“My daughter Susan? Came here?”
“Yes.”
McLeod moved. In no hurry, he went to the red leather chair, sat, focused on Wolfe, and demanded, “What did she come for?”
Wolfe shook his head. “You have it wrong side up. That tone is for us, not you. We may or may not oblige you later; that will depend. The young man you permitted to pick my corn has been murdered, and because of false statements made by your daughter to the police Mr. Goodwin may be charged with murder. The danger is great and imminent. You say you spent yesterday dynamiting stumps and rocks. Until what hour?”
McLeod’s set jaw made his deep-tanned seamed face even squarer. “My daughter doesn’t make false statements,” he said. “What were they?”
“They were about Mr. Goodwin. Anyone will lie when the alternative is intolerable. She may have been impelled by a desperate need to save herself, but Mr. Goodwin and I do not believe she killed that man. Archie?”
I nodded. “Right. Now any odds you want to name.”
“And we’re going to learn who did kill him. Did you?”
“No. But I would have, if...” He let it hang.
“If what?”
“If I had known what he was saying about my daughter. I told them that, the police. I heard about it from them, and from my daughter, last night and this morning. He was a bad man, an evil man. You say you’re going to learn who killed him, but I hope you don’t I told them that too. They asked me what you did, about yesterday, and I told them I was there in the lot working with the stumps until nearly dark and it made me late with the milking. I can tell you this, I don’t resent you thinking I might have killed him, because I might.”
“Who was helping you with the stumps?”
“Nobody, not in the afternoon. He was with me all morning after he did the chores, but then he had to pick the corn and then he had to go with it.”
“You have no other help?”
“No.”
“Other children? A wife?”
“My wife died ten years ago. We only had Susan. I told you, I don’t resent this, not a bit. I said I would have killed him if I’d known. I didn’t want her to come to New York, I knew something like this might happen — the kind of people she got to know and all the pictures of her. I’m an old-fashioned man and I’m a righteous man, only that word righteous may not mean for you what it means for me. You said you might oblige me later. What did my daughter come here for?”
“I don’t know.” Wolfe’s eyes were narrowed at him. “Ask her. Her avowed purpose is open to question. This is futile, Mr. McLeod, since you think a righteous man may wink at murder. I wanted—”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t wink at murder. But I don’t have to want whoever killed Kenneth Faber to get caught and suffer for it. Do I?”
“No. I wanted to see you. I wanted to ask you, for instance, if you know a man named Carl Heydt, but since—”
“I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him. I’ve heard his name from my daughter; he was the first one she worked for. What about him?”
“Nothing, since you don’t know him. Do you know Max Maslow?”
“No.”
“Peter Jay?”
“No. I’ve heard their names from my daughter. She tells me about people; she tries to tell me they’re not as bad as I think they are, only their ideas are different from mine. Now this has happened, and I knew it would, something like this. I don’t wink at murder and I don’t wink at anything sinful.”
“But if you knew who killed that man or had reason to suspect anyone you wouldn’t tell me — or the police.”
“I would not.”
“Then I won’t keep you. Good afternoon, sir.”
McLeod stayed put “If you won’t tell me what my daughter came here for I can’t make you. But you can’t tell me she made false statements and not say what they were.”
Wolfe grunted. “I can and do. I will tell you nothing.” He slapped the desk. “Confound it, after sending me inedible corn you presume to come and make demands on me? Go!”
McLeod’s mouth opened and closed again. In no hurry, he got up. “I don’t think it’s fair,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right”. He turned to go and turned back. “Of course you won’t be wanting any more corn.”
Wolfe was scowling at him. “Why not? It’s only the middle of September.”
“I mean not from me.”
“Then from whom? Mr. Goodwin can’t go scouring the countryside with this imbroglio on our hands. I want corn this week. Tomorrow?”
“I don’t see... There’s nobody to bring it.”
“Friday, then?”
“I might. I’ve got a neighbor— Yes, I guess so. The restaurant too?”
Wolfe said yes, he would tell them to expect it, and McLeod turned and went. I stepped to the hall, got to the front ahead of him to hand him his hat, and saw him out. When I returned to the office Wolfe was leaning back, frowning at the ceiling. As I crossed to my desk and sat I felt a yawn coming, and I stopped it. A man expecting to be tagged for murder is in no position to yawn, even if he has had no sleep for thirty hours. I had my nose fill the order for more oxygen, swiveled, and said brightly, “That was a big help. Now we know about the corn.”
Wolfe straightened up. “Pfui. Call Felix and tell him to expect a delivery on Friday.”
“Yes, sir. Good. Then everything’s jake.”
“That’s bad slang. There is good slang and bad slang. How long will it take you to type a full report of our conversation with Miss McLeod, yours and mine, from the beginning?”
“Verbatim?”
“Yes.”
“The last half, more than half, is in the notebook. For the first part I’ll have to dig, and though my memory is as good as you think it is, that will be a little slower. Altogether, say four hours. But what’s the idea? Do you want it to remember me by?”
“No. Two carbons.”
I cocked my head. “Your memory is as good as mine — nearly. Are you actually telling me to type all that crap just to keep me off your neck until nine o’clock?”
“No. It may be useful.”
“Useful how? As your employee I’m supposed to do what I’m told, and I often do, but this is different. This is our joint affair, you said so, trying to save you from the calamity of losing me. Useful how?”
“I don’t know!” he bellowed. “I say it may be useful, if I decide to use it. Can you suggest something that may be more useful?”
“Offhand, no.”
“Then if you type it, two carbons.” I got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I might or might not start on it before four o’clock, when he would go up to the plant rooms for his afternoon session with the orchids.
4
At five minutes past nine that evening the three men whose names had had checkmarks in front of them in Kenneth Faber’s little notebook were in the office, waiting for Wolfe to show. They hadn’t come together; Carl Heydt had arrived first, ten minutes early, then Peter Jay, on the dot at nine, and then Max Maslow. I had put Heydt in the red leather chair, and Jay and Maslow on two of the yellow ones facing Wolfe’s desk. Nearest me was Maslow.
I had seen Heydt before, of course, but you take a new look at a man when he becomes a homicide candidate. He looked the same as ever — medium height with a slight bulge in the middle, round face with a wide mouth, quick dark eyes that kept on the move. Peter Jay, the something important in the big advertising agency, tall as me but not as broad, with more than his share of chin and a thick dark mane that needed a comb, looked as if he had the regulation ulcer, but it could have been just the current difficulty. Max Maslow, the fashion photographer, was a surprise. With the twisted smile he must have practiced in front of a mirror, the trick haircut, the string tie dangling, and the jacket with four buttons buttoned, he was a screwball if I ever saw one, and I wouldn’t have supposed that Sue McLeod would let such a specimen hang on. I admit it could have been just that his ideas were different from mine, but I like mine.