"Listen, Mrs. Potter. Will you listen carefully, please?"
"Of course I will."
"Okay. This is what I was going to tell you. It's not what I am telling you, only what I intended to. I'm George Thompson, a literary agent. I have in my possession a copy of a manuscript of a novel entitled 'Put Not Your Trust,' written by Baird Archer. But I have reason to believe that Baird Archer was a pen name used by your brother, that your brother wrote the novel - but I'm not sure about it. I also have reason to believe that I can sell the novel to one of the big movie companies for a good price, around fifty thousand dollars. You are your brother's sole heir. I want, with you, to go through the letters your brother wrote you, looking for evidence that he wrote or was writing the novel. Whether we find such evidence or not, I want to deposit the manuscript in the vault of a local bank for safekeeping, and I want you to write a letter to a certain law firm in New York, the firm your brother worked for. In the letter I want you to say that you have a copy of the manuscript of a novel written by your brother under the name of Baird Archer, giving the title of the novel, that an agent named Thompson thinks he can sell it to the movies for fifty thousand dollars, and that you want their legal advice in the matter because you don't know how such things should be done. I also want you to say that Thompson has read the manuscript but you have not. Get that?"
"But if you can sell it -" She was wide-eyed. It didn't alter my opinion of her. A prospect of fifty thousand unexpected bucks is enough to open eyes, no matter how honest they are. She added, "If it's my property I can just tell you to sell it, can't I?"
"You see," I reproached her, "you didn't listen."
"I did-too! I lis -"
"No. You did not. I warned you that that was only what I intended to tell you. There was some truth in it, but darned little. I do think that your brother wrote a novel of that title under the name of Baird Archer, and I would like to go through his letters to see if he mentioned it, but I have no copy of the manuscript, there is no prospect of selling it to the movies, I am not a literary agent, and my name is not George Thompson. Now, having -"
"Then it was all lies!"
"No. It would have -"
She was out of her chair. "Who are you? What's your name?"
"Have my ears changed any?" I demanded.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to listen. It wasn't a lie if I didn't say it, even if I intended to. Now here's what I do say, and it's the truth. You might as well sit down, because this is even longer."
She sat, but on about a third of the chair seat.
"My name," I said, "is Archie Goodwin. I'm a private detective, and I work for Nero Wolfe, also a private detec -"
"Nero Wolfe!"
"Right. It will please him to know that you had heard of him, and I'll be sure to tell him. He has been hired by a man named Wellman to find out who murdered his daughter. And another girl has been murdered, one named Rachel Abrams. Also, before that, your brother was murdered. We have reason to believe that the same person committed all three murders. It's a long and complicated reason, and I'll skip it. If you want the details later you can have them. I'll just say that our theory is that your brother was killed because he wrote that novel, Joan Wellman was killed because she had read it, and Rachel Abrams was killed because she had typed it."
"The novel - Len wrote?"
"Yes. Don't ask me what was in it, because we don't know. If we did, I wouldn't have had to come out here to see you. I came to get you to help us catch a man that murdered three people, and one of them was your brother."
"But I can't -" She gulped. "How can I help?"
"I'm telling you. I could have tricked you into helping. I've just proved it. You would have come along for a chance at fifty thousand dollars, you know darned well you would. You'd have let me go through your brother's letters for evidence, and whether we found it or not you'd have written the letter to the law firm. That's all I'm asking you to do, only now I'm giving it to you straight and asking you to do it not for a pile of dough but to help catch the man that killed your brother. If you would have done it for money, and you would, don't you think you ought to do it to bring a murderer to justice?"
She was frowning, concentrating. "But I don't see - You only want me to write a letter?"
"That's right. It's like this. We think your brother wrote that novel, and it was a vital element in the murders. We think that someone in that law office is involved and either committed the murders or knows who did. We think that someone is desperately determined that the contents of that manuscript shall not be known to any living person. If we're right, and you send the kind of letter I described, he'll have to move and move quick, and that's all we need, to start him moving. If we're wrong, your sending the letter will do nobody any harm."
She was keeping the frown. "What did you say you wanted me to say in the letter?"
I repeated it, with fuller detail. Toward the end she began slowly shaking her head. When I stopped she spoke.
"But that would be a lie - saying you have a copy of the manuscript when you haven't. I couldn't tell them a deliberate lie!"
"Maybe not," I said regretfully. "If you're the kind of person who has never told a lie in all your life, I can't expect you to tell one just to help find the man who killed your brother -and who also killed two young women, ran a car over one of them and pushed the other one out of a window. Even if it couldn't possibly hurt any innocent person, I wouldn't want to urge you to tell your very first lie."
"You don't have to be sarcastic." Her face had turned a mild pink. "I didn't say I never told a lie. I'm no angel. You're perfectly right, I would have done it for the money, only then I wouldn't have known it was a lie." Suddenly her eyes twinkled. "Why don't we start over and do it the other way?"
I would have liked to give her a good hug. "Listen," I suggested, "let's take things in order. We've got to go through his letters first anyhow, there's no objection to that, then we can decide on the next step. You get the letters, huh?"
"I guess so." She arose. "They're in a box in the garage."
"Can I help?"
She said no, thanks, and left me. I got up and crossed to a window to look out at the California climate, I would have thought it was beautiful if I had been a seal. It would be beautiful anyway if one of Dykes's letters had what I was after. I wasn't asking for anything elaborate like an outline of the plot; just one little sentence would do.
When she came back, sooner than I expected, she had two bundles of white envelopes in her hands, tied with string. She put them down on the glass-topped table, sat, and pulled the end of a bowknot
I approached. "Start about a year ago. Say March of last year." I pulled a chair up. "Here, give me some."
She shook her head. "I'll do it."
"You might miss it. It might be just a vague reference."
"I won't miss it. I couldn't let you read my brother's letters, Mr. Thompson."
"Goodwin. Archie Goodwin."
"Excuse me. Mr. Goodwin." She was looking at postmarks.
Evidently she meant it, and I decided to table my motion, at least temporarily. Meanwhile I could do a job. I got out my notebook and pen and started writing at the top of a sheet:
Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin - Briggs 522 Madison Avenue New York, N. Y.
Gentlemen:
I am writing to ask your advice because my brother worked for you for many years up to the time of his death. His name was Leonard Dykes. I am his sister and in his will he left everything to me, but I suppose you know that.