Wolfe heaved a deep sigh. Prescott got to his feet, opened his mouth, shut it again, and sat down. Osric Stauffer emitted a sound suggestive of shocked and indignant disbelief, which went unnoticed.
June, her eyes still piercing Skinner, said, “That’s impossible.” Her voice went a little higher: “Quite impossible!”
“I wish it were, Mrs. Dunn,” he declared. “I sincerely do. No one realizes better than I do what this will mean to all of you — your husband and your sisters — all the regrettable aspects of it — and it was with the greatest reluctance — almost unconquerable reluctance—”
“That’s a lie.” The voice came from May Hawthorne, but it was a new one. It snapped like a whip. “Let’s take this as it is, Mr. Skinner. Don’t snivel about reluctance. We know the smell of politics. This means it has been decided that you can use my brother’s death to finish off my brother-in-law. Perhaps you can. Go ahead and try, but spare us the cant.”
Skinner, looking at her and letting her finish, said with composure, “You’re wrong, Miss Hawthorne. I assure you it was with deep and genuine reluctance—”
“Do you deny that for the past two months your crowd has been spreading calumny regarding my brother-in-law and his relations with my brother?”
“Yes, I do deny it. I belong to no crowd, unless you mean my political party. I have heard gossip, a good many people have—”
“Do you deny—”
“Don’t, May,” commanded June, taking over. “What’s the use?” Her eyes darted to Skinner again. “You stated that you have evidence that my brother was murdered. What is the evidence?”
“I’ll tell you that shortly, Mrs. Dunn. Before it can be known exactly what the evidence means it will be necessary to ask for a little information from you. That’s why—”
“May I ask a question?” came from Glenn Prescott.
“Certainly.” Skinner nodded at his professional brother. “I’m glad you’re here, Prescott. Not that I propose to give Mrs. Dunn any reason to consult an attorney, but I’m glad you’re here, anyway.”
“So am I,” said Prescott succinctly. “For one thing, if there was a murder, it was in Rockland County, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Skinner turned abruptly to indicate the bony undersized person with the straw hat still in his hand. “This is Mr. B. A. Regan, district attorney of Rockland County. Mr. Regan, of course you’ve heard of Glenn Prescott, of Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis.”
“Sure I have,” Mr. Regan declared. “It’s a pleasure.”
Prescott nodded curtly. “I see.”
“Mr. Regan came to consult my office. If you would prefer to have him do the talking—”
“Not at all. Go ahead. But another point — not a legal one, but still a point — you say you have evidence that Noel Hawthorne was murdered at the home of John Charles Dunn, while he was a guest there, and when Mr. Dunn was present. Wouldn’t it have been usual and proper to advise Mr. Dunn himself first of all? Instead of broadcasting it? Particularly in view of his eminent position? Instead of tracing Mrs. Dunn to this place and bursting in here and blurting it in her face in the presence of a throng of people?”
The skin around the district attorney’s mouth and eyes had tightened. He said, “I don’t like your tone, Prescott.”
“Never mind my tone. What about my questions?”
“Nor your questions either. However, I’ll answer them. I tried for an hour to communicate with Mr. Dunn. As you must know, he is in Washington appearing before a Senate committee. I couldn’t get to him. Meanwhile I learned that Mrs. Dunn and her sisters had come to the office of Nero Wolfe. I have not broadcast this thing. Nothing would please me better than not to have to broadcast it at all. I am a political opponent, a bitter opponent, of Secretary Dunn and the administration he adorns, but by God, I don’t fight with stink bombs and you ought to know it, whether Miss May Hawthorne does or not. Your insinuation that I came after Mrs. Dunn because I shied at tackling Dunn himself is unwarranted and offensive. Mr. Regan came and laid evidence before me and asked my help. Before the evidence can be interpreted with certainty, information is needed from Mrs. Dunn and probably others. I request her, and others if necessary, to co-operate with me in the performance of my duty.”
Prescott, looking utterly unimpressed, demanded, “What’s the evidence?”
“I don’t know. I can’t know until I get the information I want. I merely need some facts. Do you think I’m going to try any dodges with you sitting here?”
Skinner turned to Wolfe. “If you’d like us to move out of your office, perhaps—”
Wolfe shook his head. “Your business is more urgent than mine, sir. Archie, Fritz, more chairs.”
Fritz and I brought some from the front room. Naomi Karn had faded into the background, over by the bookshelves, and I gave her one there. She looked, I thought, pasty. The three youngsters moved to make room, Andrew Dunn closer to his mother, the others to the rear. Inspector Cramer went to the hall and came in again, accompanied by my old pal Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who ignored my greeting as he grabbed a chair from me, planted himself on it at a corner of my desk, and got out a notebook and pencil. My toe unfortunately rubbed against his shin as I got back to my own chair.
Prescott said to Nero Wolfe, “Your—” He thumbed at me. “This man takes shorthand?”
“Yes. Archie, your notebook, please.”
I leered at Purley and got it out in time to catch Skinner’s opening:
“All I want, Mrs. Dunn, is some facts. I earnestly desire to make it as little painful as possible. There was a gathering of people at your country home in Rockland County last Tuesday, July 11th, was there not?”
“Yes.” June turned to Prescott. “I want to say, Glenn, that I regard it as quite likely that May is right about this being a political ambush.”
“So do I.”
“Then should I answer this gentleman?”
“Yes,” said Prescott grimly. “If you refuse to it will be worse. I’m here and if he — I can stop you. We’ll have a record of it.”
“I wish John was here. I’d like to telephone him.”
“I doubt if you could get him. Trust me for this, June. And don’t forget your son is here. He’s a lawyer too, you know. What’s your advice, Andy?”
The kid patted his mother on the shoulder and said in a husky voice meant to be reassuring, “Go ahead, Mom. If he tries to get slick—”
“I won’t,” said Skinner brusquely. “What was the gathering, Mrs. Dunn?”
“It was to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.” June met his eye and spoke clearly and composedly. “That’s why my brother was there. I mean by that, my husband and my brother had not been together for some time. We were all aware of the slander that was being whispered about the loan to Argentina, and they thought it best not to give it color—”
“That isn’t necessary, June,” Prescott put in. “If I were you I’d let backgrounds alone and stick to facts.”
“Yes, please do,” Skinner agreed. “Who was present?”
“My husband. I. Our son, Andrew. My daughter, Sara — no, Sara got there after — afterwards, with Mr. Prescott. My sister May and my sister April. My brother and his wife. Mr. Stauffer, Osric Stauffer. It was a family party, but Mr. Stauffer came to give my brother a business message and was invited to stay. That’s all.”
“Excuse me. I was there.”
June turned to the voice. “Oh, so you were, Celia. I beg your pardon. Miss Celia Fleet, my sister April’s secretary.”
“Is that all, Mrs. Dunn?”
“Yes.”
“Servants?”
“Only a man and wife, country people. She cooks and he works outdoors. It is a modest place and we live on a modest scale.”
“Their names, please?”
“I know ’em,” said Mr. Regan.
“Good. Now, Mrs. Dunn, let’s do it this way. You know, of course, that Dr. Gyger, the medical examiner of Rockland County, and Mr. Bryant, the sheriff, were summoned there and came. They asked some questions and took notes, and I have read those notes. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon your brother took a shotgun and went to the fields to shoot crows. Is that right?”
“No. He went to shoot a hawk.”
“But I understand he shot two crows.”
“Maybe he did, but he went to shoot a hawk. He discussed it with my husband, and that’s what he went to do.”
“Very well. He did shoot two crows. The shots were heard at the house, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And your brother did not return. At a quarter to six your son, Andrew, and a young woman — you, I believe, Miss Fleet — emerging from a wood — stumbled upon his body. Half his head had been blown off by the shotgun, which was lying near by. Your son remained there and Miss Fleet went to the house, the other side of the woods some four hundred yards distant, to notify Mr. Dunn. Mr. Dunn himself telephoned to New City. Sheriff Bryant, with a deputy, arrived at the scene at 6:35, and Dr. Gyger a few minutes later. They came to the conclusion that Hawthorne had tripped on a briar — the body lay in a patch of briars — or that the gun’s trigger had caught on a briar — at any rate, that the gun had been accidentally discharged.”
“They agreed on that, and their official reports severally so stated,” Mr. Regan put in. “If it hadn’t been for Lon Chambers it would have stayed that way.”
“Who is Lon Chambers?” Prescott inquired.
Skinner told him: “The deputy sheriff.” His glance shot over June’s shoulder at her son. “You’re Andrew Dunn, aren’t you?”
The young man said he was.
“It was you — you and Miss Fleet — who discovered Hawthorne’s body?”
“It was.”
“You decided at once that he was dead?”
“Of course. It was obvious.”
“You stayed there and sent Miss Fleet to the house to notify your father?”
“She offered to go. She was damn brave.” The kid’s eyes were truculent and contemptuous as he met the other’s gaze, and also his voice. “I told all this to the sheriff and medical examiner, and, as you say, they made notes. Have you read them?”
“I have. Do you object to telling me about it, Mr. Dunn?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Thank you. Before Miss Fleet departed for the house, did you touch or move either the body or the gun?”
“No. She left almost at once.”
Skinner’s eyes circled. “Did you touch either the body or the gun before you left, Miss Fleet?”
Celia displayed the state of her nerves by saying much louder and more explosively than was necessary, “Of course not!”
“Did you, Mr. Dunn, touch or move either the body or the gun after Miss Fleet left?”
“No.”
“How long were you there alone?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Who came?”
“First my father. He had phoned New City. Stauffer was with him. Then Titus Ames, the man who works there. That was all until the sheriff arrived.”
“Were you there, right there on the spot, continuously from the moment you discovered the body until the sheriff arrived?”
“Yes.”
“With both the gun and body in full view?”
“The gun wasn’t in full view, it was concealed by the briars. I hadn’t seen it at all until I looked for it after Miss Fleet left.” Andy looked scornful. “If you’re trying to establish that neither the gun nor the body was touched by anyone before the sheriff arrived, I can and will testify to it. As a lawyer, I am aware of the proper procedure in cases of death by violence. I am with Dunwoodie, Prescott & Davis.”
“I see. A member of the firm?”
“Certainly not. I was admitted to the bar only last year.”
“And you can testify as you have stated?”
“Yes. So can my father and the others.”
The district attorney’s eyes circled again. “Mr. Stauffer? You arrived on the scene with Mr. Dunn, Senior? Do you confirm—”
“Yes,” said Stauffer gruffly. “Neither the body nor the gun was touched.”
Mr. Regan said, with, it seemed, gloom rather than elation, “That’s sewed up.”
Skinner nodded. “It seems to be.” He looked at Prescott, and then at June. “As you see, Mrs. Dunn, I merely wished to verify some facts. I’ll tell you now the basis for my statement a while ago. The sheriff’s deputy appears to be an inquisitive and skeptical man. His superiors were for closing the incident as an adventitious tragedy; he was not. Due to his pertinacity the following facts have been established: First, both the stock and barrel of the gun had been recently wiped or rubbed, not by a cloth, as is usual, but by something scratchy that left many tiny streaks, revealed plainly under a magnifying glass. Second, instead of bearing many different fingerprints of Noel Hawthorne’s, as a gun should after being carried by a man for more than half an hour, maybe an hour, and fired by him twice, it bore only three sets of his prints, all of the fingers of the right hand — one set on the stock, one on the breechlock, and one on the barrel. The prints were unusual — all four fingers close together, juxtaposed, and none anywhere of the thumb. The set on the barrel was even remarkable, being upside down — that is, not as if the barrel had been grasped in the ordinary manner, but as if it had been held for use as a club, to strike something with the butt.”
“This is all poppycock,” declared young Dunn scornfully.
Prescott said, “Let him finish, Andy.”
“I’ll make it as brief as I can,” Skinner went on, “but I wish to make it plain that this is merely the inevitable march of events under the guidance of the law. To finish with the fingerprints, they had all been made after the gun had been rubbed with something scratchy. As you doubtless know, Mrs. Dunn, the gun is the property of Titus Ames, who works for you. Ames says it has never been wiped with anything except the soft cloth he uses for that purpose, and that he wiped it with such a cloth Tuesday afternoon, when he went to get it for Mr. Hawthorne at Mr. Dunn’s request.”
“So you’ve questioned Ames,” Prescott observed.
“I sure have,” said Mr. Regan.
Skinner ignored it. “But though Chambers, the deputy, established these facts, he was still unable to convince the sheriff, and the district attorney, Mr. Regan here, that there was ponderable doubt of its having been an accident. In my opinion, that speaks well for the charitable nature of their minds and their disinclination to stir up trouble in the case of so eminent a citizen as Mr. Dunn. However, the sheriff did not forbid his deputy to make further inquiry. On Wednesday, Chambers brought the gun to New York. Thursday, yesterday, our police laboratory reported that there was blood residue, recently deposited, in analyzable quantity, in the crack between the stock and the heelplate, and traces elsewhere. Also yesterday, Chambers found something. A path goes through a corner of the woods, northeast, and at a point it branches, one branch going north to emerge at the edge of the public highway, and the other branch turning east toward your house. Under a shrub near that path, Chambers found a wisp of meadow grass that had been twisted and crushed and apparently used to rub something, and stained in the process. He and Mr. Regan brought it to New York this morning. Four hours ago the laboratory reported that the stains are a mixture of blood and the oily film of the gun, and further, that certain particles which they had previously found on the gun are bits of pollen and fiber from that bunch of grass. Mr. Regan, convinced, consulted me. He told me frankly that on account of the prominence of the persons involved he feared to act. Whatever Miss May Hawthorne may think, it was with reluctance that I accepted his conclusion, and with even greater reluctance that I agreed to help him.”
“The conclusion being?” June demanded.
“The obvious and inescapable one, Mrs. Dunn, that your brother was murdered.” Skinner met her steady gaze. “If his death was an accident, if he tripped or caught the gun trigger on a briar as was supposed, it is, to put it mildly, difficult to account for the fingerprints. A man doesn’t handle a gun that way. And since we have your son’s statement, and Mr. Stauffer’s, that the gun wasn’t touched after the body was discovered, there is no possible way, if it was an accident, to account for the wiping of the gun, the blood on it, and the wisp of grass. There would be the same objections to a theory of suicide, were such a theory advanced. Only on the supposition that it was murder can these facts be explained. The murderer shot your brother. He chose not to use his handkerchief, if he had one, to wipe his own fingerprints and a spot of blood from the gun, but instead plucked a bunch of grass. Then he printed your brother’s fingers on the gun, using the right hand, and getting them on the barrel upside down. On his way out through the woods, he tossed the bunch of grass among some undergrowth. If he had done that after he reached the fork instead of before, we would know whether he was headed for the highway or for your house. As it is, he bungled badly, either because he figured no crime would be suspected, or because he was stupid, or because he feared someone might come and was in great haste.”
“I don’t believe it,” said April Hawthorne. Everyone looked at her. Her pallor had disappeared, and the famous ripple was in her voice again. “Not any of it.”
Skinner faced her. “What is it you don’t believe, Miss Hawthorne? The facts, or the interpretation of them?”
“I simply don’t believe that my brother was murdered. I don’t believe that we Hawthornes are having this happen to us. I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I.” It was Osric Stauffer backing her up, energetically.
The district attorney shrugged and returned to June. “Do you, Mrs. Dunn? I mean, I earnestly want you to realize that this is what it is, what I said, the cruel and remorseless march of events. I regret it, but I have to deal with it.”
June looked at him, said nothing, gave no sign.
“Here,” Skinner said, “I want to convince you — I want — I’ll have to have — your co-operation in this — and you must understand that your sisters’ suspicions, which I suppose you share — are absolutely groundless. No political gossip or slander has anything to do with it. I presume, since you were here consulting him, you regard Nero Wolfe as your friend. He is certainly an expert on crime and evidence.” He pivoted. “Mr. Wolfe, is it your opinion that Noel Hawthorne’s death was an accident?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I’m an onlooker, Mr. Skinner. I happen to be here because this is my office.”
“But your opinion, based on what you have heard?”
“Well... am I to accept your facts?”
“Yes. They are unassailable.”
“Then they’re unique. However, postulating them, Mr. Hawthorne was murdered.”
Skinner turned. But by the time he faced June again, she was on her feet. “You can find us at our brother’s residence,” she told him. “All of us. I shall telephone my husband from there. You’d better come too, Glenn. This means — I know what it means. We’ll have to take it.” She moved. “Come, Andy. May... April, bring Celia...”
Wolfe’s voice sounded: “If you please, Mrs. Dunn. Do you wish me to proceed with the little matter we were discussing?”
“I think—” Prescott began, but June cut him off:
“Yes. I do. Go ahead. Come, children.”