Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 32 Page 2

“We’re getting hotter,” Harvey said. “Wait till you hear the rest of it. Next: In November nineteen fifty-six, Nahm and Son published Sacred or Profane, a novel by Marjorie Lippin. Like all of her previous books, it had a big sale; the first printing was forty thousand.” He consulted his papers. “On March twenty-first, nineteen fifty-seven, Marjorie Lippin died of a heart attack. On April ninth Nahm and Son received a letter from a woman named Jane Ogilvy. Her claim was almost identical with the one Alice Porter had made on The Color of Passion—that in June nineteen fifty-five she had sent the manuscript of a twenty-page story, entitled ‘On Earth but Not in Heaven,’ to Marjorie Lippin, with a letter asking for her opinion of it, that it had never been acknowledged or returned, and that the plot and characters of Sacred or Profane had been taken from it. Since Mrs. Lippin was dead she couldn’t answer to the charge, and on April fourteenth, only five days after Nahm and Son got the letter, the executor of Mrs. Lippin’s estate, an officer of a bank, found the manuscript of the story, as described by Jane Ogilvy, in a trunk in the attic of Mrs. Lippin’s home. He considered it his duty to produce it, and he did so. With Mrs. Lippin dead, a successful challenge of the claim seemed hopeless, but her heirs, her son and daughter, were too stubborn to see it, and they wanted to clear her name of the stain. They even had her body exhumed for an autopsy, but it confirmed her death from a natural cause, a heart attack. The case finally went to trial last October, and a jury awarded Jane Ogilvy one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. It was paid by the estate. Nahm and Son didn’t see fit to contribute.”

  “Why the hell should they?” Gerald Knapp demanded.

  Harvey smiled at him. “The NAAD appreciates your cooperation, Mr. Knapp. I’m merely giving the record.”

  Dexter told Knapp, “Oh, skip it. It’s common knowledge that Phil Harvey has an ulcer. That’s why the gods laugh.”

  Harvey transferred the smile from Knapp and Bowen to Title House. “Many thanks for the plug, Mr. Dexter. At all bookstores—maybe.” He returned to Wolfe. “The next one wasn’t a novel; it was a play—A Barrel of Love, by Mortimer Oshin. You tell it, Mr. Oshin.”

  The dramatist squashed a cigarette in the tray, his fifth or sixth—I had lost count. “Very painful, this is,” he said. He was a tenor. “Nauseous. We opened on Broadway February twenty-fifth last year, and when I say we had a smash hit I’m merely giving the record like Mr. Harvey. Around the middle of May the producer, Al Friend, got a letter from a man named Kenneth Rennert. The mixture as before. It said he had sent me an outline for a play in August nineteen fifty-six, entitled ‘A Bushel of Love,’ with a letter asking me to collaborate with him on writing it. He demanded a million dollars, which was a compliment. Friend turned the letter over to me, and my lawyer answered it, telling Rennert he was a liar, which he already knew. But my lawyer knew about the three cases you have just heard described, and he had me take precautions. He and I made a thorough search of my apartment on Sixty-fifth Street, every inch of it, and also my house in the country at Silvermine, Connecticut, and I made arrangements that would have made it tough for anybody trying to plant something at either place.”

  Oshin lit a cigarette and missed the ashtray with the match. “That was wasted effort. As you may know, a playwright must have an agent. I had had one named Jack Sandier that I couldn’t get along with, and a month after A Barrel of Love opened I had quit him and got another one. One weekend in July, Sandier phoned me in the country and said he had found something in his office and would drive over from his place near Danbury to show it to me. He did. It was a typewritten six-page outline of a play in three acts by Kenneth Rennert, entitled ‘A Bushel of Love.’ Sandier said it had been found by his secretary when she was cleaning out an old file.”

  He ditched the cigarette. “As I said, nauseous. Sandier said he would burn it in my presence if I said the word, but I wouldn’t trust the bastard. He said he and his secretary would sign affidavits that they had never seen the outline before and it must have been sneaked into the file by somebody, but what the hell, I was somebody. I took it to my lawyer, and he had a talk with Sandier, whom he knew pretty well, and the secretary. He didn’t think that either of them had a hand in the plant, and I agreed with him. But also he didn’t think we could count on Sandier not to get word to Rennert that the outline had been found, and I agreed with that too. And that’s what the bastard did, because in September Rennert brought an action for damages, and he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t known he could get evidence about the outline. A million dollars. My lawyer has entered a countersuit, and I paid a detective agency six thousand dollars in three months trying to get support for it, with no luck. My lawyer thinks we’ll have to settle.”

  “I dislike covering ground that has already been trampled,” Wolfe said. “You omitted a detail. The outline resembled your play?”

  “It didn’t resemble it, it was my play, without the dialogue.”

  Wolfe’s eyes went to Harvey. “That makes four. You said five?”

  Harvey nodded. “The last one is fresher, but one member of the cast is the same as in the first one. Alice Porter. The woman who got eighty-five thousand dollars out of Ellen Sturdevant. She’s coming back for more.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Yes. Three months ago the Victory Press published Knock at My Door, a novel by Amy Wynn. Amy?”

  Amy Wynn’s nose twitched. “I’m not very good …” She stopped and turned to Imhof, at her left. “You tell it, Reuben.”

  Imhof gave her shoulder a little pat. “You’re plenty good, Amy,” he assured her. He focused on Wolfe. “This one is fresh all right. We published Miss Wynn’s book on February fourth, and we ordered the sixth printing, twenty thousand, yesterday. That will make the total a hundred and thirty thousand. Ten days ago we received a letter signed Alice Porter, dated May seventh, saving that Knock at My Door was taken from an unpublished story she wrote three years ago, with the title ‘Opportunity Knocks.’ That she sent the story to Amy Wynn in June of nineteen fifty-seven, with a letter asking for comment and criticism, and it has never been acknowledged or returned. According to pattern. Of course we showed the letter to Miss Wynn. She assured us that she had never received any such story or letter, and we accepted her assurance without reservation. Not having a lawyer or an agent, she asked us what she should do. We told her to make sure without delay that no such manuscript was concealed in her home, or any other premises where she could be supposed to have put it, such as the home of a close relative, and to take all possible steps to guard against an attempt to plant the manuscript. Our attorney wrote a brief letter to Alice Porter, rejecting her claim, and upon investigation he learned that she is the Alice Porter who made the claim against Ellen Sturdevant in nineteen fifty-five. I telephoned the executive secretary of the National Association of Authors and Dramatists to suggest that it might be desirable to make Miss Wynn a member of the Joint Committee on Plagiarism, which had been formed only a month previously, and that was done the next day. I was myself already a member. That’s how it stands. No further communication has been received from Alice Porter.”

  Wolfe’s eyes moved. “You have taken the steps suggested, Miss Wynn?”

  “Of course.” She wasn’t bad-looking when her nose stayed put. “Mr. Imhof had his secretary help me look. We didn’t find it—anything.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I have a little apartment in the Village—Arbor Street.”

  “Does anyone live with you?”

  “No.” She flushed a little, which made her almost pretty. “I have never married.”

  “How long have you lived there?”

  “A little more than a year. I moved there in March last year—fourteen months.”

  “Where had you lived?”

  “On Perry Street. I shared an apartment with two other girls.”

  “How long had you lived there?”

  “About three years.” Her nose twitched. “I don’t quite see how that matters.�
��

  “It might. You were living there in June nineteen fifty-seven, when Alice Porter claims she sent you the story. That would be a suitable place for the story to be found. Did you and Mr. Imhof’s secretary search that apartment?”

  “No.” Her eyes had widened. “Of course. Good heavens! Of course! I’ll do it right away.”

  “But you can’t guard against the future.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “I offer a suggestion. Arrange immediately to have that apartment and the one you now occupy searched throughout by two reliable persons, preferably a man and a woman, who have no connection with you or the Victory Press. You should not be present. Tell them that they must be so thorough that when they are through they must be prepared to testify under oath that no such manuscript was on the premises—unless, of course, they find it. If you don’t know how to go about getting someone for the job, Mr. Imholf will, or his attorney—or I could. Will you do that?”

  She looked at Imhof. He spoke. “It certainly should be done. Obviously. I should have thought of it myself. Will you get the man and woman?”

  “If desired, yes. They should also search any other premises with which Miss Wynn has had close association. You have no agent, Miss Wynn?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever had one?”

  “No.” Again the little flush. “Knock at My Door is my first novel—my first published one. Before that I had only had a few stories in magazines, and no agent would take me—at least no good one. This has been a big shock, Mr. Wolfe—my first book such a big success, and you can imagine I was up riding the clouds, and then all of a sudden this—this awful business.”

  Wolfe nodded. “No doubt. Do you own a motor car?”

  “Yes. I bought one last month.”

  “It must be searched. What else? Do you have a locker at a tennis court?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Do you frequently spend the night away from your home? Fairly frequently?”

  I expected that to bring a bigger and better flush, but apparently her mind was purer than mine. She shook her head. “Almost never. I’m not a very social creature, Mr. Wolfe. I guess I really have no intimate friends. My only close relatives, my father and mother, live in Montana, and I haven’t been there for ten years. You said they should search any premises with which I have had close association, but there aren’t any.”

  Wolfe’s head turned. “As I told you on the phone, Mr. Harvey, I know nothing about plagiarism, but I would have supposed that it concerned an infringement of copyright. All five of these claims were based on material that had not been published and so were not protected by copyright. Why were the claims not merely ignored?”

  “They couldn’t be,” Harvey said. “It’s not that simple. I’m not a lawyer, and if you want it in legal terms you can get it from the NAAD counsel, but there’s a property right, I believe they call it, in these things even if they haven’t been copyrighted. It was in a court trial before a judge that a jury awarded Jane Ogilvy a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Do you want me to get our counsel on the phone?”

  “That can wait. First I need to know what you want to hire me to do. The first three cases are history, and apparently the fourth, Mr. Oshin’s, soon will be. Do you want me to investigate on behalf of Miss Wynn?”

  “No. I should say, yes and no. This committee was set up six weeks ago, before the claim on Miss Wynn was made. It had been authorized at a meeting of the NAAD council in March. It seemed fairly obvious to us what had happened. Alice Porter’s putting the squeeze on Ellen Sturdevant, and getting away with it, had started a ball rolling. Her method was copied exactly by Simon Jacobs with Richard Echols, except for one detail, the way he established the priority of his manuscript and the assumption of Echols’ access to it; and he changed that one detail because he actually had sent a novelette to that literary agency, Norris and Baum, and had it returned. He merely took advantage of something that had happened two years back. Of course the manuscript which was the basis of his claim—the one he allowed Title House and Echols to inspect—was not the one he had sent to Norris and Baurn in nineteen fifty-four. He had written it after Echols’ novel had been published and gave it the same title as the one he had sent to Norris and Baum—‘What’s Mine Is Yours.’ ”

  Wolfe grunted. “You may omit the obvious. You are assuming, I take it, that that was the procedure in all five cases: plagiarism upside down. The manuscript supporting the claim was written after the book was published or the play produced and had achieved success.”

  “Certainly,” Harvey agreed. “That was the pattern. The third one, Jane Ogilvy, followed it exactly, the only difference being that she had a stroke of luck. Whatever plan she had for discovery of the manuscript in Marjorie Lippin’s home, she didn’t have to use it, for Mrs. Lippin conveniently died. Again, with Kenneth Rennert, the only difference was the way the manuscript was found.”

  He stopped to cover his mouth with his palm, and a noise came, too feeble to be called a belch. “Sausage for breakfast,” he said, for the record. “I shouldn’t. That’s how it stood when this committee had its first meeting. At the NAAD council meeting a prominent novelist had said that he had a new book scheduled for early fall and he hoped to God it would be a flop, and nobody laughed. At the first meeting of this committee Gerald Knapp, president of Knapp and Bowen—How did you put it, Mr. Knapp?”

  Knapp passed his tongue over his lips. “I said that it hasn’t hit us yet, but we have three novels on the bestseller list, and we hate to open our mail.”

  “So that’s the situation,” Harvey told Wolfe. “And now Alice Porter is repeating. Something has to be done. It has to be stopped. About a dozen lawyers have been consulted, authors’ and publishers’ lawyers, and none of them has an idea that is worth a damn. Except one maybe—the one who suggested that we put it up to you. Can you stop it?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “You don’t mean that, Mr. Harvey.”

  “I don’t mean what?”

  “That question. If you expect me to say no, you wouldn’t have come. If you expect me to say yes, you must think me a swaggerer, and again you wouldn’t have come. I certainly wouldn’t undertake to make it impossible for anyone ever again to extort money from an author by the stratagem you have described.”

  “We wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “Then what would you expect?”

  “We would expect you to do something about this situation that would make us pay your bill not only because we had to but also because we felt that you had earned it and we had got our money’s worth.”

  Wolfe nodded. “That’s more like it. That was phrased as might be expected from the author of Why the Gods Laugh, which I have just read. I had been thinking that you write better than you talk, but you put that well because you had been challenged. Do you want to hire me on those terms?”

  Harvey looked at Gerald Knapp, and then at Dexter. They looked at each other. Reuben Imhof asked Wolfe, “Could you give us some idea of how you would go about it and what your fee would be?”

  “No, sir,” Wolfe told him.

  “What the hell,” Mortimer Oshin said, squashing a cigarette, “he couldn’t guarantee anything anyway, could he?”

  “I would vote for proceeding on those terms,” Gerald Knapp said, “providing it is understood that we can terminate the arrangement at any time.”

  “That sounds like a clause in a book contract,” Harvey said. “Will you accept it, Mr. Wolfe?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then you’re in favor, Mr. Knapp?”

  “Yes. It was our attorney who suggested coming to Nero Wolfe.”

  “Miss Wynn?”

  “Yes, if the others are. That was a good idea, having my apartment searched, and the one on Perry Street.”

  “Mr. Oshin?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mr. Dexter?”

  “With the understanding that we can terminate at will, yes.”

  “Mr. Imhof
?”

  Imhof had his head cocked. “I’m willing to go along, but I’d like to mention a couple of points. Mr. Wolfe says he can’t give us any idea of how he’ll go about it, and naturally we can’t expect him to pull a rabbit out of a hat here and now, but, as he said himself, the first three cases are history and the fourth one soon will be. But Miss Wynn’s isn’t. It’s hot. The claim has just been made, and it was made by Alice Porter, the woman who started it. So I think he should concentrate on that. My second point is this, if he does concentrate on Alice Porter, and if he gets her, if he makes her withdraw the claim, I think Miss Wynn might feel that it would be fair and proper for her to pay part of Mr. Wolfe’s fee. Don’t you think so, Amy?”

  “Why—yes.” Her nose twitched. “Of course.”

  “It might also,” Harvey put in, “be fair and proper for the Victory Press to pay part. Don’t you think so?”

  “We will.” Imhof grinned at him. “We’ll contribute to the BPA’s share. We might even kick in a little extra.” He went to Wolfe. “How about concentrating on Alice Porter?”

  “I may do that, sir. Upon consideration.” Wolfe focused on the chairman. “Who is my client? Not this committee.”

  “Well …” Harvey looked at Gerald Knapp. Knapp smiled and spoke. “The arrangement, Mr. Wolfe, is that the Book Publishers of America and the National Association of Authors and Dramatists will each pay half of any expenses incurred by this committee. They are your clients. You will report to Mr. Harvey, the committee chairman, as their agent. I trust that is satisfactory?”

  “Yes. This may be a laborious and costly operation, and I must ask for an advance against expenses. Say five thousand dollars?”

  Knapp looked at Harvey. Harvey said, “All right. You’ll get it.”

  “Very well.” Wolfe straightened up, took a deep breath, and let it out. It looked as if he were going to have to dig in and do a little work, and it takes a lot of oxygen to face a prospect as dismal as that. “Naturally,” he said, “I must have all records and documents pertaining to all of the cases, or copies of them. Everything. Including, for instance, the reports from the detective agency hired by Mr. Oshin. I can form no plan until I am fully informed, but it may help to get answers to a few questions now. Mr. Harvey. Has any effort been made to discover a connection among Alice Porter, Simon Jacobs, Jane Ogilvy, and Kenneth Rennert, or between any two of them?”