Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 Read Online Free PDF Page A

nineteenth.
    “Gertrude Frazee, Los Angeles, California, before midnight April twentieth.”
    He returned the paper to his pocket and slid back in the chair, which was a relief. “That’s the postmark deadline for their answers, staggered as I said. It favors Miss Frazee, who was going to take a plane, but she held out for it. Since they’re being held in New York they might agree on an extension, but what if Miss Tescher, who lives here, refused? What if she went ahead and sent in her answers before her deadline? Where would we be?”
    Wolfe grunted. “In a pickle.”
    “We certainly would. There’s only one possibleway out, to learn who got that paper, today or tomorrow if possible, but absolutely before midnight April twentieth, the last deadline. With proof of that we’ll have them licked. We can say to them, One of you—and we name him—stole the answers. That makes it impossible to proceed with those verses. Surrender them or not, as you please, but we’re going to give you five new verses and new deadlines, and award the prizes on the basis of your answers to them. They’ll have to take it. Under those circumstances they would have no alternative. Would they?”
    “No,” Wolfe conceded. “But the one exposed as the purloiner of the answers wouldn’t have much opportunity for research. He would be jailed on a charge of murder.”
    “That’s his lookout.”
    “True. Also your guile would be disclosed. The police would know you had lied when you told them that you thought Dahlmann’s display of that paper last night was only a joke.”
    “That can’t be helped. Anyway, they’ll have the murderer.”
    “True again. Also,” Wolfe persisted, “you’re taking an excessive risk in assuming that I will find the thief, with evidence, within a week. I may not. If I don’t, you’re not in a pickle, you’re sunk. Before midnight April Twentieth? I have only this”—he tapped his forehead—”and Mr. Goodwin and a few men I can rely on. Whereas the police have thousands of men and vast resources and connections. I must suggest that you consider taking your problem to them just as you have brought it to me.”
    “We have considered it. That wouldn’t even be risky, it would be certain. By tomorrow morning itwould have got out that the answers to the contest had been stolen, and it would be a national scandal, and LBA would have a black eye that they might never recover from.”
    Wolfe was stubborn. “I must be sure you have thought it through. Even if I get the culprit before the deadline it will likewise come out that the answers were stolen.”
    “Yes, but then we will have the thief, and we’ll have arranged to decide the contest in a way agreed to by everybody else concerned. A totally different situation. LBA will be admired and congratulated for dealing with a crisis promptly, boldly, and brilliantly.”
    “Not by the police.”
    “No. But by the advertising and business world, the press, and the American people.”
    “I suppose so.” Wolfe’s head turned. “I would like to make sure of the decision to dodge with the police. You concur in it, Mr. Buff?”
    Buff’s big red face had been getting redder, and his brow was moist. “I do,” he said. “Because I have to.”
    “Mr. O’Garro?”
    “Yes. We had that out before we came to you.”
    “Mr. Assa?”
    “Yes. You’re wasting time!”
    “No. If it were a simple matter of catching a murderer—but it isn’t. This is full of complexities, and I must know things.” Wolfe turned a palm up. “For example. If I were sure that the one who took the wallet actually got the paper with the answers, that would help. But what if he didn’t? What if the paper Dahlmann displayed was something else, and it was in fact a hoax, and the thief got nothing for his pains?That would make my job much more difficult and would require a completely different procedure.”
    “Don’t worry,” O’Garro assured him. “It was the answers all right.