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

don’t say that’s not your privilege. Of course you have no standing at all, since you admit nobody hired you, but if Miss Weltz tells you to go to hell that won’t take you off her neck if you’ve decided to go to town. She’ll answer anything you want to ask her that’s connected with the murder, and so will I. We’ve told the police and the District Attorney, why not you? Do you regard me as a suspect?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay.” He leaned back. “I first met Marie Willisabout a year ago, a little more. I took her out a few times, maybe once a month, and then later a little oftener, to dinner and a show. We weren’t engaged to be married, nothing like that. The last week in June, just two weeks before her death, she was on vacation, and four of us went for a cruise on my boat, up the Hudson and Lake Champlain. The other two were friends of mine, a man and a woman—do you want their names?”
    “No.”
    “Well, that was what got me in the murder picture, that week’s cruise she had taken on my boat so recently. There was nothing to it, we had just gone to have a good time, but when she was murdered the cops naturally thought I was a good prospect. There was absolutely nothing in my relations with Marie that could possibly have made me want to kill her. Any questions?”
    “No.”
    “And if they had dug up a motive they would have been stuck with it, because I certainly didn’t kill her the evening of July fifteenth. That was a Thursday, and at five o’clock that afternoon I was taking my boat through the Harlem River and into the sound, and at ten o’clock that night I was asleep on her at an anchorage near New Haven. My friend Ralph Ingalls was with me, and his wife, and Miss Helen Weltz. Of course the police have checked it, but maybe you don’t like the way they check alibis. You’re welcome to check it yourself if you care to. Any questions?”
    “One or two.” Wolfe shifted his fanny on the board slats. “What is your occupation?”
    “For God’s sake. You haven’t even read the papers.”
    “Yes, I have, but that was weeks ago, and as I rememberit they were vague. ‘Broker,’ I believe. Stockbroker?”
    “No, I’m a freewheeler. I’ll handle almost anything.”
    “Have you an office?”
    “I don’t need one.”
    “Have you handled any transactions for anyone connected with that business, Bagby Answers, Incorporated? Any kind of transaction?”
    Unger cocked his head. “Now that’s a funny question. Why do you ask that?”
    “Because I suspect the answer is yes.”
    “Why? Just for curiosity.”
    “Now, Mr. Unger.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “Since apparently you had heard of me, you may know that I dislike riding in cars, even when Mr. Goodwin is driving. Do you suppose I would have made this excursion completely at random? If you find the question embarrassing, don’t answer it.”
    “It’s not embarrassing.” Unger turned to the table, poured an inch of bourbon in his glass, added two inches of water from a pitcher, gave it a couple of swirls, took a sip, and another one, and finally put the glass down and turned back to Wolfe.
    “I’ll tell you,” he said in a new tone. “This whole business is pretty damn silly. I think you’ve got hold of some crazy idea somewhere, God knows what, and I want to speak with you privately.” He arose. “Let’s take a little walk.”
    Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t like conversing on my feet. If you want to say something without a witness, Miss Weltz and Mr. Goodwin can leave us. Archie?”
    I stood up. Helen Weltz looked up at Unger, and at me, and then slowly lifted herself from her chair.“Let’s go and pick flowers,” I suggested. “Mr. Unger will want me in sight and out of hearing.”
    She moved. We picked our way through the windfalls of the apple tree, and of two more trees, and went on into a meadow where the grass and other stuff was up to our knees. She was in the lead. “Goldenrod I know,” I told her back,