by Rex Stout
By the time they were pushing the button I was at the bottom of the stoop, but they had taken no notice of me. It would have been more triumphant if I could have done it another way, but the trouble was that Fritz wouldn’t let them in until he had checked with Wolfe. So I took the steps two at a time, used my key and flung the door open, and invited them: “Mrs Shepherd? Go right in.” She crossed the threshold. But Nancylee snapped at me: “You were on the train. There’s something funny about this.” “Mr Wolfe’s expecting you,” I said, “if you want to call that funny. Anyway, come inside to laugh, so I can shut the door.” She entered, not taking her eyes off me. I asked them if they wanted to leave their things in the hall, and they didn’t, so I escorted them to the office.
Wolfe, in his chair behind his desk, looked undecided for an instant and then got to his feet. I really appreciated that. He never rises when men enter, and his customary routine when a woman enters is to explain, if he feels like taking the trouble, that he keeps his chair because getting out of it and back in again is a more serious undertaking for him than for most men. I knew why he was breaking his rule. It was a salute to me, not just for producing them, but for getting them there exactly at the first minute of the day that he would be ready for them.
“Mrs Shepherd,” I said, “this is Mr Nero Wolfe. Miss Nancylee Shepherd.” Wolfe bowed. “How do you do, ladies.” “My husband,” Mom said in a scared but determined voice. “Where’s my husband?” “He’ll be here soon,” Wolfe assured her. “He was detained. Sit down, madam.” I grinned at him and shook my head. “Much obliged for trying to help, but that’s not the line.” I shifted the grin to the family. “I’ll have to explain not only to you but to Mr Wolfe too. Have you got the telegram with you? Let me have it a minute?” Mom would have opened her handbag, but Nancylee stopped her. “Don’t give it to him!” She snapped at me, “You let us out of here right now!” “No,” I said, “not right now, but I will in about five minutes if you still want to go. What are you afraid of? Didn’t I see to it that you got some breakfast?
First I would like to explain to Mr Wolfe, and then I’ll explain to you.” I turned to Wolfe. “The telegram Mrs Shepherd has in her bag reads as follows: Take first train to New York and go to office of Nero Wolfe at 918 West Thirty-fifth Street. He is paying for this telegram. Bring Nan with you. Meet me there. Leave your things in your hotel room. Shake a leg. Al. Saul sent it from a telegraph office in the Bronx at six-thirty this morning. You will understand why I had to go up there again to see the janitor. The shake a leg made it absolutely authentic, along with other things.” “Then Father didn’t send it!” Nancylee was glaring at me. “I thought there was something funny about it!” She took her mother’s arm. “Come on, we’re going!” “Where, Nan?” “We’re leaving here!” “But where are we going?” Near-panic was in Mom’s eyes and voice. “Home?” “That’s the point,” I said emphatically. “That’s just it. Where? You have three choices. First, you can go home, and when the head of the family comes from work you can tell him how you were taken in by a fake telegram. Your faces show how much that appeals to you. Second, you can take the next train back to Atlantic City, but in that case I phone immediately, before you leave, to Mr Shepherd at the warehouse where he works, and tell him that you’re here with a wild tale about a telegram, and of course he’ll want to speak to you. So again you would have to tell him about being fooled by a fake telegram.” Mom looked as if she needed some support, so I moved a chair up behind her and she sat.
“You’re utterly awful,” Nancylee said. “Just utterly!” I ignored her and continued to her mother. “Or, third, you can stay here and Mr Wolfe will discuss some matters with Nancylee, and ask her some questions. It may take two hours, or three, or four, so the sooner he gets started the better.
You’ll get an extra good lunch. As soon as Mr Wolfe is through I’ll take you to the station and put you on a train for Atlantic City. We’ll pay your fare both ways and all expenses, such as taxi fare, and your breakfast, and dinner on the train going back. Mr Shepherd, whom I have met, will never know anything about it.” I screwed my lips. “Those are the only choices I can think of, those three.” Nancylee sat down and-another indication of her intelligence – in the red leather chair.
“This is terrible,” Mom said hopelessly. “This is the worst thing…you don’t look like a man that would do a thing like this. Are you absolutely sure my husband didn’t send the telegram? Honestly?” “Positively not,” I assured her. “He doesn’t know a thing about it and never will. There’s nothing terrible about it. Long before bedtime you’ll be back in that wonderful hotel room.” She shook her head as if all was lost.
“It’s not so wonderful,” Nancylee asserted. “The shower squirts sideways and they won’t fix it.” Suddenly she clapped a hand to her mouth, went pop-eyed, and sprang from the chair.
“Jumping cats!” she squealed. “Where’s your radio? It’s Friday! She’s broadcasting!” “No radio,” I said firmly. “It’s out of order. Here, let me take your coat and hat.”
CHAPTER Ten
During the entire performance, except when we knocked off for lunch, Mrs Shepherd sat with sagging shoulders on one of the yellow chairs. Wolfe didn’t like her there and at various points gave her suggestions, such as going up to the south room for a nap or up to the top to look at the orchids, but she wasn’t moving. She was of course protecting her young, but I swear I think her main concern was that if she let us out of her sight we might pull another telegram on her signed Al.
I intend to be fair and just to Nancylee. It is quite true that this is on record, on a page of my notebook: W: You have a high regard for Miss Eraser, haven’t you, Miss Shepherd?
N: Oh, yes! She’s simply utterly!
On another page: W: Why did you leave high school without graduating, if you were doing so well?
N: I was offered a modelling job. Just small time, two dollars an hour not very often and mostly legs, but the cash was simply sweet!
W: You’re looking forward to a life of that-modelling?
N: Oh, no! I’m really very serious-minded. Am I! I’m going into radio. I’m going to have a programme like Miss Fraser-you know, human and get the laughs, but worthwhile and good. How often have you been on the air, Mr Wolfe?
On still another page: W: How have you been passing your time at Atlantic City?
N: Rotting away. That place is as dead as last week’s date. Simply stagnating.
Utterly!
Those are verbatim, and there are plenty more where they came from, but there are other pages to balance them. She could talk to the point when she felt like it, as for instance when she explained that she would have been suspicious of the telegram, and would have insisted that her mother call her father at the warehouse by long distance, if she hadn’t learned from the papers that Miss Fraser had engaged Nero Wolfe to work on the case. And when he got her going on the subject of Miss Fraser’s staff, she not only showed that she had done a neat little job of sizing them up, but also conveyed it to us without including anything that she might be called upon either to prove or to eat.
It was easy to see how desperate Wolfe was from the way he confined himself, up to lunch time, to skating around the edges, getting her used to his voice and manner and to hearing him ask any and every kind of question. By the time Fritz summoned us to the dining-room I couldn’t see that he had got the faintest flicker of light from any direction.
When we were back in the office and settled again, with Mom in her same chair and Nancylee dragging on a cigarette as if she had been at it for years, Wolfe resumed as before, but soon I noticed that he was circling in toward the scene of the crime. After getting himself up to date on the East Bronx Fraser Girls’ Club and how Nancylee had organized it and put it at the top, he went right on into the studio and began on the Fraser broadcasts. He learned that Nancylee was always there on Tuesday, and sometimes on Friday too. Miss Fraser had promised her that she could get on a live mike s
ome day, at least for a line or two. On the network! Most of the time she sat with the audience, front row, but she was always ready to help with anything, and frequently she was allowed to, but only on account of Miss Fraser. The others thought she was a nuisance.
“Are you?” Wolfe asked.
“You bet I am! But Miss Fraser doesn’t think so because she knows I think she’s the very hottest thing on the air, simply super, and then there’s my club, so you see how that is. The old ego mego.” You can see why I’d like to be fair and just to her.
Wolfe nodded as man to man. “What sort of things do you help with?” “Oh.” She waved a hand. “Somebody drops a page of script, I pick it up. One of the chairs squeaks, I hear it first and bring another one. The day it happened, I got the tray of glasses from the cabinet and took them to the table.” “You did? The day Mr Orchard was a guest?” “Sure, I often did that.” “Do you have a key to the cabinet?” “No, Miss Vance has. She opened it and got the tray of glasses out.” Nancylee smiled. “I broke one once, and did Miss Fraser throw a fit? No definitely. She just told me to bring a paper cup, that’s how super she is.” “Marvellous. When did that happen?” “Oh, a long while ago, when they were using the plain glasses, before they changed to the dark blue ones.” “How long ago was it?” “Nearly a year, it must be.” Nancylee nodded. “Yes, because it was when they first started to drink Starlite on the programme, and the first few times they used plain clear glasses and then they had to change-” She stopped short.
“Why did they have to change?” “I don’t know.” I expected Wolfe to pounce, or at least to push. There was no doubt about it.
Nancylee had stopped herself because she was saying, or starting to say, something that she didn’t intend to let out, and when she said she didn’t know she was lying. But Wolfe whirled and skated off: “I suspect to get them so heavy they wouldn’t break.” He chuckled as if that were utterly amusing. “Have you ever drunk Starlite, Miss Shepherd?” “Me? Are you kidding? When my club got to the top they sent me ten cases.
Truckloads!” “I don’t like it much. Do you?” “Oh…I guess so. I guess I adore it, but not too much at a time. When I get my programme and have Shepherd Clubs I’m going to work it a different way.” She frowned. “Do you think Nancylee Shepherd is a good radio name, or is Nan Shepherd better, or should I make one up? Miss Fraser’s name was Oxhall, and she married a man named Koppel but he died, and when she got into radio she didn’t want to use either of them and made one up.” “Either of yours,” Wolfe said judiciously, “would be excellent. You must tell me some time how you’re going to handle your clubs. Do you think Starlite has pepper in it?” “I don’t know, I never thought. It’s a lot of junk mixed together. Not at all frizoo.” “No,” Wolfe agreed, “not frizoo. What other things do you do to help out at the broadcasts?” “Oh, just like I said.” “Do you ever help pass the glasses and bottles around-to Miss Fraser and Mr Meadows and the guests?” “No, I tried to once, but they wouldn’t let me.” “Where were you-the day we’re talking about-while that was being done?” Sitting on the piano bench. They want me to stay in the audience while they’re on the air, but sometimes I don’t.” “Did you see who did the passing-to Mr Orchard, for instance?” Nancylee smiled in good-fellowship. “Now you’d like to know that, wouldn’t you?
But I didn’t. The police asked me that about twenty million times.” “No doubt. I ask you once. Do you ever take the bottles from the cabinet and put them in the refrigerator?” “Sure, I often do that-or I should say I help. That’s Miss Vance’s job, and she can’t carry them all at once, so she has to make two trips, so quite often she takes four bottles and I take three.” “I see. I shouldn’t think she would consider you a nuisance. Did you help with the bottles that Tuesday?” “No, because I was looking at the new hat Miss Fraser had on, and I didn’t see Miss Vance starting to get the bottles.” “Then Miss Vance had to make two trips, first four bottles and then three?” “Yes, because Miss Fraser’s hat was really something for the preview. Utterly first run! It had-” “I believe you.” Wolfe’s voice sharpened a little, though perhaps only to my experienced ear. “That’s right, isn’t it, first four bottles and then three?” “Yes, that’s right.” “Making a total of seven?” “Oh, you can add!” Nancylee exclaimed delightedly. She raised her right hand with four fingers extended, then her left hand with three, and looked from one to the other. “Correct. Seven!” “Seven,” Wolfe agreed. “I can add, and you can, but Miss Vance and Mr Meadows can’t. I understand that only four bottles are required for the programme, but that they like to have extra ones in the refrigerator to provide for possible contingencies. But Miss Vance and Mr Meadows say that the total is eight bottles. You say seven. Miss Vance says that they are taken from the cabinet to the refrigerator in two lots, four and four. You say four and three.” Wolfe leaned forward. “Miss Shepherd.” His voice cut. “You will explain to me immediately, and satisfactorily, why they say eight and you say seven. Why?” She didn’t look delighted at all. She said nothing.
“Why?” It was the crack of a whip.
“I don’t know!” she blurted.
I had both eyes on her, and even from a corner of one, with the other one shut, it would have been as plain as daylight that she did know, and furthermore that she had clammed and intended to stay clammed.
“Pfui.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Apparently, Miss Shepherd, you have the crackbrained notion that whenever the fancy strikes you you can say you don’t know, and I’ll let it pass. You tried it about the glasses, and now this. I’ll give you one minute to start telling me why the others said the customary number of bottles taken to the refrigerator is eight, and you say seven. Archie, time it.” I looked at my wrist, and then back at Nancylee. But she merely stayed a clam.
Her face showed no sign that she was trying to make one up, or even figuring what would happen if she didn’t. She was simply utterly not saying anything. I let her have an extra ten seconds, and then announced: “It’s up.” Wolfe sighed. “I’m afraid, Miss Shepherd, that you and your mother will not return to Atlantic City. Not today. It is-” A sound of pain came from Mom-not a word, just a sound. Nancy cried: “But you promised-” “No. I did not. Mr Goodwin did. You can have that out with him, but not until after I have given him some instructions.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie, you will escort Miss Shepherd to the office of Inspector Cramer. Her mother may accompany you or go home, as she prefers. But first take this down, type it, and take it with you. Two carbons. A letter to Inspector Cramer.” Wolfe leaned back, closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and in a moment began: “Regarding the murder of Cyril Orchard, I send you this information by Mr Goodwin, who is taking Miss Nancylee Shepherd to you. He will explain how Miss Shepherd was brought to New York from Atlantic City. Paragraph.
I suggest that Miss Madeline Fraser should be arrested without delay, charged with the murder of Cyril Orchard. It is obvious that the members of her staff are joined in a conspiracy. At first I assumed that their purpose was to protect her, but I am now convinced that I was wrong. At my office Tuesday evening it was ludicrously transparent that they were all deeply concerned about Miss Eraser’s getting home safely, or so I then thought. I now believe that their concern was of a very different kind. Paragraph.
“That evening, here, Mr Meadows was unnecessarily explicit and explanatory when I asked him how he decided which bottles to take from the refrigerator. There were various other matters which aroused my suspicion, plainly pointing to Miss Fraser, among them their pretence that they cannot remember who placed the glass and bottle in front of Mr Orchard, which is of course ridiculous. Certainly they remember; and it is not conceivable that they would conspire unanimously to defend one of their number from exposure, unless that one were Miss Fraser. They are moved, doubtless, by varying considerations-loyalty, affection, or merely the desire to keep their jobs, which they will no longer have after Miss Fraser is arrested and disgraced-and, I hope, punished as the law
provides. Paragraph.
“All this was already in my mind, but not with enough conviction to put it to you thus strongly, so I waited until I could have a talk with Miss Shepherd. I have now done that. It is plain that she too is in the conspiracy, and that leaves no doubt that it is Miss Fraser who is being shielded from exposure, since Miss Shepherd would do anything for her but nothing for any of the others.
Miss Shepherd has lied to me twice, that I am sure of, once when she said that she didn’t know why the glasses that they drank from were changed, and once when she would give no explanation of her contradiction of the others regarding the number of bottles put in the refrigerator. Mr Goodwin will give you the details of that. Paragraph.
“When you have got Miss Fraser safely locked in a cell, I would suggest that in questioning her you concentrate on the changing of the glasses. That happened nearly a year ago, and therefore it seems likely that the murder of Mr Orchard was planned far in advance. This should make it easier for you, not harder, especially if you are able to persuade Miss Shepherd, by methods available to you, to tell all she knows about it. I do not-Archie” If Nancylee had had a split personality and it had been the gungirl half of her that suddenly sprang into action, I certainly would have been caught with my fountain pen down. But she didn’t pull a gat. All she did was come out of her chair like a hurricane, get to me before I could even point the pen at her, snatch the notebook and hurl it across the room, and turn to blaze away at Wolfe: “That’s a lie! It’s all a lie!” “Now, Nan,” came from Mrs Shepherd, in a kind of shaky, hopeless moan.
I was on my feet at the hurricane’s elbow, feeling silly. Wolfe snapped at me: “Get the notebook and we’ll finish. She’s hysterical. If she does it again put her in the bathroom.” Nancylee was gripping my coat sleeve. “No!” she cried. “You’re a stinker, you know you are! Changing the glasses had nothing to do with it! And I don’t know why they changed them, either-you’re just a stinker-” “Stop it!” Wolfe commanded her. “Stop screaming. If you have anything to say, sit down and say it. Why did they change the glasses?” “I don’t know!” In crossing the room for it I had to detour around Mom, and, doing so, I gave her a pat on the shoulder, but I doubt if she was aware of it. From her standpoint there was nothing left. When I got turned around again Nancylee was still standing there, and from the stiffness of her back she looked put for the day. But as I reached my desk suddenly she spoke, no screaming: “I honestly don’t know why they changed the glasses, because I was just guessing, but if I tell you what I was guessing I’ll have to tell you something I promised Miss Fraser I would never tell anybody.” Wolfe nodded: “As I said. Shielding Miss Fraser.” “I’m not shielding her! She doesn’t have to be shielded!” “Don’t get hysterical again. What was it you guessed?” “I want to phone her.” “Of course you do. To warn her. So she can get away.” Nancylee slapped a palm on his desk.