NERO WOLFE, PRO BONO, by Archie Goodwin
When Sergeant Purley Stebbins of the NYPD pays us a visit, it is usually unannounced and confrontational. But one morning shortly after lunch, the phone rang and it was him. He asked to speak with Wolfe, who was in his chair drinking beer. I told him who was on the line and since we had no clients and weren’t on a case, he was as surprised as I was.
“Yes, Sergeant?” he asked.
“I need to see you as soon as possible.”
“For what purpose?”
“I’d rather tell you in person.”
“Very well. I can fit you in at 2:30.”
Purley thanked him and hung up.
“Fit him in?” I asked. “You’ve got nothing to do but play with orchids at four o’clock.”
“No one needs to know we’re currently—how shall I put it?”
“Unemployed. What do you think he wants?”
Wolfe shrugged, for him a workout. “Pointless to speculate.” He turned his attention to beer and the mail, in that order.
d d d d
After lunch I went to Murray Street near City Hall to buy shoe polish for Wolfe. I barely got back in time to open the door for Purley and got a shock. Not only was he not in uniform, he was in a black suit and bowtie that was all wrong for him.
For once he sat in the red leather chair, which made me curious enough to ask.
“That’s where you always seat your clients.”
“Otherwise your boss sits there.” I rang for Wolfe, who entered and offered him beer. He usually said no, but this time he said thank you and waited for Fritz to bring him a pilsner glass and a bottle of Remmers. Purley filled the glass, raised it and said, “To Inspector Cramer.”
We repeated him, then Wolfe asked why we were toasting him. “Has something bad happened?”
“Yes, but he’s not sick and he hasn’t been hurt. I want to hire you, Wolfe.”
“To do what?”
“Defend the inspector. He’s been arrested.”
“What?!” That was me. “What for?”
“Murder. I know it’s going to cost me a year’s salary.”
“Not necessarily,” Wolfe replied. “Archie, your notebook.”
d d d d
Purley laid it out for us. They’d arrested a rape-murderer named Jack Gainslee and he was being interrogated by Cramer and an assistant DA named Perry Benjamin. At one point, Benjamin left the room to use the john. When he got back, Cramer was on the floor unconscious and Gainslee had a bullet in what was left of his skull. According to Cramer, he’d been waiting for Benjamin to return to continue the interrogation, but suddenly the door opened and someone slugged him and he passed out. The next thing he knew the assistant DA was shaking him. They recovered the bullet. It fitted the inspector’s weapon, which held only his fingerprints.
“Sergeant,” Wolfe asked, “isn’t it possible that—?”
“No! Never!”
“I agree with you, but if I find evidence supporting his guilt, you know I will not be able to ignore or suppress it.”
Purley got out his checkbook. “How much?”
“One dollar.”
“As a retainer?”
“No, that’s the entire fee.”
Purley rose to shake his hand, remembered that Wolfe didn’t like doing that and also must have remembered that he likes eyes on his own level since he sat back down and thanked him.
With the almost invisible lip twist that passed for a smile, Wolfe said, “If I succeed, I will expect Mr. Cramer—no, not money—I’ll want him to do me a favor. Details only if and when he is exonerated.”
d d d d
While we waited for the trial date to be set, Wolfe kept me busy checking on the victim and how many people might want him dead. Fred Durkin, with Purley’s help, investigated Cramer, while our best operative Saul Panzer worked on the assistant DA. We all figured we’d be called as witnesses.
Now if you read the case I wrote up as “The Next Witness,” you know that Wolfe hates to be called to court for several reasons: the long waiting involved, being made to sit on a bench next to a stranger and if it’s a woman, being forced to endure what he calls repellent perfume (it doesn’t matter if she’s not wearing any).
The day that the trial began, I was in the second row, which took some doing to make happen; it broke the rule that witnesses had to wait some place else, but Wolfe said he would not do anything unless I was there, so Cramer’s attorney Aaron Golzer (recommended by Wolfe’s legal representative Nat Parker) met with the prosecutor and the judge and explained that Wolfe was vital to his case and at last the judge allowed it, subject to her reevaluation if anything happened and she deemed it necessary to clear the courtroom.
So there I was in the second row. Wolfe was up front sitting next to Cramer and Golzer, who’d found a chair big enough to accommodate Wolfe’s fundament, not that it (the chair) didn’t groan about it.
“All rise!” an officer proclaimed and we all rose for the judge, a Number Ten on the heart-flutter scale named Carolyn Grove. She took her place on the bench and the trial began. The opening business is pretty much the same in all American courtrooms, so I’ll skip ahead to the calling of witnesses. The prosecutor had three: the officer stationed in the hall, the assistant DA Perry Benjamin, and Inspector Cramer, who overrode counsel’s advice and agreed to take the stand, which he did after the officer cum hall monitor answered a few questions that bore out what I’d already learned—other than the assistant D.A., Inspector Cramer, and of course the prisoner, no one else entered or left the vicinity.
The officer stepped down and Cramer was sworn in. The prosecutor, whose name was Rufus Claridge, ascertained the inspector’s name and rank, then asked how long he’d been with the NYPD. “Now please describe the events leading up to Mr. Benjamin’s discovery of the body.”
Cramer did so in great detail. Of course Claridge hammered away at every bit of testimony, but he couldn’t shake his story. All in all, Cramer’s testimony provided nothing negative to the State, though nothing positive, either.
The prosecutor called his final witness. Perry Benjamin took the stand and was sworn in. I noticed Wolfe murmuring something to Golzer the defense attorney, who nodded yes.
d d d d
Maybe I should have told you some things that happened before the trial, so now we’ve got to back-track so I can tell you what Wolfe did once he accepted Purley Stebbins’s case. The first thing he did was assign me and Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin to find out as soon as we could what other people had motives to kill the rapist/victim Jack Gainslee. It took two days (which I think shows how good we are!) and another day to narrow down the field, which was large. At last I told Wolfe we’d narrowed it down to three of the likeliest suspects.
“Satisfactory.” But then he frowned. “Archie, do you think that we should also look into whoever might hold animus for Mr. Cramer?”
“I thought about that, Chief, but I think it’s a long shot. We can always do it if nothing else works out.”
“I agree. Summon the three suspects as soon as possible so I may—”
“I already have. They’ll be here tonight at nine.”
“Most satisfactory!”
“High praise … is a raise in order?”
He chuckled. “I have already expressed my esteem for your efforts, Archie. Nothing more need be added, for as has been said, virtue is its own reward.”
“Not at the supermarket, it isn’t.”
d d d d
The trio arrived promptly at nine. There were two men, Carter deVane and Leon Jefferson, and one woman, Belinda Benowicz, who immediately claimed the red leather chair and before I could offer drinks, requested a double over ice of Michter’s rye, which I assumed she saw we had. The men chose scotch, not generically, but Ballantine (Jefferson) and a brandy snifter of the hard-to-find (in America) Glen Turret single malt for Carter deVane. I was impressed with their choices and hoped none of them were guilty.
A few physical details to set the scene: Jefferson wore blue jeans and a dark T-shirt, which was quite a contrast to deVane’s costly gray suit, off-white shirt, and slim tie affixed by a diamond-chip clip. Oddly, he wore paddock boots, which suggested that he rode horses. (By the way, I should mention that he was—is—the Carter deVane, whose name and business ventures were frequently associated with Fortune 500.)
Belinda’s garb was, I regret to report, mannish. Black shirt and tie (!), tight black slacks that earned for her that characterization popular, I’m told, somewhere in Africa as callipygian.
Wolfe entered and I introduced the three of them. Belinda corrected me when I called her “Miss Benowicz”—I should have foreseen she should be referred to as “Ms.”
When I introduced Leon Jefferson, Wolfe actually shook his hand, or at least brushed against it. “I have read your excellent history of the Civil War, sir—you certainly deserved the Pulitzer Prize. Your subject, after all, has formed the core of many books, but you found both new information and insights. I congratulate you.”
“Mr. Wolfe,” Jefferson said, “your praise has made this visit worthwhile!”
Everyone took their seats and after the inevitable beer ritual, Wolfe opened his mouth to begin the proceedings, but was interrupted by Ms. B.B., who hoped she’d have an opportunity to see his orchids. Now that’s a request that always pleases him, but not this time. He ignored her remark and embarked, instead, on a preliminary statement to the trio. Obviously, he didn’t care for her, but why? He couldn’t already have chosen her as the murderer—no questions had yet been asked of anyone.
Well, the next half-hour was taken up with him finding out their reasons for wanting to kill Jack Gainslee. Belinda admitted that she was a rape victim, but didn’t want to provide any details. “It’s embarrassing—no, it’s humiliating to talk about it in a roomful of men.”
“I see that,” Wolfe said. “Can you tell me this, though? Was your rapist ever caught?”
She smiled, which I thought unsettling. “He’s dead.”
“How did he die? Did you—?”
“No, Mr. Wolfe. My brother did it.”
“Indeed?!” His eyebrows shot up. “Who—?”
“No,” she cut in, “that’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s over and done with and I’m glad. No more questions.” She asked me for a rye refill, which I got for her.
Wolfe gave it up. Turning to Leon Jefferson, he said “I have no basis to think this, sir, but you do not strike me as a murderer.”
Jefferson stroked his white mustache and sipped his scotch. “Mr. Wolfe, I should think that you of all people would know that everyone on this planet is at least potentially a murderer. My cousin Ruth, who I adored, was raped and they never caught the bastard. If I could have killed him, I would have. Now you may well ask whether that experience would prompt me to kill another such monster, even if I did not know him. The answer is yes, I would, even if I knew I would be caught and punished for it. But Mr. Wolfe, I am really a very lazy fellow—”
“I find that hard to believe. Your Civil War history must have taken ever so much energy to research and write.”
Jefferson nodded. “That’s true. But I enjoyed the process! Still, if I found myself in the same room with a known rapist, I would not hesitate to do him in. But I was nowhere near this Gainslee fellow. I was in London at that time, and before you ask it, yes, I have witnesses.”
A sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort was produced by Carter deVane. We turned to him as he said, “I, on the other hand, was actually in the neighborhood of the building where the Gainslee murder happened … and I have no witnesses to say I did not go inside and kill him. Which I would have done. He raped my sister, but she would not testify against him in court.”
It ended soon after that. I saw them all out, locked the door and returned to the office, where Wolfe sat with his eyes closed and his lips doing their in-out dance. But it was a short set, choreographically. He looked at me and said, “Archie, what are your impressions of what we heard?”
“Not much. The only thing I wonder about is the details that Belinda wouldn’t share.”
He nodded. “My thoughts, precisely. Jefferson, of course, we can dismiss since he was in London and you may be certain he’ll be able to prove it.” He rang for beer and when Fritz entered, Wolfe surprised us both by not specifying which brand to bring. “Surprise me.”
Fritz and I exchanged a startled glance and as he went out, I said, “Who are you and what have you done with Mr. Wolfe?”
“I’m merely celebrating the prospect of clearing Mr. Cramer.”
“You’ve solved it?!”
An elephantine sigh. “I have a theory. But I need evidence.”
That meant work for me and maybe Saul and/or Fred, but before I could ask Fritz returned with a bottle of Angry Bastard and a second one of Iron City beer, which a client sent Wolfe from Pittsburgh.
He began with Angry Bastard, which did not match his mood. He tasted it and said, “Satisfactory,” which promptly sent Fritz to heaven, at that moment situated in our kitchen. To me Wolfe said, “Tomorrow you will ask Saul to investigate deVane who was, after all, near the murder scene. But the fact that he volunteered that information is in his favor.”
“OK, but I can do it, you know.”
“No, Archie, I need you to dig into the untold details of Ms. Belinda’s violation.” He shuddered. “I detest that word. Ms. It sounds like the echo of a bee’s drone.” He opened and poured Iron City beer, adjusted the bead and took a sip. “Oh, good grief!” he exclaimed, eyes wide. “I never thought I’d declare a beer undrinkable, but this—is an abomination!”
He picked up the bottle, which I thought he was about to smash, but instead he poured the rest into his glass and drank it.
“If it’s so bad, why did you—?”
“I thought I’d been too hard on it and gave it a second chance. And now I know what Hell tastes like!”
d d d d
Back to the trial … the shortest one I ever witnessed. This was partly because the prosecutor’s case was brief and Wolfe’s (Golzer’s) even more so. It occurred to me that my werowance (American Indian for “Chief,” the only word I ever stumped him with) was in court pro bono, which is against his religion, if he had one.
Of course it was highly irregular for Wolfe to upstage the defense attorney and cross-examine the witness, Assistant District Attorney Perry Benjamin, but when the question came up, Claridge the prosecutor did not object. Why would he? The thought that a layman, a legal neophyte (so I imagine he judged Wolfe) would undertake a critical cross-examination that Golzer should have done must have delighted him.
Wolfe began by asking Perry Benjamin to describe the room they were in when he and Cramer were questioning Jack Gainslee.
“It was small. Smallish.”
“Could you estimate its dimensions?”
“Maybe fifteen feet long by five or six wide.”
“I assume it contained furniture?”
“Yes. A table and four chairs—wooden. A metal filing cabinet.”
I wondered why Wolfe was wasting time on what I was sure were inconsequential details. I asked him about it afterward and he told me he meant to lull the witness with “meaningless minutiae.” It was all a seemingly innocent prelude to a heads-on attack.
“The table,” Wolfe prompted. “How big?”
Benjamin shrugged. “Not sure. I’ll guess it’s eight feet long and two feet wide—no, a little less. Why?”
“Why?” Wolfe echoed.
“Well, Mr. Wolfe, I know you’re not a lawyer, but you’ve had wide experience of many aspects of the law. I just can’t see that any of what you’re asking is the least bit important.”
“You’re right, of course. Were there any objects on the table? Such as a gun?”
A decisive shake of Benjamin’s head. “No. Why would there be?” He was beginning to sound both confused and perhaps a little worried. “The only things on the table were my notes, Inspector Cramer’s notes, and a few glasses and a pitcher of water.”
I saw him glance to the back of the courtroom. I turned and saw Belinda standing near the double doors.
“Very well,” said Wolfe. “We’re nearly done. But let me ask you this—I’m told you left the room to go to the rest room?”
“I did.”
“Before you did so, did you at any time notice Inspector Cramer’s weapon?”
“I did not. And I want to say that in my opinion, he is wholly innocent of the crime.”
“Thank you for that generous assessment. Coming from you, it holds considerable weight. But, oh, I should have asked you this earlier—before you entered that small—smallish—room, as you put it, had you ever met the victim Jack Gainslee?”
“Well, of course I did! I was there when he was arrested.”
Wolfe bestowed a beatific smile on him, then turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I am about to ask something that I expect will appear to have no relevance to these proceedings.”
Her Lovelyship considered it and then beckoned him forward, as well as the prosecutor and the ostensible defense attorney. They back-and-forthed for a short time, none of which I heard, then they all resumed their respective places and Wolfe confronted the witness.
“Mr. Benjamin,” he said, “do you have any siblings?”
Utter silence.
“Did you hear me, sir?”
A sound rather like a cough. “Yes.”
“Yes, you heard me or yes, you have siblings?”
Another cough. “Both.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
“One sister.”
“Is she in court today?”
Another silence and it was quite long, but Wolfe waited it out. Perry Benjamin finally stood up. “Go ahead,” he said. “Book me. I killed him.”
Which is the only time I ever saw in real life a situation that happened again and again on those old Perry Mason shows.
d d d d
You’ve worked it out, of course. Perry Benjamin is Ms. Belinda’s brother. When he saw his opportunity, he sapped Cramer (reluctantly), grabbed his gun in a gloved hand and shot Jack Gainslee.
I’m glad to tell you that he got as light a sentence as possible under the circumstances.
But I’m sorry to say that I never got to meet Judge (Mary Tyler) Grove.
d d d d
A few nights after the trial, Inspector Cramer and Purley Stebbins arrived for dinner in the old brownstone on West 35th Street. Both were elegantly dressed and Purley thankfully ditched that silly bowtie.
Dinner was splendid. In the office afterward we enjoyed post prandials. Cramer finally broke the silence. “Wolfe, I don’t know how to tell you how much I—”
My boss held up a forestalling hand. “No need, Inspector. I myself am at an uncustomary dearth of words.”
Cramer nodded. “OK. But I’ve got to pay you something!”
“No. Sergeant Stebbins did that.”
“He gave you one buck!”
“Yes, he did. But if I were to tally up my services in this affair, Inspector, I ought to pay you.” Another upraised forestalling hand. “No, hear me out. Defending you afforded me great pleasure.”
“I don’t get it,” Cramer grunted after draining his beer glass. “We’ve never been bosom buddies.”
“Indisputable,” said Wolfe, “yet I admire you, sir, for two reasons. You are a totally honest policeman. And even more important to me, you are no Gregson or Lestrade. Your mind is usually up to seeing things as they are and finding ways to fix them. Archie here even wrote up your own “Red Threads” case!”
Cramer thought it over for a while and then declared, “All right, then, Nero—” (In case you don’t know, the last person to call him by his first name was his boyhood friend Marko Vukcic). “Nero, you’re a big pain in the ass, but damn it, man, you’re my pain and there have been a few occasions like now when I’ve really liked and admired you and if you ever remind me that I said this—any of you!—I’ll kick your butts from here to the moon and back! Amen!” And he sat down, his face flushed, his eyes flashing like headlights, but the biggest smile on his puss that I’ve ever seen.
But it didn’t last long. “Wolfe,” he said—bye-bye, Nero!—“what’s this goddam favor that I owe you?!”
“Just this. The next time that our professional paths cross and I tell you what I have or haven’t done or thought, you will not call me a liar, but you will accept whatever I’ve told you as the truth. And I only ask this once, sir!”
Cramer looked sick. “That’s three times too much!”
“Do I have your word?”
“If I bankrupt myself, I could pay you four thousand—”
“Do I have your word?”
With remarkable restraint, Cramer nodded, though he did add, “You can have two words, but I’ll observe the niceties and not pronounce that one.”
I tried to see him and Purley out, but they were gone before I got there, but I’ll give Cramer this—
He did not slam the door.
d
Marvin Kaye is the author of seventeen novels and numerous short stories, as well as the editor of best-selling anthologies, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Weird Tales magazine. A native of Philadelphia, he is a graduate of Penn State, with an M.A. in theatre and English literature.