by Rex Stout
“You’re wasting it, brother. I’m not a pigeon collector. My name is Archie Goodwin and I came to see Miss Amory.” I put out a hand. “You’re Roy Douglas?” We shook. “Nice chilly place you’ve got here. Miss Amory?”
“I don’t know you,” the girl said in the kind of voice I like, “do I?”
“You do now,” I assured her. “Anyhow, you don’t need to, because I’m only a messenger boy. Lily Rowan wants you to come and have dinner with her, and sent me to get you.”
“Lily Rowan?” The brown eyes looked puzzled. “But why-she sent you for me?”
“Right.” I made it casual. “Since you know Lily, you may be surprised she didn’t send a brigadier general, but there was nothing around but majors.”
Ann laughed, and it was the kind of laugh I like. Then she looked at the pigeon in the coop, and at Roy, and back at me. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I’ve already had dinner. You mean she wants to see me?” She got up. “I suppose I’d better-” She made up her mind. “But I can go-You don’t need to bother-”
I got her out of there. Evidently Roy did not regard the proceeding with enthusiasm, and neither did the pigeon, but she came, after a little more discussion. Roy lighted us down to the top floor with a flashlight and then returned to his loft. On the ground floor I waited in the hall while Ann went in to speak to her grandmother and get a coat, and when she required less than five minutes for it I liked that too. On the street she didn’t take my arm and she didn’t try to keep step. So far she was batting a thousand. We got a taxi at the corner.
The next test was a little stiffer. As we turned uptown on Fifth Avenue I said, “Now it can be told. Here was the situation. I wanted a private talk with you. I couldn’t talk with you in the presence of Roy and the pigeon. I knew we couldn’t have a talk in your apartment because I had met your grandmother. If I had asked you to go somewhere with me, you would have refused. So I invented an invitation from Lily Rowan. Now what are we going to do?”
Her eyes were wide open at me. “Do you mean- But how did you know-”
“Just a minute. The question was rhetorical. I suppose you’ve heard of Nero Wolfe, the detective. I worked for him up to two months ago, when I joined the Army. Today Lily Rowan told me that you asked her to send you to a lawyer, and she has been trying to arrange for you to see Nero Wolfe, but Mr. Wolfe has been occupied. I think I can fix it. He is a very busy man, if you’ll just tell me what it’s about-”
“Oh,” she said. She gazed at me. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t-I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why not? You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Didn’t you intend to tell the lawyer you asked Lily to send you to?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Nero Wolfe is worth ten lawyers. Any ten.”
“But you’re not Nero Wolfe. You’re just a handsome young man in a uniform.” She shook her head again. “Really I couldn’t.”
“You’re wrong, sister. I’m handsome, but I’m not just handsome. However, we’ve got all night. Say we try this. We’ve both had dinner. Say we go somewhere and dance. Between dances I’ll explain to you how bright I am, and try to win your confidence, and get you to drink as much as possible to loosen your tongue. That might get us somewhere.”
She laughed. “Where would we go to dance?”
“Anywhere. The Flamingo Club.”
I told the driver.
She turned out to be a pretty fair dancer, but not much at bending the elbow. The dinner mob already had the place nearly filled, but I declared a priority on a table in a corner that was being held for some deb’s delight, and when he turned up with his Abigail Spriggs alumna I just stared him out of it into the jungle. Ann and I got along fine. Socially the evening was absolutely okay, but fundamentally I was there on business and from that angle it was close to a washout.
Not that I didn’t gather information. I learned that the pigeon I had seen in the coop was a Sion-Stassart pigeon named Dusky Diana, the holder of nine diplomas and the mother of four 500-mile winners, and Roy Douglas had paid $90 for her, and she had hit a chimney three days ago in a gust of wind while out exercising, and was being nursed. Also that there had been a feud between Miss Leeds’ mother and Mrs. Chack, Ann’s grandmother, dating from the 19th century, which Mrs. Chack and Miss Leeds were carrying on. The cause of the feud was that Chack fed squirrels and Leeds fed pigeons, both using Washington Square as a base of operations. They were both there every morning soon after dawn, staying a couple of hours, and again in the late afternoon. Mrs. Chack could stay later than Mrs. Leeds, often until after dark, because pigeons went to bed earlier than squirrels, and it was Mrs. Chack’s daily triumph when the enemy had to give up and go home. The bitterest and deepest aspect of the feud was that Mrs. Chack had accused Miss Leeds’ mother of poisoning squirrels on December 9, 1905, and tried to have her arrested. That date had not been forgotten and never would be.
Also I learned that Miss Leeds’ mother had died on December 9, three months ago. Mrs. Chack had announced to the neighborhood that it had been a visitation of God’s slow anger at an ancient crime, and whisperings that got to the ears of the police had resulted in a discreet investigation, but nothing had come of it. Here I thought I had something up a tree, in fact I was sure I had, from the way Ann acted, but that was as far as I got. Nor was she discussing her fiance, even to the extent of admitting she had one. Evidently she was sticking to it that I was just handsome.
All of a sudden, around midnight, I realized something. What brought it to my attention was the fact that I was noticing the smell of her hair while we were dancing. I was even sniffing it. It had startled me so I bumped into a couple on the right and nearly toppled them over. There I was-presumably on duty, working, and sore at her for being too damn stubborn to open up-and there I was deliberately smelling hair! That was a hell of a note. I steered her around to an edge, off the floor and back to the table, and sat her down and called for the check.
“Oh,” she said, “must we go?”
“Look here,” I told her, looking in her wide-open eyes, “you’re giving me a run-around. Maybe you did the same to Lily Rowan, or she did to me. Are you in trouble, or aren’t you?”
“Why, yes. Yes, Archie, I am.”
“What kind of trouble? A run in your stocking?”
“No, really. It’s-real trouble. Honestly.”
“But you’re not telling me about it?”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Honestly I can’t. I mean-I don’t want to. You see, you are young and handsome. It’s something terrible-I don’t mean it’s terrible about me-it’s something terrible about someone.”
“Is it about the death of Miss Leeds’ mother?”
“It-” She stopped. Then she went on. “Yes, it is. But that’s all I’ll tell you. If you’re going to be like this-”
The waiter brought the change, and I took my share. Then I said, “Okay. The reason I’m like this, I caught myself smelling your hair. Not only that, for the last half-hour I’ve had a different attitude toward our dancing. You may have noticed it.”
“Yes, I-did.”
“Very well. I didn’t. Until just now. I admit it’s possible there is romance ahead of us. Or you may break my heart and ruin my life. Anything can happen. But not yet. What I want to know now is, what time do you quit work?”
She was smiling at me. “I leave the office at five o’clock.”
“And what, go home?”
She nodded. “I usually get home a little before five-thirty. And take a bath, and start cooking dinner. This time of year, grandmother gets home from the Square around seven, and I have dinner ready for her. Sometimes Roy or Leon eats with us.”
“Could you eat early tomorrow and come to Nero Wolfe’s house at seven o’clock? And tell him about the trouble you’re in? Tell him all about it?”
She frowned at me, hesitating. I covered her hand, on the tablecloth
, with mine. “Look, sister,” I said, “it’s possible that you’re headed for something terrible yourself. I’m not trying to pretend-”
I stopped because I felt a presence, and I felt eyes. I glanced up, and there were the eyes looking down at me, one on each side of Lily Rowan’s pretty little nose.
I tried to grin at her. “Why-hello there-”
“You,” Lily said, in a tone to cut my throat. “On duty, huh? You louse!”
I think she was going to smack me. Anyhow, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to care what she did, and intended to proceed without delay, so it was merely a question of who moved first and fastest. I was out of my chair, on my feet across the table from her, in half a second flat, with a gesture to Ann, and Ann passed that test too, a fairly tough one, with flying colors. As fast as I moved she was with me, and before even Lily Rowan could get any commotion started we had my cap from the hat-check girl and were out on the sidewalk.
As the taxi rolled away with us I patted Ann’s hand and said, “Good girl. Apparently she was upset about something.”
“She was jealous,” Ann chuckled. “My lord, she was jealous. Lily Rowan jealous of me!”
When I left her at 316 Barnum Street, it was agreed that she would be at Nero Wolfe’s place at 7:00 the next day. Even so, as the taxi took me back to 35th Street, I was not in a satisfactory frame of mind, and it wasn’t improved by finding pinned to my pillowcase a note which said:
Dear Archie, Miss Rowan telephoned four times, and when I told her you were not here she said I was a liar. I am sorry there is no bacon or ham or pancake flour or anything like that in the house.
Fritz
Chapter 6
I slept because I always sleep, but my nerves must have been in bad shape, because when my eyes opened and read the clock at 6:50 I was immediately wide awake. I would have given my next two promotions for the satisfaction of planting myself in the downstairs hall and glaring at Wolfe and Fritz as they left on their way to the training field, but knowing that would be a bad blunder in strategy I restrained myself. All I did was open my door so I could hear noises, and when, promptly at 7:00 I heard the street door open and close, I went to a window and leaned out for a look. And there they went, off toward the river, Wolfe in the blue serge pants and my maroon sweater and heavy shoes, no hat, at a gait he probably thought was a stride, swinging his arms. It was simply too damn pathetic.
On that heavy gray March morning my Ann Amory operation looked pretty hopeless, but it was all I had, so I prepared to give it the works. After orange juice and ham and eggs and pancakes and two cups of coffee at Sam’s Place, I went back to the house and spent an hour at the typewriter and telephone cleaning up a few personal matters that had collected in my absence, and was just finishing up when, a little after 9:00, here came the Commandos back. My plan was to ignore them entirely, so I didn’t turn around when footsteps in the hall stopped at the open office door, but Wolfe’s voice sounded:
“Good morning, Archie. I spend the day upstairs. Did you sleep well?”
It was his regular morning question that he had asked me 4,000 times, and it made me homesick. I admit it. It softened me up. I swiveled my chair to face him, but that hardened me again, just one look at him.
“Fine, thanks,” I said coldly. “You messed my drawers up, I suppose looking for that sweater. I have something to say to you. I am speaking for the United States Army. There is one thing you are better qualified to do than anyone else, in connection with undercover enemy activities in this country. It is a situation requiring brains, which you used to have and sometimes used. The Commander in Chief, the Secretary of War, and the General Staff, also Sergeant York, respectfully request you to cut the comedy and begin using them. You are wrong if you think your sudden appearance in the front lines will make the Germans laugh themselves to death. They have no sense of humor.”
I thought that might make him mad enough to forget himself and enter the office, and if I once got him in there it would be a point gained, but he merely stood and scowled at me.
“You said,” he growled, “that you’re on furlough.”
“I did not. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That shows the condition you’re in. A thousand times, right in this room, I’ve heard you give people hell for inexact statements. What I said was that my furlough is two weeks. I did not say that I’m on it now. Nor did I mention-”
“Pfui!” he sputtered scornfully, and turned and started up the stairs. Which was another phenomenon I had never seen before, him mounting those stairs. It had cost him $7,000 to install the elevator.
I got my cap and left the house and started to work.
I tried to inject some enthusiasm into the day’s operations, and I did do my best, but at no point did any probability appear that I was going to turn up anything that could be used for a lever to pry Wolfe loose. It was a different problem from any that had ever confronted me before, because, since he was hell-bent for heroism, no appeal to his cupidity would work. In the condition he had got himself into, the only weak spot where I might break through was his vanity.
I learned from friends at Centre Street that the investigation of Mrs. Leeds’ death had never gone beyond the precinct, so I went there and made inquiries. The sergeant didn’t bother to look up the record. Nothing to it. The doctor had certified coronary thrombosis at the age of 87, and the neighborhood gossip about Mrs. Chack pinch-hitting for the vengeance of God because she got impatient with Him for waiting so long was the bunk.
Around noon I dropped in at 316 Barnum Street, and found Leon Furey still in bed, or anyhow still in pajamas. He said he had to sleep late because he did his hawk hunting mostly at night. I learned that killing hawks was his only visible means of support, that the Army had turned him down on account of a leaky valve, that Roy Douglas lived on the floor above him, the one next to the roof, and a few other items, but nothing that seemed likely to help me any. I found Roy up on the roof, in his loft. He wouldn’t let me in and wasn’t inclined for conversation. He said he was busy working on the widower system, and all I got out of him was that the widower system was a method of keeping a male pigeon away from his mate for a certain period, and letting him in with her for a couple of minutes just before shipping him to the liberation point for a race, the result being that he flew to get back as he had never flown before. I disapproved of it on moral grounds, but that didn’t seem to interest Roy either, so I left him to his widower system, descended again to the street, and began exploring the community.
For over three hours I collected neighborhood gossip, and it wasn’t worth a dime a bushel. I didn’t even get any significant dirt, let alone useful information. On the question of the death of old Mrs. Leeds, fourteen of them divided as follows:
4 Mrs. Chack killed her.
1 Miss Leeds killed her.
6 She died of old age.
3 She died of meanness.
No majority for anybody or anything. No nothing. I went home, arriving a little before 5:00, to think it over and decide whether it was worth while springing Ann on Wolfe at all and as I stood in the office frowning at the dust on Wolfe’s desk, the doorbell rang. I went and pulled the curtain aside for a look through the glass panel, and there was Roy Douglas on the stoop. My heart skipped a beat. Was something going to break? I pulled the door open and invited him in.
He acted embarrassed, as if he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure what it was. I took him to the office and dusted off a chair for him, and he sat down and opened his mouth for air a couple of times and then said:
“I guess I wasn’t very courteous down there at the loft today. I never am very polite when I’m working with the birds. You see, it makes them nervous to have strangers around.”
I nodded sympathetically. “Me too. By the way, I forgot to ask, how’s Dusky Diana coming along?”
“Oh, she’s much better. She’ll be all right.” He squinted at me. “I suppose Miss Amory told you about her?”
“Yeah, she told me a lot of interesting things.”
He shifted in his chair. Then he cleared his throat. “You were with her all evening, weren’t you?”
“Sure, I stuck around.”
“I saw you when you came back. When you brought her home. From my window.”
“Did you? It was pretty late.”
“I know it was. But I-You see, I was worried about her. I am worried about her. I think she’s in some kind of trouble or something, and I wondered if that was why she went to see that Lily Rowan.”
“You might ask her.”
He shook his head. “She won’t tell me. But I’m sure she’s in some kind of trouble, the way she acts. I don’t know Miss Rowan, so I can’t go and ask her, but I know you, that is I’ve met you, and if you were with them last evening-and then your coming to see me today-I thought you might tell me. You see, I’ve got a right to know about it, a kind of a right, because we’re engaged to be married.”
My brows went up. “You are? You and Miss Amory?”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He squinted at me. “So I wondered why you came to see me, and I thought maybe it was to tell me something about her, or ask me something, and that made me wonder-Anyhow, if you know whether she’s in trouble I wish you’d tell me.”
Except for the fact that I had solved the mystery of Ann’s fiance, or rather it had solved itself, that certainly didn’t sound as if Roy’s visit was going to break anything. However, since I had him there, I thought I might as well see what he had concealed on his person, so I proceeded to treat him as a friend. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t help him out any on the nature of Ann’s difficulty, if any, and casually guided the conversation in the direction of the inhabitants of 316 Barnum Street. That proved to be a boomerang. The minute we arrived at that address he got started on pigeons, and then did he talk!
I learned things. He had been in the fancy, as he put it, since boyhood. Mrs. Leeds had built the loft for him and kept him going, and now Miss Leeds was carrying on. His birds had won a total of 116 diplomas in young bird races and 63 diplomas in old bird races. One year his Village Susie, a Blue Check Grooter, had returned first in the Dayton Great National, with 3,864 birds, 512 lofts competing. He had lost fourteen birds in the big smash in the Trenton 300-mile special last year. The best racing pigeons in the world, in his opinion, were the Dickinson strain of Sion-Stassarts-Dusky Diana was one.