David made a mild little gesture. “He was being generous, I thought, since he could have claimed that too. We asked the lawyer a few questions and then left and went out to a restaurant for lunch. Paul was raging. My brother Paul is impulsive. He wanted to go to the police and tell them Bert had died in suspicious circumstances, and ask them to investigate. His theory was that when Arrow saw that Bert was getting reconciled with his family he was afraid he might make large gifts to us, possibly even a share of the mining properties, and Arrow couldn’t claim them under the agreement if Bert died, so he decided he had to die now. Vincent Tuttle, my sister’s husband, objected that even if the theory was sound Arrow hadn’t acted on it, since two competent doctors had agreed that Bert had died of pneumonia, and Louise and I agreed with him, but Paul was stubborn. He hinted that he knew something we didn’t know, but then he has always liked to be a little mysterious. He stuck to it that we should go to the police, and we argued about it, and finally I suggested a compromise. I suggested that I get Nero Wolfe to investigate, and if you decided there was sufficient reason to call in the police we would join with Paul in doing so, and if you decided there wasn’t, Paul would forget it. Paul said all right, he would accept your decision, so that’s what I want you to do. I know you charge high fees, but this shouldn’t require any great — uh — I mean it shouldn’t be too complicated. It’s a fairly simple problem, isn’t it?”
Wolfe grunted. “It could be. There was no autopsy?”
“No, no. Good heavens, no.”
“That should be the first step, but it’s too late now, without the police. Before burial an examination could have been made merely to satisfy medical curiosity, but exhumation needs authority. I take it that you want me to investigate, and reach a decision, without attracting the attention of the police.”
Fyfe nodded emphatically. “That’s right. That’s exactly right. We don’t want any scandal... any rumors going around...”
“People rarely do,” Wolfe said drily. “But you may be hiring me to start one. You understand, of course, that if I find evidence of skulduggery it will not be in your sole discretion whether to bury it or disclose it. I will not engage to suppress grounds, if I find any, for a suspicion of homicide. If my investigation results in a reasonable assumption that you have yourself committed a crime, I am free to act as I see fit.”
“Of course.” Fyfe tried to smile, with fair success. “Only I know I have committed no crime, and I doubt if any one has. My brother Paul is a little impetuous. You’ll need to see him, naturally, and he’ll want to see you.”
“I’ll have to see all of them.” Wolfe’s tone was morose. Work. He grabbed at a straw: “But under the circumstances I must ask for a retainer as a token of good faith. Say a check for a thousand dollars?”
It wasn’t a bad try, since a head of a high-school English department with two children might not have a grand lying around loose, and the deal would have been off, but Fyfe didn’t even attempt to haggle. He did gulp, and gulped again after he got out a check folder and pen and wrote, and signed his name. I got up and accepted the check when he offered it, and passed it across to Wolfe.
“It’s a little steep,” Fyfe said — not a complaint, just a fact — “but it can’t be helped. It’s the only way to satisfy Paul. When will you see him?”
Wolfe gave the check a look and put it under a paperweight, a chunk of petrified wood that had once been used by a man named Duggan to crack his wife’s skull. He glanced up at the wall clock; in twenty minutes it would be four o’clock, time for his afternoon session in the plant rooms.
“First,” he told Fyfe, “I need to speak with Doctor Buhl. Can you have him here at six o’clock?”
David looked doubtful. “I could try. He would have to come in from Mount Kisco, and he’s a busy man. Can’t you leave him out of it? He certified the death, and he’s thoroughly reputable.”
“It’s impossible to leave him out. I must see him before dealing with the others. If he can be here at six, arrange for the others to come at six-thirty. Your brother and sister, and Mr. Tuttle, and Mr. Arrow.”
Fyfe stared. “Good heavens,” he protested, “not Arrow! Anyway, he wouldn’t come.” He shook his head emphatically. “No. I won’t ask him.”
Wolfe shrugged. “Then I will. And it might be better — yes. It may be protracted, and I dine at seven-thirty. If you can arrange for Doctor Buhl to be here at nine, bring the others at half past. That will give us the night if we need it. Of course, Mr. Fyfe, there are several points I could go into with you now — for instance, the situation you found when you returned to the apartment from the theater, and your brother Bertram’s reconciliation with his family — but I have an appointment; and besides, they can be explored more fully this evening. For the present, please give Mr. Goodwin the addresses and phone numbers of everyone involved.” He moved his vast bulk forward in his chair to pick up the penknife and start rubbing it gently on the oilstone. He had undertaken that job, and by gum he intended to finish it.
“I described the situation,” Fyfe said in a sharper tone. “I invited the inference that Paul had stayed at the apartment in order to approach the nurse. I wholly disapprove of his method of approaching women. I have said he is impetuous.”
Wolfe was feeling the knife’s edge tenderly with a thumb.
“What is the point,” Fyfe asked, “about the reconciliation?”
“Only that you used the word.” Wolfe was honing again. “What needed to be reconciled? It may be irrelevant, but so are most points raised in an investigation. It can wait till this evening.”
Fyfe was frowning. “It’s an old sore,” he said, the sharpness gone and his voice tired again. “It may not be irrelevant, because it may partly account for Paul’s attitude. Also I suppose we’re over-sensitive about any threat of scandal. Pneumonia is a touchy subject with us. My father died of pneumonia twenty years ago, but it was thought by the police he was murdered. Not only by the police. He was in a ground-floor bedroom in our house at Mount Kisco, and it was January, and on a stormy night, extremely cold, someone raised two windows and left them wide open. I found him dead at five o’clock in the morning. Snow was drifted a foot deep on the floor and there was snow on the bed. My sister Louise, who was caring for him that night, was sound asleep on a couch in the next room. It was thought that some hot chocolate she drank at midnight had been drugged, but that wasn’t proven. The windows weren’t locked and could have been opened from the outside — in fact, they must have been. My father had been a little shrewd in some of his real-estate dealings, and there were people in the community who had been — uh — who were not fond of him.”
Fyfe repeated the mild little gesture. “So you see, there is the coincidence. Unfortunately, my brother Bert — he was only twenty-two then — he had quarreled with my father and was not living at home. He was living in a rooming house about a mile away and had a job in a garage. The police thought they had enough evidence to arrest him for murder, and he was tried, but the evidence certainly wasn’t conclusive, because he was acquitted. Anyhow he had an alibi. Up to two o’clock that night he had been playing cards with a friend — Vincent Tuttle, who later married my sister — in Tuttle’s room in the rooming house, and it had stopped snowing shortly after two, and the windows must have been opened long before it stopped snowing. But Bert resented some of our testimony on the witness stand — Paul’s and Louise’s and mine — though all we did was tell the truth about things that were known anyway — for example, Bert’s quarrel with my father. Everybody knew about it. The day after he was acquitted Bert left town, and we never heard from him, not a word for twenty years. So that’s why I used the word ‘reconciled.’”