wouldn’t have put it past him to renew his offer, with an amendment that he would now leave the figure up to me, but if he had that in mind he abandoned it when he saw my steadfast countenance. When, after regarding me for eight seconds, he left his chair, I thought he was leaving the field and Wolfe wouldn’t have to go to work after all, but no. He only wanted to mull, and preferred to have his face to himself. He asked, “May I have a minute?” and, when Wolfe said yes, he turned his back and moseyed across the rug toward the far wall, where the big globe stood in front of bookshelves; and, for double the time he had asked for, at least that, he stood revolving the globe. Finally he about-faced and returned to the red leather chair, not moseying.
    “I must speak with you privately,” he told Wolfe.
    “You are,” Wolfe said shortly. “If you mean alone, no. If a confidence weren’t as safe with Mr. Goodwin as with me he wouldn’t be here. His ears are mine, and mine are his.”
    “This isn’t only a confidence. I’m going to tell you something that no one on earth knows about but me. I’m going to risk telling you because I have to, but I’m not going to double the risk.”
    “You will not be doubling it.” Wolfe was patient. “If Mr. Goodwin left us I would give him a signal to listen to us on a contraption in another room, so he might as well stay.”
    “You don’t make it any easier, Wolfe.”
    “I don’t pretend to make things easier. I only make them manageable—when I can.”
    Laidlaw looked as if he needed to mull some more, but he got it decided without going to consult the globe again. “You’ll have all you can do to managethis,” he declared. “I couldn’t go to my lawyer with it, or anyhow I wouldn’t, and even if I had it would have been too much for him. I thought I couldn’t go to anybody, and then I thought of you. You have the reputation of a wizard, and God knows I need one. First I wanted to know why Goodwin thinks it was murder, but evidently you’re not going—by the way—”
    He took a pen from a pocket and a checkbook from another, put the book on the little table at his elbow, and wrote. He yanked the check off, glanced it over, got up to put it on Wolfe’s desk, and returned to the chair.
    “If twenty thousand isn’t enough,” he said, “for a retainer and advances for expenses, say so. You haven’t accepted the job, I know, but I’m camping here until you do. You spoke of managing things. I want you to manage that if they go on with their investigation it doesn’t go deep enough to uncover and make public a certain event in my life. I also want you to manage that I don’t get arrested and put on trial for murder.”
    Wolfe grunted. “I could give no guarantee against either contingency.”
    “I don’t expect you to. I don’t expect you to pass miracles, either. And two things I want to make plain: first, if Faith Usher was murdered I didn’t kill her and don’t know who did; and second, my own conviction is that she committed suicide. I don’t know what Goodwin’s reason is for thinking she was murdered, but whatever it is, I’m convinced that he’s wrong.”
    Wolfe grunted again. “Then why come to me in a dither? If you’re convinced it was suicide. Since they are human the police do