03 - Last Drive by Rex Stout

Dive into Last Drive, an intriguing mystery from famed crime author Rex Stout, the mind behind the enduring Nero Wolfe detective series. This riveting tale, which inspired the inaugural Nero Wolfe novel, Fer-de-Lance, revolves around a golfer who suddenly drops dead of an apparent heart attack on the golf course. However, the plot thickens when the death is ruled a poisoning. Canby Rankin, the country clubs president, steps up to the challenge of unmasking the killer. This riveting summary is brought to you by Ben Tucker.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section three of the Last Drive by Rex Stout. This
Liverrivox recording is in the public domain read by Ben Tucker,
chapter three. But doctor Wortley did not permit the insinuation
in the detective's tone to go unchallenged. Good Heavens Rankin,
He exclaimed, you can't believe that Fred Adams would take

(00:23):
his uncle's life for such a reason as that. I
I don't believe anything. The other returned impatiently right now.
It isn't a question who did it or why, but
how it is done we don't even know that. But
to put it in plain works, I am convinced that
one of the four members of that forsome is responsible
for the colonel's death. Is the only possible solution. As

(00:45):
he spoke, the sound of wheels was heard on the
driveway outside. It was the conveyance that had been sent
for to Brockton to carry the body of the colonel
to Greenlawn. Doctor Wortley went out to superintend the removal
to the room that had been prepared upstairs, while Rankin
went in search of Fraser Mawson. He found the lawyer
in a small room at the further end of the

(01:06):
lower hall This room was the place that Colonel Phillips
had set aside for the transaction of business. It contained
a desk and a safe, and files filled with letters
and documents of various kinds, all kept neatly and methodically
after the Colonel's custom. As Rankin entered, Mawson was in
the act of taking a large book from a shelf

(01:27):
in the safe, the door of which stood open. You
seem to be acting on a thought that has occurred
to me, also observed the detective stopping beside the desk.
The lawyer looked up at him inquiringly. I was just
looking to see if there is anything out of the way,
he explained, You know what came down here from the

(01:48):
city once weak to confer with Carson on his affairs.
We were to have attended to it to night. That
was our custom. Rankin nodding, found a chair while the
lawyer placed the book on the desk beside another that
was lying there open. The fact of his having been
entrusted with the combination of the safe containing private documents

(02:08):
of every description, was evidence of the complete confidence in
which the dead man had held his attorney and lifelong friend.
He kept everything here. I suppose, observed Rankin. Presently the
other nodded everything, except, of course, what was needed for
any specific purpose temporarily in New York. Such were kept

(02:30):
in my office silence, while the lawyer compared entries in
one of the open books before him with those in
the other, occasionally writing something in the latter. From the
other end of the hall, through the open door came
the sound of many slow and heavy footsteps, those of
the men who were carrying into Green Lawn the body
of its dead master. Rankin, craning his neck a little,

(02:53):
could see their straining forms framed in the outer doorway,
with doctor Wortley in front directing them. One thing I'd
like to ask, Mawson, resumed the detective after a moment.
Had the Colonel indicated an intention lately of making any
change in his will? The question appeared to surprise the
lawyer a little. None whatever, was the reply, Why do

(03:16):
you know of any reason? Nothing in particular. Rankin returned,
except that doctor Wartley tells me he had been having
a difference of opinion was fred concerning a certain young
lady named Morton? I believe, oh, the lawyer looked up
from his writing. Yes, there has been something said about it.

(03:37):
Carson was much put out, and Fred was well obstinate.
There were some pretty warm words. I believe you know
Carson had a temper, but I don't think he ever
seriously contemplated changing his will. But Fred might have thought so.
The lawyer frowned. Of course, he might think anything. But

(04:00):
it seems to me a pretty weak thread to hold
a suspicion like that against a boy like Fred. A
moment's pause, then he added, if you want my opinion,
mister Rankin, and appears to me you are pursuing a delusion.
If I am a little diffident about speaking, it is
only because I see that I am included in your
thoughts as well as the two boys. Course you may

(04:21):
have reasons that I know nothing of. I haven't the
other interrupted all that I know you know. Then I
don't see what you expect to find at Green Lawn
unless you look for something among Carson's private papers. They
are all in this room, and I am willing to
stretch a point and submit them to your inspection. But
I can tell you beforehand that your search will be

(04:42):
in vain. As for Harry and Fred, it seems to
me absurd even to entertain the possibility of their guilt
of so black a crime. Then just what is your opinion,
mister Mawson. One that I'd dislike to utter returned the
Lawyer with some hesitation, at least part of it, and

(05:02):
that the most likely it is forced on me by circumstances.
It seems to me that there are just two possibilities.
In the first place, I reflect that Colonel Phillips spent
several years of his life in the Philippines and other
parts of the Far East. And it isn't only in
the novels that the Orient is filled with strange enmities
and mysterious crimes. Some act of Carson's official or personal,

(05:25):
some wrong fancied or reel of many years ago, may
have found its tragic sequel here on the Jersey golf links. Secondly,
my long legal experiences taught me that any man's life
is apt to contain a secret, a dark and shameful secret,
sometimes that remains unsuspected even by his oldest and dearest friends,
and that may drive him to any desperate deed, even

(05:48):
the most desperate of all, to bury it. Then you
admit the theory of suicide merely because as a possibility.
It cannot rightfully be excluded before Fred and Harry I
rejected it, not to wound their sensibilities, and to me
also the thought of self destruction and connection with Carson
Phillips's well distasteful, but reason requires me to admit it.

(06:11):
The point is the motive. There is nothing here. Rankin
waved his hand about the room. Nothing. Everything is in
the best possible condition, with the exception of one unfortunate
financial deal. And that was hardly a serious inconvenience, certainly
was not vital enough to serve as the cause of tragedy.

(06:31):
There's a lawsuit on within a state in Connecticut. Nothing serious.
What was the financial deal? A speculation, yes, against my
advice United Traffic. Of course, you know the circumstances. The
bottom fell out of it two weeks ago. I just
got rid of the last of it yesterday. You see
what it amounted to. The lawyer pointed to an injury
in one of the books before him, on which the

(06:52):
ink was scarcely dry. Two thousand United Traffic fifty seven,
one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. One thousand United Traffic
fifty six fifty six thousand, dollars two thousand, United Traffic
fifty two one hundred and four thousand dollars he bought
around one hundred and twenty, so the loss amounted to
something over three hundred thousand, Mawson explained, But of course

(07:16):
it was only a temporary inconvenience. Of course, Rankin agreed,
mighty imprudent though for Carson Phillips. But financial difficulties are
beside the question. There's nothing else. No. The best way
perhaps would be to look yourself. But I know every
paper in the room, and there's nothing that isn't to

(07:36):
be wondered at. If there were anything in Carson's life
that might have led, as it did lead to this,
he wouldn't have left evidence of it lying around where
even I could see it. No, if my theory is correct,
mister Rankin, the mystery of our friend's death isn't going
to be easy to solve. For my part, I am
not even convinced that it came from that little green
spot that Wortley showed us. I'll have to have a

(07:59):
better proof than that little spot on his skin. The
symptoms were conclusive in a way. Second hand, Wartley didn't
get there till it was over, the examination of the
Organs will settle it by warty. Yes, he's at it now.
Of course, that will settle it, agreed the lawyer. I

(08:19):
don't dispute the probable correctness of his diagnosis, but I
wait for proof. Anyway, you have my theory. You understand
my position in the matter. As the representative of the
colonel's heirs, I feel it my duty to defend them
against what seems to me unjust suspicion. I thought it
best to be entirely frank with you. Then you think

(08:40):
I am merely wasting my time here at Greenlawn. I
do not that I regard the time as particularly valuable.
I doubt if any direct evidence will be discoverable anywhere.
It is my opinion that if the mystery is solved,
it will be only after a most minute and thorough
examination of the colonel's life. I feel that the roots
of this tragedy are bred somewhere deep in the past.

(09:03):
I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, mister Mawson. The
detective got to his feet. But as you say, in
that case, the present time is of no particular value,
and I believe I'll use some of its snooping around here,
just a satisfying idea I've got. You've no objection of
my looking through the safe for reply. The lawyer handed

(09:24):
him the bunch of keys to the several compartments. Rankin
prosecuted his search in a leisurely and deliberate manner. Still
his eye was alert. Mawson turned to his books and
resumed his writing. The search revealed nothing in these papers
and books that the detective examined. The simple, straightforwardness of

(09:44):
Carson Philip's life was revealed logically and in order, like
the lucid march of a geometrical proposition to its qed.
The mistakes of his youth were chronicled in letters of
thirty five years ago by his father, the brilliancy of
his early army career in medals and copies of despatches,
his one affair of the heart in a bundle of
blue tinted envelopes, the generosity and charity of his maturity

(10:08):
in innumerable letters and receipts, and documents of various kinds.
Hereto were copies of affidavits, since proven forgeries on which
a famous breach of promise suit had been based Rankin
knew of it, though it had been before his time.
The only note of hardness was a reminder here and

(10:29):
there of the sternness with which the Colonel had insisted
on the same standard of strict loyalty in others as
he imposed on himself. To him, treachery and deceit had
been the deadly, unforgivable sin. His detestation of these qualities
had at times smothered his charity. Rankin had about finished

(10:49):
when a servant appeared at the door with a message
that doctor Wortley wished to see him in the library.
He went at once, leaving Masson still poring over the
account books. In the hall, he saw the two Adams
boys at the foot of the great staircase. Fred had
returned from the Mortons. Then they were talking in low
tones with Missus Graves, the old housekeeper, whose eyes were

(11:10):
red with weeping. Doctor Wortley was alone in the library,
standing by a window overlooking the garden. As he turned
at the detective's entrance, the latter saw at once by
the expression of his face that he had made some
new discovery. Immediately and hastily he came forward, holding out
some small object in his hand, I've probed, he said, abruptly.

(11:33):
See what I found. Rankin took the small object and
examined it. It was a tiny steel needle, little more
than an inch in length, with the blunt end filed
off square. There was no eye. Rankin tried the sharpness
of the point against his finger. Take care, called the doctor, sharply,

(11:53):
stopping him. There may be poison left on it. Dusk
was coming on, and the detective have moved nearer the
light of the window. So this is what did it?
He breathed, slowly, A little thing like that to bring
a man like Carson Phillips to the ground. You found
it beneath that spot on the abdomen, the doctor nodded

(12:15):
straight in, buried half an inch beneath the skin, but
pointing a little upward toward the breastbone. It must have
entered at that angle, for there was nothing to deflect
its course. Its velocity was not very high, or a
sharp pointed needle like that would have penetrated much deeper.
You say it pointed upwards, are you sure of that? Absolutely?

(12:37):
An angle of about twenty degrees from the horizontal. The
detective seated himself and thoughtfully turned the needle over and
over in his hand during a long silence. His brow
was wrinkled and his eyes half closed in speculation. It
is incomprehensible that it should have been pointing upwards, he

(12:58):
said at last, turning to the dock, admitting that it
was difficult to understand. The other maintained that such was
the fact. Tell the truth, he added, It takes a
load from my mind. In spite of my conviction to
the contrary, I've been forced to confess inwardly that it
might have been suicide. This removes that possibility that needle

(13:18):
was shot from a gun of some kind, possibly a blowgun.
It must have been noiseless. Undoubtedly a report would have
been heard, but that doesn't explain. The detective got up
from his chair. See you stand there, I hear Now,
how would it be possible, with any kind of gun
for me to fire that needle at you so it

(13:40):
would enter your breast pointing upwards if you were on
the ground and a little closer, the doctor suggested, But
I'm not remember. Concealment was out of the question. There
was no place for it. It might have been deflected
by something a button on his shirt, for instance, a bullet, yes,
but hardly a thin sharp NEEDLELI This the deuce of

(14:01):
it is. We can't know the exact moment it happened.
It's evident that the Colonel didn't feel the thing at
all when it struck him. You say it would have
taken from five to fifteen minutes for the poisoned work,
then it might have been anywhere from the fourth green
to where he took his second on the fifth. What
I can't understand is how it could possibly have been
done without one of those men seeing it, or one

(14:21):
of the other two, if one of the three is
the murderer. Again, the detective thoughtfully turned the needle over
in his fingers, as though he would extract the stubborn
secret somehow from the slender piece of steel. There was
a long silence. Doctor Wortley, wandering to the closed fire police,
found himself regarding the colonel's golf bag left standing there

(14:43):
by Harry Adams on their arrival at Greenlawn. The doctor
took out the driver and passed his hand slowly up
and down the shaft. Poor old Carson, He's had his
last drive, he breathed. At that moment, the dinner bell
rang at the table. The subject of Fred's visit to
the Mortons was brought into the conversation by a remark

(15:04):
of Harry's, and the elder of the two young men
defended himself by explaining that he had had an engagement
to play tennis with Dora Morton that afternoon and had
driven over merely to break it. Furthermore, he announced his
intention of remaining away from her for a time out
of respect for his uncle's memory. Fraser Mawson and Doctor

(15:24):
Wortley signified their approval of this. Nobody ate much, and
the conversation was by fits and starts. Fred, grave and
thoughtful seemed a different person from the young man who
had so gaily chaffed his two elders only that morning.
Harry seemed to be irritable and nervous, to an extent
that caused the old doctor to turn a solicitous eye

(15:46):
on him. At the end, over the coffee, the doctor
announced that, in accordance with the boy's request, he had
made the preliminary arrangements over the telephone for the funeral
to be held on Monday morning. The services were to
be military. The young men acquiesced with silent nods afterwards,
and it was quite dark when the meal was finished,

(16:08):
for they had not sat down till late. Rankin and
the doctor went to the piazza with their cigars, while Mawson,
observing that he wanted to have everything straightened out that night,
returned to his books and papers in the little office
at the end of the hall. Half an hour later,
the detective, having left the doctor below on the piazza,
made his way upstairs to the room at the front

(16:28):
of the house, where the blinds had been closed since
early in the afternoon. The door was shut. He turned
the knob softly and entered. Then, as he heard the
sound of smothered sobbing from the further side of the room,
where a dim light burned above the motionless form on
the bed, he would have turned back, but already he
had been seen. The young man who was kneeling there,

(16:49):
had lifted his tear stained face to gaze at the intruder.
It was Fred Adams. I'm sorry, Rankin apologized. I didn't
know you were here. It's all right, sir, it doesn't matter.
The young man barely managed to control his voice. Rankin
moved across to the bed and stood there, looking down

(17:11):
at the face to Colonel Phillips, set in death. The
other remained on his knees beside him. I haven't prayed
for ten years, said the young man, presently, in a
voice now almost calm, And I can't now. I don't
know what to pray for. I suppose you think I'm
a baby, mister Rankin, but you don't know. Only yesterday

(17:34):
I had a quarrel with him. I said things I'd
give anything in the world to have those words back,
and he was so good he let me have my way.
It was about Dora, miss Morton. He was going with
me to see her tomorrow. Rankin looked at him and nodded. Then,
it's no wonder you feel badly, my boy. Your uncle

(17:56):
was a noble and good man. Tears for him or
nothing to be ashamed, No, sir, I know how good
he was. He was father and mother to Harry and me,
better than we deserved, and we didn't we treated him.
The voice broke again, and silence followed. Rankin felt vaguely uncomfortable,
and after a minute he turned and tiptoed silently out

(18:18):
of the room. He left the house by a side
door and strolled into the garden that night was cool,
with the fresh breeze from the east, and the light
of a full moon shed its silvery radiance everywhere. The
fragrance of the blossoms, stirred by the breeze, filled the air.
The soft music of the fountain came from the terraces
at the other end. Rankin lighting a cigar, wandered about

(18:42):
the gravel paths for a time, and finally sat down
on a bench in the dark shadow of a great
spreading laca bush. His thoughts were for the most part confused.
Try as he might, he could fasten on no theory
that would fit the circumstances of Colonel Philip's mysterious death.
He could not even evolve a satisfactory explanation of the

(19:03):
manner in which the crime had been committed. For the
twentieth time, he pictured to himself the scene on the
golf links that morning, trying to discover some possible combination
of events that would answer to the known facts. He
himself had seen the foorsome drive off from the first tea.
He went over again the answers of the colonel's caddie

(19:24):
to his questions. He tried to deduce the solution from
what was known. He tried to arrive at it by elimination.
He tried to visualize it, without success. His brain whirled. Finally,
he rose to his feet with a sigh, pulling out
his watch, and was surprised to see that it was
past eleven o'clock. Probably the others had gone to bed,

(19:46):
with the exception of doctor Wortley, who was to sit
up with the dead. He had been in the garden
over two hours. A glance showed him that all the
windows on that side were dark. He turned toward the house,
but before he had taking two steps, he saw something
that caused him to draw back hastily into the shadow
of the lock a bush. Some one was moving on

(20:07):
the piazza, and this someone suddenly leaped over the rail
on to the driveway and stood there in the moonlight,
glancing furtively about him in every direction. It was the
furtiveness and that look that caused the detective to draw back. Suddenly,
the man turned and moved swiftly down the driveway. Rankin
thought it looked like one of the Atom boys. He

(20:30):
waited till there was a hundred yards between them, then followed,
being careful to keep on the soft turf at the
edge of the drive the man was forced to trot
to keep up. Down the length of the driveway, he
was led until finally the great entrance gate was reached.
There the man turned to the right without hesitation and

(20:51):
continued on down the road. A moment later, Rankin emerged
from the gateway, and, seeking the shadow of the trees
along the opposite side, followed warily. The man ahead kept
to the center of the road, full in the moonlight,
pounding along at a rapid walk. They had gone perhaps
two hundred yards from the gate when the detective, happening

(21:12):
to glance back over his shoulder, saw the figure of
still another man emerge from the entrance of Greenlawn and
turn up the road toward him. He too was being followed.
End of Chapter three