Black Orchids

by Rex Stout

  At Eighth Avenue he turned uptown. I kept twenty yards behind.

  At 35th he turned west again.

  That was when I got suspicious. Naturally. On he went, straight as a bullet. When he kept on west of Ninth Avenue, there was no question about it. I closed up. He began looking at the numbers on buildings, and came to the stoop and started up. Boy, I’m telling you, they don’t get away from me. I get my man. I had trailed this one the length of New York, hanging on like a bulldog, right to Nero Wolfe’s door.

  Chapter 5

  I had been thinking fast the last two blocks. I had considered, and rejected, three different maneuvers to keep Wolfe from finding out. They all seemed good, but I knew damn well none of them was good enough. He would find out all right, no matter what I did. So I bounded up the steps past Daniel, greeted him, let us in with my key, and took him to the office.

  Wolfe, at his desk, frowned at us. “How do you do, Mr. Huddleston. Archie. Where have you been?”

  “I know,” I said, “it’s about lunch time, so I’ll make it brief. First cast a glance at this.” I took the knife, the trowel, and the paper bags from my pockets and put them on his desk.

  Daniel stared and muttered something.

  “What is this flummery?” Wolfe demanded.

  “No flummery,” I asserted. “Tools. It still didn’t rain last night. So I went to Riverdale to get the piece of turf where the orangutan poured the iodine. Brother Daniel had the same idea. He was just ahead of me. He’s got it in that newspaper. I thought he might be going to toss it in the river, so I tailed him and he led me here. So I look foolish but not dumb. Now you can laugh.”

  He didn’t. He looked at Daniel. “Is that what you have in that package, Mr. Huddleston?”

  “It is,” Daniel said. “I want-”

  “Why did you bring it to me? I’m not a chemist. You are.”

  “Because I want to authenticate it. I want-”

  “Take it to the police.”

  “No.” Daniel looked and sounded determined. “They think I’m nothing but a nuisance. Maybe I am. But if I analyze this myself, without someone to-”

  “Don’t analyze it yourself. You have colleagues, friends, haven’t you?”

  “None I would want to give this to.”

  “Are you sure you have the piece where the iodine was poured?”

  “I am. A few drops were on the edge of the flagstone. I also have pieces taken from each side of that piece, for comparison.”

  “Naturally. Who suggested this step to you?”

  “No one. It occurred to me this mornhtg, and I immediately went up there-”

  “Indeed. I congratulate you. Take it to the Fisher Laboratories. You know them, don’t you?”

  “Certainly.” Daniel flushed. “I happen not to have any cash at the moment. They are expensive.”

  “Establish credit. Your sister’s estate. Aren’t you her nearest relative?”

  “There is no estate. The liabilities greatly exceed the assets.”

  Wolfe looked annoyed. “You are careless not to have cash. Confound it, you should have cash. You understand, sir, my finger is not in this pie. I am not concerned. My lunch is ready. I should bid you good day. But you seem to be capable of using your brains, and that is so rare a phenomenon it is a pity to waste it. Archie, phone Mr. Weinbach at the Fisher Laboratories. Tell him to expect Mr. Huddleston, to rush the analysis he requires, and to charge it to me. You can pay the bill, sir, at your convenience.”

  Daniel hesitated. “I have a habit-I am extremely backward about paying bills-”

  “You’ll pay this one. I’ll see that you do. What is argyrol?”

  “Argyrol? Why-it’s a silver-protein compound. Silver vietllin.”

  “It stains like iodine. Could tetanus bacilli live in it?”

  Daniel considered. “I believe they could. It’s far weaker-”

  Wolfe nodded impatiently. “Tell Mr. Weinbach to try for it.” He got up. “My lunch is waiting.”

  After I had finished the phone call and ushered Daniel out, with his package, I joined Wolfe in the dining room. Since no discussion of business was permitted at meals, I waited until we were back in the office again before observing:

  “I ought to tell you that Janet saw him lifting that turf, and Maryella and the nephew-”

  “There is no reason to tell me. I am not concerned.” He pointed to the knife and trowel, still on his desk. “Where did you get those things?”

  “Bought them.”

  “Please put them somewhere. They are not to appear on the expense account.”

  “Then I’ll keep them in my room.”

  “Do so. By all means. Please take a letter to Mr. Hoehn.”

  His tone said, and that’s the end of Miss Huddleston and her affairs for this office, for you, and for me.

  No doubt it would have been, except for his vanity. Or perhaps it wasn’t vanity; it may be that the reason he permitted his privacy to be invaded again by brother Daniel was that he wanted to impress on him the desirability of getting the bill of the Fisher Laboratories paid as soon as possible. At any rate, when Daniel turned up some hours later, a little before seven that evening, Fritz was told to bring him to the office. At first sight of him I knew he had something, by the look in his eye and the set of his jaw. He tramped over to Wolfe’s desk and announced:

  “My sister was murdered.”

  He got an envelope from his pocket, took out a paper and unfolded it, and fumbled the job because his hands were trembling. He swayed a little, steadied himself with a hand on the edge of the desk, looked around for a chair, and sat down.

  “I guess I’m a little weak from excitement,” he said apologetically. “Then I had only an apple for breakfast, and I haven’t eaten anything since.”

  It was probably the one thing in the world he could have said to keep Wolfe from telling him to go to the police and telling me to bounce him out. The one kind of man that never gets the gate at that house is one with an empty stomach. Glaring at him, not sympathetically but indignantly, Wolfe pushed a button and, when Fritz appeared, inquired:

  “How far along is the soup?”

  “Quite ready, sir, except for the mushrooms.”

  “Bring a bowl of it, crackers, cottage cheese, and hot tea.”

  Daniel tried to protest, but Wolfe didn’t even listen. He heaved a deep sigh and leaned back and shut his eyes, a man who had eaten nothing but an apple for twenty-four hours being too painful an object to look at. When Fritz came with the tray I had a table ready in front of Daniel, and he wolfed a couple of crackers and blew on a spoonful of soup and swallowed it.

  I had acquired the sheet of paper he had taken from the envelope, a report sheet from Fisher Laboratories, and was looking it over. After some more spoonfuls Daniel said:

  “I knew it. I was sure of it. There couldn’t-”

  “Eat!” Wolfe commanded sternly.

  “I’m eating. I’m all right. You were correct about the argyrol. That was a good guess. Argyrol and nothing else.” A fork conveyed a hunk of cottage cheese to Daniel’s mouth, but he went on, “Not a trace of iodine. And millions of tetanus bacilli, hundreds of millions. Weinbach said he never saw anything like it. And they were all concentrated on the one piece of turf, on the grass stems and the soil surface. The other two pieces had no sign either of the silver vietllin or the tetanus. Weinbach said���”

  The doorbell rang, but I kept my seat and left it for Fritz because I had no reason to expect any undesirable intrusions. As it turned out, however, it was exactly the kind of invasion Wolfe resents more than anything else. An insurance salesman or a wife wanting her husband tailed is merely a mosquito to be brushed off, with me to do the brushing, but this wasn’t as simple as that. The sound of Fritz’s voice came from the hall, in indignant protest, and then the door flew open and Inspector Cramer strode in. I mean strode. His first glance caught me, and was it withering. Then he saw who Daniel was, emitted a triumphal grunt,
spread his feet apart, and rasped out:

  “Come along, you!” And to me: “You too, bud! Come on!”

  I grinned at him. “If you ever find time to glance over an interesting document called the Constitution of the United-”

  “Shut up, Archie,” Wolfe snapped. “Mr. Cramer. What in the name of heaven is the matter with you?”

  “Not a thing,” Cramer said sarcastically. “Matter with me? Not a damn thing.” I never saw him sorer or sourer. “Listen!” he said. He stepped to the desk and tapped a heavy finger on it, sounding like a hammer. “Last night, sitting right at this desk, what did you say? What did you tell me?”

  Wolfe was grimacing with distaste. “Your tone and manner, Mr. Cramer-”

  “You said, in case you’ve forgotten, that you weren’t interested in the death of Bess Huddleston! Knew nothing about it! Weren’t interested!” Cramer went on tapping the desk. “Well, this afternoon somebody in my office got an idea-we do that once in a while! I sent a man up there, and young Huddleston showed him where the monkey poured some of that iodine, and when he went to take some of that turf for analysis, he found it had already been taken! It had been carefully filled up with other turf, but the grass didn’t match. He asked questions, and he learned that Daniel Huddleston had done it, taken the turf away, and Goodwin had been there and gone with him!”

  “Not with him,” I corrected emphatically. “After him.”

  Cramer ignored me. “We went for Huddleston and couldn’t find him. So I come to see you. You and Goodwin. And what do I find? By God! I find Huddleston! Sitting here eating! This is the rawest one you’ve ever pulled! Removing evidence, destroying evidence-”

  “Nonsense,” Wolfe said curtly and coldly. “Stop shouting. If you wish to know the purpose of Mr. Huddleston’s visit-”

  “Not from you I don’t! I’ll get it from him! And from Goodwin! And separately! I’m taking them downtown.”

  “No,” Wolfe said. “Not from my office.”

  That was the central point of the situation. Twenty minutes earlier Daniel’s empty stomach was all that had kept Wolfe from chasing him to the police, and it wouldn’t have hurt his appetite any if I had gone along to keep Daniel company, but this was different. For a cop to remove persons from the house, any person whatever, with or without a charge or a warrant, except at Wolfe’s instigation, was an intolerable insult to his pride, his vanity, and his sense of the fitness of things. So as was to be expected, he acted with a burst of energy amounting to violence. He sat up straight in his chair.

  “Mr. Cramer,” he said, “sit down.”

  “Not a chance.” Cramer meant it. “You’re not going to take me in with one of your goddamn-”

  “Archie, show Mr. Cramer that report from the Fisher Laboratories.”

  I stuck it under his nose. His impulse was to push it away, but no cop, not even an Inspector, dares to refuse to look at a paper. So he snatched it and scowled at it. Daniel started to say something, but Wolfe shushed him, and Daniel finished off the cheese and the last cracker, and put sugar in his tea and began to stir it.

  “So what?” Cramer growled. “How do I know-”

  “I sometimes doubt if you know anything,” Wolfe said shortly. “I was not and am not interested in Miss Huddleston’s death, though you and Mr. Huddleston and Archie keep pestering me about it. I have no client. My client died. You are even affronted to find Mr. Huddleston here eating. If he’s hungry, why the devil shouldn’t he eat? When he appeared here at one o’clock with that turf, I told him to take it to the police. He said they regarded him as a nuisance. Why he returned here with the laboratory report, I do not know; I only know he was hungry. If you are disgruntled because you have no assurance that the piece of turf examined by the laboratory is the piece onto which the chimpanzee poured some of the contents of the bottle of supposed iodine, I can’t help it. Why didn’t you get the turf yourself when Mr. Huddleston first called on you, five days ago? It was an obvious thing to do.”

  “I didn’t know then that the chimpanzee had poured-”

  “You should have. Proper questioning would have got it. Either it was worth investigating competently, or not at all. Well, sir, there’s your report. Keep it. You’ll get a bill for it from the Fisher Laboratories. Archie, make a note of that. It wasn’t iodine in that bottle; it was argyrol, and it was reeking with tetanus bacilli. An uncommonly ugly thing to do. I have never heard of a more objectionable way of committing murder, nor of an easier or simpler one. I trust, sir, that you’ll make an arrest. You should, since you have only five people to deal with-the five who were there, not counting Archie-”

  “Wait a minute,” Daniel protested. “You’re wrong. That bottle could have been put there any time-”

  Wolfe shook his head. “No. Only that afternoon. If we had to we could argue that it is not credible that it was left in the cupboard for an extended period, for just anyone to use, but we don’t have to. The bottle in that cupboard contained good iodine at four o’clock that afternoon.”

  Cramer growled. Daniel demanded, “How do you know that?”

  “Because it was used at that hour. By Archie. He tripped on an alligator and scratched his hand.”

  “By God,” Cramer said, and sat down. Daniel looked at me, and I nodded at him.

  Daniel looked at Wolfe, his jaw hanging open and his face gray. “Then it c-couldn’t have been-” he stammered.

  “Couldn’t have been what?” Cramer demanded.

  “It couldn’t have been someone-” Daniel shook his head weakly, as if trying to reject something. Suddenly he exclaimed fiercely, “I can’t believe that! One of them? Those two girls or Larry or Brady?”

  “Or you, sir,” Wolfe said dryly. “You were there. As for your trying to get the police started on it, you may be more devious than you look. Save your indignation. Calm yourself. Your digestive processes will make a botch of that soup and cheese if you don’t. So, Mr. Cramer, I give you that. It was an impromptu job. Not that it was unpremeditated; far from it; it was carefully prepared; an iodine bottle had been emptied and washed and replenished with argyrol and an army of tetanus germs.”

  Wolfe compressed his lips. “Very ugly. It would take an extremely unattractive person to think of that, let alone do it. It was done. I presume a situation was to be created requiring the use of the iodine; in fact, there is reason to believe that it had been created, or was in process; but the accident on the terrace provided an opportunity too good to be missed. From the standpoint of technique, it was brilliantly conceived and managed. Only two things needed to be done: drop a piece of glass into Miss Huddleston’s slipper, which was quite simple with everyone jostling around picking up the pieces, and substitute the bottle of bogus iodine for the one that was in the cupboard. With no risk whatever. If Miss Huddleston shook the glass out of her slipper before putting it on, if for any reason she didn’t cut herself, the bottle could be switched again and nothing lost. There is a point, of course: if the bottle in the cupboard had a different kind of label-”

  “They all had the same label,” Cramer rumbled.

  “All?”

  “Yes. There were seven bottles of iodine in that house, counting the kitchen, and they were all the same, size and shape and label.”

  “They bought it wholesale,” I explained, “on account of Mister and the bears.”

  “That,” Wolfe said, “is precisely the sort of thing you would know, Mr. Cramer. Seven. Not eight. Seven. And of course you had it all analyzed and it was all good iodine.”

  “It was. And what the hell is there in that to be sarcastic about? It clears up your point, don’t it? And I might mention another point. The murderer had to leave the terrace, go in the house, between the time the glasses got broken and the time Miss Huddleston cut herself, to switch the iodine bottles.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “That offers nothing. They all went in the house during that period. Miss Nichols went for brooms and pans. The nephew went for another tray of suppl
ies. Miss Timms went for a vacuum cleaner. Dr. Brady carried off the debris.”

  Cramer stared at him in exasperation. “And you know nothing about it! Jesus. You’re not interested!”

  “I didn’t,” Daniel put in. “I didn’t leave the terrace during that period.”

  “So far as I know,” Wolfe agreed, “that is correct. But if I were you I wouldn’t brag about it. You went for the iodine. It was the bottle you handed to Dr. Brady that he used. Your jaw is loose again. You bounce, Mr. Huddleston, from wrath to indignation, with amazing agility. Frankly, I doubt if it is possible to suspect you of murdering your sister. If you did it, your facial dexterity surpasses anything in my experience. If you’ll stay and dine with me, I’ll reach a decision on that before the meal is finished. Partridges in marinade. En escabeche.” His eyes gleamed. “They are ready for us.” He pushed back his chair and got himself onto his feet. “So, Mr. Cramer, it seems likely that it is limited to four, which simplifies your task. You’ll excuse me, I’m sure-”

  “Yeah,” Cramer said, “glad to.” He was up too. “But you’ll enjoy your partridges alone. Huddleston and Goodwin are going with me.” His glance took us in. “Let’s go.”

  Wolfe looked displeased. “I have already cleared away the brush for you. If you insist on seeing them this evening, they can call at your office-say at ten o’clock?”

  “No. They’re coming now.”

  Wolfe’s chin went up. His mouth opened and then closed again. It was an interesting sight, especially for me, knowing as I do how hard he is to flabbergast, next to impossible, but I can’t truthfully say I enjoyed it, because of who was doing it. So I spoke up:

  “I’m staying for the partridges. And I may or may not show up at ten o’clock, depending-”

  “To hell with you,” Cramer rumbled. “I’ll deal with you later. We’ll go, Mr. Huddleston.”

  Wolfe took a step, and his voice was as close to trembling with rage as it ever got. “Mr. Huddleston is my invited guest!”