by Rex Stout
At ten o’clock we decided to get a bet down. Each of us would write on a slip of paper the time that we thought my man would stick his nose out, and the one that was furthest off would pay the other one a cent a minute for the time he missed it by. Herb was just handing me a scrap he tore from the Times for me to write my guess on when I saw Don O’Neill emerging to the sidewalk.
I told Herb, “Save it for next time. That’s him.”
Whatever O’Neill did, it would be awkward, because his doorman knew us by heart by that time. He had previously signaled to Herb for a customer, and Herb had turned him down. What O’Neill did was look toward us, with me keeping my face in a corner so he couldn’t see it if his vision was good for that distance, and speak to the doorman, who shook his head. That was about as awkward as it could get, unless O’Neill had walked to us for a conference.
Herb told me out of the corner of his mouth, “Our strategy stinks. He takes a taxi and we ride his tail, and when he comes home the doorman tells him he’s being followed.”
“So what was I to do?” I demanded. “Disguise myself as a flower girl and stand at the corner selling daffodils? Next time you plan it. This whole tailing idea has got to be a joke. Start your engine. Anyhow, he’ll never get home. We’ll pinch him for murder before the day’s out. Start your engine! He’s getting transportation.”
The doorman had been blowing his whistle, and a taxi on its way south had swerved and was stopping at the curb. The doorman opened the door and O’Neill got in, and the taxi slid away. Herb got into gear and we moved.
“This,” Herb said, “is the acme. The absolute acme. Why don’t we just pull up to him and ask where he’s going?”
“Because,” I said, “you don’t know an acme when you see one. He has no reason at all to think we’re following him unless he has been alerted, and in that case nothing would unalert him and we are lost. Keep back a little more-just enough not to let a light part us.”
Herb did so, and managed the light stops as if his heart was in it. With the thin traffic of Sunday morning, there were only two of them before we got to Forty-sixth Street, where O’Neill’s cab turned left. One block over, at Lexington Avenue, it turned right, and in another minute it had stopped at the entrance to Grand Central Station.
We were two cars behind. Herb swung to the right and braked, and I stepped out behind a parked car and grinned at him. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s hopping it. See you in court.” As soon as O’Neill had paid his driver and started across the sidewalk I left cover.
I was still selling it short. What I would have settled for at that stage was a ride out to Greenwich to join a week-end party for some drinks and maybe poker. At any rate, O’Neill didn’t seem to be in any doubt as to what he would settle for, for he marched down the long corridor and across the concourse of the station like a man with a destination. He gave no sign of suspecting that anyone had an eye on him. Where he finally wound up was not one of the train entrances, but the main parcel room on the upper level. I lingered at a distance, with a corner handy. There were several ahead of him and he waited his turn, then handed in a ticket, and in a minute or so was given an object.
Even from where I stood, about thirty feet off, the object looked as if it might be of interest. It was a little rectangular leather case. He grabbed it up and went. I was now somewhat less interested in keeping my presence undetected, but a lot more interested in not losing him, so I closed up some, and nearly stepped on his heels when he suddenly slowed up, almost to a stop, put the case inside his topcoat, got his arm snugly around it, and buttoned the coat. Then he went on. Instead of returning to the Lexington Avenue entrance he went up the ramp toward Forty-second Street, and when he got to the sidewalk turned left, to where the taxis stop in front of the Commodore Hotel. He still hadn’t spotted me. After a short wait he snared a cab, opened the door and got in, and reached to pull the door shut.
I decided that would not do. It would have been nice to know what address he would give the driver if there were no interruptions, but that wasn’t vital, whereas if I lost contact with that leather case through the hazards of solo tailing I would have to get a job helping Hattie Harding sew on buttons. So I moved fast enough to use a hand to keep the door from closing and spoke:
“Hello there, Mr. O’Neill! Going uptown? Mind giving me a lift?”
I was on the seat beside him, and now, willing to do my share, pulled the door shut.
I am not belittling him when I say he was flustered. It would have flustered most men. And he did pretty well.
“Why, hello, Goodwin! Where did you come from? I’m-well, no, the fact is I’m not going uptown. I’m going downtown.”
“Make up your mind,” the driver growled through at us.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told O’Neill cheerfully. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions about that leather case that’s under your coat.” I said to the driver, “Go ahead. Turn south on Eighth.”
The driver was glaring at me. “It’s not your cab. What is this, a hard touch?”
“No,” O’Neill told him. “It’s all right. We’re friends. Go ahead.”
The cab moved. There was no conversation. We passed Vanderbilt and, after waiting for a light, were crossing Madison when O’Neill leaned forward to tell the driver:
“Turn north on Fifth Avenue.”
The driver was too hurt to reply, but when we got to Fifth and had a green light he turned right. I said:
“All right if you want to, but I thought we would save time by going straight to Nero Wolfe’s place. He will be even curiouser than I am about what’s in that thing. Of course we shouldn’t discuss it in this taxi, since the driver doesn’t like us.”
He leaned forward again and gave the driver his home address on Park Avenue. I thought that over for three blocks and voted against it. The only weapon I had on me was a pen-knife. Since I had been watching that entrance since eight o’clock it was unlikely that the NIA Executive Committee was assembled in O’Neill’s apartment, but if they were, and especially if General Erskine was with them, it would require too much exertion on my part to walk out of there with that case. So I spoke to O’Neill in an undertone:
“Lookit. If he’s a public-spirited citizen, and if he hears anything that gives him the idea this is connected with murder, he’ll probably stop at the first cop he sees. Maybe that’s what you want too, a cop. If so you will be glad to know that I don’t like the idea of your apartment and if we go there I’ll display a license to that doorman, put my arms around you, and make him call the Nineteenth Precinct, which is at 153 East Sixty-seventh Street, Rhinelander four, one-four-four-five. That would create a hubbub. Why not get rid of this eavesdropper and talk it over on a bench in the sunshine? Also I saw the look in your eye and don’t try it. I’m more than twenty years younger than you and I do exercises every morning.”
He relinquished the expression of a tiger about to leap and leaned forward to tell the driver:
“Stop here.”
Although I doubted if he carried shooters, I didn’t want him fooling around his pockets, so I settled with the meter myself. We were at Sixty-ninth Street. After the cab had rolled off we crossed the avenue, walked to one of the benches against the wall enclosing Central Park, and sat down. He was keeping his left arm hooked tight around the object under his coat.
I said, “One easy way would be for me to take a look at it, inside and out. If it contains only black market butter, God bless you.”
He turned sideways to regard me as man to man. “I’ll tell you, Goodwin.” He was choosing his words. “I’m not going to try a lot of stuff like indignation about your following me and that kind of stuff.” I thought he wasn’t choosing very well, repeating himself, but I was too polite to interrupt. “But I can explain how I happen to have this case, absolutely innocently-absolutely! And I don’t know any more than you do about what’s in it-I have no idea!”
“Let’s look and see.”
; “No.” He was firm. “As far as you know, it’s my property-”
“But is it?”
“As far as you know it is, and I have a right to examine it privately. I mean a moral right, I admit I can’t put it on the ground of legal right because you have offered to refer it to the police and that is of course legally correct. But I do have the moral right. You first suggested that we should go with it to Nero Wolfe. Do you think the police would approve of that?”
“No, but he would.”
“I don’t doubt it.” O’Neill was in his stride now, earnest and persuasive. “But you see, neither of us actually wants to go to the police. Actually our interests coincide. It’s merely a question of procedure. Look at it from your personal angle: what you want is to be able to go to your employer and say to him, ‘You sent me to do a job, and I have done it, and here are the results,’ and then deliver this leather case to him, and me right there with you if you want it that way. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
“We will go. I assure you, Goodwin, we will go.” He was so sincere it was almost painful. “But does it matter exactly when we go? Now or four hours from now? Of course it doesn’t! I have never broken a promise in my life. I’m a businessman, and the whole basis of American business is integrity-absolute integrity. That brings us back to my moral rights in this matter. What I propose is this: I will go to my office, at 1270 Sixth Avenue. You will come there for me at three o’clock, or I will meet you anywhere you say, and I will have this leather case with me, and we will take it to Nero Wolfe.”
“I don’t-”
“Wait. Whatever my moral rights may be, if you extend me this courtesy you deserve to have it acknowledged and appreciated. When I meet you at three o’clock I will hand you one thousand dollars in currency as evidence of appreciation. A point I didn’t mention: I will guarantee that Wolfe will know nothing about this four-hour delay. That will be easy to arrange. If I had the thousand dollars with me I would give it to you now. I have never broken a promise in my life.”
I looked at my wrist and appealed to him, “Make it ten thousand.”
He wasn’t staggered, but only grieved, and he wasn’t even grieved beyond endurance. “That’s out of the question,” he declared, but not in a tone to give offense. “Absolutely out of the question. One thousand is the limit.”
I grinned at him. “It would be fun to see how far up I could get you, but it’s ten minutes to eleven, so in ten minutes Mr. Wolfe will come down to his office and I don’t like to keep him waiting. The trouble is it’s Sunday and I never take bribes on Sunday. Forget it. Here are the alternatives: You and I and the object under your coat go now to Mr. Wolfe. Or give me the object and I take it to him, and you go for a walk or take a nap. Or I yell at that cop across the street and tell him to call the precinct, which I admit I like least, but you’ve got your moral rights. Heretofore I’ve been in no hurry, but now Mr. Wolfe will be downstairs, so I’ll give you two minutes.”
He wanted to try. “Four hours! That’s all! I’ll make it five thousand, and you come with me and I’ll give it to you-”
“No. Forget it. Didn’t I say it’s Sunday? Come on, hand it over.”
“I am not going to let this case out of my sight.”
“Okay.” I got up and crossed to the curb and stood so as to keep one eye out for a taxi and one on him. Before long I flagged an empty and it turned in to me and stopped. It had probably been years since Don O’Neill had done anything he disapproved of as strongly as he did of arising and walking to the cab and getting in, but he made it. I dropped beside him and gave the driver the address.
Chapter 14
TEN HOLLOW BLACK CYLINDERS, about three inches in diameter and six inches long, stood on end in two neat rows on Wolfe’s desk. Beside them, with the lid open, was the case, of good heavy leather, somewhat battered and scuffed. On the outside of the lid a big figure four was stamped. On its inside a label was pasted:
BUREAU OF PRICE REGULATION
POTOMAC BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Before pasting in the label someone had typed on it in caps: OFFICE OF CHENEY BOONE, DIRECTOR.
I was at my desk and Wolfe was at his. Don O’Neill was walking up and down with his hands in his pants pockets. The atmosphere was not hail-fellow-well-met. I had given Wolfe a full report, including O’Neill’s last-minute offer to me of five grand, and Wolfe’s self-esteem was such that he always regarded any attempt to buy me off as a personal affront, not to me but to him. I have often wondered who he would blame if I sold out once, himself or me.
He had repudiated without discussion O’Neill’s claim to a moral right to hear what was on the cylinders before anyone else, and when O’Neill had seen it was hopeless the look on his face was such that I had decided to make sure and had given him a good frisking. He was not packing any tools, but that had not improved the atmosphere. The question then arose, how were we to make the cylinders perform? The next day, a business day, it would have been easy, but this was Sunday. It was O’Neill who solved the problem. The President of the Stenophone Company was a member of the NIA and O’Neill knew him. He lived in Jersey. O’Neill phoned him and, without disclosing any incriminating details, got him to phone the manager of his New York office and showroom, who lived in Brooklyn, and instruct him to go to the showroom, get a Stenophone and bring it to Wolfe’s office. That was what we were sitting there waiting for-that is, Wolfe and I were sitting and O’Neill was walking.
“Mr. O’Neill.” Wolfe opened his eyes enough to see. “That tramping back and forth is extremely irritating.”
“I’m not going to leave this room,” O’Neill declared without halting.
“Shall I tie him up?” I offered.
Wolfe, ignoring me, told O’Neill, “It will probably be another hour or more. What about your statement that you got possession of this thing innocently? Your word. Do you want to explain that now? How you got it innocently?”
“I’ll explain it when I feel like it.”
“Nonsense. I didn’t take you for a nincompoop.”
“Go to hell.”
That always annoyed Wolfe. He said sharply, “Then you are a nincompoop. You have only two means of restraining Mr. Goodwin and me: your own physical prowess or an appeal to the police. The former is hopeless; Mr. Goodwin could fold you up and put you on a shelf. You obviously don’t like the idea of the police, I can’t imagine why, since you’re innocent. So how do you like this: when that machine has arrived and we have learned how to run it and the manager has departed, Mr. Goodwin will carry you out and set you on the stoop, and come back in and shut the door. Then he and I will listen to the cylinders.” O’Neill stopped walking, took his hands from his pockets and put them flat on the desk to lean on them, and glowered at Wolfe.
“You won’t do that!”
“I won’t. Mr. Goodwin will.”
“Damn you!” He held the pose long enough for five takes, then slowly straightened up. “What do you want?”
“I want to know where you got this thing.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. Last evening-”
“Excuse me. Archie. Your notebook. Go ahead, sir.”
“Last evening around eight-thirty I got a phone call at home. It was a woman. She said her name was Dorothy Unger and she was a stenographer at the New York office of the Bureau of Price Regulation. She said she had made a bad mistake. She said that in an envelope addressed to me she had enclosed something that was supposed to be enclosed in a letter to someone else. She said that she had remembered about it after she got home, and that she might even lose her job if her boss found out about it. She asked me when I received the envelope to mail the enclosure to her at her home, and she gave me her address. I asked her what the enclosure was and she said it was a ticket for a parcel that had been checked at Grand Central Station. I asked her some more questions and told her I would do what she asked me to.”
Wolfe put in, �
��Of course you phoned her back.”
“I couldn’t. She said she had no phone and was calling from a booth. This morning I received the envelope and the enclosure was-”
“This is Sunday,” Wolfe snapped.
“Damn it, I know it’s Sunday! It came special delivery. It contained a circular about price ceilings, and the enclosure. If it had been a weekday I would have communicated with the BPR office, but of course the office wasn’t open.” O’Neill gestured impatiently. “What does it matter what I would have done or what I thought? You know what I did do. Naturally, you know more about it than me, since you arranged the whole thing!”
“I see.” Wolfe put up a brow. “You think I arranged it?”
“No.” O’Neill leaned on the desk again. “I know you arranged it! What happened? Wasn’t Goodwin right there? I admit I was dumb when I came here Friday. I was afraid you had agreed to frame Boone’s murder on someone in the BPR, or at least someone outside the NIA. And already, you must have been, you were preparing to frame someone in the NIA! Me! No wonder you think I’m a nincompoop!”
He jerked erect, glared at Wolfe, turned to glare at me, went to the red leather chair and sat down, and said in a completely different voice, calm and controlled:
“But you’ll find that I’m not a nincompoop.”
“That point,” Wolfe said, frowning at him, “is relatively unimportant. The envelope you received this morning special delivery-have you got it with you?”
“No.”
“Where is it, at your home?”
“Yes.”
“Telephone and tell someone to bring it here.”