Too Many Clients by Rex Stout

you have been misinformed. Archie, that paper Mr. Aiken signed. Let her read it.”
    I went and got it from the cabinet and took it to her. To read it she got glasses from her bag. She took the glasses off. “It’s what I said, isn’t it?”
    “No. Read it again. Archie, the typewriter. Two carbons.”
    I sat, pulled the machine around, arranged the paper with carbons, and inserted them. “Yes, sir.”
    “Single-spaced, wide margins. The date. I, comma, Mrs. Thomas G. Yeager, comma, hereby engage Nero Wolfe to investigate the circumstances of the death of my late husband. The purpose of this engagement is to make sure that my husband’s murderer is identified and exposed, comma, and Wolfe is to make every effort to achieve that purpose. If in doing so a conflict arises between his obligation under this engagement and his obligation under his existing engagement with Continental Plastic Products it is understood that he will terminate his engagement with Continental Plastic Products and will adhere to this engagement with me. It is also understood that I will do nothing to interfere with Wolfe’s obligation to Continental Plastic Products without giving him notice in advance.”
    He turned to her. “No retainer is necessary; I have none from Mr. Aiken. Whether I bill you or not, and for what amount, will depend. I wouldn’t expect a substantial payment from two separate clients for the same services. And I would expect none at all from you if, for instance, I found that you killed your husband yourself.”
    “You wouldn’t get any. There was a time when I felt like killing him, but that was long ago when the children were young.” She took the original from me and put on her glasses to read it. “This isn’t right. When you find out who killed him you tell me and / decide what to do.”
    “Nonsense. The People of the State of New York will decide what to do. In the process of identifying him to my satisfaction and yours I will inevitably get evidence, and I can’t suppress it. Archie, give her a pen.”
    “I’m not going to sign it. I promised my husband I would never sign anything without showing it to him.”
    A corner of Wolfe’s mouth went up�his version of a smile. He was always pleased to get support for his theory that no woman was capable of what he called rational sequence. “Then,” he asked, “shall I rewrite it, for me to sign'Committing me to my part of the arrangement?”
    “No.” She handed me the papers, the one Aiken had signed and the one she hadn’t. “It doesn’t do any good to sign things. What counts is what you do, not what you sign. How much do you want as a retainer?”
    He had just said he didn’t want one. Now he said, “One dollar.”
    Apparently that struck her as about right. She opened her bag, put the checkfold in it, took out a purse, got a dollar bill from it, and left the chair to hand it to Wolfe. She turned to me. “Now I want to see that room.”
    “Not now,” Wolfe said with emphasis. “Now I have some questions. Be seated.”
    “What kind of questions?”
    “I need information, all I can get, and it will take some time. Please sit down.”
    “What kind of questions?”
    “Many kinds. You said that you have known for years that your husband was oversexed, that he was sick, so it may be presumed that you took the trouble to inform yourself as well as you could of his efforts to allay his ailment. I want names, dates, addresses, events, particulars.”
    “You won’t get them from me.” She adjusted her stole. “I quit bothering about it long ago. Once when the children were young I asked my doctor about it, if something could be done, perhaps some kind of an operation, but the way he explained it I knew my husband wouldn’t do that, and there was nothing else I could do, so what was the use'I have a friend whose husband is an alcoholic, and she has a worse�”
    The doorbell rang. Dropping the papers in a drawer and stepping to the hall, I did