by Rex Stout
Noel squeaked, “I hope to God …” He let it hang.
“Yes, Mr. Tedder?”
“Nothing.” Noel stood up. “Hell, what can I lose that I’ve got? Let’s go.”
I went to the kitchen to get the hamper.
13
About two miles northeast of Katonah you turn off the highway, right, pass between two stone pillars, proceed up the graveled drive, an easy slope, winding, about four hundred yards, and there is the house, old gray stone with high steep roofs. At a guess, not as many rooms as Frost’s on Long Island—say twenty-five, maybe less. Trees and other things with leaves, big and little, were all around, and a lot of lawn, but although I can’t qualify as an expert I had the impression that they weren’t getting quite enough attention. Saul eased the Heron to a stop a foot short of the bushes that bordered a surfaced rectangle at the side of the house, and we climbed out. He was at the wheel because at Hawthorne Circle I had decided that I could use some of the contents of the hamper, which they had all been working on, and I don’t like one-handed driving.
Noel, in between bites of sturgeon or cheese or rhubarb tart, or swallows of wine, had briefed us on the prospect and answered questions. The house itself looked like the best bet. Not only was there no likely spot in the stable, which no longer held horses, or the kennels, which no longer held dogs, but also Jimmy would have risked being seen by the caretaker if he had lugged a suitcase to one of them in the open. Nor was there any likely spot in the garage, which was connected with the house. The only other outbuilding was a six-room stone structure in the rear, living quarters for servants, occupied now only by the caretaker. Something really fancy, like wrapping the suitcase in plastic and burying it somewhere on the grounds, was of course out, with the caretaker around. The house was the best bet, and not the cellar, since there was no part of it that the caretaker might not poke around in, or, later, if the suitcase was to stay put for a while, a servant or even a member of the family.
As we climbed out a man appeared from around a corner—a tall, lanky specimen in a red wool shirt and dungarees who hadn’t shaved for at least three days. As he caught sight of Noel he spoke. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Tedder?”
“On my own two feet,” Noel said, meeting him and offering a hand. Either he believed in democracy or Wolfe had made it a habit. “How are you, Jake?”
“I’ll make out if they don’t trip me.” Jake gave us a glance. “The roof, huh? We had a shower Friday and it leaked again. I phoned your mother.”
“She’s been … not so good.”
Jake nodded. “Too bad about Mr. Vail. Terrible thing. You know they’ve been after me, but what could I tell ‘em? For nearly a week all kinds of people drivin’ in. I’m takin’ no chances.” His hand went to his hip pocket and came out with a gun, an old black Marley .32. He patted it. “Maybe I couldn’t hit a rabbit, but I can scare ’em off.” He put it back. “You want to see in your mother’s room where it leaked?”
“Not today, Jake.” Noel’s squeak wasn’t so squeaky; perhaps his voice was changing. “My mother may be out this week. These men are detectives from New York and they want to look around in the house. They think there may be something—I don’t know exactly what. You know how detectives are. Is there a door open?”
Jake nodded. “The back door’s open, the one off the kitchen. I cook and eat in the kitchen, better tools there. Your mother knows I do. Lucky I had bacon and eggs on hand when he came Wednesday morning. Terrible thing about him. I sure do know how detectives are, I do now.” He looked at us. “No offense to you fellows.”
Obviously one of us ought to say something, so I said, “We don’t offend easy. We know how caretakers are too.”
“I bet you do.” He chuckled. “I just bet you do. You want me to help with anything, Mr. Tedder?”
“No, thanks. We’ll make out. This way, Goodwin.” Noel headed for the corner Jake had come from, and we followed.
To prove how competent and experienced we are I could describe the next forty minutes in detail, but it wouldn’t help you any more than it did us. We had learned from Noel that the possibilities were limited. Jimmy Vail had been a town man and had never got intimate with this country place. His bedroom was the only spot in the house he had had personal relations with, so we tried that first, but after we had looked in the two closets and the bottom drawer of a chest, then what? The bed was a big old walnut thing with a canopy, and there was enough room under it for an assortment of wardrobe trunks, but room was all there was.
We went all around, downstairs and up. We even spent ten minutes in the cellar, most of it in a storage room where there were some ancient pieces of luggage along with the other stuff. We looked in the garage, which was big enough for five cars, and there in a corner saw something that would have seemed promising if it hadn’t been there in the open where anyone might have lifted the lid—a big old-fashioned trunk. I did lift the lid and saw something that took me back to my boyhood days in Ohio. But a couple of cardboard boxes had held my two-year collection of birds’ eggs, and here were dozens of compartments, some with one egg and some with two or three. I asked Noel if they were his, and he said no, they had been his father’s, and the trunk held more than three hundred different kinds of eggs. I lifted the tray out, and underneath it was another tray, not so many compartments but bigger eggs. Orrie came for a look and said, “Let’s take that. It may not be worth half a million, but it’s worth something.” I put the top tray back in and was shutting the lid when I heard the sound of a car.
The garage doors were closed and the sound was faint, but I have good ears. The parking area where we had left the Heron was on this side of the house, but not in front of the garage. The door we had come through was standing open—the door from the garage to a back hall. I stepped to it quietly and poked my head through, and in a moment heard a voice I had heard before. Margot Tedder. She was asking Jake whose car that was. Then Jake, telling her: her brother Noel and four detectives from New York who were searching the house for something. Margot asked, searching for what? Jake didn’t know. Then Margot calling her brother, a healthier yell than I thought she had in her: “Noel! Noel!!”
Preferring the garage to the outdoors as a place for a conference, I sang out, “We’re in the garage!” and turned and told Noel, “It’s your sister.”
“I know it is. Damn her.”
“I’ll do the talking. Okay?”
“Like hell you will. She’ll do the talking.”
It’s a pleasure to work with men who can tell time. Saul had started to move when I called out that we were in the garage, and Fred and Orrie a second later, and I had moved back from the door, taking Noel with me. So when Margot appeared and headed for Noel, with Jake right behind her, and Uncle Ralph behind Jake, all my three colleagues had to do was take another step or two and they were between the newcomers and the exit. And both Saul and Orrie were only arm’s length from Jake’s hip pocket. It’s a real pleasure.
I was at Noel’s side. As Margot approached she gave me a withering glance, then switched it to Noel, stopped in front of him, and said, “You utter idiot. Get out and take your gang with you.”
I said politely, “It’s as much his house as yours, Miss Tedder, and he got here first. What if he tells you to get out?”
She didn’t hear me. “You heard me, Noel,” she said. “Take this scum and go.”
“Go yourself,” Noel said. “Go to hell.”
She about-faced and started for the door. I raised my voice a little. “Block it! Saul, you’d better get it.”
“I have it,” Saul said and raised his hand to show me the gun he had lifted from Jake’s pocket. Margot saw it and stopped. Fred and Orrie had filled the doorway. Uncle Ralph made a noise. Jake looked at Margot, then at Noel, and back at Margot. Saul was back of him, and he didn’t know he had been disarmed.
“You wouldn’t shoot,” Margot said scornfully, and I have to admit there was no shake in her voice.
“
No,” I told her back, “he wouldn’t shoot, but why should he? Five against three, granting that you’re one and Jake is with you. As Jake told you, we’re looking for something, and we haven’t finished. Noel told you to go, but it would be better for you to stay here in the garage, all three of you, until we’re through. One of you might use the phone, and we’d be interrupted. I don’t—”
I stopped because she was moving. She went to the door, just short of Fred and Orrie, just not touching them, and said, “Get out of the way.”
Orrie smiled at her. He thinks he knows how to smile at girls, and as a matter of fact he does. “We’d like to,” he said, “but we’re glued.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” I told her, “but there’s a stack of chairs there by the wall. Fred and Orrie, you—”
“Jake! Go and phone my mother!” Her voice still didn’t shake, but it was a little shrill.
And by gum, Jake’s hand went back to his hip pocket. I was almost sorry his gun was gone; it would have been interesting to see how he handled it. His jaw dropped, and he wheeled and saw it in Saul’s hand. “It’s all right,” Saul said, “you’ll get it back.” Jake turned to Noel and said, “Fine lot you brought.” He turned to Margot. “I guess I can’t.”
“You guess right,” I told him. “Fred and Orrie, you stay here and keep the peace. Noel and Saul and I will look around some more. But it has occurred to me that I may have overlooked something. Wait till I see.” I went to the corner where the big trunk was, lifted the lid, took out the top tray, and put it on the floor gently. Then I reached in and got the loops at the ends of the second tray and eased it up and out, and I damn near dropped it. There at the bottom of the trunk was an old tan leather suitcase. I took three seconds out to handle my controls, staring at it, then carefully put the tray on the floor to one side, straightened up, and said, “Come and take a look, Nod.” He came and stooped over to see, then reached a hand in and heaved, and out it came. At that point I decided that he might really have two feet. I had expected him to squeak something like “Jesus Holy Christ what the hell,” but he squeaked nothing. He just reached in and got it, put it on the floor, undid the clasps, and opened the lid; and there was the biggest conglomeration of engraved lettuce I had ever had the pleasure of looking at. I glanced around. Purcell was at my elbow, and Jake was at his elbow, and Saul was right behind them. Margot was approaching, hips stiff as ever. Noel, squatting, with a hand flattened out on top of the find, tilted his head back to look up at me and said, “I didn’t believe him, but I thought I might as well come. How in the name of God did he know it was here?”
Orrie, still in the doorway with Fred, called over, “Damn it, have you got it?” Margot was saying something which I didn’t bother to hear, and Purcell was making noises. I looked at my wrist; it’s nice to know exactly what time you found half a million bucks. Eight minutes to three. I went and put the trays back in the trunk, gently and carefully, closed the lid and came back. Noel was fastening the lid of the suitcase, paying no attention to what his sister was saying.
“Okay,” I said, “we’ll move. Saul and Noel will take it out to the car.” I put out a hand to Saul. “The gun. I’ll unload it and leave it on the kitchen table. Fred and Orrie will follow Saul and Noel. I’ll stay in the kitchen to guard the phone until you have the car turned around and headed out. When you tap the horn III come. Miss Tedder, if you came to see about the leaky roof, don’t neglect it just because we got in the way. As Mr. Wolfe remarked to your brother just this afternoon, a leaky roof should be attended to.”
14
When the doorbell rang at five minutes to six Monday afternoon I was in my chair in the office, leaning back, my feet up on the corner of the desk, looking at the headline on the front page of the Gazette:
VAIL RANSOM FOUND
$500,000 in Birds’ Egg Trunk
With that second hot exclusive given to Lon Cohen in three days, our credit balance with him was colossal. The picture of the suitcase on page 3, with the lid open, had been taken by me. The article, which I had read twice, was okay. I was given a good play, and so was Wolfe, and Saul and Fred and Orrie were named. I had given Lon nothing about Margot or Uncle Ralph, but had mentioned Jake’s gun. A gun improves any story.
The money was in the bank, but not the one it had come from. Noel had demonstrated that he was neither piker nor a soft touch. When I had put the suitcase on the couch in the office, and he had opened it, and we had all gathered around to admire the contents, including Wolfe, he had taken out a couple of bundles of cees, counted off two grand and handed it to Orrie, then two grand to Fred, two to Saul, and five to me. Then he had asked Wolfe, “Do you want yours now?” and Wolfe had said it would have to be counted first since his share was a percentage; and Wolfe had gone to the kitchen to tell Fritz there would be four guests for dinner. It was then five o’clock, but at seven, just two hours later, Fritz had served us the kind of meal you read about. No shad roe.
The arrangement for the night was determined by two facts: one, there wasn’t room in the safe; and two, Noel didn’t want to take it home, which was understandable. So when bedtime came I got pajamas for him and took him up to the south room, which is above Wolfe’s, checked the towel supply and turned the bed down, and took the suitcase up another flight to my room. It wouldn’t go under my pillow, so I made room for it on the bed stand right against the pillow. We hadn’t counted the money.
It was counted Monday morning in a little room at the Continental Bank and Trust Company on Lexington Avenue, where Wolfe has had his account for twenty years. Present were an assistant vice-president, two tellers, and Noel and me. Of course Noel and I were merely spectators. They started on it a little after ten, and it was a quarter past twelve when they declared finally and positively that the figure was $489,000. Noel took twenty twenties for pocket money; $100,000 was deposited in Wolfe’s account; and an account was opened for Noel with a balance of $388,600. There would be no service charge, the assistant vice-president told Noel, with a banker’s smile at his own hearty joke. We had said nothing about where it had come from, and he had asked no questions, since Wolfe was an old and valued customer, but he must have had a guess if he ever looked at a newspaper. Of course the Gazette wasn’t out yet.
Noel and I shook hands in parting, out on the sidewalk. He took a taxi headed uptown. I didn’t hear what he said to the hackie, but I gave myself five to one that he was going straight to 994 Fifth Avenue. A nice little bank balance in his own name is very good for a man’s feet. I took a little walk to call on Lon Cohen.
I rather expected some kind of communication from Mrs. Vail or Andrew Frost before the day was out, but the afternoon went by without a peep. I also rather expected that Wolfe would put on a strutting act, his own special brand of strutting, explaining how simple it had been to dope out where the money was, but he didn’t, and I wasn’t going to pamper him by asking for it. I got back in time to dispose of the morning mail, which was skimpy, before lunch, and after lunch he finished his book and got another one from the shelf, and I got onto the germination and blooming records. There would soon be some new cards to add to the collection, with the bank balance where it now was.
When the doorbell rang at 5:55 and I took my feet down from the desk and went to see, there was Inspector Cramer.
That broke a precedent. Knowing Wolfe’s schedule as he does, he may come at 11:01 or 6:01, but never at 5:55. Did it mean he wanted five minutes with me first? It didn’t. When I let him in, all I got was a grunt as he went by, and when I joined him in the office he was in the red leather chair, his hat on the stand, his feet planted flat, and his jaw set. Not a word. I went to my chair, sat, planted my feet flat, and set my jaw. We were like that when Wolfe came in. As he passed the red leather chair he grunted, a perfect match for the grunt Cramer had given me. In his own chair, his bulk adjusted satisfactorily, he grunted again and asked, “How long have you been here?”
Cramer nodded. “So you ca
n ride Goodwin for not telling you. Sure. You ride him, and he needles you. A damn good act. I’ve seen it often enough, so don’t waste it on me. You lied to me yesterday morning. You said you had an idea where the money was. Nuts. You knew where it was. How did you know?”
Wolfe’s brows were up. “Have you shifted from homicide to kidnaping?”
“No. If you knew where it was you knew who put it there. It must have been Jimmy Vail. He died Wednesday night. You told me yesterday that you had no evidence, either about the whereabouts of the money or Vail’s death. That was a barefaced lie. You used the evidence about the money to get your paws on it. Now you’re going to use the evidence about Vail’s death to pounce on something else, probably more money. How many times have I sat here and yapped at you about withholding evidence or obstructing justice?”
“Twenty. Thirty.”
“I’m not doing that now. This is different. I’m telling you that if the evidence you’ve got about Vail’s death is evidence that he was murdered, and if you refuse to give it to me here and now, whatever it is I’ll dig it up, I’ll get it, and I’ll hang an accomplice rap on you and Goodwin if it’s the last thing I do this side of hell.”
“Hhmmm,” Wolfe said. He turned. “Archie. I have a good memory, but yours is incomparable. Have we any shred of evidence regarding the death of Mr. Vail that Mr. Cramer lacks?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. He probably has a good deal, little details, that we lack.” I turned to Cramer. “Look. I certainly know everything that Mr. Wolfe knows. But yesterday he not only told you that he was convinced that Vail was murdered, I’m with him on that, he also said he was all but certain that he knew who had killed him. I’m not. Certain, my eye. I’d have to pick it out of a hat.”