Read Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 17 for Free Online Page A

lips. She jerked her face aside, shoved at me, and protested, “What the hell!”
    That sounded better, and I turned to Wolfe and told him reproachfully, “You can’t blame her. I doubt if it’s fear or despair or anything normal like that. It’s probably hunger. I’ll bet she hasn’t had a bite since breakfast.”
    “Good heavens.” His eyes popped wide open. “Is that true, Miss Nieder? Haven’t you had lunch?”
    She shook her head. “They kept me there—and then I had to see you—”
    Wolfe was pushing the button. Since it was only five steps from the office to the kitchen door, in seconds Fritz was there.
    “Sandwiches and beer at once,” Wolfe told him. “Beer, Miss Nieder?”
    “I don’t have to eat.”
    “Nonsense. Beer? Claret? Milk? Brandy?”
    “Scotch and water. I could use that.”
    Which of course halted progress for a good twenty minutes. It wasn’t only his own meals that Wolfe insisted on safeguarding from extraneous matters. When Fritz brought the tray Cynthia wasn’t reluctant about the Scotch, but she needed urging on the sandwiches and got it from both of us. After a taste of the homemade pâté no further urging was required. To make her feel that she could take her time Wolfe conversed with me about the plant germination records. Not about Cramer. His feelings about Cramer were much too warm and too recent. When she was through I put the tray on the table by the big globe, leaving her a glass full of her mixture, and then resumed my seat at my desk.
    Wolfe was regarding her warily. “Do you feel better?”
    “Much better, yes. I guess I was pretty empty.”
    “Good.” Wolfe leaned back and sighed. “Now. You came to me as soon as the police let you go. Does that mean that you want my help in this new circumstance?”
    “It certainly does. I want—”
    “Excuse me. We’ll go faster if I lead, and Mr. Cramer is quite capable of sending men here with warrants. Let’s compress it. There are two points on which I must be satisfied before we can proceed. First, whether you killed that man. An attorney may properly work for a murderer, but I’m not an attorney, and anyway I don’t like money from murderers. Did you kill him?”
    “No. I want to—”
    “Just the no will do if it’s the truth. Is it?”
    “Yes. It’s no.”
    “I’m inclined to accept it, for reasons mostly not communicable. Some are. For instance, if you had been unable to eat that pâté—” Wolfe cut himself off and sent his eyes at me. “Archie. Did Miss Nieder kill that man?”
    I looked at her, my lips puckered, and her gaze met mine. I must admit that she looked pretty ragged, not at all the same person as the one who had modeled, just twenty-four hours before, a dancing dress of Swiss eyelet organdy with ruffled shoulders. She had sure been through something, but not necessarily a murder.
    I shook my head and told Wolfe, “No, sir. No guarantee with sanctions, but I vote no. My reasons are like yours, but I might mention that I strongly doubtif I would have had the impulse to make her stop crying by kissing her thoroughly if she had jabbed a window pole into a man’s face more than a dozen times. No.”
    Wolfe nodded. “Then that’s settled. She didn’t, unless we get cornered by facts, and in that case we’ll deserve it. The other point, Miss Nieder, is this: Was the man you saw up there a week ago today your uncle, and was it he who was killed last night?”
    A “yes” popped out of her. She added, “It was Uncle Paul. I saw him. I went—”
    “Don’t dash ahead. We’ll get to that. Since I’m assuming your good faith, tentatively at least, I am not suggesting that what you told me yesterday was flummery. I grant that you thought it was your uncle you saw a week ago today, and I accepted it then, but now it’s too flimsy for me. You’ll have to give me something better if you’ve got it. What was it that convinced you it was your uncle?”
    “I
knew
it was,” Cynthia