by Rex Stout
“I WANT MY HUSBAND BACK!”
Mrs. Vail got her bag and opened it and took out an envelope. “He didn’t come home Sunday night, and yesterday this came in the mail.”
It was an ordinary off-white envelope. The flap had been cut clean with a knife or opener, no jagged edges. I handed it to Wolfe, and he removed the contents, a folded sheet of cheap bond paper, the kind you get in scratch pads. He held it to his left, so I could read it too. This is what it said:
We have got your Jimmy safe and sound. We haven’t hurt him any and you can have him back all in one piece for $500,000 if you play it right and keep it strictly between you and us. We mean strictly. If you try any tricks, you’ll never see him again.
Bantam Books by Rex Stout
Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed
TOO MANY WOMEN
AND BE A VILLAIN
THE SECOND CONFESSION
CURTAINS FOR THREE
IN THE BEST FAMILIES
THREE DOORS TO DEATH
MURDER BY THE BOOK
PRISONER’S BASE
THREE MEN OUT
MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD
THREE WITNESSES
THREE FOR THE CHAIR
AND FOUR TO GO
CHAMPAGNE FOR ONE
PLOT IT YOURSELF
TOO MANY CLIENTS
THE FINAL DEDUCTION
GAMBIT
A RIGHT TO DIE
TRIO FOR BLUNT INSTRUMENTS
DEATH OF A DOXY
THE FATHER HUNT
DEATH OF A DUDE
FER-DE-LANCE
THE RED BOX
1
“Your name, please?”
I asked her only as a matter of form. Having seen her picture in newspapers and magazines at least a dozen times, and having seen her in person at the Flamingo and other spots around town, I had of course recognized her through the one-way glass in the door as I went down the hall to answer the doorbell, though she wasn’t prinked up for show. There was nothing dowdy about her brown tailored suit or fur stole or the hundred-dollar pancake on her head, but her round white face, too white there in daylight, which could be quite passable in a restaurant or theater lobby, could have stood some attention. It was actually flabby, and the rims of her eyes were red and swollen. She spoke.
“I don’t think …” She let it hang a moment, then said, “But you’re Archie Goodwin.”
I nodded. “And you’re Althea Vail. Since you have no appointment, I’ll have to tell Mr. Wolfe what you want to see him about.”
“I’d rather tell him myself. It’s very confidential and very urgent.”
I didn’t insist. Getting around as I do, and hearing a lot of this and that, both true and false, I had a guess on what was probably biting her, and if that was it I would enjoy watching Wolfe’s face as she spilled it, and hearing him turn her down. So I admitted her. The usual routine with a stranger who has no appointment is to leave him or her on the stoop while I go and tell Wolfe, but I can make exceptions, and it was a raw windy day for late April, so I took her to the front room, the first door on your left when you are inside, returned to the hall, and went to the second door on the left, to the office.
Wolfe was on his feet over by the big globe, glaring at a spot on it. When I had gone to answer the bell he had been glaring at Cuba, but he had shifted to Laos.
“A woman,” I said.
He stuck with Laos. “No,” he said.
“Probably,” I conceded. “But she says it’s urgent and confidential, and she could pay a six-figure fee without batting an eye. Her name is Althea Vail. Mrs. Jimmy Vail. You read newspapers thoroughly, so you must know that even the Times calls him Jimmy. Her eyes are red, presumably from crying, but she is now under control. I don’t think she’ll blubber.”
“No!”
“I didn’t leave her on the stoop because of the weather. She’s in the front room. I have heard talk of her, and I understand that she is prompt pay.”
He turned. “Confound it,” he growled. He took in a bushel of air through his nose, let it out through his mouth, and moved. Behind his desk he stood, a living mountain, beside his oversized chair. He seldom rises to receive a caller, woman or man, but since he was already on his feet it would take no energy to be polite, so why not? I went and opened the connecting door to the front room, told Mrs. Vail to come, presented her, and convoyed her to the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk. Sitting, she gave the stole a backward toss, and it would have slid to the floor if I hadn’t caught it. Wolfe had lowered his 285 pounds into his chair and was scowling at her, his normal attitude to anyone, especially a woman, who had the gall to come uninvited to the old brownstone on West 35th Street, his house, expecting him to go to work.
Althea Vail put her brown leather bag on the stand at her elbow. “First,” she said, “I’d better tell you how I got here.”
“Not material,” Wolfe muttered.
“Yes it is,” she declared. It came out hoarse, and she cleared her throat. “You’ll see why. But first of all it has to be understood that what I’m going to tell you is absolutely in confidence. I know about you, I know your reputation, or I wouldn’t be here, but it has to be definite that this is in complete confidence. Of course I’m going to give you a check as a retainer, and perhaps I should do that before …” She reached to the stand for her bag. “Ten thousand dollars?”
Wolfe grunted. “If you know about me, madam, you should know that that’s fatuous. If you want to hire me to do a job, what is it? If I take it, a retainer may or may not be required. As for confidence, nothing that you tell me will be revealed unless it involves a crime which I am obliged, as a citizen and a licensed private detective, to report to authority. I speak also for Mr. Goodwin, who is in my employ and who—”
“It does involve a crime. Kidnaping is a crime.”
“It is indeed.”
“But it must not be reported to authority.”
My brows were up. Seated at my desk, my chair swiveled to face her, I crossed off the guess I had made. Apparently I wouldn’t get to watch Wolfe’s face while a woman asked him to tail her husband, or to hear him turn her down. He was speaking.
“Certainly kidnaping is unique. The obligation not to withhold knowledge of a major crime must sometimes bow to other considerations, for instance saving a life. Is that your concern?”
“Yes.”
“Then you may trust our discretion. We make no firm commitment, but we are not fools. I suppose you have been warned to tell no one of your predicament?”
“Yes.”
“Then I was wrong. How you got here is material. How did you?”
“I phoned a friend of mine, Helen Blount, who lives in an apartment on Seventy-fifth Street, and arranged it with her. The main entrance to the apartment house is on Seventy-fifth Street, but the service entrance is on Seventy-fourth Street. I phoned her at half past ten. I told my chauffeur to have my car out front at half past eleven. At half past eleven I went out and got in my car and was driven to my friend’s address. I didn’t look behind to see if I was being followed because I was afraid the chauffeur would notice. I got out and went into the apartment house—the men there know me—and I went to the basement and through to the service entrance on Seventy-fourth Street, and Helen Blount was there in her car, and I got in, and she drove me here. So I don’t think there’s the slightest chance that they know I’m seeing Nero Wolfe. Do you?”
Wolfe turned to me. “Archie?”
I nodded. “Good enough. Hundred to one. But if someone’s waiting in Seventy-fifth Street to see her home and she never shows, he’ll wonder. It would be a good idea to go back before too long and enter on Seventy-fourth and leave on Seventy-fifth. I
would advise it.”
Her red-rimmed eyes were at me. “Of course. What would be too long?”
“That depends on how patient and careful he is, and I don’t know him.” I glanced at my wrist. “It’s twenty-five after twelve. You got there a little more than half an hour ago. You could reasonably be expected to stay with your friend quite a while, hours maybe. But if he knows you well enough to know that your friend Helen Blount lives there he might call her number and ask for you and be told that you’re not there and you haven’t been there. I have never known a kidnaper personally, but from what I’ve read and heard I’ve got the impression they’re very sensitive.”
She shook her head. “He won’t be told that. Helen told her maid what to say. If anyone asks for me, or her either, he’ll be told that we’re busy and can’t come to the phone.”
“Good for you. But there’s Helen Blount. She knows you came to see Nero Wolfe.”
“She doesn’t know what for. That’s all right, I can trust her. I know I can.” Her eyes went back to Wolfe. “So that’s how I got here. When I leave I have to go to my bank, and then I’ll go back to Seventy-fourth Street.” It was coming out hoarse again, and she cleared her throat and coughed. “It’s my husband,” she said. She got her bag and opened it and took out an envelope. “He didn’t come home Sunday night, and yesterday this came in the mail.”
Her chair was too far away for her to hand it to Wolfe without getting up, and of course he wouldn’t, so I did. It was an ordinary off-white envelope with a typewritten address to Mrs. Jimmy Vail, 994 Fifth Avenue, New York City, no zone number, and was postmarked BRYANT STA APR 23, 1961 11:30 P.M. Sunday, day before yesterday. The flap had been cut clean with a knife or opener, no jagged edges. I handed it to Wolfe, and after a glance at the address and postmark he removed the contents, a folded sheet of cheap bond paper, also off-white, five by eight unfolded, the kind you get in scratch pads. He held it to his left, so I could read it too. We no longer have it, but from some shots I took of it the next day I can have it reproduced for you to look at. It may tell you what it told Wolfe about the person who typed it. Here it is:
We have got your Jimmy safe and sound. We haven’t hurt him any and you can have him back all in one piece for $500,000 if you play it right and keep it strictly between you and us. We mean strictly. If you try any tricks you’ll never see him again. You’ll get a phone call from Mr. Knapp and don’t miss it.
Wolfe dropped it on the desk pad and turned to Althea Vail. “I can’t forgo,” he said, “an obvious comment. Surely this is humbug. Kidnaping is a desperate and dangerous operation. It’s hard to believe that a man committed to it, a man who has incurred its mortal risks, could be in a mood to make a pun—that in choosing an alias to use on the phone, for himself in his role as kidnaper, he would select ‘Knapp.’ It must be flummery. If not, if this thing is straightforward”—he tapped the paper with a finger—“the man who wrote it is most extraordinary. Is your husband a practical joker?”
“No.” Her chin had jerked up. “Are you saying it’s a joke?”
“I suggested the possibility, but I also suggested an alternative, that you have a remarkable man to deal with. Have you heard from Mr. Knapp?”
“Yes. He phoned yesterday afternoon, my listed number. I had told my secretary that I expected the call, and she listened on an extension. I thought she might as well because she opens my mail and she had read that thing.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me what to do. I’m not going to tell you. I’m going to do exactly what he said. I don’t need you for that. What I need you for, I want my husband back. Alive. I know they may have killed him already, I know that, but—” Her chin had started to work, and she pressed her lips together to stop it. She went on, “If they have, then I’ll want to find them if the police and the FBI don’t. But on the phone yesterday that man said he was all right, and I believe him. I must believe him!”
She was on the edge of the chair. “But don’t kidnapers often kill after they get the money? So they can’t be traced or recognized? Don’t they?”
“That has happened.”
“Yes. That’s what I need you for. Doing what he said, getting the money to them, I’ll do that myself, there’s nothing you can do about that. I’ve told my banker I’m coming to get the money this afternoon, and I’ll do—”
“Half a million dollars?”
“Yes. And I’ll do exactly what that man said, but that’s all I can do, and I want him back. I want to be sure I’ll get him back. That’s what I need you for.”
Wolfe grunted. “Madam. You can’t possibly mean that. You are not a nincompoop. How could I conceivably proceed? The only contact with that punster or an accomplice will be your delivery of the money, and you refuse to tell me anything about it. Pfui. You can’t possibly mean it.”
“But I do. I do! That’s why I came to you! Is there anything you can’t do? Aren’t you a genius? How did you get your reputation?” She took a checkfold from her bag and slipped a pen from a loop. “Will ten thousand do for a retainer?”
She had a touch of genius herself, or it was her lucky day, asking him if there was anything he couldn’t do and waving a check at him. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and cupped the ends of the chair arms with his hands. I expected to see his lips start moving in and out, but they didn’t; evidently this one was too tough for any help from the lip routine. Mrs. Vail opened the checkfold on the stand at her elbow, wrote, tore the check from the fold, got up and put it on Wolfe’s desk, and returned to the chair. She started to say something, and I pushed a palm at her. A minute passed, another, and two or three more, before Wolfe opened his eyes, said, “Your notebook, Archie,” and straightened up.
I got my notebook and pen. But instead of starting to dictate he closed his eyes again. In a minute he opened them and turned to Mrs. Vail.
“The wording is important,” he said. “It would help to know how he uses words. You will tell me exactly what he said on the phone.”
“No, I won’t.” She was emphatic. “You would try to do something, some kind of trick. You’d have Archie Goodwin do something. I know he’s clever and you may be a genius, but I’m not going to risk that. I told that man I would do exactly what he told me to, and do it alone, and I’m not going to tell you. What wording is important? Wording of what?”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. “Very well. His voice. Did you recognize it?”
She stared. “Recognize it? Of course not!”
“Had you any thought, any suspicion, that you had ever heard it before?”
“No.”
“Was he verbose, or concise?”
“Concise. He just told me what to do.”
“Rough or smooth?”
She considered. “Neither one. He was just—matter-of-fact.”
“No bluster, no bullying?”
“No. He said this would be my one chance and my husband’s one chance, but he wasn’t bullying. He just said it.”
“His grammar? Did he make sentences?”
She flared. “I wasn’t thinking of grammar! Of course he made sentences!”
“Few people do. I’ll rephrase it: Is he an educated man? ‘Educated’ in the vulgar sense, as it is commonly used.”
She considered again. “I said he wasn’t rough. He wasn’t vulgar. Yes, I suppose he is educated.” She gestured impatiently. “Isn’t this wasting time? You’re not enough of a genius to guess who he is or where he is from how he talked. Are you?”
Wolfe shook his head. “That would be thaumaturgy, not genius. When and where did you last see your husband?”
“Saturday morning, at our house. He left to drive to the country, to our place near Katonah, to see about things. I didn’t go along because I wasn’t feeling well. He phoned Sunday morning and said he might not be back until late evening. When he hadn’t come at midnight I phoned, and the caretaker told me he had left a little after eight o�
��clock. I wasn’t really worried, not really, because sometimes he takes a notion to drive around at night, just anywhere, but yesterday morning I was worried, but I didn’t want to start calling people, and then the mail came with that thing.”
“Was he alone when he left your place in the country?”
“Yes. I asked the caretaker.”
“What is your secretary’s name?”
“My secretary? You jump around. Her name is Dinah Utley.”
“How long has she been with you?”
“Seven years. Why?”
“I must speak with her. You will please phone and tell her to come here at once.”
Her mouth opened in astonishment. It snapped shut. “I will not,” she said. “What can she tell you? She doesn’t know I’ve come to you, and I don’t want her to. Not even her. I trust her absolutely, but I’m not going to take any chances.”
“Then there’s your check.” Wolfe pointed to it, there on his desk. “Take it and go.” He made a face. “I must have some evidence of your bona fides, however slight. I do know you are Mrs. Jimmy Vail, since Mr. Goodwin identifies you, but that’s all I know. Did that thing come in the mail and did you get a phone call from Mr. Knapp? I have only your unsupported word. I will not be made a party to some shifty hocus-pocus. Archie. Give Mrs. Vail her check.”
I got up, but she spoke. “It’s no hocus-pocus. My God, hocus-pocus? My husband—they’ll kill him! My not wanting anyone to know I’ve come to you, not even my secretary—isn’t that right? If you expect her to tell you what he said on the phone, she won’t. I’ll tell her not to.”
“I won’t ask her.” Wolfe was curt. “I’ll merely ask her how he said it. If you have been candid, and I have no reason to think you haven’t, you have no valid objection to my speaking with her. As for her knowing that you have come to me, Mr. Knapp will soon know that himself—or I hope he will.”
She gawked. “He will know? How?”
“I’ll tell him.” He turned. “Archie. Can we get an advertisement in the evening papers?”