Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 21

by Triple Jeopardy

  Lon said he did. He also said he would be glad to go on with the private conversation in the interest of justice and the public welfare, but apparently Wolfe had all the scraps he could use at the moment. After ushering Lon to the door I went up to my room to spend an hour attending to purely personal matters, a detail that had been too long postponed. I was out of the shower, selecting a shirt, when a call came from Saul Panzer in response to the message I had left. I gave him all the features of the picture that would help and told him to report to Parker’s law office in the morning.

  After dinner that evening we were all hard at it in the office. Fritz and Theodore were unfolding Gazettes, finding the right page and tearing it out, and carrying off the leavings. I was banging away at my machine, three pages an hour. Wolfe was at his desk, concentrating on a methodical and exhaustive study of three years of Dazzle Dan. It was well after midnight when he pushed back his chair, arose, stretched, rubbed his eyes, and told us, “It’s bedtime. This morass of fatuity has given me indigestion. Good night.”

  Wednesday morning he tried to put one over. His routine was breakfast in his room, with the morning paper, at eight; then shaving and dressing; then, from nine to eleven, his morning shift up in the plant rooms. He never went to the office before eleven, and the detective business was never allowed to mingle with the orchids. But that Wednesday he fudged. While I was in the kitchen with Fritz, enjoying griddle cakes, Darst’s sausage, honey, and plenty of coffee, and going through the morning papers, with two readings for the Gazette’s account of Wolfe’s enforced retirement, Wolfe sneaked downstairs into the office and made off with a stack of Dazzle Dan. The way I knew, before breakfast I had gone in there to straighten up a little, and I am trained to observe. Returning after breakfast, and glancing around before starting at my typewriter, I saw that half of a pile of Dan was gone. I don’t think I had ever seen him quite so hot under the collar. I admit I fully approved. Not only did I not make an excuse for a trip up to the roof to catch him at it, but I even took the trouble to be out of the office when he came down at eleven o’clock, to give him a chance to get Dan back unseen.

  My first job after breakfast had been to carry out some instructions Wolfe had given me the evening before. Manhattan office hours being what they are, I got no answer at the number of Levay Recorders, Inc., until 9:35. Then it took some talking to get a promise of immediate action, and if it hadn’t been for the name of Nero Wolfe I wouldn’t have made it. But I got both the promise and the action. A little after ten two men arrived with cartons of equipment and tool kits, and in less than an hour they were through and gone, and it was a neat and nifty job. It would have taken an expert search to reveal anything suspicious in the office, and the wire to the kitchen, running around the baseboard and on through, wouldn’t be suspicious even if seen.

  It was hard going at the typewriter on account of the phone ringing, chiefly reporters wanting to talk to Wolfe, or at least me, and finally I had to ask Fritz in to answer the damn thing and give everybody a brush-off. A call he switched to me was one from the DA’s office. They had the nerve to ask me to come down there so they could ask me something. I told them I was busy answering Help Wanted ads and couldn’t spare the time. Half an hour later Fritz switched another one to me. It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. He was good and sore, beefing about Wolfe having no authority to break the news about losing his license, and it wasn’t official yet, and where did I think it would get me refusing to cooperate with the DA on a murder when I had discovered the body, and I could have my choice of coming down quick or having a PD car come and get me. I let him use up his breath.

  “Listen, brother,” I told him, “I hadn’t heard that the name of this city has been changed to Moscow. If Mr. Wolfe wants to publish it that he’s out of business, hoping that someone will pass the hat or offer him a job as doorman, that’s his affair. As for my cooperating, nuts. You have already got me sewed up on two charges, and on advice of counsel and my doctor I am staying home, taking aspirin and gargling with prune juice and gin. If you come here, no matter who, you won’t get in without a search warrant. If you come with another warrant for me, say for cruelty to animals because I opened that window, you can either wait on the stoop until I emerge or shoot the door down, whichever you prefer. I am now hanging up.”

  “If you’ll listen a minute, damn it.”

  “Good-by, you double-breasted nitwit.”

  I cradled the phone, sat thirty seconds to calm down, and resumed at the typewriter. The next interruption came not from the outside but from Wolfe, a little before noon. He was back at his desk, analyzing Dazzle Dan. Suddenly he pronounced my name, and I swiveled.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Look at this.”

  He slid a sheet of the Gazette across his desk, and I got up and took it. It was a Sunday half-page, in color, from four months back. In the first frame Dazzle Dan was scooting along a country road on a motorcycle, passing a roadside sign that read:

  PEACHES RIGHT FROM THE TREE!

  AGGIE GHOOL AND HAGGIE KROOL

  Frame two, D.D. had stopped his bike alongside a peach tree full of red and yellow fruit. Standing there were two females, presumably Aggie Ghool and Haggie Krool. One was old and bent, dressed in burlap as near as I could tell; the other was young and pink-cheeked, wearing a mink coat. If you say surely not a mink coat, I say I’m telling what I saw. D.D. was saying, in his balloon, “Gimme a dozen.”

  Frame three, the young female was handing D.D. the peaches, and the old one was extending her hand for payment. Frame four, the old one was giving D.D. his change from a bill. Frame five, the old one was handing the young one a coin and saying, “Here’s your ten per cent, Haggie,” and the young one was saying, “Thank you very much, Aggie.” Frame six, D.D. was asking Aggie, “Why don’t you split it even?” and Aggie was telling him, “Because it’s my tree.” Frame seven, D.D. was off again on the bike, but I felt I had had enough and looked at Wolfe inquiringly.

  “Am I supposed to comment?”

  “If it would help, yes.”

  “I pass. If it’s a feed from the National Industrialists’ League it’s the wrong angle. If you mean the mink coat, Pat Lowell’s may not be paid for.”

  He grunted. “There have been two similar episodes, one each year, with the same characters.”

  “Then it may be paid for.”

  “Is that all?”

  “It’s all for now. I’m not a brain, I’m a typist. I’ve got to finish this damn report.”

  I tossed the art back to him and returned to work.

  At 12:28 I handed him the finished report, and he dropped D.D. and started on it. I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I would take on the phone again, and as I re-entered the office it was ringing. I crossed to my desk and got it. My daytime formula was, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking,” but with our license gone it was presumably illegal to have an office, so I said, “Nero Wolfe’s residence, Archie Goodwin speaking,” and heard Saul Panzer’s husky voice.

  “Reporting in, Archie. No trouble at all. Koven is served. Put it in his hand five minutes ago.”

  “In the house?”

  “Yes. I’ll call Parker—”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Oh, simple. The man that delivers stuff from that Furnari’s you told me about has got the itch bad, and it only took ten bucks. Of course after I got inside I had to use my head and legs both, but with your sketch of the layout it was a cinch.”

  “For you, yes. Mr. Wolfe says satisfactory, which as you know is as far as he ever goes. I say you show promise. You’ll call Parker?”

  “Yes. I have to go there to sign a paper.”

  “Okay. Be seeing you.”

  I hung up and told Wolfe. He lifted his eyes, said, “Ah!” and returned to the report.

  After lunch there was an important chore, involving Wolfe, me, our memory of the talk Saturday evening with Koven, and the equipment that had been installed by Levay Re
corders, Inc. We spent nearly an hour at it, with three separate tries, before we got it done to Wolfe’s satisfaction.

  After that it dragged along, at least for me. The phone calls had fallen off. Wolfe, at his desk, finished with the report, put it in a drawer, leaned back, and closed his eyes. I would just as soon have opened a conversation, but pretty soon his lips started working—pushing out, drawing back, and pushing out again—and I knew his brain was busy so I went to the cabinet for a batch of the germination records and settled down to making entries. He didn’t need a license to go on growing orchids, though the question would soon arise of how to pay the bills. At four o’clock he left to go up to the plant rooms, and I went on with the records. During the next two hours there were a few phone calls, but none from Koven or his lawyer or Parker. At two minutes past six I was telling myself that Koven was probably drinking himself up to something, no telling what, when two things happened at once: the sound came from the hall of Wolfe’s elevator jerking to a stop, and the doorbell rang.

  I went to the hall, switched on the stoop light, and took a look through the panel of one-way glass in the front door. It was a mink coat all right, but the hat was different. I went closer, passing Wolfe on his way to the office, got a view of the face, and saw that she was alone. I marched to the office door and announced, “Miss Patricia Lowell. Will she do?”

  He made a face. He seldom welcomes a man crossing his threshold; he never welcomes a woman. “Let her in,” he muttered.

  I stepped to the front, slid the bolt off, and opened up. “This is the kind of surprise I like,” I said heartily. She entered, and I shut the door and bolted it. “Couldn’t you find a coconut?”

  “I want to see Nero Wolfe,” she said in a voice so hard that it was out of character, considering her pink cheeks.

  “Sure. This way.” I ushered her down the hall and on in. Once in a while Wolfe rises when a woman enters his office, but this time he kept not only his chair but also his tongue. He inclined his head a quarter of an inch when I pronounced her name, but said nothing. I gave her the red leather chair, helped her throw her coat back, and went to my desk.

  “So you’re Nero Wolfe,” she said.

  That called for no comment and got none.

  “I’m scared to death,” she said.

  “You don’t look it,” Wolfe growled.

  “I hope I don’t; I’m trying not to.” She started to put her bag on the little table at her elbow, changed her mind, and kept it in her lap. She took off a glove. “I was sent here by Mr. Koven.”

  No comment. We were looking at her. She looked at me, then back at Wolfe, and protested, “My God, don’t you ever say anything?”

  “Only on occasion.” Wolfe leaned back. “Give me one. You say something.”

  She compressed her lips. She was sitting forward and erect in the big roomy chair, with no contact with the upholstered back. “Mr. Koven sent me,” she said, clipping it, “about the ridiculous suit for damages you have brought. He intends to enter a counterclaim for damage to his reputation through actions of your acknowledged agent, Archie Goodwin. Of course he denies that there is any basis for your suit.”

  She stopped. Wolfe met her gaze and kept his trap shut.

  “That’s the situation,” she said belligerently.

  “Thank you for coming to tell me,” Wolfe murmured. “If you’ll show Miss Lowell the way out, please, Archie?”

  I stood up. She looked at me as if I had offered her a deadly insult, and looked back at Wolfe. “I don’t think,” she said, “that your attitude is very sensible. I think you and Mr. Koven should come to an agreement on this. Why wouldn’t this be the way to do it—say the claims cancel each other, and you abandon yours and he abandons his?”

  “Because,” Wolfe said dryly, “my claim is valid and his isn’t. If you’re a member of the bar, Miss Lowell, you should know that this is a little improper, or anyway unconventional. You should be talking with my attorney, not with me.”

  “I’m not a lawyer, Mr. Wolfe. I’m Mr. Koven’s agent and business manager. He thinks lawyers would just make this more of a mess than it is, and I agree with him. He thinks you and he should settle it between you. Isn’t that possible?”

  “I don’t know. We can try. There’s a phone. Get him down here.”

  She shook her head. “He’s not—he’s too upset. I’m sure you’ll find it more practical to deal with me, and if we come to an understanding he’ll approve, I guarantee that. Why don’t we go into it—the two claims?”

  “I doubt if it will get us anywhere.” Wolfe sounded perfectly willing to come halfway. “For one thing, a factor in both claims is the question who killed Adrian Getz and why? If it was Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Koven’s claim has a footing, and I freely concede it; if it was someone else I concede nothing. If I discussed it with you I would have to begin by considering that aspect; I would have to ask you some pointed questions; and I doubt if you would dare to risk answering them.”

  “I can always button up. What kind of questions?”

  “Well—” Wolfe pursed his lips. “For example, how’s the monkey?”

  “I can risk answering that. It’s sick. It’s at the Speyer Hospital. They don’t expect it to live.”

  “Exposure from the open window?”

  “Yes. They’re very delicate, that kind.”

  Wolfe nodded. “That table over there by the globe—that pile of stuff on it is Dazzle Dan for the past three years. I’ve been looking through it. Last August and September a monkey had a prominent role. It was drawn by two different persons, or at least with two different conceptions. In its first seventeen appearances it was depicted maliciously—on a conjecture, by someone with a distaste for monkeys. Thereafter it was drawn sympathetically and humorously. The change was abrupt and noticeable. Why? On instructions from Mr. Koven?”

  Pat Lowell was frowning. Her lips parted and went together again.

  “You have four choices,” Wolfe said bluntly. “The truth, a lie, evasion, or refusal to answer. Either of the last two would make me curious, and I would get my curiosity satisfied somehow. If you try a lie it may work, but I’m an expert on lies and liars.”

  “There’s nothing to lie about. I was thinking back. Mr. Getz objected to the way the monkey was drawn, and Mr. Koven had Mr. Jordan do it instead of Mr. Hildebrand.”

  “Mr. Jordan likes monkeys?”

  “He likes animals. He said the monkey looked like Napoleon.”

  “Mr. Hildebrand does not like monkeys?”

  “He didn’t like that one. Rookaloo knew it, of course, and bit him once. Isn’t this pretty silly, Mr. Wolfe? Are you going on with this?”

  “Unless you walk out, yes. I’m investigating Mr. Koven’s counterclaim, and this is how I do it. With any question you have your four choices—and a fifth too, of course: get up and go. How did you feel about the monkey?”

  “I thought it was an awful nuisance, but it had its points as a diversion. It was my fault it was there, since I gave it to Mr. Getz.”

  “Indeed. When?”

  “About a year ago. A friend returning from South America gave it to me, and I couldn’t take care of it so I gave it to him.”

  “Mr. Getz lives at the Koven house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then actually you were dumping it onto Mrs. Koven. Did she appreciate it?”

  “She has never said so. I didn’t—I know I should have considered that. I apologized to her, and she was nice about it.”

  “Did Mr. Koven like the monkey?”

  “He liked to tease it. But he didn’t dislike it; he teased it just to annoy Mr. Getz.”

  Wolfe leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “You know, Miss Lowell, I did not find the Dazzle Dan saga hopelessly inane. There is a sustained sardonic tone, some fertility of invention, and even an occasional touch of imagination. Monday evening, while Mr. Goodwin was in jail, I telephoned a couple of people who are supposed to know things and was referre
d by them to others. I was told that it is generally believed, though not published, that the conception of Dazzle Dan was originally supplied to Mr. Koven by Mr. Getz, that Mr. Getz was the continuing source of inspiration for the story and pictures, and that without him Mr. Koven will be up a stump. What about it?”

  Pat Lowell had stiffened. “Talk.” She was scornful. “Just cheap talk.”

  “You should know.” Wolfe sounded relieved. “If that belief could be validated I admit I would be up a stump myself. To support my claim against Mr. Koven, and to discredit his against me, I need to demonstrate that Mr. Goodwin did not kill Mr. Getz, either accidentally or otherwise. If he didn’t, then who did? One of you five. But all of you had a direct personal interest in the continued success of Dazzle Dan, sharing as you did in the prodigious proceeds; and if Mr. Getz was responsible for the success, why kill him?” Wolfe chuckled. “So you see I’m not silly at all. We’ve been at it only twenty minutes, and already you’ve helped me enormously. Give us another four or five hours, and we’ll see. By the way.”

  He leaned forward to press a button at the edge of his desk, and in a moment Fritz appeared.

  “There’ll be a guest for dinner, Fritz.”

  “Yes, sir.” Fritz went.

  “Four or five hours?” Pat Lowell demanded.

  “At least that. With a recess for dinner; I banish business from the table. Half for me and half for you. This affair is extremely complicated, and if you came here to get an agreement we’ll have to cover it all. Let’s see, where were we?”

  She regarded him. “About Getz, I didn’t say he had nothing to do with the success of Dazzle Dan. After all, so do I. I didn’t say he won’t be a loss. Everyone knows he was Mr. Koven’s oldest and closest friend. We were all quite aware that Mr. Koven relied on him—”

  Wolfe showed her a palm. “Please, Miss Lowell, don’t spoil it for me. Don’t give me a point and then try to snatch it back. Next you’ll be saying that Koven called Getz ‘the Squirt’ to show his affection, as a man will call his dearest friend an old bastard, whereas I prefer to regard it as an inferiority complex, deeply resentful, showing its biceps. Or telling me that all of you, without exception, were inordinately fond of Mr. Getz and submissively grateful to him. Don’t forget that Mr. Goodwin spent hours in that house among you and has fully reported to me; also you should know that I had a talk with Inspector Cramer Monday evening and learned from him some of the plain facts, such as the pillow lying on the floor, scorched and pierced, showing that it had been used to muffle the sound of the shot, and the failure of all of you to prove lack of opportunity.”