by Rex Stout
“I still believe it,” Frances Cox said, loud. Her chin was thrust forward.
Wolfe didn’t give her a glance. “As for Mr. Horan, you know, of course, that he coveted Ashby’s job. He has refused to name the source of his information. He may have been lying, or he may have himself been misled. That’s immaterial now; I’ll move to what is material. Saul?”
Saul Panzer got up, went to Mercer’s chair, and stood behind it, facing Cramer. There was nothing about him to catch the eye; he looked just ordinary, but people who had dealt with him knew better, and Cramer was one of them.
“My job,” he said, “was to check on John Mercer for Monday evening. Mr. Wolfe’s theory was that he knew Vassos had seen him leaving Ashby’s room that morning, and that evening he phoned him and arranged to meet him. They met, and Mercer had a car, and he drove across the river to Jersey and to a place he knew about. He slugged Vassos with something, stunned him, or killed him, and pushed him over the edge of the cliff. That was the theory, and-”
“To hell with the theory,” Cramer snapped. “What did you get?”
“I was lucky. I couldn’t start at Mercer’s end, for instance at the garage where he kept his car, because I had no in. So I went to Graham Street to try to find someone who had seen Vassos leaving the house that evening. You know how that is, Inspector, you can spend a week at it and come out empty, but I was lucky. Within an hour I had it. Mr. Wolfe has told me to keep the details for later, since Mercer is here and listening, but I have the names and addresses of three people who saw Vassos get into a car at the corner of Graham Street and Avenue A Monday evening a little before nine o’clock. There was only one person in the car, the man driving it, and they can describe him. Then I-”
“Did you describe him for them?”
“No. I’m dry behind the ears, Inspector. Then I wasted an hour trying to pick up the car this side of the river. That was dumb. I got my car and drove to Jersey and spent two hours trying to pick up the car at that end. That wasn’t dumb, but I didn’t hit. I found a law officer I know, a state man, and he went with me to the cliff. After looking around at the top and finding nothing useful, but it ought to be gone over right, we climbed down to where Vassos’s body was found. That should be gone over too, better than it has been, but we found one thing that shouldn’t have been missed by a Boy Scout. Vassos hadn’t been dead when Mercer pushed him over. He died after he reached the bottom, and before he died he dipped his finger in his blood and printed M, E, R, C, on a rock. It wasn’t very distinct, and there was more blood around, but it should have been noticed. It’s still there and being protected. The state man is a good officer, and it will be there. I went to a phone and called Mr. Wolfe and he told me to come in. Of course I had already reported what I had found at Graham Street.”
Cramer had come forward in his chair. “Did you and the state man climb down together?” he demanded.
Saul smiled. His smile is as tender as he is tough, and it helps to make him the best poker player I know. “That would have been dumb, Inspector. With blood four days old? How could I? Jab myself in the leg and use some of mine, nice and fresh? And it might not match.”
“I want the names and addresses of those three people.” Cramer stood up. “And I want to use the phone.”
“No,” Wolfe snapped. “Not until you have taken Mr. Mercer into custody. Look at him. If he is allowed to walk out of here, he might do anything. Besides, I haven’t finished. After getting a report from Mr. Durkin this afternoon, I phoned Mrs. Ashby.” He looked at her. “Will you tell Mr. Cramer what you told me, madam?”
I didn’t turn to see her, back of me on the couch, because that would have taken my eyes away from Mercer. But I heard her. “I told you that my husband hadn’t decided whether to leave Mercer’s Bobbins or not. He had told Mr. Mercer that he would stay if he got fifty-one per cent of the stock of the corporation, and if he didn’t get it he would go to another firm. Just last week he told him he had to know by the end of the month.”
“He told me the same thing,” Frances Cox said, loud. “He said if he left he wanted to take me with him. I’ve thought all along that probably Mr. Mercer killed him.” She was a real prize, that Cox girl. She was going on. “But I didn’t say so because I had no real-”
Mercer stopped her. His idea was to stop her by getting his fingers around her throat, but he didn’t quite make it because Saul was there. But he was fast enough and strong enough, in spite of his age, to make a stir. Cramer came on the bound, Joan Ashby let out a scream, Horan scrambled up, knocking his chair over, and of course I was there. And for the first time in my life I saw a man frothing at the mouth, and I wouldn’t care to see it again. The line of foam seeping through Mercer’s lips, as Saul pinned him from behind, was exactly the color of his hair.
“All right, Panzer,” Cramer said. “I’ll take him.”
I looked away and became aware that we were shy a guest. Andrew Busch had disappeared. He didn’t know which room was Elma’s, and he would probably barge into Wolfe’s room, so I went out to the stairs and on up, two steps at a time. At the first landing a glance showed me that the door of Wolfe’s room was closed, so I kept going. At the second landing the door of the South Room was standing open, and I went to it. Elma, over by a window, saw me, but Busch’s back was to me. He was talking.
“… so it’s all right, everything’s all right, and that Nero Wolfe is the greatest man in the world. I’ve already asked you if you’ll marry me, so I won’t ask you again right now, but I just want to say…”
I turned and headed for the stairs. He may have been a good office manager, but as a promoter he had a lot to learn. The darned fool was standing ten feet away from her. That is not the way to do it.
Murder Is Corny
1
WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG that Tuesday evening in September and I stepped to the hall for a look and through the one-way glass saw Inspector Cramer on the stoop, bearing a fair-sized carton, I proceeded to the door, intending to open it a couple of inches and say through the crack, “Deliveries in the rear.” He was uninvited and unexpected, we had no case and no client, and we owed him nothing, so why pretend he was welcome?
But by the time I had reached the door I had changed my mind. Not because of him. He looked perfectly normal-big and burly, round red face with bushy gray eyebrows, broad heavy shoulders straining the sleeve seams of his coat. It was the carton. It was a used one, the right size, the cord around it was the kind McLeod used, and the NERO WOLFE on it in blue crayon was McLeod’s style of printing. Having switched the stoop light on, I could observe those details as I approached, so I swung the door open and asked politely, “Where did you get the corn?”
I suppose I should explain a little. Usually Wolfe comes closest to being human after dinner, when we leave the dining room to cross the hall to the office, and he gets his bulk deposited in his favorite chair behind his desk, and Fritz brings coffee; and either Wolfe opens his current book or, if I have no date and am staying in, he starts a conversation. The topic may be anything from women’s shoes to the importance of the new moon in Babylonian astrology. But that evening he had taken his cup and crossed to the big globe over by the bookshelves and stood twirling the globe, scowling at it, probably picking a place he would rather be.
For the corn hadn’t come. By an arrangement with a farmer named Duncan McLeod up in Putman County, every Tuesday from July 20 to October 5, sixteen ears of just-picked corn were delivered. They were roasted in the husk, and we did our own shucking as we ate-four ears for me, eight for Wolfe, and four in the kitchen for Fritz. The corn had to arrive no earlier than five-thirty and no later than six-thirty. That day it hadn’t arrived at all, and Fritz had had to do some stuffed eggplant, so Wolfe was standing scowling at the globe when the doorbell rang.
And now here was Inspector Cramer with the carton. Could it possibly be it? It was. Handing me his hat to put on the shelf, he tramped down the hall to the office, and when I entered
he had put the carton on Wolfe’s desk and had his knife out to cut the cord, and Wolfe, cup in hand, was crossing to him. Cramer opened the flaps, took out an ear of corn, held it up, and said, “If you were going to have this for dinner, I guess it’s too late.”
Wolfe moved to his elbow, turned the flap to see the inscription, his name, grunted, circled around the desk to his chair, and sat. “You have your effect,” he said. “I am impressed. Where did you get it?”
“If you don’t know, maybe Goodwin does.” Cramer shot a glance at me, went to the red leather chair facing the end of Wolfe’s desk, and sat. “I’ve got some questions for you and for him, but of course you want grounds. You would. At a quarter past five, four hours ago, the dead body of a man was found in the alley back of Rusterman’s restaurant. He had been hit in the back of the head with a piece of iron pipe which was there on the ground by the body. The station wagon he had come in was alongside the receiving platform of the restaurant, and in the station wagon were nine cartons containing ears of corn.” Cramer pointed. “That’s one of them, your name on it. You get one like it every Tuesday. Right?”
Wolfe nodded. “I do. In season. Has the body been identified?”
“Yes. Driver’s license and other items in his pockets, including cash, eighty-some dollars. Kenneth Faber, twenty-eight years old. Also men at the restaurant identified him. He had been delivering the corn there the past five weeks, and then he had been coming on here with yours. Right?”
“I don’t know.”
“The hell you don’t. If you’re going to start that kind-”
I cut in. “Hold it. Stay in the buggy. As you know, Mr. Wolfe is up in the plant rooms from four to six every day except Sunday. The corn usually comes before six, and either Fritz or I receive it. So Mr. Wolfe doesn’t know, but I do. Kenneth Faber has been bringing it the past five weeks. If you want-”
I stopped because Wolfe was moving. Cramer had dropped the ear of corn onto Wolfe’s desk, and Wolfe had picked it up and felt it, gripping it in the middle, and now he was shucking it. From where I sat, at my desk, the rows of kernels looked too big, too yellow, and too crowded. Wolfe frowned at it, muttered, “I thought so,” put it down, stood up, reached for the carton, said, “You will help, Archie,” took an ear, and started shucking it. As I got up Cramer said something but was ignored.
When we finished we had three piles, as assorted by Wolfe. Two ears were too young, six were too old, and eight were just right. He returned to his chair, looked at Cramer, and declared, “This is preposterous.”
“So you’re stalling,” Cramer growled.
“No. Shall I expound it?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Since you have questioned men at the restaurant, you know that the corn comes from a man named Duncan McLeod, who grows it on a farm some sixty miles north of here. He has been supplying it for four years, and he knows precisely what I require. It must be nearly mature, but not quite, and it must be picked not more than three hours before it reaches me. Do you eat sweet corn?”
“Yes. You’re stalling.”
“No. Who cooks it?”
“My wife. I haven’t got a Fritz.”
“Does she cook it in water?”
“Sure. Is yours cooked in beer?”
“No. Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water. Ideally the corn-”
“How much longer are you going to stall?”
“I’m not stalling. Ideally the corn should go straight from the stalk to the oven, but of course that’s impractical for city dwellers. If it’s picked at the right stage of development it is still a treat for the palate after twenty-four hours, or even forty-eight; I have tried it. But look at this.” Wolfe pointed to the assorted piles. “This is preposterous. Mr. McLeod knows better. The first year I had him send two dozen ears, and I returned those that were not acceptable. He knows what I require, and he knows how to choose it without opening the husk. He is supposed to be equally meticulous with the supply for the restaurant, but I doubt if he is; they take fifteen to twenty dozen. Are they serving what they got today?”
“Yes. They’ve admitted that they took it from the station wagon even before they reported the body.” Cramer’s chin was down, and his eyes were narrowed under the eyebrow hedge. “You’re the boss at that restaurant.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Not the boss. My trusteeship, under the will of my friend Marko Vukcic when he died, will end next year. You know the arrangement; you investigated the murder; you may remember that I brought the murderer back from Yugoslavia.”
“Yeah. Maybe I never thanked you.” Cramer’s eyes came to me. “You go there fairly often-not to Yugoslavia, to Rusterman’s. How often?”
I raised one brow. That annoys him because he can’t do it. “Oh, once a week, sometimes twice. I have privileges, and it’s the best restaurant in New York.”
“Sure. Were you there today?”
“No.”
“Where were you at five-fifteen this afternoon?”
“In the Heron sedan which Mr. Wolfe owns and I drive. Five-fifteen? Grand Concourse, headed for the East River Drive.”
“Who was with you?”
“Saul Panzer.”
He grunted. “You and Wolfe are the only two men alive Panzer would lie for. Where had you been?”
“Ball game. Yankee Stadium.”
“What happened in the ninth inning?” He flipped a hand. “To hell with it. You’d know all right, you’d see to that. How well do you know Max Maslow?”
I raised the brow again. “Connect it, please.”
“I’m investigating a murder.”
“So I gathered. And apparently I’m a suspect. Connect it.”
“One item in Kenneth Faber’s pockets was a little notebook. One page had the names of four men written in pencil. Three of the names had checkmarks in front of them. The last one, no checkmark, was Archie Goodwin. The first one was Max Maslow. Will that do?”
“I’d rather see the notebook.”
“It’s at the laboratory.” His voice went up a notch. “Look, Goodwin. You’re a licensed private detective.”
I nodded. “But that crack about who Saul Panzer would lie for. Okay, I’ll file it. I don’t know any Max Maslow and have never heard the name before. The other two names with checkmarks?”
“Peter Jay. J-A-Y.”
“Don’t know him and never heard of him.”
“Carl Heydt.” He spelled it.
“That’s better. Couturier?”
“He makes clothes for women.”
“Including a friend of mine, Miss Lily Rowan. I have gone with her a few times to his place to help her decide. His suits and dresses come high, but I suppose he’d turn out a little apron for three Cs.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Not well at all. I call him Carl, but you know how that is. We have been fellow weekend guests at Miss Rowan’s place in the country a couple of times. I have seen him only when I have been with Miss Rowan.”
“Do you know why his name would be in Faber’s notebook with a checkmark?”
“I don’t know and I couldn’t guess.”
“Do you want me to connect Susan McLeod before I ask you about her?”
I had supposed that would be coming as soon as I heard the name Carl Heydt, since the cops had had the notebook for four hours and had certainly lost no time making contacts. Saving me for the last, and Cramer himself coming, was of course a compliment, but more for Wolfe than for me.
“No, thanks,” I told him. “I’ll do the connecting. The first time Kenneth Faber came with the corn, six we
eks ago today, the first time I ever saw him, he told me Sue McLeod had got her father to give him a job on the farm. He was very chatty. He said he was a freelance cartoonist, and the cartoon business was in a slump, and he wanted some sun and air and his muscles needed exercise, and Sue often spent weekends at the farm and that would be nice. You can’t beat that for a connection. Go ahead and ask me about Susan McLeod.”
Cramer was eying me. “You’re never slow, are you, Goodwin?”
I gave him a grin. “Slow as cold honey. But I try hard to keep up.”
“Don’t overdo. How long have you been intimate with her?”
“Well. There are several definitions for ‘intimate.’ Which one?”
“You know damn well which one.”
My shoulders went up. “If you won’t say, I’ll have to guess.” The shoulders went down. “If you mean the very worst, or the very best, depending on how you look at it, nothing doing. I have known her three years, having met her when she brought the corn one day. Have you seen her?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know how she looks, and much obliged for the compliment. She has points. I think she means well, and she can’t help it if she can’t keep the come-on from showing because she was born with it. She didn’t pick her eyes and voice, they came in the package. Her talk is something special. Not only do you never know what she will say next; she doesn’t know herself. One evening I kissed her, a good healthy kiss, and when we broke she said, ‘I saw a horse kiss a cow once.’ But she’s a lousy dancer, and after a show or prize fight or ball game I want an hour or two with a band and a partner. So I haven’t seen much of her for a year. The last time I saw her was at a party somewhere a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know who her escort was, but it wasn’t me. As for my being intimate with her, meaning what you mean, what do you expect? I haven’t, but even if I had I’m certainly not intimate enough with you to blab it. Anything else?”