Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 14

by Trouble in Triplicate

  “Oh. The cops told you?”

  “No, Martha told me yesterday. Mrs. Poor. She asked me to come up and help about things—the funeral.” He made a gesture. “Gosh, one lousy civilian funeral makes more fuss than a thousand dead men over there did.”

  I nodded. “Sure, the retail business always has more headaches than the wholesale.” I sipped my highball. “I don’t go for this theory that it was Helen Vardis that killed Poor. Do you?”

  “What?” He stared. “What are you talking about? What theory?” His fingers had tightened around his glass.

  “Why, this idea that Helen Vardis would do anything for Blaney, God knows why, and she made the cigars for him, and she went there Tuesday night—”

  “Well, for Christ’s sake.” He said that calmly, and then suddenly his voice went up high. “Who thought that one up? Was it that cop Rowcliff? That buzzard? Was it Nero Wolfe? Was it you?”

  He sounded next door to hysterical. I sure had pushed the wrong button, or maybe the right one, but I didn’t want him sore at me. “It wasn’t me,” I assured him. “Don’t get excited.”

  He laughed. It sounded bitter but not hysterical. “That’s right,” he said, “I must remember that, not to get excited. Everybody is very thoughtful. They put you in uniform and teach you what every young man ought to know, and take you across the ocean into the middle of hell, bombs, bullets, shells, flame-throwers, your friends die right against you and bleed down your neck, and after two years of that they bring you home and turn you loose and tell you now remember don’t get excited.”

  He drank his highball, clear to the bottom, and put his glass down. “I’m all right,” he said calmly. “So I am loose again and come back to my job. Don’t get excited. Here’s what I find. A girl I had been sort of counting on, named Martha Davis, has married the boss and no one told me. It wasn’t her fault, she never promised me anything, not even to write to me, but I had been looking forward to seeing her. Oh, I saw her, because she was in trouble and asked me to help. She thought her husband was going to get killed, and knowing Blaney as I did I saw no reason to doubt it. I met her places a few times because she wanted to talk it over with me, and she wanted me to watch Blaney. Why am I spilling all this to you? You weren’t in the Army.”

  “I was in the Army,” I said, “but I admit nobody bled down my neck. I did what I was told.”

  “So did I, brother. Didn’t we all. Anyhow, I wasn’t heartbroken, because she seemed a little older than I had remembered her, and besides there was another girl who had been nothing but a kid in the factory but she had grown up. I’m not telling you anything the cops don’t know. God, the cops are something! That’s Helen Vardis. You saw her the other night.”

  “Yeah, she seemed upset.”

  “Upset?” He laughed a one-second laugh. “Sure she was upset. I fell for her like a Sherman tank roaring down a cliff. I certainly hit bottom—All right, I guess I will. Thanks.”

  That was for the second drink, arriving. He picked it up and swallowed half.

  “It is good Scotch. She seemed to reciprocate. I guess I was a little leery of all civilians, even her, but she seemed to reciprocate. I can’t understand what that guy Poor had that attracted girls, and at his age, too. That I will never understand. First Martha, and then her. I saw her with him in a restaurant. Then I saw them together in his car. Then I followed her from the office and watched her meet him on Fourteenth Street, and they took a taxi and I lost them. Naturally I sprung it on her, and she the same as told me to go to hell. She refused to explain.”

  He finished the drink. “So they say don’t get excited. The cops told me yesterday, and again today, don’t get excited. Which one is it that thinks Helen Vardis was helping Blaney? Is it you?”

  I shook my head. “I am not a cop. It’s just something I heard and I wondered what you thought of it. In a murder case you’re apt to hear anything.”

  “Why do you listen?”

  “Why not? I’m listening to you.”

  He laughed, somewhat better. “You’re a hell of a guy to work on a murder. You don’t try to hammer me and you don’t try to uncle. Do you want to come along and help me do something?”

  “I might if you’d describe it. I promised my mother I would always be helpful to people.”

  “Wait a minute. I want to make a phone call.”

  He slid along the seat and left the booth. I sipped my highball and lit a cigarette, wondering whether the feel of blood going down his neck had really loosened a screw in him or if he was just temporarily rattled. In less than five minutes he was back, sliding along the seat again, and announcing, “Blaney’s up at his place in Westchester. I phoned to ask him about a job we’re doing, but really to find out if he was up there.”

  “Good. Now we know. Is that where we’re going?”

  “No.” He gazed at his glass. “I thought I drank that—oh. You had it filled again. Thanks.” He took some. “Anyway, that idea about Helen is silly because it was obviously either Martha or Blaney, if the cops have any brains at all. Martha says she went to Blaney’s place in Westchester at six-fifteen Tuesday to keep a date she and Poor had with him, and there was no one there and she waited around until ten minutes to seven. Blaney says he was there all the time, from a quarter to six on, all evening, until he got the phone call from the police that Poor had been killed. So one of them is lying, and the one that’s lying is obviously the one that killed Poor. So it’s Blaney.”

  “Why, because Martha wouldn’t lie?”

  He frowned at me. “Now don’t smart up. What the hell would she kill him for? She only got him two years ago and he had everything he ever had. Anyway, it was Blaney, and I am fed up with all the gear-grinding, and he is now through with me and I’ll be out of a job, so to hell with him. I’m going to see what I can find. On account of the trick cigars the cops wanted to go through the office and factory, and Blaney told them sure, go ahead, go as far as you like, but he didn’t tell them about the abditories and they didn’t find them.”

  “How do you spell it?”

  He spelled it. “Abditory. Place to hide things. Blaney says it’s a scientific term. The office is full of them. I haven’t had a chance before now since Tuesday night, but with him up in Westchester I’m going to take a look. With a nut like Blaney you never can tell. Want to come along?”

  “Have you got keys?”

  “Keys? I’m the foreman.”

  “Okay, finish your drink.”

  He did so, and I got the bill and paid it, and we got our hats and coats and emerged. Meanwhile I was considering a complication and deciding how to handle it. Of course with the sedan I could have lost a dozen taxis if I had wanted to, but it would take time and gas and wear on the tires, and anyhow, the way it was shaping up, it seemed uncalled-for. So when we were on the sidewalk alongside the sedan I asked him to wait a minute, marched back to where the taxi was still parked, jerked the door open and stuck my head in, and said, “There’s no sense in this, Helen. Look at that meter! Come on and ride with us.”

  Even in the dim light she recognized me at the first glance, which I took as a compliment. After gasping, she left her mouth hanging open, but in spite of that handicap no one with an eye for essentials would have had any fault to find with the outlook, or perhaps I should say the inlook.

  She re-established control of her jaw muscles enough to say briefly, “Get out!”

  “Lookit, mister—” the taxi driver began like a menace.

  “Everybody relax,” I said pleasantly. “I can’t get out because I’m not in, I’m only looking in.” I told the temples, “This is absolutely childish. You don’t know the first principle of tailing, and this driver you happened to get is, if anything, worse. If you insist on tailing Joe, okay, we’ll put him in the cab and let them go ahead, and you ride with me and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  “Yeah?” the menace croaked. “Show her how what’s done?”

  “See that,” I told her. “
See the kind of mind he’s got.”

  All her muscles were now under control. “You’re smart as they come, aren’t you?”

  “That,” I said, “you will learn more about as time goes on. I’m at least smarter than you are if you let that meter continue to tick. Pay him and come on.”

  She moved, so I stood aside and held the door while she got out. On the sidewalk she faced me and said, “You seem to be in charge of everything, so you pay him.”

  It was an unpleasant surprise, but I didn’t hesitate, first, because I liked the way she was handling herself, and second, because all expenses would come out of the five grand anyway. So I parted with two bucks, took her elbow and steered her to the sedan, opened the front door and told Joe Groll, “Move over a little. There’s room for three.”

  It was his turn to let his jaw hang. Apparently it was going to be prolonged, and he didn’t budge, so I took her elbow again and escorted her around to the other side and told her, “Slide in under the wheel. I’d rather have you next to me anyhow.”

  She did so, and I got in and slammed the door. By the time I had got the engine started and rolled to the corner and turned downtown, neither of them had said a word.

  “If I were you folks,” I told them, “I would incorporate and call it the Greater New York Mutual Tailing League. I don’t see how you keep track of who is following whom on any given day. Of course if one of you gets convicted of murder that will put a stop to it. You have now, however, the one good reason that I know of for getting married, the fact that a wife can’t testify against a husband or vice versa.” I swerved around a pushcart. “One thing you want to watch. Now that Poor is dead, Helen will try to sell you the idea, Joe, that she was meeting him on the sly merely to keep him informed of anything Blaney seemed to be up to, and Joe will try to sell you the idea, Helen, that he was seeing Martha merely for that too. Now, of course, he can’t marry her, at least not for a long time, because it would look suspicious, and he may want you for a stopgap. You should both be realistic—”

  “Can it,” Joe croaked. “We’re not going there, where I said. Stop and let me out.”

  “Oh, yes we are.” I stepped on it. “Stopgap or not, you are enjoying feeling her sit next to you as much as I am, and I could keep right on going to the foot of the rainbow. If you really wanted out, what was wrong with any of the stops for traffic lights? She can help us, and it won’t hurt to have a witness. The idea is, Helen, we are bound for the Blaney and Poor office to go through the abditories. We think we hid something in them.”

  “What?” she demanded.

  “We don’t know. Maybe a detailed estimate in triplicate of what it would cost to kill Poor. Maybe a blueprint of the cigar. Even a rough sketch would help.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You sound to me like a clown.”

  “Good. It is a well-known fact that clowns have the biggest and warmest hearts on record except mothers and three characters in books by Dickens. So if and when you get tired of being a stopgap, just give me a ring and—here we are.”

  I pulled over to the curb in front of Blaney and Poor’s on Varick Street.

  VII

  That office was no place for a stranger to poke around in. It was on the first floor of a dingy old building in the middle of the block, with part of the factory, so Joe said, in the rear, and the rest on the second floor. As soon as we were inside and had the lights turned on, Helen sat in a chair at a desk and looked disdainful, but as the search went on I noticed she kept her eyes open. Joe tossed his hat and coat on a chair, got a screwdriver from a drawer, went to the typewriter on the desk Helen was sitting at, used the screwdriver, lifted out the typewriter roller, unscrewed an end of it and turned it vertical, and about four dozen dice rolled out. He held the open end of the roller so the light would hit it right, peered in, put the dice back in and screwed the end on, and put the roller back on the machine. His fingers were as swift and accurate as any I had ever seen. Even if I had known about it, I would have needed at least ten minutes for the operation; he took about three.

  “Trick dice?” I asked him.

  “They’re just a stock item,” he said, and went over to a door in the rear wall, opened it, took it off its hinges, leaned it against a desk, knelt on the floor, removed a strip from the bottom edge of the door—and out came about ten dozen lead pencils.

  “Trick pencils?”

  “When you press, perfume comes out,” he said, and stretched out flat to look into the abditory.

  I thought I might as well help with the doors and ambled over to open one in another wall that would probably be to a closet. I grabbed the knob and turned, and something darted out and banged me on the shin so that almost anyone but me would have screamed in pain. I uttered a word or two. The piece of wood that had hit me had gone back into place and was part of the door again.

  “That shouldn’t have been left connected,” Helen said, trying not to look as if she wanted to giggle.

  I saw no reason to reply. My shin feeling as it did, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to see if the skin was broken and started to lift my foot to a chair, but the light was dim because the ones in that part of the room hadn’t been turned on, so I stepped to the wall and flipped a switch. A stream of water, a thin stream but with plenty of pressure, came out of the wall and hit me just below the right eye. I leaped to one side and used more and better words.

  “That’s interesting,” Helen said. “Some customers say that the person won’t be standing in the right place, but you were, exactly. A person not as tall as you would get it right in the eye.”

  “You are,” I told her grimly.

  “I am what?”

  “Not as tall as me.”

  “Oh, I have better sense.”

  Only a female idiot would have put it on a basis of sense. Joe, who had put the door back up and was lying on the floor again with his head stuck under a desk, called to me, “Maybe you hadn’t better touch things.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion.” I went to a chair at the end of the desk he was under and asked, “What happens if I sit on this?”

  “Nothing. That one’s okay.”

  I sat and became strictly a spectator, after wiping my face and neck and inspecting my shin. Joe continued his tour of the abditories, which were practically everywhere, in desk lamps, chair legs, water cooler, ash trays, even one in the metal base of a desk calendar that was on a big desk in the corner. It was while he had that one open, jiggling things out of it, that I heard him mutter, “This is a new one on me.” He walked over and put something on the desk in front of Helen and asked her, “What is that thing, do you know?”

  She picked it up, inspected it, and shook her head. “Haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Let me see.” I got up and went over, and Helen handed it to me. The second I saw it I stopped being casual inside, but I tried to keep the outside as before. It was a thin metal capsule, about three-quarters of an inch long and not over an eighth of an inch in diameter, smooth all over, with no seam or opening, except at one end where a thread came through, a dark brown medium-sized thread as long as my index finger.

  I grunted. “Where did you find it?”

  “You saw me find it.” Joe sounded either irritated or something else. “In that calendar on Blaney’s desk.”

  “Oh, that’s Blaney’s desk. How many, just this one?”

  “No, several.” Joe went to Blaney’s desk and then came back to us. “Three more. Four altogether.”

  I took them from him and compared. They were all the same. I regarded Helen’s attractive face. She looked interested. I regarded Joe’s handsome face if you didn’t count the ears. He looked more interested.

  “I think,” I said, “that it was one of these things that was in the cigar that Poor never smoked. What do you think?”

  Joe said, “I think we can damn soon find out. Give me one.” He had a gleam in his eye.

  I shook my head. “The idea doesn’t appeal to me.” I looked at
my wrist. “Quarter to nine. Mr. Wolfe is in the middle of dinner. The proper thing is for you to take these objects to the police, but they’re likely to feel hurt because you didn’t tell them about the abditories when they were here. We can’t interrupt Mr. Wolfe’s dinner, even with a phone call, so I suggest that I buy you a meal somewhere, modest but nutritious, and then we all three go and deliver these gadgets, calendar included, to him. He may want to ask some questions.”

  “You take them to him,” Joe said. “I think I’ll go home.”

  “I think I’ll go home too,” Helen said.

  “No. Nothing doing. You’ll just follow each other and get all confused again. If I take these things to Wolfe without taking you he’ll fly into a temper and phone the police to go get you. Not to flatter myself, wouldn’t you prefer to come with me?”

  Helen said in the nastiest possible tone, “I don’t have to eat at the same table with him.”

  Joe said, trying to match her tone but failing because he wasn’t a female, “If you did I wouldn’t eat.”

  Which was a lot of organic fertilizer. I took them to Gallagher’s, where they not only ate at the same table but devoured hunks of steak served from the same platter. It was a little after ten when we got to Nero Wolfe’s place on Thirty-fifth Street.

  VIII

  Wolfe was seated behind his desk, with the evening beer—one empty bottle and two full ones—on a tray in front of him. Joe Groll, in the red leather chair, also had a bottle and glass on the check-writing table beside him. Helen Vardis would have made a good cheesecake shot over by the big globe in an upholstered number that Wolfe himself sometimes used. I was at my own desk, as usual, with my oral report all finished, watching Wolfe inspect the workmanship of the removable bottom of the desk calendar.

  He put it down, picked up one of the metal capsules with its dangling thread and gave it another look, put that down too, and turned his half-closed eyes on Joe.

  “Mr. Groll.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t know how much sense you have. If you have slightly more than your share, you must realize that if I hand these things to the police with Mr. Goodwin’s story, they will conclude that you are a liar. They will ask, why did you wait until witnesses were present to explore those hiding places? Why did you think they were worth exploring at all? Is it even remotely credible that Mr. Blaney, after preparing that murderous box of cigars, would leave these things there on his desk in a hiding place that a dozen people knew about? They will have other questions, but that’s enough to show that they will end by concluding that you put the capsules in the calendar yourself. Where did you get them?”