Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 02

by The League of Frightened Men

  Bowen shook the round thing that he used to grow his hair on. “No. I would have been told … but I’ll make sure.” From a row on the wall behind him he pulled out a telephone, and talked into it. He waited a while, and talked some more. He pushed the phone back, and turned to me. “No, as I thought. There has been no transaction on Andy’s account for over two weeks, and there were no instructions from him.”

  I bade him farewell.

  That was a good sample of the steady progress I made that day in the search for Andrew Hibbard. It was a triumph. I found out as much from the other six guys I saw as I did from Ferdinand Bowen, so I was all elated when I breezed in home around dinner time, not to mention the fact that with the roadster parked on Ninetieth Street some dirty lout scraped the rear fender while I was in seeing Dr. Burton. I didn’t feel like anything at all, not even like listening to the charming gusto of Wolfe’s dinner conversation—during a meal he refused to remember that there was such a thing as a murder case in the world—so I was glad that he picked that evening to leave the radio turned on.

  After dinner we went to the office. Out of spite and bitterness I started to tell him about all the runs I had scored that afternoon, but he asked me to bring him the atlas and began to look at maps. There were all sorts of toys he was apt to begin playing with when he should have had his mind on business, but the worst of all was the atlas. When he got that out I gave up. I fooled around a while with the plant records and the expense account, then I closed my affairs for the night and went over to his desk to look him over. He was doing China! The atlas was a Gouchard, the finest to be had, and did China more than justice. He had the folded map opened out, and with his pencil in one hand and his magnifying glass in the other, there he was buried in the Orient. Without bothering to say good night to him, for I knew he wouldn’t answer, I picked up his copy of Devil Take the Hindmost and went upstairs to my room, stopping in the kitchen for a pitcher of milk.

  After I had got into pajamas and slippers I deposited myself in my most comfortable chair, under the reading lamp, with the milk handy on the little tile-top table, and took a crack at Paul Chapin’s book. I thought it was about time I caught up with Wolfe. I flipped through it, and saw there were quite a few places he had marked—sometimes only a phrase, sometimes a whole sentence, occasionally a long passage of two or three paragraphs. I decided to concentrate on those, and I skipped around and took them at random:

  … not by the intensity of his desire, but merely by his inborn impulse to act; to do, disregarding all pale considerations …

  For Alan there was no choice in the matter, for he knew that the fury that spends itself in words is but the mumbling of an idiot, beyond the circumference of reality.

  I read a dozen more, yawned, and drank some milk. I went on:

  She said, “That’s why I admire you. … I don’t like a man too squeamish to butcher his own meat.”

  … and scornful of all the whining eloquence deploring the awful brutalities of war; for the true objection to war is not the blood it soaks into the grass and the thirsty soil, not the bones it crushes, not the flesh it mangles, not the warm nutritious viscera it exposes to the hunger of the innocent birds and beasts. These things have their beauty, to compensate for the fleeting agonies of this man and that man. The trouble with war is that its noble and quivering excitements transcend the capacities of our weakling nervous systems; we are not men enough for it; it properly requires for its sublime sacrifices the blood and bones and flesh of heroes, and what have we to offer? This little coward, that fat sniveler, all these regiments of puny cravens …

  There was a lot of that. I got through it, and went on to the next. Then some more. It got monotonous, and I skipped around. There were some places that looked interesting, some conversations, and a long scene with three girls in an apple orchard, but Wolfe hadn’t done any marking there. Around the middle of the book he had marked nearly a whole chapter which told about a guy croaking two other guys by manicuring them with an axe, with an extended explanation of how psychology entered into it. I thought that was a pretty good job of writing. Later I came across things like this, for instance:

  … for what counted was not the worship of violence, but the practice of it. Not the turbulent and complex emotion, but the act. What had killed Art Billings and Curly Stephens? Hate? No. Anger? No. Jealousy, vengefulness, fear, enmity? No, none of these things. They had been killed by an axe, gripped by his fingers and wielded by the muscles of his arm …

  At eleven o’clock I gave up. The milk was all gone, and it didn’t seem likely that I would catch up with where Wolfe thought he was if I sat up all night. I thought I detected a hint here and there that the author of that book was reasonably bloodthirsty, but I had some faint suspicions on that score already. I dropped the book on the table, stretched for a good yawn, went and opened the window and stood there looking down on the street long enough to let the sharp cold air make me feel like blankets and hopped for the hay.

  Saturday morning I started out again. It was all stale bread to me, and I suppose I did a rotten job of it; if one of those guys had had some little fact tucked away that might have helped there wasn’t much chance of my prying it loose, the way I was going about it. I kept moving anyhow. I called on Elkus, Lang, Mike Ayers, Adler, Cabot and Pratt. I phoned Wolfe at eleven o’clock and he had nothing to say. I decided to tackle Pitney Scott the taxi-driver. Maybe my wild guess that day had been right; there was a chance that he did know something about Andrew Hibbard. But I couldn’t find him. I called up the office of his cab company, and was told that he wasn’t expected to report in until four o’clock. They told me that his usual cruising radius was from Fourteenth to Fifty-ninth streets, but that he might be anywhere. I went down and looked around Perry Street, but he wasn’t there. At a quarter to one I phoned Wolfe again, expecting to be invited home to lunch, and instead he handed me a hot one. He asked me to grab a bite somewhere and run out to Mineola for him. Ditson had phoned to say that he had a dozen bulbs of a new Miltonia just arrived from England, and had offered to give Wolfe a couple if he would send for them.

  The only times I ever really felt like turning Communist were the occasions when, in the middle of a case, Wolfe sent me chasing around after orchids. It made me feel too damn silly. But it wasn’t as bad this time as usual, since the particular job I was on looked like a washout anyhow. It was cold and raw that Saturday afternoon, and kept trying to make out that it was going to snow, but I opened both windows of the roadster and enjoyed the air a lot and the Long Island traffic not at all.

  I got back to Thirty-fifth Street around three-thirty, and took the bulbs in the office to show them to Wolfe. He felt them and looked them over carefully, and asked me to take them upstairs to Horstmann and tell him not to snip the roots. I went up, and came back down to the office, intending to stop only a minute to enter the bulbs in the record book and then beat it again to get Pitney Scott. But Wolfe, from his chair, said:

  “Archie.”

  I knew from the tone it was the start of a speech, so I settled back. He went on:

  “Now and then I receive the impression that you suspect me of neglecting this or that detail of our business. Ordinarily you are wrong, which is as it should be. In the labyrinth of any problem that confronts us, we must select the most promising paths; if we attempt to follow all at once we shall arrive nowhere. In any art—and I am an artist or nothing—one of the deepest secrets of excellence is a discerning elimination. Of course that is a truism.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes. Take the art of writing. I am, let us say, describing the actions of my hero rushing to greet his beloved, who has just entered the forest. He sprang up from the log on which he had been sitting, with his left foot forward; as he did so, one leg of his trousers fell properly into place but the other remained hitched up at the knee. He began running towards her, first his right foot, then his left, then his right again, then left, right, left, right, left, right �
�� As you see, some of that can surely be left out—indeed, must be, if he is to accomplish his welcoming embrace in the same chapter. So the artist must leave out vastly more than he puts in, and one of his chief cares is to leave out nothing vital to his work.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You follow me. I assure you that the necessity I have just described is my constant concern when we are engaged in an enterprise. When you suspect me of neglect you are in a sense justified, for I do ignore great quantities of facts and impingements which might seem to another intelligence—let it go without characterization—to be of importance to our undertaking. But I should consider myself an inferior workman if I ignored a fact which the event proved actually to have significance. That is why I wish to make this apology to myself, thus publicly, in your hearing.”

  I nodded. “I’m still hanging on. Apology for what?”

  “For bad workmanship. It may prove not to have been disastrous, it may even turn out of no importance whatever. But sitting here this afternoon contemplating my glories and sifting out the sins, it occurred to me, and I need to ask you about it. You may remember that on Wednesday evening, sixty-five hours ago, you were describing for me the contents of Inspector Cramer’s bean.”

  I grinned. “Yeah.”

  “You told me that it was his belief that Dr. Elkus was having Mr. Chapin shadowed.”

  “Yep.”

  “And then you started a sentence; I think you said, But one of those dicks—Something approximating that. I was impatient, and I stopped you. I should not have done so. My impulsive reaction to what I knew to be nonsense betrayed me into an error. I should have let you finish. Pray do so now.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. But since you’ve dumped the Dreyer thing into the ash can, what does it matter whether Elkus—”

  “Archie. Confound it, I care nothing about Elkus; what I want is your sentence about a dick. What dick? Where is he?”

  “Didn’t I say? Tailing Paul Chapin.”

  “One of Mr. Cramer’s men.”

  I shook my head. “Cramer has a man there too. And we’ve got Durkin and Gore and Keems, eight-hour shifts. This bird’s an extra. Cramer wondered who was paying him and had him in for a conference, but he’s tough, he never says anything but cuss words. I thought maybe he was Bascom’s, but no.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, I went down there. He was eating soup, and he’s like you about meals, business is out. I waited on him a little, carried his bread and butter and so on, and came on home.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Well … he hasn’t much to offer to the eye. He weighs a hundred and thirty-five, five feet seven. Brown cap and pink necktie. A cat scratched him on the cheek and he didn’t clean it up very well. Brown eyes, pointed nose, wide thin mouth but not tight, pale healthy skin.”

  “Hair?”

  “He kept his cap on.”

  Wolfe sighed. I noticed that the tip of his finger was doing a little circle on the arm of his chair. He said, “Sixty-five hours. Get him and bring him here at once.”

  I got up. “Yeah. Alive or dead?”

  “By persuasion if possible, certainly with a minimum of violence, but bring him.”

  “It’s five minutes to four. You’ll be in the plantrooms.”

  “Well? This house is comfortable. Keep him.”

  I got some things from a drawer of my desk and stuffed them in my pockets, and beat it.

  Chapter 16

  I was not ever, in the Chapin case or any other case, quite as dumb as the prosecution would try to make you believe if I was on trial for it. For instance, as I went out and got into the roadster, in spite of all the preconceptions that had set up housekeeping in my belfry, I wasn’t doing any guessing as to the nature of the fancy notion Wolfe had plucked out of his contemplation of his sins. My guessing had been completed before I left the office. On account of various considerations it was my opinion that he was cuckoo—I had told him that Cramer had had the dick in for a talk—but it was going to be diverting whether it turned out that he was or he wasn’t.

  I drove to Perry Street and parked fifty feet down from the Coffee Pot. I had already decided on my tactics. Considering what I had learned of Pinkie’s reaction to the diplomatic approach, it didn’t seem practical to waste my time on persuasion. I walked to the Coffee Pot and glanced in. Pinkie wasn’t there; of course it was nearly two hours till his soup time. I strolled back down the street, looking in at all the chances, and I went the whole long block to the next corner without a sign either of Pinkie, Fred Durkin, or anything that looked like a city detective. I went back again, clear to the Coffee Pot, with the same result. Not so good, I thought, for of course all the desertion meant that the beasts of prey were out trailing their quarry, and the quarry might stay out for a dinner and a show and get home at midnight. That would be enjoyable, with me substituting for Fred on the delicatessen sandwiches and Wolfe waiting at home to see what his notion looked like.

  I drove around the block to get the roadster into a better position for surveying the scene, and sat in it and waited. It was getting dark, and it got dark, and I waited.

  A little before six a taxi came along and stopped in front of 203. I tried to get a glimpse of the driver, having Pitney Scott on my mind, and made out that it wasn’t him. But it was the cripple that got out. He paid, and hobbled inside the building, and the taxi moved off. I looked around, taking in the street and the sidewalk.

  Pretty soon I saw Fred Durkin walking up from the corner. He was with another guy. I climbed out to the sidewalk and stood there near a street light as they went by. Then I got back in. In a couple of minutes Fred came along and I moved over to make room for him.

  I said, “If you and the town dick want to cop a little expense money by pairing up on a taxi, okay. As long as nothing happens, then it might be your funeral.”

  Durkin grinned. “Aw, forget it. This whole layout’s a joke. If I didn’t need the money—”

  “Yeah. You take the money and let me do the laughing. Where’s Pinkie?”

  “Huh? Don’t tell me you’re after the runt again!”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s around. He was behind us on the ride just now—there he goes, look, the Coffee Pot. He must have gone down Eleventh. He takes chances. It’s time for his chow.”

  I had seen him going in. I said, “All right. Now listen. I’m going to funny up your joke for you. You and the town dick are pals.”

  “Well, we speak.”

  “Find him. Do they sell beer at that joint on the corner?—Okay. Take him there and quench his thirst. On expense. Keep him there until my car’s gone from in front of the Coffee Pot. I’m going to take Pinkie for a ride.”

  “No! I’ll be damned. Keep his necktie for me.”

  “All right. Let’s go. Beat it.”

  He climbed out and went. I sat and waited. Pretty soon I saw him come out of the laundry with the snoop, and start off in the other direction. I stepped on the starter and pushed the gear lever, and rolled along. This time I stopped right in front of the Coffee Pot. I got out and went in. I saw no cop around.

  Pinkie was there, at the same table as before, with what looked like the same bowl of soup. I glanced at the other customers, on the stools, and observed nothing terrifying. I walked over to Pinkie and stopped at his elbow. He looked up and said:

  “Well, goddam it.”

  Looking at him again, I thought there was a chance Wolfe was right. I said, “Come on, Inspector Cramer wants to see you,” and took bracelets out of one pocket and my automatic out of another.

  There must have been something in my eyes that made him suspicious, and I’ll say the little devil had nerve. He said, “I don’t believe it. Show me your goddam badge.”

  I couldn’t afford an argument. I grabbed his collar and lifted him up out of his chair and set him on his feet. Then I snapped the handcuffs on him. I kept the gat completely visible and told him, “Get
going.” I heard one or two mutters from the lunch counter, but didn’t bother to look. Pinkie said, “My overcoat.” I grabbed it off the hook and hung it on my arm, and marched him out. He went nice. Instead of trying to hide the bracelets, like most of them do, he held his hands stuck out in front.

  The only danger was that a flatfoot might happen along outside and offer to help me, and the roadster wasn’t a police car. But all I saw was curious citizens. I herded him to the car, opened the door and shoved him in, and climbed in after him. I had left the engine running, just in case of a hurry. I rolled off, got to Seventh Avenue, and turned north.

  I said, “Now listen. I’ve got two pieces of information. First, to ease your mind, I’m taking you to Thirty-fifth Street to call on Mr. Nero Wolfe. Second, if you open your trap to advertise anything, you’ll go there just the same, only faster and more unconscious.”

  “I have no desire to call—”

  “Shut up.” But I was grinning inside, for his voice was different; he was already jumping his character.

  The evening traffic was out playing tag, and it took long enough to get to West Thirty-fifth Street. I pulled up in front of the house, told my passenger to sit still, got out and walked around and opened his door, and told him to come on. I went behind him up the steps, used my key on the portal, and nodded him in. While I was taking off my hat and coat he started reaching up for his cap, but I told him to leave it on and steered him for the office.

  Wolfe was sitting there with an empty beer glass, looking at the design the dried foam had left. I shut the office door and stood there, but the runt kept going, clear to the desk. Wolfe looked at him, nodded faintly, and then looked some more. He spoke suddenly, to me: