Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 27 by Three Witnesses Read Free Book Online

why.” She got up and took a step, and reached to pat him on the shoulder and then on top of the head. “I didn’t want to miss a chance to touch the great Nero Wolfe!” She laughed again, moved to the table and poured herself a healthy dose of bourbon, returned to her chair, and swallowed a good half of it. She shook herself and said, “Brrrrr. That’s why!”
    Unger was frowning at her. It didn’t need the brains of a Nero Wolfe, or even a Guy Unger, to see that her nerves were teetering on an edge as sharp as a knife blade.
    “But,” Wolfe said dryly, “having touched me, you still suffer me. Of course Miss Hart told you that I reject the thesis that Leonard Ashe killed Marie Willis and propose to discredit it. I’m too late to try any of the conventional lines of inquiry, and anyway they have all been fully and competently explored by the police and the District Attorney on one side and Mr. Ashe’s lawyer on the other. Since I can’t expect to prove Mr. Ashe’s innocence, the best I can hope to establish is a reasonable doubt of his guilt. Can you give it to me?”
    “Of course not. How could I?”
    “One way would be to suggest someone else withmotive and opportunity. Means is no problem, since the plug cord was there at hand. Can you?”
    She giggled, and then was shocked, presumably at herself for giggling about murder. “Sorry,” she apologized, “but you’re funny. The way they had us down there at the District Attorney’s office, and the way they kept after us, asking all about Marie and everybody she knew, and of course what they wanted was to find out if there was anybody besides that man Ashe that might have killed her. But now they’re trying Ashe for it, and they wouldn’t be trying him if they didn’t think they could prove it, and here you come and expect to drag it out of me in twenty minutes. Don’t you think that’s funny for a famous detective like you? I do.”
    She picked up her glass and drained it, stiffened to control a shudder, and got up and started for the table. Guy Unger reached and beat her to the bottle. “You’ve had enough, Helen,” he told her gruffly. “Take it easy.” She stared down at him a moment, dropped the glass on his lap, and went back to her chair.
    Wolfe eyed her. “No, Miss Weltz,” he said. “No, I didn’t expect to drag a disclosure from you in twenty minutes. The most I expected was support for my belief that you people have common knowledge of something that you don’t want revealed, and you have given me that. Now I’ll go to work, and I confess I’m not too sanguine. It’s quite possible that after I’ve squandered my resources on it, time and thought and money and energy, and enlisted the help of half a dozen able investigators, I’ll find that the matter you people are so nervous about has no bearing on the murder of Marie Willis and so is of no use to me, and of no concern. But I can’t know that until I know what it is, so I’m going to know. If you think my process of finding out willcause inconvenience to you and the others, or worse, I suggest that you tell me now. It will—”
    “I have nothing to tell you!”
    “Nonsense. You’re at the edge of hysteria.”
    “I am not!”
    “Take it easy, Helen.” Guy Unger focused his mean little eyes on Wolfe. “Look, I don’t get this. As I understand it, what you’re after is an out for Leonard Ashe on the murder. Is that right?”
    “Yes.”
    “And that’s all?”
    “Yes.”
    “Would you mind telling me, did Ashe’s lawyer hire you?”
    “No.”
    “Who did?”
    “Nobody. I developed a distaste for my function as a witness for the prosecution, along with a doubt of Mr. Ashe’s guilt.”
    “Why doubt his guilt?”
    Wolfe’s shoulders went up a fraction of an inch, and down again. “Divination. Contrariety.”
    “I see.” Unger pursed his midget mouth, which didn’t need pursing. “You’re shooting at it on spec.” He leaned forward. “Understand me, I