by Rex Stout
“Certainly I do, but –”
“If you please. I’ll use the ‘but.’ But try it this way. He enters his brother’s room and finds him dead. He pulls the covers down to feel the heart. The bags are there, with water in them. Seeing them, he conceives a stratagem – and remember, he is under the shock of just having found a corpse where he expected, presumably, to find his living brother. He conceives, on the spot, before calling the others, the notion of taking the bags to the bathroom and emptying them, so he can go at some future time to Miss Goren and tell her he found them empty; and he proceeds to do so. Do you accept that as credible?”
“It’s a little fancy,” I admitted, “as you describe it.”
“I describe it as it must have happened, if it happened. I say it didn’t. He noticed the bags only because they were empty; if they had been full he probably wouldn’t have been aware of them at all, there in a sickbed, now a deathbed. Doubtless there are men capable of so sly an artifice at such a moment, but he is not one of them. I am compelled to assume that he found the bags empty, and where does that leave me?”
“I’d have to look it over.” I sat down.
“You won’t like it.” He was bitter. “I don’t. If I am to preserve my self-esteem, a duty that cannot be delegated, I have got to explore it. Is Miss Goren at fault? Did she put the bags in the bed empty?”
“No, sir. I’m thinking of marrying her. Besides, I don’t believe it. She’s competent, and no competent trained nurse could possibly pull such a boner.”
“I agree. Then here we are. Around midnight, just before she left, Miss Goren filled the bags with hot water and put them in the bed. Around six in the morning Paul Fyfe found the bags there in the bed, but they were empty. Someone had removed them, emptied them, and put them back. Justify it.”
“Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it. Why should I justify it?”
“You can’t. To suppose it was done with murderous design would be egregious. It’s inexplicable; and anything inexplicable on a deathbed is sinister, especially the deathbed of a millionaire. Before I can even consider the question of who did it I must answer the question, why?”
“Not necessarily,” I argued. “I’ll switch. Settle for the grand, but don’t vote no. Vote yes, and let Paul turn it over to the cops. That will fill the order.”
“Pfui. Do you mean that?”
I gave up. “No. You’re stuck. The cops would only decide the nurse had left the bags empty and wouldn’t admit it, and Johnny Arrow would start in slugging the whole damn Homicide Squad from Inspector Cramer right down the line.” Struck with a sudden suspicion, I eyed him. “Is this just a build-up? Do you already know why the bags were emptied, or think you do, and you want me to realize how brilliant you were to get it?”
“No. I am lost. I can’t even grope. It’s more than mysterious, it’s preposterous.” He looked up at the clock. “It’s bedtime, and now I must take this monstrosity to bed with me. First, though, some instructions for you for the morning. Your notebook, please?”
I got it from the drawer.
V
WEDNESDAY MORNING, after having breakfast in the kitchen with Fritz, as usual, while Wolfe was having his up in his room, also as usual, I got started on the instructions. They were simple, but it proved to be not so simple to carry them out. The first and main item was to phone Doctor Buhl and arrange for him to be at the office at eleven o’clock, when Wolfe would come down from the plant rooms, and bring Anne Goren with him. To begin with, I didn’t get hold of him until nearly noon. From nine o’clock until ten all I got was his answering service and the information that he was out making calls. I left word for him to ring me, but he didn’t. From ten o’clock on I got his office nurse. She was courteous and sympathetic, in a subdued way, the first three times I phoned, but after that got a little brusque. The doctor, still out making the rounds, had been told of my request to be rung, and she couldn’t help it if he had been too busy. When he finally called I couldn’t very well ask him to arrive with Miss Goren at eleven, since it was already a quarter to twelve, so I suggested three o’clock, and got a flat no. Neither three nor any other hour. He had told Wolfe all he had to tell about the death of Bertram Fyfe, but if Wolfe wished to speak with him on the phone he could spare two minutes. Consulted, Wolfe said no, not on the phone. Deadlock.
The upshot was that after lunch I got the car from the garage and drove the forty miles, up the West Side Highway and out the Sawmill River Parkway, to Mount Kisco, and found that Buhl’s office was in a big white house in a big green lawn. I had been told he would see me after his p.m. office hours, which were from two to four, but there were still five patients in the waiting room when I arrived, so I had a nice long visit with the usual crop of magazines before the nurse, who had been with him at least sixty years, passed me through.
Buhl, seated at a desk, looking tired but still distinguished, told me abruptly, “I have calls to make and I’m late. What is it now?”
I can be abrupt too. “A question,” I said, “raised by a relative of the deceased. Did someone substitute something else for the morphine? Mr. Wolfe doesn’t want to pass it on to the cops without giving it a look himself, but if you would prefer –”
“Morphine? You mean the morphine administered to Bert Fyfe?”
“Yes, sir. Since the question has been –”
“That damn fool. Paul, of course. It’s absurd. Substituted when and by whom?”
“Not specified.” I sat down, uninvited. “But Mr. Wolfe can’t just skip it so he’d appreciate a little information. Did you give the morphine to the nurse yourself?”
From the look he gave me I expected to be told to go climb a tree, preferably one about ready to topple, but he changed his mind and decided to get it over with. “The morphine,” he said, “came from a bottle in my case. I took two quarter-grain tablets from the bottle and gave them to the nurse, and told her to give one to the patient as soon as the dinner guests had left, and the other one an hour later if necessary. She has told me that the tablets were administered as directed. To suppose that something was substituted for them is fantastic.”
“Yes, sir. Where did she keep them until the time came to administer them?”
“I don’t know. She is a competent nurse and completely reliable. Do you want me to ask her?”
“No, thanks, I will. Could there be any question about your bottle of morphine? Could it have been tampered with?”
“Not possible. No.”
“Had you got a fresh supply recently – I mean, put a fresh supply in that bottle?”
“No. Not for two weeks at least. Longer, probably.”
“Would you say there is any chance – say one in a million – that you took the tablets from the wrong bottle?”
“No. Not one in a billion.” His brows went up. “Isn’t this a little superfluous? From what David told me yesterday I gathered that Paul’s suspicions were directed at the man who came to New York with Bert – Mr. Arrow.”
“Maybe so, but Mr. Wolfe is being thorough. He’s a thorough man.” I stood up. “Many thanks, doctor. If you wonder why I drove clear up here just for this, Mr. Wolfe is also careful. He doesn’t like to ask questions about an unexpected death on the phone.”
I left him, went back out to the car, and rolled off. The route back to the parkway took me through the center of town, and on a red brick building on a corner, a very fine location, I saw the sign: TUTTLE’S PHARMACY. That was as good a place as any for a phone, so I parked down the block and walked back to it. Inside, it was quite an establishment – up-to-date, well-furnished, well-stocked, and busy, with half a dozen customers on stools at the fountain and three or four others scattered around. One of them, at a counter in the rear, was being waited on by the proprietor himself, Vincent Tuttle. I crossed to a phone booth, dialed the operator, asked for the number I knew best, and in a moment had Wolfe’s voice in my ear.
“From a booth,” I told him, “in Tuttle’s pharmac
y in Mount Kisco. Quoting Doctor Buhl, the idea of a switch on the morphine is absurd and fantastic. As for its source, he gave two quarter-grain tablets to the nurse from his private stock. Do I proceed?”
“No.” It was a growl, as always when he was interrupted in the plant rooms. “Or rather, yes, but first some further inquiry in Mount Kisco. After you left I considered the question of the hot-water bags, and I may have hit on the answer – or I may not. At any rate, it’s worth trying. See Mr. Paul Fyfe and ask him what happened to the ice cream. You will remember –”
“Yeah, he bought it at Schramm’s, to take back to Mount Kisco for a Sunday party, and took it to Bert’s apartment and put it in the refrigerator. You say you want to know what happened to it?”
“I do. See him and ask him. If he accounts for it, check him thoroughly. If he doesn’t, see if Mr. or Mrs. Tuttle can, and check them. If they can’t, ask Miss Goren when you see her about the morphine. If she can’t, find Mr. Arrow and ask him. I want to know what happened to that ice cream.”
“You certainly do. Tell me why so I’ll have some idea what I’m after.”
“No. You are not without discretion, but there’s no point in subjecting it to an unnecessary strain.”
“You’re absolutely right, and I appreciate it deeply. Tuttle’s right here, so shall I see him first?”
He said no, to see Paul first, and hung up. As I left the booth and the store and headed for the address of Paul’s real-estate office, down the street a block, I was looking around inside my skull for a connection between Schramm’s famous mango ice cream and the hot-water bags in Bert Fyfe’s bed, but if it was there I couldn’t find it. Which was just as well, if there really was one, because I hate to overwork my discretion.
I found Paul on the second floor of an old wooden building, above a grocery store. His office was one small room, with two desks and some scarred old chairs which had probably been allotted to him when the family split up the paternal estate. Seated at the smaller desk was a woman with a long thin neck and big ears, about twice Paul’s age, who was perfectly safe even with him. Paul, at the other desk, didn’t get up as I entered.
“You?” he said. “You got something?”
I looked at the woman, who was fiddling with some papers. He told her she could go, and she merely plunked a weight down on the papers, got up, and left. No amenities at all.
When the door had closed behind her I answered him. “I haven’t got something, I’m just after something. Mr. Wolfe sent me up here to ask Doctor Buhl about the morphine and to ask you about the ice cream. The last we heard it was still in the refrigerator in your brother’s apartment. What happened to it?”
“Well, for God’s sake.” He was staring at me, at least with his good eye. It was hard to tell what the one with the shiner was doing. “What the hell has that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. With Mr. Wolfe, I often don’t know, but it’s his car and tires and gas, and he pays my salary, so I just humor him. It’s the simplest and quickest way for you too, unless there’s something about the ice cream you’d rather keep to yourself.”
“There’s not a damn thing about the ice cream.”
“Then I won’t have to bother to sit down. Did you bring it to Mount Kisco for the Sunday party you mentioned?”
“No. I didn’t come back to Mount Kisco until Sunday night.”
“But you were in New York again the next day, Monday, for the funeral – and to call on Miss Goren again. Did you get the ice cream then?”
“Look,” he said, “we’ll leave Miss Goren out of this.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said warmly. “I’m all for gallantry. But what happened to the ice cream?”
“I don’t know and don’t give a damn.”
“Did you see it or touch it at any time after you put it in the refrigerator Saturday afternoon?”
“I did not. And if you ask me, this is a lot of crap. I don’t know where that fat slob Wolfe got his reputation, but if this is the way he carries on an investi – What’s the big rush?”
I had got as far as the door. Turning as I opened it, I said politely, “Nice to see you,” and went.
Backtracking to Tuttle’s pharmacy, I found there had been a turnover of customers, but business was still humming. Tuttle’s shiny dome loomed behind a showcase of cosmetics. Catching his eye, I crossed over and told him I would like to have a couple of minutes when he was free, and then went to the fountain and ordered a glass of milk. It was nearly all down when he called to me, and beckoned, and I emptied the glass and followed him to the rear, behind the partition. He leaned against a counter and said it was a surprise, seeing me up there.
“A couple of little errands,” I told him. “To ask Doctor Buhl about the morphine, and to ask you about the ice cream. I’ve already asked Paul Fyfe. You remember he bought some ice cream at Schramm’s Saturday afternoon and took it to Bert’s apartment and put it in the refrigerator, intending to take it home with him.”
Tuttle corrected me. “I remember he said he did. What about it?”
“Mr. Wolfe wants to know what became of it. Paul says he doesn’t know. He says he never saw it again after he put it in the refrigerator. Did you?”
“I never saw it at all.”
“I thought you might have. You and your wife stayed there Saturday night. Sunday morning your brother-in-law was there dead, but even so you must have eaten something. I thought you might have gone to the refrigerator for something for breakfast, and you might have noticed the ice cream.”
“We had breakfast sent up.” Tuttle was frowning. “There was no equipment there for cooking. But now that I think of it, I believe Paul mentioned the ice cream Saturday evening at the dinner table. He said something about my ice cream here not comparing with Schramm’s and asked why I didn’t carry it, and I told him Schramm’s products were sold only at their own stores, and anyway it was too expensive. Then I believe my wife mentioned it on Sunday, when she went to the refrigerator for some ice for drinks.”
“Did you eat any of it Sunday? Or bring it home with you?”
“No. I said I never saw it. We stayed at the apartment until Monday and came home after the funeral.”
“You don’t know what became of it?”
“I do not. I suppose it’s still there. Unless that man Arrow – why don’t you ask him?”
“I will. But first, since I’m here, I guess I’ll ask your wife. Is she around?”
“She’s at home, up on Iron Hill Road. I can phone her and tell her you’re coming, or you can speak with her on the phone. But I fail to see what that ice cream has to do with the death of my brother-in-law. What’s the connection?”
It seemed to me that that reaction was rather late, but it could have been that since he was only an in-law he didn’t want to butt in. “Search me,” I told him. “I just run errands. Why don’t we get your wife on the phone, and I may not have to bother her by going there?”
He turned to a phone on the counter, dialed a number, got it, told his wife I wanted to ask her something, and handed me the transmitter. Louise, not being an in-law, said at once that it was ridiculous to annoy them about something utterly irrelevant, but after a little give and take she told me what she knew, which was nothing. She had never seen the ice cream, though she had probably seen the package. Getting ice from the refrigerator Sunday afternoon, she had noticed a large paper bag on the bottom shelf, and, on returning to the living room, had mentioned it to her husband and her brother David, who was there, saying that she thought it was Paul’s ice cream and asking if they wanted some. They had declined, and she had not looked into the paper bag. She had no idea what had happened to it. I thanked her, hung up, thanked her husband, and beat it.
Next stop, 48th Street, Manhattan.
VI
IN VIEW OF the parking situation, or rather the non-parking situation, I have given up using the car for midtown errands, so I left the highway at 46th Street and drove t
o the garage. I could have phoned a progress report to Wolfe from there, but the house is just around the corner, and I went in person instead of phoning, and got a surprise. In response to my ring it wasn’t Fritz who unbolted the door for me, but Saul Panzer. Saul, with his big nose taking half the available area of his narrow little face, looks at first glance as if he might need help to add two and two. Actually he needs help for nothing whatever. He is not only the best of the four or five operatives Wolfe calls on as required, he’s the best anywhere.
“So,” I greeted him, “you got my job at last, huh? Please show me to the office.”
“Got an appointment?” he demanded, closing the door. Then he followed me down the hall and in.
Wolfe, behind his desk, grunted at me. “Back so soon?”
“No, sir,” I told him. “This is just a stopover after leaving the car at the garage. Do you want a report on Paul and Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle before I go on?”
“Yes. Verbatim, please.”
With him verbatim means not only all the words but also all the actions and expressions, and I sat down and gave them to him. He is the best listener I know, usually with his elbow on the chair arm, his chin resting on his fist, and his eyes half closed.
When I had finished he sat a moment and then nodded. “Satisfactory. Proceed with the others. Since you won’t need the car may Saul use it?”
That wasn’t as chummy as it sounds. It had long been understood that the car was his one piece of property on which I had the say.
“For how long?” I inquired.
“Today, tonight, and possibly part of tomorrow.”
I looked at my wrist and saw 6:55. “There’s not much left of today. Okay. Do I ask for what?”
“Not at the moment. It may be to chase a wild goose. What about your dinner?”
“I don’t know.” I arose. “If I find the ice cream I can eat that.” I headed for the door, turned there to suggest, “Saul can eat the goose,” and left.