Fer-De-Lance

by Rex Stout

  He handed the card and the license back. “All right, but don’t begin jumping over fences.”

  I felt better after that. Maybe luck was headed our way after all.

  I got the two caddies at the club without any trouble, but it took over an hour to round up the other two. They went to different schools, and while one of them didn’t need any persuading to go for a ride to New York, the other one must have been trying to qualify for teacher’s pet or a Rhodes scholarship. At first I kidded him, and when that didn’t work I switched to the ends of justice and the duties of a good citizen. That got him, and the woman in charge of the school, too. I suspected I wouldn’t care an awful lot for his companionship, so I put him and another one in the rumble seat, and with the other two in with me I found the trail back to the Parkway and turned south. I kept the speedometer down to forty thenceforth, for I knew I couldn’t expect Anderson to do me nothing but favors.

  We arrived at a quarter to eleven, and I took the boys to the kitchen and fed them sandwiches, for the lunch hour was one. I wanted to take them up and show them the orchids, thinking it wouldn’t hurt them any to get impressed, but there wasn’t time. I got their names and addresses down. One of them, the pale skinny kid who had caddied for Manuel Kimball, had a dirty face and I took him to the bathroom for a wash. By the time Wolfe appeared I was beginning to feel like a boy scout leader.

  I had them arranged on chairs in a row for him. He came in with a bunch of Cymbidiums in his hand which he put into a vase on his desk, then he got into his chair and flipped the mail. He had told the boys good morning as he entered; now he turned and settled himself comfortably and looked them over one by one. They were embarrassed and shifted around.

  “Excuse me, Archie. Bad staging.” He turned to the boy at the end, one with red hair and blue eyes. “Your name, sir?”

  “William A. Riley.”

  “Thank you. If you will move your chair over there, near the wall-much better��� And your name?” When he had got all their names and scattered them around he said, “Which one of you expressed doubt that Peter Oliver Barstow was killed by a needle shot from the handle of a golf driver? Come, I’m only trying to get acquainted; which one?”

  Chunky Mike spoke up. “That was me.”

  “Ah. Michael Allen. Michael, you are young. You have learned to accept the commonplace, you must yet learn not to exclude the bizarre. ��� Now, boys, I’m going to tell you a story. Please listen, because I want you to understand it. This happens to be a true story. There was a meeting in a public hall of a hundred psychologists. A psychologist is-by courtesy-a man trained to observe. It had been arranged, without their knowledge, that a man should run into the hall and down the aisle, followed by another man waving a pistol. A third man ran in by another door. The second man shot at the first man. The third man knocked the second man down and took the pistol from him. They all ran out by different doors. One of the psychologists then arose and stilled the clamor, and announced that the events had been prearranged, and asked each of his colleagues to write down immediately a complete detailed report of the whole affair. They did so, and the reports were examined and compared. Not one was entirely correct. No two agreed throughout. One even had the third man shooting at the first man.”

  Wolfe stopped and looked around at them. “That’s all. I’m not a good story-teller, but you may have caught the point. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  They nodded.

  “You do. Then I shall not insult your intelligence with an exposition. Let us go on to our own story. We shall sit here and discuss the death of Peter Oliver Barstow, more particularly the events on the first tee which led up to it. At one o’clock we shall have lunch, then we shall return here and resume. We shall discuss all afternoon, many hours. You will get tired, but not hungry. If you get sleepy you may take a nap. I state the program thus in full so that you may know how elaborate and difficult an undertaking confronts us. Mr. Goodwin has heard two of your stereotypes; I fancy the other two are practically identical. A stereotype is something fixed, something that harbors no intention of changing. I don’t expect you boys to change your stories of what happened on that first tee; what I ask is that you forget all your arguments and discussions, all your recitals to families and friends, all the pictures that words have printed on your brains, and return to the scene itself. That is vitally important. I would have left my house and journeyed to the scene myself to be with you there, but for the fact that interruptions would have ruined our efforts. By our imaginations we must transfer the scene here. Here we are, boys, at the first tee.

  “Here we are. It is Sunday afternoon. Larry Barstow has engaged two of you; two of you are with the Kimballs, carrying their bags. You are on familiar ground, as familiar to you as the rooms of your own homes. You are occupied with activities so accustomed as to have become almost automatic. The straps of the bags are on your shoulders. You, Michael Allen, when you see Mr. Barstow, your last season’s baby, at a distance from the tee practicing with a mashie, you do not need to be told what to do; you join him, pick up his bag, hand him a club perhaps?”

  Mike was shaking his head.

  “No? What do you do?”

  “I begin chasing balls.”

  “Ah. The balls he was hitting with the mashie.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. What were you doing, William Riley, while Michael was chasing balls?”

  “I was chewing gum.”

  “Exclusively? I mean, was that the utmost of your efforts?”

  “Well, I was standing holding old Kimball’s bag.”

  Listening to him start, I was thinking that Wolfe’s long words would get the kids so tied up that pretty soon they would just go dead on him, but it worked the other way. Without telling them so he had given them the feeling that he was counting on them to help him show how dumb the hundred psychologists had been, and they weren’t going to get licked at it because it took long words to do it.

  He went along inch by inch, now with this boy, now with that, sometimes with all of them talking at once. He let them get into a long discussion of the relative merits of various brands of clubs, and sat with his eyes half closed pretending he enjoyed it. He questioned them for half an hour regarding the identities and characteristics of the other caddies and golfers present, those belonging to the matches which immediately preceded the Barstow foursome at the tee. Every time one of the boys bolted ahead to the actual teeing off Wolfe called him back. Among all the irrelevancies I could see one thing, perhaps the main thing, he was doing: he wasn’t losing sight for a single instant of each and every club in each and every bag.

  For lunch Fritz gave us two enormous chicken pies and four watermelons. I did the serving, as usual when there was company, and by speeding up with my knife and fork I barely managed to get my own meal in by the time the casseroles were empty. The watermelons were simple; I gave a half to each of the boys and the same for Wolfe and myself, and that left one for Fritz. I suspected he wouldn’t touch it but thought there might be use for it later on.

  After lunch we resumed where we had left off. It was wonderful the way Wolfe had long since opened those boys’ minds up and let the air in. They went right ahead. They had forgotten entirely that someone was trying to get something out of them or that they were supposed to be using their memories; they were just like a bunch of kids talking over the ball game they had played the day before, only Wolfe was on top of them every minute not letting them skip a thing and all the time making them go back, and back again. Even so they were making progress. Larry Barstow had made his drive, and Manuel Kimball had made his.

  When the break came it was so simple and natural, and went along so easy with all the rest of it, that for a minute I didn’t realize what was happening. Wolfe was saying to Chunky Mike:

  “Then you handed Barstow his driver. Did you tee up his ball?”

  “Yes, sir. No-I couldn’t, because I was over hunting a ball he had put in the ro
ugh with his mashie.”

  “Exactly, Michael, you told us before you were hunting a ball. I wondered then how you could have teed up for Barstow.”

  William Riley spoke. “He teed up himself. The ball rolled off and I fixed it for him.”

  “Thank you, William.-So you see, Michael, you did not tee up for him. Wasn’t the heavy golf bag a nuisance while you were hunting the lost ball?”

  “Naw, we get used to it.”

  “Did you find the ball?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “Put it in the ball pocket.”

  “Do you state that as a fact or an assumption?”

  “I put it in. I remember.”

  “Right away?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you must have had the bag with you while you were hunting the ball. In that case, you could not have handed Barstow his driver when he teed off, because you weren’t there. He could not have removed it from the bag himself, because the bag wasn’t there. Had you perhaps handed him the driver previously?”

  “Sure. I must have.”

  “Michael! We need something much better than must have. You did or you didn’t. Remember that you are supposed to have told us-”

  William Riley butted in: “Hey! Mike, that’s why he borrowed old Kimball’s driver, because you were off looking for the ball.”

  “Ah.” Wolfe shut his eyes for a tenth of a second and then opened them again. “William, it is unnecessary to shout. Who borrowed Mr. Kimball’s driver?”

  “Barstow did.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I don’t think so, I know. I had it out ready to hand to old Kimball, and Barstow’s ball rolled off his tee and I fixed it for him, and when I stood up old Kimball was saying to Barstow, ‘Use mine,’ and Barstow reached out and I handed old Kimball’s driver to him.”

  “And he used it?”

  “Sure. He drove right away. Mike didn’t come back with the bag until after old Kimball had drove too.”

  I was having all I could do to stay in my chair. I wanted to do a dance like Spring on the Mountaintop that I’d seen in the movies, and pin a bunch of orchids on William Riley, and throw my arms halfway around Wolfe which was as far as they would go. I was afraid to look at Wolfe for fear I would grin so hard and wide I’d burst my jaw.

  He was after the pale skinny kid and the one that wanted to be a good citizen, but neither of them remembered anything about Barstow borrowing the driver. The skinny one said he had his eyes glued far out on the fairway, spotting the place where Manuel Kimball had pulled his drive into the bushes, and the good citizen just didn’t remember. Wolfe turned to Chunky Mike. Mike could not say positively that Barstow’s driver had been in the bag when he had had it with him hunting the ball, but he could not remember handing it to Barstow, and he could not remember receiving it back and returning it to the bag. During all this William Riley was straining his politeness to keep still. Finally Wolfe got back to him:

  “Excuse me, William. Do not think I doubt your memory or your fidelity to truth. Corroboration is always helpful. And it might be thought a little curious that you had forgotten so informing a detail.”

  The boy protested, “I hadn’t forgotten it, I just didn’t happen to think of it.”

  “You mean that you have not included that incident in any of your recitals to your friends?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, William. I put my question badly, but I see that you have the intelligence to stick to the main clause. Possibly you mentioned the incident to Mr. Anderson?”

  The boy shook his head. “I haven’t seen Mr. Anderson. The detective came and asked me a few questions, not much.”

  “I see.” Wolfe sighed, deep and long, and pushed the button. “It is tea time, messieurs.”

  Of course for Wolfe that meant beer. I got up and collected the boys and herded them into the kitchen; sure enough, the watermelon was intact. I cut it into four quarters and passed it around. Fritz, having been to answer Wolfe’s bell, was arranging a glass and two bottles on a tray; but as he went down the hall I noticed that he turned toward the stairs instead of the office. I glanced at my wrist. It was two minutes to four. The son-of-a-gun had saved his schedule! I left the boys with the melon and hurried out and caught him on his way to the elevator. He said: “Give the boys my thanks, pay them adequately but not generously, for I am not a generous man, and take them home. Before you leave, telephone the office of E.D. Kimball and learn when he is expected to return from Chicago. He is probably still alive, since he had either the shrewdness or the luck to remove himself a thousand miles from his destiny. If by any chance he has returned get him here at once; on that there must be no delay.”

  “Yes, sir. And don’t you think that if this news got to Mr. Anderson it would only confuse and upset him? Hadn’t I better try to persuade the boys to keep it in the family?”

  “No, Archie. It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust to inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.”

  When I got back to the kitchen Fritz was cutting an apple pie.

  CHAPTER 13

  After I had finished delivering the caddies here and there all over Westechester, I certainly would have loved to run over to Kimball’s place and say to Manuel, “Would you mind telling me whether your father keeps his golf bag in his locker at the club and whether you have a key to it?” I had an idea he would recognize that as a question that couldn’t be answered just by lifting his eyebrows. I already had him down for two thousand volts. But I realized that if it was him we had a big advantage in his ignorance of what we had found out, and I also realized that if I expected Manuel Kimball to be arrested and convicted of murder there would have to be a little more evidence than the fact that he made me nervous.

  I had another temptation, to stop in at Anderson’s office and offer to bet him ten thousand dollars that nobody had murdered Peter Oliver Barstow. Wolfe had certainly started a game of hide-and-seek. For two days he and I had been the only two people alive, except the man that did it, who knew that Barstow had been murdered; now we were the only two, with the same exception and the caddies, who knew that he had been killed by accident.

  I did go to the Green Meadow Club, after getting the last caddy delivered; it was close by. I went intending to go into the locker question a little, but after I arrived I got cold feet. It might ruin everything if it became known that we had the faintest interest in lockers, since it was common knowledge that Barstow’s bag had never been in his. So I just had a little talk with the caddy master and said hello to the chief steward. Maybe I was hoping to get another eyeful of Manuel Kimball, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

  E.D. Kimball, as his son had told me, had a grain brokerage office on Pearl Street. When I had telephoned there a little after four o’clock I had been told that Kimball was expected back from Chicago the next day, Friday, on the Century. If it hadn’t been for that I think I would have tried to start something there in Westchester that evening, if it had been nothing more than to wait till dark and sneak over to the Kimball place and peek in at the windows; but with Kimball on the way there was nothing to do but wait. I went on home.

  After dinner that evening Wolfe had me take my notebook and read to him again about my visit to Manuel Kimball, also everything that Sarah and Larry Barstow had said about him, though that wasn’t much. We had a general discussion and got our minds to fit; we even considered the possibility that the lending of the driver had been planned and that old Kimball had murdered Barstow, but of course that was out, that was nothing but drivel. I took a few cracks at Manuel, but when Wolfe put it up to me seriously I had to say that not only was there no evidence against Manuel, there wasn’t even any reason to suspect him. As far as I knew, it was no more likely to be him than any other member of the Green Meadow Club who had had opportunity to get at the Kimball locker.

  “All the same,” I insisted, “if he was my
son I’d send him on a trip around the world and build a fence across the Pacific Ocean so he couldn’t get through.”

  Before we went to bed Wolfe outlined again my program for the following day. I didn’t care much for the first number on it, but of course he was right; the caddies were sure to talk, and the talk would get to Anderson, and it wouldn’t hurt us any to get there first since the information was certain to reach him anyhow. I could perform that errand of mercy and still get to Kimball’s office almost as soon as he arrived from Grand Central.

  So early the next morning found me in the roadster bound for White Plains again. I was hoping the same motor cop would trip me up, it would have been so neat, since I could have handed him the same yarn as the day before and maybe this time have had the pleasure of an escort to the courthouse. But I made it from Woodlawn to the Main Street bridge without seeing anything more exciting than a squirrel running up a tree.

  I was creeping along Main Street behind three lumbering buses like a pony following the elephants in a circus parade, when an idea struck me. I liked it. Wolfe seemed to have the notion that all he needed to do to have anybody call at his office from the Dalai Lama to Al Capone was to tell me to go and get him, but I knew from long experience that you never knew when you were going to run up against someone with as many feet as a centipede and all of them reluctant. And here was I, not only supposed to haul a prominent grain broker out of his office immediately upon his return from a week’s absence, but also headed for a revelation to the District Attorney that would probably result in my having the pleasure of meeting H.R. Corbett or some other flatfooted myrmidon in the anteroom of E.D. Kimball’s office-and wouldn’t that have been nice? So I parked the roadster in the first available spot and went to a telephone, and called up Wolfe and told him we were putting the soup before the cocktail. He was a little stubborn and gave me an argument, because he was full of the idea that it would pay us to hand Anderson something before he inevitably got hold of it himself, but when he saw that I intended to go on talking right up to a dollar’s worth he said all right, I could return to New York and proceed to Pearl Street and wait for my victim.