by Rex Stout
The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)
Rex Stout
Rex Stout
The Doorbell Rang
1
Since it was the deciding factor, I might as well begin by describing it. It was a pink slip of paper three inches wide and seven inches long, and it told the First National City Bank to pay to the order of Nero Wolfe one hundred thousand and 00/100 dollars. Signed, Rachel Bruner. It was there on Wolfe's desk, where Mrs Bruner had put it. After doing so, she had returned to the red leather chair.
She had been there half an hour, having arrived a few minutes after six o'clock. Since her secretary had phoned for an appointment only three hours earlier there hadn't been much time to check on her, but more than enough for the widow who had inherited the residual estate of Lloyd Bruner. At least eight of the several dozen buildings Bruner had left to her were more than twelve stories high, and one of them could be seen from anywhere within eye range-north, east, south, or west. All that had been necessary, really, was to ring Lon Cohen at the Gazette to ask if there was any news not fit to print about anyone named Bruner, but I made a couple of other calls, to a vice-president of our bank and to Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer. I got nothing, except at one point the vice-president said, "Oh… a funny thing…" and stopped.
I asked what.
Pause. "Nothing, really. Mr Abernathy, our president, got a book from her…"
"What kind of a book?"
"It- I forget. If you will excuse me, Mr Goodwin, I'm rather busy."
So all I had on her, as I answered the doorbell in the old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street and let her in, and ushered her to the office, was that she had sent a man a book. After she was in the red leather chair I put her coat, which was at least a match for a sable number for which a friend of mine had paid eighteen grand, on the couch, sat at my desk, and took her in. She was a little too short and too much filled out to be rated elegant, even if her tan woolen dress was a Dior, and her face was too round, but there was nothing wrong with the brown-black eyes she aimed at Wolfe as she asked him if she needed to tell him who she was.
He was regarding her without enthusiasm. The trouble was, a new year had just started, and it seemed likely that he was going to have to go to work. In a November or December, when he was already in a tax bracket that would take three-quarters-more, formerly-of any additional income, turning down jobs was practically automatic, but January was different, and this was the fifth of January, and this woman was stacked. He didn't like it. "Mr Goodwin named you," he said coldly, "and I read newspapers."
She nodded. "I know you do. I know a great deal about you, that's why I'm here. I want you to do something that perhaps no other man alive could do. You read books too. Have you read one entitled The FBI Nobody Knows?"
"Yes."
"Then I don't need to tell you about it. Did it impress you?"
"Yes."
"Favorably?"
"Yes."
"My goodness, you're curt."
"I answered your questions, madam."
"I know you did. I can be curt too. That book impressed me. It impressed me so strongly that I bought ten thousand copies of it and sent them to people all over the country."
"Indeed." Wolfe's brow was up an eighth of an inch.
"Yes. I sent them to the members of the cabinet, the Supreme Court justices, governors of all the states, all senators and representatives, members of state legislatures, publishers of newspapers and magazines, and editors, heads of corporations and banks, network executives and broadcasters, columnists, district attorneys, educators, and others-oh yes, chiefs of police. Do I need to explain why I did that?"
"Not to me."
There was a flash in the brown-black eyes. "I don't like your tone. I want you to do something, and I'll pay you the limit and beyond the limit, there is no limit, but there's no point in going on unless- You said that book impressed you favorably. Do you mean you agree with the author's opinion of the FBI?"
"With some minor qualifications, yes.
"And of J. Edgar Hoover?"
"Yes."
"Then it won't surprise you to hear that I am being followed day and night. I believe 'tailed' is the word. So is my son, and my daughter, and my secretary, and my brother. My telephones are tapped, and my son thinks his is-he's married and has an apartment. Some of the employees at the Bruner Corporation have been questioned. It occupies two floors of the Bruner Building and there are more than a hundred employees. Does that surprise you?"
"No." Wolfe grunted. "Did you send letters with the books?"
"Not letters. My personal card with a brief message."
"Then you shouldn't be surprised."
"Well, I am. I was. I'm not just a congressman, or someone like an editor or a broadcaster or a college professor, with a job I can't afford to lose. Does that megalomaniac think he can hurt me?"
"Pfui. He is hurting you."
"No. He's merely annoying me. Some of my associates and personal friends are being questioned-discreetly, of course, careful excuses, of course. It started about two weeks ago. I think my phones were tapped about ten days ago. My lawyers say there is probably no way to stop it, but they are considering it. They are one of the biggest and best firms in New York, and even they are afraid of the FBI! They disapprove; they say it was 'ill-advised' and 'quixotic,' my sending the books. I don't care what they say. When I read that book I was furious. I called the publishers and they sent a man to see me, and he said they had sold less than twenty thousand copies. In a country with nearly two hundred million people, and twenty-six million of them had voted for Goldwater! I thought of paying for some ads, but decided it would be better to send the books, and I got a forty-per-cent discount on them." She curled her fingers over the chair arms. "Now he's annoying me and I want him stopped. I want you to stop him."
Wolfe shook his head. "Preposterous."
She reached to the stand at her elbow for her brown leather bag, opened it, took out a checkfold and a pen, opened the fold on the stand, no hurry, and wrote, the stub first, with care. Methodical. She tore the check out, got up and put it on Wolfe's desk, and returned to the chair. "That fifty thousand dollars," she said, "is only a retainer. I said there would be no limit."
Wolfe didn't even give the check a glance. "Madam," he said, "I am neither a thaumaturge nor a dunce. If you are being followed, you were followed here, and it will be assumed that you came to hire me. Probably another has already arrived to start surveillance of this house; if not, it will be started the instant there is any indication that I have been ass enough to take the job." His head turned. "Archie. How many agents have they in New York?"
"Oh…" I pursed my lips. "I don't know, maybe two hundred. They come and go."
He went back to her. "I have one. Mr Goodwin. I never leave my house on business. It would-"
"You have Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather."
Ordinarily that would have touched him, her rattling off their names like that, but not then. "I wouldn't ask them to take the risk," he said. "I wouldn't expect Mr Goodwin to take it. Anyway, it would be futile and fatuous. You say 'stop him.' You mean, I take it, compel the FBI to stop annoying you?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"Nor do I." He shook his head. "No, madam. You invited it, and you have it. I don't say that I disapprove of your sending the books, but I agree with the lawyers that it was quixotic. The don endured his afflictions; so must you. They won't keep it up forever, and, as you say, you're not a congressman or a drudge with a job to lose. But don't send any more books."
She was biting her lip. "I t
hought you were afraid of nobody and nothing."
"Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear."
"I said no other man alive could do it."
"Then you're in a box."
She got her bag and opened it, took out the checkfold and pen, wrote again, the stub first as before, stepped to his desk and picked up the first check and replaced it with the new one, and returned to the chair.
"That hundred thousand dollars," she said, "is merely a retainer. I will pay all expenses. If you succeed, your fee, determined by you, will be in addition to the retainer. If you fail, you will have the hundred thousand."
He leaned forward to reach for the check, gave it a good look, put it down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Knowing him, I knew what he was considering. Not the job; as he had said, it was preposterous; he was looking at the beautiful fact that with a hundred grand in the till on January fifth he would need, and would accept, no jobs at all for the rest of the winter, and the spring, and even into the summer. He could read a hundred books and propagate a thousand orchids. Paradise. A corner of his mouth twisted up; for him that was a broad grin. He was wallowing. That was okay for half a minute, a man has a right to dream, but when it got to a full minute I coughed, loud.
He opened his eyes and straightened up. "Archie? Have you a suggestion?"
So it had bit him good. It was conceivable that he might even commit himself, partially at least, and of course that wouldn't do. The best way to prevent it was to get her out of there quick.
"Not offhand," I said. "No suggestion. I have a comment. You said that if she's being tailed she was followed here, but if her phone's tapped they didn't have to bother to tail her because they heard her secretary making the appointment."
He frowned. "And this house is under surveillance."
"Possibly. It could be that it isn't as bad as she thinks it is. Of course she wouldn't stretch it deliberately, but-"
"I don't 'stretch' things," she cut in.
"Of course not," I told her. "But," I told Wolfe, "people who aren't used to being annoyed annoy easy. We can check the tailing part right now." I turned. "Did you come in a taxi, Mrs Bruner?"
"No. My car and chauffeur are outside."
"Fine. I'll take you out and wait there while you leave and see what happens." I stood up. "Mr Wolfe can let you know tomorrow what he decides." I went to the couch for the sable.
It worked. She didn't like it. She had come to hire Nero Wolfe, and she hung on for five minutes trying to clinch it, but she soon saw that she was only riling him and got up and invited her coat. She was up on Wolfe all right. Aware that he didn't like to shake hands, she didn't offer, but when I followed her out to the stoop she gave my hand a firm warm clasp, having gathered that I was going to be in on the decision. There were a couple of icy spots on the seven steps of the stoop, and I took her elbow down to the sidewalk, and the chauffeur was there at the open car door to hand her in. Before she went to it she slanted the brown-black eyes up at me and said, "Thank you, Mr Goodwin. Of course there will be a check for you, personally."
The chauffeur didn't touch her; apparently she preferred to do it herself, so she wasn't the kind of middle-aged widow who likes to feel a grip on her arm from a big strong male. When she was in he shut the door, got in front behind the wheel, and rolled; and thirty yards to the east, toward Ninth Avenue, a car whose lights had gone on and whose engine had started slid out and forward and came on by. Two men in the front seat. I stood there in the cold January wind long enough to see it take the turn into Tenth Avenue. It was laughable, so I laughed as I mounted the stoop, but I shut it off before I entered the hall.
Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes closed, but his mouth was tight, no curl at the corner. As I crossed to his desk he opened the eyes to slits. I picked up the check and inspected it. I had never seen one for an even, round, plain hundred grand, though I had seen bigger ones. I dropped it, went to my desk, sat, scribbled the license number of the tail car on the scratch pad, swung the phone around, dialed a number, and got a man, a city employee for whom I had once done a king-size favor.
When I gave him the license number he said it might take an hour, and I said I would hold my breath.
As I hung up Wolfe's voice came. "Is that flummery?"
I swiveled. "No, sir. She is in real danger. A pair of them were in a car down the block. They switched on their lights as she got in, and as her Rolls turned into Tenth Avenue they were so close behind they nearly bumped it. An open tail, but they're overdoing it. If the Rolls stops short they'll bang it. She's in danger."
"Grrrhh," he said.
"Yes, sir. I agree. The point is, who are they? If it's something private, that hundred grand could be earned maybe. Of course if it's really G-men she'll just have to endure her afflictions, as you said. We'll know in an hour or so."
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Twelve minutes to seven. He focused on me. "Is Mr Cohen at his office?"
"Probably. He usually quits around seven."
"Ask him to dine with us."
That was very foxy. If I said there was no point in it since the thing was preposterous, he would say that I was certainly aware of the importance of maintaining good relations with Mr Cohen, which I was, and that he personally had not seen him for more than a year, which was true.
I swiveled and got the phone and dialed.
2
At nine o'clock we were back in the office, Lon in the red leather chair and Wolfe and I at our desks, and Fritz was serving coffee and brandy. The hour and a half in the dining room across the hall had been quite sociable, what with the clam cakes with chili sauce, the beef braised in red wine, the squash with sour cream and chopped dill, the avocado with watercress and black walnut kernels, and the Liederkranz. The talk had covered the state of the Union, the state of the feminine mind, whether any cooked oyster can be fit to eat, structural linguistics, and the prices of books. It had got hot only on the feminine mind, and Lon had done that purposely to see how sharp Wolfe could get. Lon took a sip of brandy and looked at his wristwatch. "If you don't mind," he said, "let's get at it. I have to be somewhere at ten o'clock. I know you don't expect me to pay for my dinner, but I also know that ordinarily, when there's something you want to get or give, Archie just phones or drops in, so this must besomething special. It will have to be fantastic to be as special as this cognac."
Wolfe picked up a slip of paper that was there on his desk, frowned at it, and put it down. I had put it there half an hour before. My dinner had been interrupted by a phone call from the city employee with the information I had wanted, and before returning to the dining room I had written "FBI" on a sheet from the scratch pad and put it on Wolfe's desk. It hadn't improved my appetite any. If she had been wrong about the tail it could have had great possibilities, including a fat raise for me in the form of a check for me, personally.
Wolfe sipped coffee, put the cup down, and said, "I have fourteen bottles left."
"My God," Lon said, and sniffed the brandy. It was funny about him. With his slicked-back hair and his neat little tight-skinned face he looked like nobody in particular, but somehow he always seemed to fit, whatever he was doing-in his room on the twentieth floor in the Gazette building, two doors down from the publisher's corner room, or dancing with a doll at the Flamingo, or at the table with us in Saul Panzer's apartment where we played poker. Or sniffing a fifty-year-old cognac.
He took a sip. "Anything you want," he said. "Barring nothing."
"Actually," Wolfe said, "it isn't very special. Certainly not fantastic. First a question: Do you know of any connection, however remote, between Mrs Lloyd Bruner and the Federal Bureau of Investigation?"
"Sure I do. Who doesn't? She sent a million people copies of Fred Cook's book, including our publisher and editor. It's the latest status symbol, and damn it, I didn't get one. Did you?"
"No. I bought mine. Do you know of any action the Bureau has taken in reprisal? This is a private and confi
dential conversation."
Lon smiled. "Any action they might take would also be private and confidential. You'll have to ask J. Edgar Hoover-unless you already know. Do you?"
"Yes."
Lon's chin jerked up. "The hell you do. Then the people who pay his salary should know."
Wolfe nodded. "That would be your view, naturally. You seek information in order to publish it; I seek it for my private interest. At the moment I seek it only to decide where my interest lies. I have no client and no commitment, and I should make it clear that even if I commit myself and go to work I shall probably never be able to give you any publishable information, no matter what the outcome is. If I can, I will, but I doubt it. Are we in your debt?"
"No. On balance, I'm in yours.
"Good. Then I'll draw on it. Why did Mrs Bruner send those books?"
"I don't know." He sipped brandy and moved his lips and cheeks to spread it around before swallowing. "Presumably as a public service. I bought five copies myself and sent them to people who should read them but probably won't. A man I know gave thirty copies as Christmas presents."
"Do you know if she had any private reason for animus against the FBI?
"No."
"Have you heard any suggestion of such an animus? Any surmise?"
"No. But evidently you have. Look, Mr Wolfe. Strictly off the record, who wants to hire you? If I knew that, I might be able to furnish a fact or two."
Wolfe refilled his cup and put the pot down. "I may not be hired," he said. "If I am, it's quite possible that you will never know who hired me. As for facts, I know what I need. I need a list of all the cases on which FBI agents have recently worked, and are now working, in and around New York. Can you supply that?"
"Hell no." Lon smiled. "I'll be damned. I was thinking-it was incredible, but I was thinking, or rather I was asking if it was possible that Hoover wanted you to work on Mrs Bruner. That would be an item. But if you- I'll be damned."