by Fer-De-Lance
“Then he brought them with him? You only got here Saturday noon. You drove down from the university and the luggage followed in a truck. Was the bag in the car or in the truck?”
It was easy to see that I was touching something raw. Her throat showed muscles and her arms pressed ever so little against her sides; she was tightening up. I pretended I didn’t notice it, just waited with my pencil. She said, “I don’t know. Really I don’t remember.”
“Probably in the truck,” I said. “Since he wasn’t much of a fan he probably wouldn’t bother with it in the car. Where is it now?”
I expected that would tighten her up some more, but it didn’t. She was calm but a little determined. “I don’t know that either. I supposed you knew it can’t be found.”
“Oh,” I said. “The golf bag can’t be found?”
“No. The men from White Plains and Pleasantville have searched everywhere, this whole house, the club, even all over the links; they can’t find it.”
Yes, I thought to myself, and you, young lady, you’re damn well pleased they can’t! I said, “Do you mean to say that no one remembers anything about it?”
“No. That is, yes.” She hesitated. “I understand that the boy who was caddying for Father says that he put the bag in the car, by the driver’s seat, when they—when Larry and Dr. Bradford brought Father home. Larry and Dr. Bradford do not remember seeing it.”
“Strange. I know I am not here to collect opinions, only facts, Miss Barstow, but if you will permit me, doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“Not at all. They were not likely to notice a golf bag at such a time.”
“But after they got here—it must have been removed sometime—some servant, the chauffeur—”
“No one remembers it.”
“I may speak with them?”
“Certainly.” She was scornful. I didn’t know what kind of a career she had mapped out, but I could have warned her not to try the stage.
That was that. It looked to me as if the kernel was gone, leaving practically no nut at all. I switched on her.
“What kind of a driver did your father use? Steel shaft or wooden?”
“Wood. He didn’t like steel.”
“Face plain or inset?”
“Plain, I think. I think so. I’m not sure I remember. Larry’s has an inset, so has mine.”
“You seem to remember your brother’s all right.”
“Yes.” Her eyes were level at me. “This is not an inquisition, I believe, Mr. Goodwin.”
“Pardon.” I grinned at her. “Excuse it please, I’m upset. Maybe I’m even sore. There’s nothing in Westchester County I’d rather look at than that golf bag, especially the driver.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh no, you’re not. It raises a lot of questions. Who took the bag out of the car? If it was a servant, which one, and how loyal and incorruptible is he? Five days later, when it became known that one of the clubs had performed the murder it had been designed for, who got the bag and hid it or destroyed it? You or your brother or Dr. Bradford? You see the questions I’m up against. And where is it hid or how was it destroyed? It isn’t easy to get rid of a thing as big as that.”
She had got up while I was talking and stood very composed and dignified. Her voice was composed too. “That will do. It wasn’t in the agreement that I was to listen to idiotic insinuations.”
“Bravo, Miss Barstow.” I stood up too. “You’re absolutely right, but I meant no offense, I’m just upset. Now, if I could see your mother for a moment. I’ll not get upset any more.”
“No. You can’t see her.”
“That was in the agreement.”
“You have broken it.”
“Rubbish.” I grinned. “It’s the agreement that makes it safe for you to let me take liberties with it. I’ll take no liberties with your mother. While I may be a roughneck, I know when to keep my gloves on.”
She looked at me. “Will five minutes be enough?”
“I don’t know. I’ll make it as short as possible.”
She turned and started for the path that led toward the house, and I followed her. On the way I saw a lot of pebbles I wanted to kick. The missing golf bag was a hot one. Of course I hadn’t expected to have the satisfaction of taking that driver back to Wolfe that evening, since Anderson would certainly have copped it. I gave him credit for being able to put two and two together after they have been set down for him ready to add; and I had counted on a request from Sarah Barstow to persuade him to let me give it the once over. But now—the whole damn bag was gone! Whoever had done it, it not only gave me a pain, it struck me as pretty dumb. If it had been just the driver it would have made sense, but why the whole bag?
The house inside was swell. I mean, it was the kind of a house most people never see except in the movies. While there were plenty of windows, the light didn’t glare anywhere, it came in soft, and the rugs and furniture looked very clean and careful and expensive. There were flowers around and it smelled good and seemed cool and pleasant, for outdoors the sun was getting hot. Sarah Barstow took me through a big hall and a big room through to another hall, and on the other side of that through a door. Then we were in a sort of sun-room, with one side all glazed, though most of the blinds were pulled down nearly to the floor so there wasn’t much sunshine coming in. There were some plants, and a lot of wicker chairs and lounges. In one chair a woman sat by a table sorting out the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Miss Barstow went over to her.
“Mother. This is Mr. Goodwin. I told you he was coming.” She turned to me and indicated a chair. I took it. Mrs. Barstow let the jigsaw pieces drop from her fingers and turned to look at me.
She was very handsome. She was fifty-six, her daughter had told me, but she looked over sixty. Her eyes were gray, deep-set and far apart, her hair was nearly white, and while her face with its fine features was quite composed, I got the impression that there was nothing easy or natural about that, it came from the force of a strong personal will. She kept looking at me without saying anything until I was guessing that I didn’t look very composed myself. Sarah Barstow had taken a chair some distance away. I was about ready to open up from my end when Mrs. Barstow suddenly spoke:
“I know your business, Mr. Goodwin.”
I nodded. “It really isn’t my business, it is that of my employer, Mr. Nero Wolfe. He asked me to thank you for permitting me to come.”
“He is welcome.” The deep-set gray eyes never left me. “Indeed, I am grateful that someone—even a stranger whom I shall never see—should acknowledge my authority over the doors of my house.”
“Mother!”
“Yes, Sarah. Don’t be offended, dear; I know—and it is of no importance whether this Mr. Goodwin does or not—that the authority has not been usurped. It was not you who forced me to resign, it was not even your father. According to Than, it was God; probably His hands were idle and Satan furnished the mischief.”
“Mother, please.” Sarah Barstow had got up and approached us. “If you have anything to ask, Mr. Goodwin—”
I said, “I have two questions. May I ask you two questions, Mrs. Barstow?”
“Certainly. That is your business.”
“Good. The first one is easy to ask, but may be hard to answer. That is, it may require thought and a long memory. Of all people, you are the one probably in the best position to answer. Who wanted, or might have wanted to kill Peter Oliver Barstow? Who had a grievance against him, a new one or maybe a very old one? What enemies did he have? Who hated him?”
“That isn’t a question. It is four questions.”
“Well—maybe I can hitch them together.”
“It isn’t necessary.” The composure did not escape from the will. “They can all be answered at once. Myself.”
I stared at her. Her daughter was beside her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Mother! You promised me—”
“There, Sarah.” Mrs. Barstow reached up and patte
d her daughter’s hand. “You have not permitted those other men to see me, for which I have been thankful. But if Mr. Goodwin is to ask me questions he must have the answers. You remember what your father used to say? Never lay an ambush for truth.”
Miss Barstow was at me. “Mr. Goodwin! Please!”
“Nonsense.” The gray eyes were flashing. “I have my own security, daughter, as good as any you might provide for me. Mr. Goodwin, I have answered your first question. The second?”
“Don’t rush me, Mrs. Barstow.” I saw that if I just pretended Sarah Barstow wasn’t there, Old Gray Eyes would be right with me. “I’m not done with the first one. There may have been others, maybe you weren’t the only one.”
“Others who might have wanted to kill my husband?” For the first time the will relaxed enough to let the twitch of a smile show on the lips. “No. That is impossible. My husband was a good, just, merciful and well-loved man. I see what you would have me do, Mr. Goodwin: look back over all the years, the happy ones and the miserable ones, and pick out of memory for you a remorseless wrong or a sinister threat. I assure you it isn’t there. There is no man living my husband wronged, and none his enemy. Nor woman either. He did not wrong me. My answer to your question was direct and honest and was a relief to me, but since you are so young, not much more than a boy, it probably shocked you as it did my daughter. I would explain the answer if I could. I do not wish to mislead you. I do not wish to give pain to my daughter. When God compelled me to resign my authority He did not stop there. If by any chance you understand Him, you understand my answer too.”
“All right, Mrs. Barstow. Then the second question: why did you offer a reward?”
“No!” Sarah Barstow stood between us. “No! No more of this—”
“Sarah!” The voice was sharp; then it softened a little: “Sarah dear. I will answer. This is my share. Will you stand between us? Sarah!”
Sarah Barstow went to her mother’s side, placed her arm across her mother’s shoulders, and lowered her forehead onto the gray hair.
The will re-created the composure. “Yes, Mr. Goodwin, the reward. I am not insane, I am only fantastic. I now greatly regret that the reward was offered, for I see its sordidness. It was in a fantastic moment that I conceived the idea of a unique vengeance. No one could have murdered my husband since no one could have wanted to. I am certain that his death has never seemed desirable to any person except myself, and to me only during torments which God should never impose even on the guiltiest. It came to me that there might be somewhere a man clever enough to bring God Himself to justice. I doubt if it is you, Mr. Goodwin; I do not know your employer. I now regret that I offered the reward, but if it is earned it will be paid.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Barstow. Who is Than?”
“Sir?”
“Than. You said that Than told you God forced you to resign your authority.”
“Oh. Of course. Dr. Nathaniel Bradford.”
“Thank you.” I closed my notebook and got up. “Mr. Wolfe asked me to thank you for your forbearance; I guess he knew there would be some if I got started filling up my notebook.”
“Tell Mr. Wolfe he is welcome.”
I turned and went on out, figuring that Miss Barstow could use my room for a while.
Chapter 9
Miss Barstow invited me to lunch. I liked her better than ever. For ten minutes or more I waited for her in the hall which connected the sun-room with other apartments. When she joined me there she wasn’t sore, and I could see why: I hadn’t pulled Mrs. Barstow’s leg for any of that stuff, she had just handed it to me on a platter, and that wasn’t my fault. But how many people in Sarah Barstow’s place would have stopped to consider that? Not one in a thousand. They would have been sore anyhow, even if they had realized I didn’t deserve it and tried not to show it; but she just wasn’t sore. She had made a bargain and she was going through with it, no matter how many sleepless nights it brought her and no matter how many kinds of bad luck she had. She certainly had just had some. I could see that ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later Mrs. Barstow might have had different ideas in her head and all I would have got out of it would have been to exchange the time of day with a polite calm. I had no idea what it was that had happened to make her feel like opening up, but if it was my blue shirt and tan tie I hadn’t wasted the money I had spent on them.
As Saul Panzer would have said, lovin’ babe!
She invited me to lunch. She said her brother would be present, and since I would want to see him anyway that would be convenient. I thanked her. I said, “You’re a good sport, Miss Barstow. A real one. Thank the Lord Nero Wolfe is the cleverest man on earth and thought up that agreement with you, because if you’re in for trouble that’s the only thing that will help you out of it.”
“If I’m in trouble,” she said.
I nodded. “Sure, I know you’ve got plenty, but the one that bothers you most is your fear that there’s worse ahead. I just wanted to say that you’re a good sport.”
As it turned out, I not only met her brother at lunch, I met Manuel Kimball too. I was glad of that, for it seemed to me that what I had learned that morning made the members of that foursome more important than they had been before. The preceding afternoon after about two hours of telephoning, I had finally found a hook-up with the professional of the Green Meadow Club and he had accepted Wolfe’s invitation to dinner. He had never had any dealings with Barstow, had only known him by sight, but Wolfe had got out of him twenty bushels of facts regarding the general set-up at the club and around the links. By the time the professional left to go home around midnight he had a bottle of Wolfe’s best port inside of him, and Wolfe knew as much about a golf club as if he had been a professional himself. Among other things he learned that the members kept their bags in their lockers, that some of them left their lockers unlocked, and that even with the locked ones an ingenious and determined man could have got a duplicate without any great difficulty. With such a key, of course, it would have been simple to await a propitious moment to open the locker, take the driver from the bag and substitute another one. So Barstow’s companions in the foursome that Sunday were of no more importance than any of the members or attendants or visitors who had access to the locker rooms.
But now that was out, since Barstow’s bag had not been in his locker since the September before. He had brought it down with him from the university. That changed the picture and made the members of the foursome a little more interesting than lots of other people.
Where we ate surely wasn’t the dining room because it wasn’t big enough, but it had a table and chairs and windows that you couldn’t see much through on account of a lot of shrubbery just outside. The tall skinny guy in the black suit—otherwise Small, the butler, as an established guest like myself was aware—waited on us, and while the meal seemed to me a little light it was nothing that Fritz would have been ashamed of. There was some stuff in tambour shells that was first class. The table was small. I sat across from Miss Barstow, with her brother on my right and Manuel Kimball on my left.
Lawrence Barstow didn’t resemble his sister any, but I could see traces of his mother. He was well put together and had the assurance that goes with his kind of life; his features were good and regular without anything noticeable about them. I’ve seen hundreds of him in the lunch restaurants in the Wall Street section and in the Forties. He had a trick of squinting when he decided to look at you, but I thought that was perhaps due to the blowing his eyes had got in the airplane breeze. The eyes were gray, like his mother’s, but they didn’t have the discipline behind them that hers had.
Manuel Kimball was quite different. He was dark and very neat and compact, with black hair brushed straight back and black restless eyes that kept darting around at us and seemed to find any degree of satisfaction or repose only when they were looking at Sarah Barstow. He made me nervous, and it seemed to me that he set Sarah Barstow a little on edge too, though that may have been only because he
didn’t know where I came in on the family crisis and wasn’t supposed to know. That morning she had informed me that there had been no intimacy between the Kimballs and Barstows; the only points of contact had been propinquity in their summer residences and the fact that Manuel was a skilled amateur pilot and his offers to take Larry Barstow up and teach him to fly had been most convenient since Larry had developed an interest in airplane design. She herself had been up with Manuel Kimball two or three times the summer before, but aside from those occasions she had scarcely ever seen him except as the companion of her brother. The Kimballs were newcomers, having bought their place, two miles south, only three years previously. E. D. Kimball, Manuel’s father, was known to the Barstows only slightly, through chance and infrequent meetings at large social or public gatherings. Manuel’s mother was dead, long since, she had vaguely gathered. She could not remember that there had ever been more than a few casual words exchanged between her father and Manuel Kimball except one afternoon the preceding summer when Larry had brought Manuel to the Barstow place to settle a wager at tennis, and she and her father had acted as umpire and linesman.
In spite of which, I was interested in Manuel Kimball. He had at any rate been one of the foursome; and he looked like a foreigner and had a funny combination for a name, and he made me nervous.
At lunch the conversation was mostly about airplanes. Sarah Barstow kept it on that, when there was any sign of lagging, and once or twice when her brother started questions on affairs closer to her bosom she abruptly headed him off. I just ate. When Miss Barstow finally pushed her chair back, punching Small in the belly with it, we all stood up. Larry Barstow addressed me directly almost for the first time; I had seen indications of his idea that I might as well have been eating out back somewhere.
“You want to see me?”
I nodded. “If you can spare a quarter of an hour.”
He turned to Manuel Kimball. “If you don’t mind waiting, Manny. I promised Sis I’d have a talk with this man.”