Rex Stout

A Right To Die

1

He had no appointment and, looking at him across the doorsill, it didn't seem likely that he would be bringing the first big fee of 1964. But when he said his name was Whipple and he wanted to consult Mr. Wolfe I let him in and took him to the office, because after a long dull day I would welcome Wolfe's glare at me for breaking a rule, and also because he was a Negro. So far as I knew, in their hot campaign for civil rights the Negroes hadn't mentioned the right to consult a private detective, but why not? So I didn't even ask him what the trouble was. In the office, when I put him in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe's desk, he looked around and then leaned back and closed his eyes. I had told him that Wolfe would be down in ten minutes, at six o'clock, and he had nodded and said, "I know. Orchids."

Sitting at my desk, I swiveled when the sound came of the elevator and was facing the door when Wolfe entered. When he was in far enough to see the man in the chair he stopped and turned to me, and the glare was one of his best. I met it square.

"Mr. Whipple," I said. "To consult you."

He held the glare. He was deciding whether to turn and march out, to the kitchen, or to bellow. But suddenly the glare became a frown, and he said, not a bellow, "Whipple?"

"Yes, sir."

He wheeled for a look at the man, circled around his desk to his outsize chair, sat, and aimed the frown at the man. "Well, sir?"

The man smiled a little and said, "I'm going to make a Speech." He cleared his throat and cocked his head. "The agreements of human society embrace not only protection against murder, but thousands of other things, and it is certainly true that in America the whites have excluded the blacks from some of the benefits of those agreements.