by Fer-De-Lance
Wolfe leaned back, murmured, “Intrepid,” and closed his eyes.
I got back in time to bust the tape at lunch.
I figured, naturally, that the hour had struck, but to my surprise Wolfe seemed to have notions of leisure. He was in no hurry about anything. He took his time at the table, with two long cups of coffee at the end, and after lunch he went to the office and reposed in his chair without appearing to have anything of importance on his mind. I fussed around. After a while he roused himself enough to give me some directions: first, type out Anna Fiore’s statement completely and chronologically; second, have photostatic copies made, rush, of the contents of Carlo Maffei’s envelope; third, go to the Park Avenue apartment and return Maria Maffei’s purse to her and have Anna Fiore sign the statement in duplicate before witnesses; and fourth, check with Horstmann the shipment of pseudo-bulbs which had arrived the preceding day on the Cortez.
I asked him, “Maybe you’re forgetting something?” He shook his head, faintly so as not to disturb his comfort, and I let it slide. I was curious but not worried, for I could tell by the look on his face that he was adding something up to the right answer.
For the rest of the afternoon I was busy. I went out first, to a studio down on Sixth Avenue, to get them started on the photostats, and I made sure that they understood that if the originals were lost or injured they had better use the fire escape when they heard me coming. Then back to the office, to type Anna’s statement. I fixed it up in swell shape and it took quite a while. When I went out to the roadster again the rain had stopped and it was brightening up, but the pavements were still wet. I had telephoned the apartment where Maria Maffei worked, and when I got there she was expecting me. I would hardly have known her. In a neat well-cut housekeeper’s dress, black, with a little black thing across the top of her hair, she looked elegant, and her manner was as Park Avenue as the doorman at the Pierre. Well, I thought, they’re all different in the bathtub from what they’re like at Schrafft’s. I was almost afraid to hand her her purse, it seemed vulgar. But she took it. Then she led me to a room away off, and there was Anna Fiore sitting looking out of a window. I read the statement to her, and she signed it, and Maria Maffei and I signed as witnesses.
Anna said next to nothing with her tongue, but her eyes kept asking me one question all the time, from the minute I entered the room. When I got up to go I answered it. I patted her on the shoulder and said, “Soon, Anna. I’ll get your money real soon, and bring it right to you. Don’t you worry.”
She just nodded and said, “Mr. Archie.”
After I got the photostats from the studio I saw no point in leaving the roadster out ready for action if there wasn’t going to be any, so I garaged it and walked home. Until dinner time I was busy checking up the Cortez shipment and writing letters to the shippers about the casualties. Wolfe was pottering around most of the time while I was upstairs with Horstmann, but at six o’clock he left us and Horstmann and I went on checking.
It was after eight o’clock by the time dinner was over. I was getting the fidgets. Seven years with Nero Wolfe had taught me not to bite my nails waiting for the world to come to an end, but there were times when I was convinced that an eccentric was a man who ought to have his nose pulled. That evening he kept the radio going all through dinner. As soon as it was over and he nodded to Fritz to pull his chair back, I got up and said:
“I guess I won’t sit in the office and watch you yawn. I’ll try a movie.”
Wolfe said, “Good. No man should neglect his cultural side.”
“What!” I exploded. “You mean—damn it all, you would let me go and sit in a movie while maybe Manuel Kimball is finishing his packing for a nice little trip to his native land? Then I can go to the Argentine and buy a horse and ride all over the damn pampa, whatever that is, looking for him? Do you think all it takes to catch a murderer is to sit in your damn office and let your genius work? That maybe most of it, but it also takes a pair of eyes and a pair of legs and sometimes a gun or two. And the best thing you can think of is to tell me to go to a movie, while you—”
He showed me the palm of his hand to stop me. Fritz had pulled his chair back and he was up, a mountain on its feet. “Archie,” he said. “Spare me. A typical man of violence; the placidity of a humming-bird. I did not suggest the movie, you did. Even were Manuel Kimball a man to tremble at shadows, there has been no shadow to disturb him. Why should Manuel Kimball take a trip, to his native land or anywhere else? There is nothing he is likely to take at this moment, I should say. If it will set your mind at rest, I can tell you that he is at his home, but not packing for a trip. I was speaking to him on the telephone only two hours ago.—Fritz, the buzzer, attend the front door, please.—He will receive another telephone call from me in the morning at eight o’clock, and I assure you he will wait for it.”
“I hope he does.” I wasn’t satisfied. “I tell you, monkeying around at this stage is dangerous. You’ve done your part, a part no other living man could do, and now it’s simple but it’s damn important. I just go there and wrap myself around him, and stay wrapped until you tell Anderson to go and get him. Why not?”
Wolfe shook his head. “No, Archie. I understand your contention: that a point arrives when finesse must retire and leave the coup de grâce for naked force. I understand it, and I deny it vehemently.—But come; guests are arriving; will you stop in the office a moment before you proceed to your entertainment?”
He turned and went to the office, and I followed him, wondering what the devil kind of a charade he was getting up. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
Fritz had gone to the door, and the guests had been shown into the office ahead of us. I had no definite ideas as to who it might be, but certainly I didn’t expect that bunch. I stared around at them. It was Fred Durkin and Bill Gore and Orrie Cather. My first thought was that Wolfe had got the funny notion that I needed all that army to subdue the fer-de-lance, as I had decided to call Manuel Kimball instead of the spiggoty, but of course Wolfe knew me too well for that. I tossed a nod around to them, and grinned when I saw a gauze bandage on Orrie’s left wrist. Anna Fiore had got under his skin all right.
After Wolfe got into his chair he asked me to get a pencil and a large piece of paper and make a rough map of the Kimball estate. With the guests there I asked no questions; I did as he said. I told him that I was acquainted with the ground only immediately around the house and the landing field, and he said that would do. While I made the map, sitting at my desk, Wolfe was telling Orrie how to get the sedan from the garage at six-thirty in the morning, and instructing the other two to meet him there at that hour.
I took the map to Wolfe at his desk. He looked it over a minute and said, “Good. Now tell me, if you were sending three men to that place to make sure that Manuel Kimball did not leave without being seen, and to follow him if seen, how would you dispose of them?”
I asked, “Under cover?”
“No. Exposed would do.”
“How long?”
“Three hours.”
I considered a minute. “Easy. Durkin on the high-way, across from the entrance to the drive, with the sedan backed into a gate so it could start quick either way. Bill Gore in the bushes—about here—where he could cover all approaches to the house except the back. Orrie on top of a hill back here, about a third of a mile off, with field glasses, and a motorcycle down on the road. But they might as well stay home and play pinochle, since they can’t fly.”
Wolfe’s cheeks folded. “Saul Panzer can. The clouds will have eyes. Thank you, Archie. That is all. We will not keep you longer from your entertainment.”
I knew from his tone that I was to go, but I didn’t want to. If there had to be a charade I wanted to help make it up. I said, “The movies have all been closed. Raided by the Society for the Suppression of Vice.”
Wolfe said, “Then try a harlot’s den. When gathering eggs you must look in every nest.”
Bill Gore snickered. I gave Wolfe as dirty a
look as I cold manage, and went to the hall for my hat.
Chapter 18
I was awake Wednesday morning before seven o’clock, but I didn’t get up. I watched the sun slanting against the windows, and listened to the noises from the street and the boats and ferries on the river, and figured that since Bill and Fred and Orrie had been instructed to meet at the garage at six-thirty they must already be as far as the Grand Concourse. My part hadn’t been handed to me. When I had got home the night before Wolfe had gone up to bed, and there had been no note for me.
I finally tumbled out and shaved and dressed, taking my time, and went downstairs. Fritz was in the kitchen, buzzing around contented. I passed him some kind of a cutting remark, but realizing that it wasn’t fair to take it out on him I made up for it by eating an extra egg and reading aloud to him a piece from the morning paper about a vampire bat that had had a baby in the zoo. Fritz came from the part of Switzerland where they talk French. He had a paper of his own every morning, but it was in French and it never seemed very likely to me that there was much in it. I was always surprised when I saw a word in it that meant anything up-to-date; for instance, the word Barstow which had been prominent in the headlines for a week.
I was starting the second cup of coffee when the phone rang. I went to the office and got the receiver to my ear, but Wolfe had answered from his room. I listened. It was Orrie Cather reporting that they had arrived and that everything was set. That was all. I went back to my coffee in the kitchen.
After a third cup and a cigarette I moseyed into the office. Sooner or later, I thought, genius will impart its secrets; sooner or later, compose yourself; just straighten things around and dust off the desk and fill the fountain pen and make everything nice for teacher. Sooner or later, honey—you damn fool. I wasn’t getting the fidgets, I had them. A couple of times I took off the receiver and listened, but I didn’t catch Wolfe making any calls. I got the mail and put it on his desk, and opened the safe. I pulled out the drawer where the Maffei stuff was just to make sure it hadn’t walked off. The envelope into which I had put the photostats felt thin, and I took them out. One set was gone. I had had two sets made, and only one was there. That gave me my first hint about Wolfe’s charade, but I didn’t follow it up very far, because as I was sticking the envelope back into the drawer Fritz came in and said that Wolfe wanted to see me in his room.
I went up. His door was open. He was up and dressed all but his coat; the sleeves of his yellow shirt—he used two fresh shirts every day, always canary yellow—looked like enormous floating sheeps’ bladders as he stood at his mirror brushing his hair. I caught his eyes in the mirror, and he winked at me! I was so astonished that I suppose my mouth fell open.
He put the brush down and turned to me. “Good morning, Archie. You have breakfast?—Good. It is pleasant to see the sun again, after yesterday’s gray unceasing trickle. Get the Maffei documents from the safe. By all means take a gun. Proceed to White Plains and get Mr. Anderson at his office—he will be awaiting you—and drive him to the Kimball estate. Show him Manuel Kimball; point, if necessary. When Manuel Kimball has been apprehended deliver the documents to Mr. Anderson. Return here, and you will find that Fritz will have prepared one of your favorite dishes for lunch.”
I said, “Okay. But why all the mystery—”
“Comments later, Archie. Save them, please. I am due upstairs in ten minutes and I have yet to enjoy my chocolate.”
I said, “I hope you choke on it,” and turned and left him.
With the Carlo Maffei stuff and Anna’s statement on my breast and a thirty-eight, loaded this time, on my hip, I walked to the garage. It was warm and sunny, June twenty-first, the day for the sun to start back south. It was a good day for the finale of the fer-de-lance, I thought, the longest one of the year. I filled up with gas and oil and water, made it crosstown to Park Avenue, and turned north. As I passed the marble front of the Manhattan Trust Company I saluted; that was where I had had Anderson’s check certified. Going north on the Parkway at that hour of the morning there was plenty of room, but I kept my speedometer at forty or under; Wolfe had told Anderson this would be unostentatious, and besides, I wasn’t in the mood for repartee with a motor cop. I was pretty well on edge. I always am like that when I’m really on my way for a man; there never seems to be quite enough air for me; I breathe quicker and everything I touch—the steering wheel, for instance—seems to be alive with blood going in it. I don’t like the feeling much but I always have it.
Anderson was waiting for me. In his office the girl at the desk tossed me a nod and got busy on the phone. In a minute Anderson came out. There were two men with him, carrying their hats and looking powerful. One of them was H. R. Corbett; the other was new to me. Anderson stopped to say something to the girl at the desk, then came over to me.
“Well?” he said.
I grinned. “I’m ready if you are. Hello, Corbett. You going along?”
Anderson said, “I’m taking two men. You know what the job is. Is that enough?”
I nodded. “All we’ll need ’em for is to hold my hat anyway. Let’s go.” The third guy opened the door and we filed out.
Anderson came with me in the roadster; the other two followed us in a closed car, official, but I noticed it wasn’t Anderson’s limousine. Going down Main Street all the traffic cops saluted my passenger, and I grinned considering how surprised they would have been if they had known how much the District Attorney was paying for that little taxi ride. I opened her up as soon as I got onto the highway, and rolled over the hills, up and down, so fast that Anderson looked at me. He didn’t know but what the speed was part of the program, so I kept going, slowing down only at the points where I had to make a turn and needed to make sure that Corbett, trailing along behind, had caught it. It took just twenty-five minutes from the White Plains courthouse to the entrance to the Kimball drive; the clock on my dash said ten-forty as I slowed up to turn in.
Durkin was there, across the road, sitting on the running board of the sedan which had been backed in as I had suggested. I waved at him but didn’t stop. Anderson asked, “That Wolfe’s man?” I nodded and swept into the drive. I had gone about a hundred feet when Anderson said, “Stop!” I pushed the pedals down, shifted into neutral, and pulled the hand brake.
Anderson said, “This is E. D. Kimball’s place. You’ve got to show me right here.”
I shook my head. “Nothing doing. You know Nero Wolfe, and that’ll do for you. I’m obeying orders. Do I go on?”
Corbett’s car had stopped right behind us. Anderson was looking at me, his mouth twisted with uncertainty. I had my ears open, straining, not for Anderson’s reply, but for what I was taking for the sound of an airplane. Even if I had been willing to get out and look up I couldn’t, on account of trees. But it was an airplane, sure. I shifted and started forward on the jump.
Anderson said, “By God, Goodwin, I hope you know what you’re risking. If I had known—”
I stopped him, “Shut up!”
I pulled up at the house and ran over and rang the bell. In a minute the door was opened by the fat butler.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Manuel Kimball.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Goodwin? He is expecting you. He told me to ask you to go to the hangar and wait for him there.”
“Isn’t he there?”
The butler hesitated, and he certainly looked worried. “I believe he intended to go aloft in his plane.”
I nodded and ran back to the car. Corbett had got out and walked to the roadster and was talking with Anderson. As I got in Anderson turned to me and started, “Look here, Goodwin—”
“Did you hear me say shut up? I’m busy. Look out, Corbett.”
I shot forward onto the back drive and headed for the graveled road that led to the hangar. On that, out from under the trees, the sound of the airplane was louder. I made the gravel fly, and whirled to a stop on the concrete platform in front of the hangar. The mechanic, Skinner, was stand
ing there in the wide open door. I jumped out and went over to him.
“Mr. Manuel Kimball?”
Skinner pointed up, and I looked. It was Manuel Kimball’s plane, high, but not too high for me to see the red and blue. It seemed to make a lot of noise, and the next second I saw why, when I caught sight of another plane circling in from the west, higher than Manuel’s and going faster. It was helping with the noise. Both planes were circling, dark and beautiful in the sun. I brought my head down to sneeze.
Skinner said, “He’s got company this morning.”
“So I see. Who is it?”
“I don’t know. I saw it first a little after eight o’clock and it’s been fooling around up there ever since. It’s a Burton twin-motor, it’s got a swell dip.”
I remember Wolfe saying the clouds would have eyes. There weren’t any clouds, but no doubt about the eyes.
I asked, “What time did Mr. Kimball go up?”
“A little after ten. They came out around nine-thirty, but the second seat wasn’t ready and I had to fix the straps.”
I knew what it meant as soon as he said it, but I asked him anyhow. I said, “Oh, is there someone with him?”
“Yes, sir, his father. The old gentleman’s having a ride. It’s only his third time up. He nearly backed out when the seat wasn’t ready, but we got him in.”
I looked up at the airplanes again. Manuel Kimball and his father having a ride together, up there in the sun, the wind and the roar. No conversation probably, just a morning ride.
I started toward the roadster, to speak to Anderson. Corbett had left his car and came to meet me. I stopped to listen to him: “Well, we’ve come to your party, where’s your guest of honor?”
I brushed past him and went on to the roadster. Seeing no point in giving the mechanic an earful, I lowered my voice. “You’ll have to wait, Mr. Anderson. Barstow’s murderer is taking an airplane ride. I’m sorry you won’t get him on time, but you’ll get him.”