Rex Stout - And be a Villian

“If I could have another moment, Mr Wolfe. I've had a hard day and am trying to think.”

“By all means.”

He took ten seconds. His voice came, even tireder: “I suppose it would be useless to tell you to go to hell. I would prefer not to discuss it on the phone. I'll be at your office around nine o'clock.”

“Good. Have you a dinner engagement, doctor?”

“An engagement? No. I'm dining at home. Why?”

“It just occurred to me-could I prevail on you to dine with me? You said you were just leaving for the day. I have a good cook. We are having fresh pork tenderloin, with all fibre removed, done in a casserole, with a sharp brown sauce moderately spiced. There will not be time to chambrer a claret properly, but we can have the chill off. We shall, of course, not approach our little matter until afterward, with the coffee-or even after that. Do you happen to know the brandy labelled Remisier? It is not common. I hope this won't shock you, but the way to do it is to sip it with bites of Fritz's apple pie. Fritz is my cook.”

“I'll be damned. I'll be there-what's the address?”

Wolfe gave it to him, and hung up.

“I'll be damned too,” I declared. “A perfect stranger? He may put horse-radish on oysters.”

Wolfe grunted. “If he had gone home to eat with that creature tilings might have been said. Even to the point of repudiation by her and defiance by him. I thought it prudent to avoid that risk.”

“Nuts. There's no such risk and you know it. What you're trying to avoid is to give anyone an excuse to think you're human. You were being kind to your fellow-man and you'd rather be caught dead. The idea of the poor devil going home to dine with that female hyena was simply too much for your great big warm heart, and you were so damn' impetuous you even committed yourself to letting him have some of that brandy of which there are only nineteen bottles in the United States and they're all in your cellar.”

“Bosh.” He arose. “You would sentimentalize the multiplication table.” He started for the kitchen, to tell Fritz about the guest, and to smell around.

Chapter Eighteen After dinner Fritz brought us a second pot of coffee in the office, and also the brandy bottle and big-bellied glasses. Most of the two hours had been spent, not on West Thirty-fifth Street in New York, but in Egypt. Wolfe and the guest had both spent some time there in days gone by, and they had settled on that for discussion and a few arguments.

Dr Michaels, informally comfortable in the red leather chair, put down his coffee cup, ditched a cigarette, and gently patted his midriff. He looked exactly like a successful Park Avenue doctor, middle-aged, well-built and well-dressed, worried but self-assured. After the first hour at the table the tired and worried look had gone, but now, as he cocked an eye at Wolfe after disposing of the cigarette, his forehead was wrinkled again.

“This has been a delightful recess,” he declared. “It has done me a world of good. I have dozens of patients for whom I would like to prescribe a dinner with you, but I'm afraid I'd have to advise you not to fill the prescription.” He belched, and was well-mannered enough not to try to cheat on it. “Well. Now I'll stop masquerading as a guest and take my proper role. The human sacrifice.”

Wolfe disallowed it “I have no desire or intention to gut you, sir.”

Michaels smiled. “A surgeon might say that too, as he slits the skin. No, let's get it done. Did my wife phone you, or write you, or come to see you?”

“Your wife?” Wolfe's eyes opened innocently. “Has there been any mention of your wife?”

“Only by me, this moment. Let it pass. I suppose your solemn word of honour has been invoked-a fine old phrase, really, solemn word of honour-” He shrugged. “I wasn't actually surprised when you asked me about that blackmail business on the phone, merely momentarily confused. I had been expecting something of the sort, because it didn't seem likely that such an opportunity to cause me embarrassment-or perhaps worse-would be missed. Only I would have guessed it would be the police. This is much better, much.”

Wolfe's head dipped forward, visibly, to acknowledge the compliment. “It may eventually reach the police, doctor. There may be no help for it.”

“Of course, I realize that. I can only hope not. Did she give you the anonymous letters, or just show them to you?”

“Neither. But that ‘she’ is your pronoun, not mine. With that understood-I have no documentary evidence, and have seen none. If there is some, no doubt I could get it.” Wolfe sighed, leaned back, and half closed his eyes. “Wouldn't it be simpler if you assume that I know nothing at all, and tell me about it?”

“I suppose so, damn it.” Michaels sipped some brandy, used his tongue to give all the membranes a chance at it, swallowed, and put the glass down. “From the beginning?”

“If you please.”

“Well…it was last summer, nine months ago, that I first learned about the anonymous letters. One of my colleagues showed me one that he had received by mail. It strongly hinted that I was chronically guilty of-uh, unethical conduct-with women patients. Not long after that I became aware of a decided change in the attitude of one of my oldest and most valued patients. I appealed.to her to tell me frankly what had caused it. She had received two similar letters. It was the next day-naturally my memory is quite vivid on this-that my wife showed me two letters, again similar, that had come to her.”

The wrinkles on his forehead had taken command again. “I don't have to explain what that sort of thing could do to a doctor if it kept up. Of course I thought of the police, but the risk of possible publicity, or even spreading of rumour, through a police inquiry, was too great. There was the same objection, or at least I thought there was, to hiring a private investigator. Then, the day after my wife showed me the letters-no, two days after-I had a phone call at my home in the evening. I presume my wife listened to it on the extension in her room-but you're not interested in that. I wish to God you were-” Michaels abruptly jerked his head up as if he had heard a noise somewhere. “Now what did I mean by that?”

“I have no idea,” Wolfe murmured. “The phone call?”

“It was a woman's voice. She didn't waste any words. She said she understood that people had been getting letters about me, and if it annoyed me and I wanted to stop it I could easily do so. If I would subscribe for one year to a publication called What to Expect-she gave me the address-there would be no more letters. The cost would be ten dollars a week, and I could pay as I pleased, weekly, monthly, or the year in advance. She assured me emphatically that there would be no request for renewal, that nothing beyond the one year's subscription would be required, that the letters would stop as soon as I subscribed, and that there would be no more.”

Michaels turned a hand to show a palm. “That's all. I subscribed. I sent ten dollars a week for a while-eight weeks-and then I sent a cheque for four hundred and forty dollars. So far as I know there have been no more letters-and I think I would know.”

“Interesting,” Wolfe murmured. “Extremely.”

“Yes,” Michaels agreed. “I can understand your saying that. It's what a doctor says when he runs across something rare like a lung grown to a rib. But if he's tactful he doesn't say it in the hearing of the patient.”

“You're quite right, sir. I apologize. But this is indeed a rarity-truly remarkable! If the execution graded as high as the conception…what were the letters like, typed?”

“Yes. Plain envelopes and plain cheap paper, but the typing was perfect.”

“You said you sent a cheque. That was acceptable?”

Michaels nodded. “She made that clear. Either cheque or money order. Cash would be accepted, but was thought inadvisable on account of the risk in the mails.”

“You see? Admirable. What about her voice?”

“It was medium in pitch, clear and precise, educated-I mean good diction and grammar-and matter-of-fact. One day I called the number of the publication-as you probably know it's listed-and asked for Miss Poole. It was Miss Poole talking, she said. I discussed a paragraph in the latest issue, and she was intelligent and informed about it. But her voice was soprano, jerky and nervous, nothing like the voice that had told me how to get the letters stopped.”

“It wouldn't be. That was what you phoned for?”

“Yes. I thought I'd have that much satisfaction at least, since there was no risk in it.”

“You might have saved your nickel,” Wolfe: grimaced. “Dr Michaels, I'm going to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don't want to, but though the question is intrusive it is also important. And it will do no good to ask it unless I can be assured of a completely candid reply or refusal to answer at all. You would be capable of a fairly good job of evasion if you were moved to try, and I don't want that. Will you give me either candour or silence?”

Michaels smiled. “Silence is so awkward. I'll give you a straight answer or I'll say ‘no comment’.”

“Good. How much substance was there in the hints in those letters about your conduct?”

The doctor looked at him, considered, and finally nodded his head. “It's intrusive, all right, but I'll take your word for it that it's important. You want a full answer?”

“As full as possible.”

“Then it must be confidential.”

“It will be.”

“I accept that. I don't ask for your solemn word of honour. There was not even a shadow of substance. I have never, with any patient, even approached the boundaries of professional decorum. But I'm not like you; I have a deep aind intense need for the companionship of a woman. I suppose that's why I married so early-and so disastrously. Possibly her money attracted me too, though I would vigorously deny it; there are bad streaks in me. Anyway, I do have the companionship of a woman, but not the one I married. She has never been my patient. When she needs medical advice she goes to some other doctor. No doctor should assume responsibility for the health of one he loves or one he hates.”

“This companionship you enjoy-it could not have been the stimulus for the hints in the letters?”

“I don't see how. All the letters spoke of women patients-in the plural, and patients.”

“Giving their names?”

“No, no names.”

Wolfe nodded with satisfaction. “That would have taken too much research for a wholesale operation, and it wasn't necessary.” He came forward in his chair to reach for the push-button. “I am greatly obliged to you, Dr Michaels. This has been highly distasteful for you, and you have been most indulgent. I don't need to prolong it, and I won't. I foresee no necessity to give the police your name, and I'll even engage not to do so, though heaven only knows what my informant will do. Now we'll have some beer. We didn't get it settled about the pointed arches in the Tulun mosque.”

“If you don't mind,” the guest said, “I’e been wondering if it would be seemly to tip this brandy bottle again.”

So he stayed with the brandy while Wolfe had beer. I excused myself and went out for a breath of air, for while they were perfectly welcome to do some more settling about the pointed arches in the Tulun mosque, as far as I was concerned it had been attended to long ago.

It was past eleven when I returned, and soon afterward Michaels arose to go. He was far from being pickled, but he was much more relaxed and rosy than he had been when I let him in. Wolfe was so mellow that he even stood up to say good-bye, and I didn't see his usual flicker of hesitation when Michaels extended a hand. He doesn't care about shaking hands indiscriminately.