by Rex Stout
So when Cramer arrived I didn’t bubble over. Neither did he, for that matter. He marched into the office, nodded a greeting, dropped into the red leather chair, and growled:
“I wish to God you’d forget you’re eccentric and start moving around more. Busy as I am, here I am. What is it?”
“My remark on the phone,” Wolfe said placidly, “may have been blunt, but it was justified.”
“What remark?”
“That your busyness could be more productive. Have you made any progress?”
“No.”
“You’re no further along than you were a week ago?”
“Further along to the day I retire, yes. Otherwise no.”
“Then I’d like to ask some questions about that woman, Beula Poole, who was found dead in her office Friday morning. The papers say that you say it was murder. Was it?”
I gawked at him. This was clear away from me. When he jumped completely off the track like that I never knew whether he was stalling, being subtle, or trying to show me how much of a clod I was. Then I saw a gleam in Cramer’s eye which indicated that even he had left me far behind, and all I could do was gawk some more.
Cramer nodded. “Yeah, it was murder. Why, looking for another client so I can earn another fee for you?”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No.”
“No glimmer? No good start?”
“No start at all, good or bad.”
“Tell me about it.”
Cramer grunted. “Most of it has been in the papers, all but a detail or two we’ve saved up.” He moved further back in the chair, as if he might stay longer than he had thought. “First you might tell me what got you interested, don’t you think?”
“Certainly. Mr. Cyril Orchard, who got killed, was the publisher of a horse race tip sheet for which subscribers paid ten dollars a week, an unheard-of price. Miss Beula Poole, who also got killed, was the publisher of a sheet which purported to give inside advance information on political and economic affairs, for which subscribers paid the same unheard-of price of ten dollars a week.”
“Is that all?”
“I think it’s enough to warrant a question or two. It is true that Mr. Orchard was poisoned and Miss Poole was shot, a big variation in method. Also that it is now assumed that Mr. Orchard was killed by misadventure, the poison having been intended for another, whereas the bullet that killed Miss Poole must have been intended for her. But even so, it’s a remarkable coincidence—sufficiently so to justify some curiosity, at least. For example, it might be worth the trouble to compare the lists of subscribers of the two publications.”
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
“You did?” Wolfe was a little annoyed, as he always was at any implication that someone else could be as smart as him. “Then you’ve compared them. And?”
Cramer shook his head. “I didn’t say I’d compared them, I said I’d thought of it. What made me think of it was the fact that it couldn’t be done, because there weren’t any lists to compare.”
“Nonsense. There must have been. Did you look for them?”
“Sure we did, but too late. In Orchard’s case there was a little bad management. His office, a little one-room hole in a building on Forty-second Street, was locked, and there was some fiddling around looking for an employee or a relative to let us in. When we finally entered by having the superintendent admit us, the next day, the place had been cleaned out—not a piece of paper or an address plate or anything else. It was different with the woman, Poole, because it was in her office that she was shot—another one-room hole, on the third floor of an old building on Nineteenth Street, only four blocks from my place. But her body wasn’t found until nearly noon the next day, and by the time we got there that had been cleaned out too. The same way. Nothing.”
Wolfe was no longer annoyed. Cramer had had two coincidences and he had had only one. “Well.” He was purring. “That settles it. In spite of variations, it is now more than curiosity. Of course you have inquired?”
“Plenty. The sheets were printed at different shops, and neither of them had a list of subscribers or anything else that helps. Neither Orchard nor the woman employed any help. Orchard left a widow and two children, but they don’t seem to know a damn thing about his business, let alone who his subscribers were. Beula Poole’s nearest relatives live out West, in Colorado, and they don’t know anything, apparently not even how she was earning a living. And so on. As for the routine, all covered and all useless. No one seen entering or leaving—it’s only two flights up—no weapon, no fingerprints that help any, nobody heard the shot—”
Wolfe nodded impatiently. “You said you hadn’t made any start, and naturally routine has been followed. Any discoverable association of Miss Poole with Mr. Orchard?”
“If there was we can’t discover it.”
“Where were Miss Fraser and the others at the time Miss Poole was shot?”
Cramer squinted at him. “You think it might even develop that way?”
“I would like to put the question. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah. I have. You see, the two offices being cleaned out is a detail we’ve saved up.” Cramer looked at me. “And you’ll kindly not peddle it to your pal Cohen of the Gazette.” He went on to Wolfe: “It’s not so easy because there’s a leeway of four or five hours on when she was shot. We’ve asked all that bunch about it, and no one can be checked off.”
“Mr. Savarese? Miss Shepherd? Mr. Shepherd?”
“What?” Cramer’s eyes widened. “Where the hell does Shepherd come in?”
“I don’t know. Archie doesn’t like him, and I have learned that it is always quite possible that anyone he doesn’t like may be a murderer.”
“Oh, comic relief. The Shepherd girl was in Atlantic City with her mother, and still is. On Savarese I’d have to look at the reports, but I know he’s not checked off because nobody is. By the way, we’ve dug up two subscribers to Orchard’s tip sheet, besides Savarese and the Fraser woman. With no result. They bet on the races and they subscribed, that’s all, according to them.”
“I’d like to talk with them,” Wolfe declared.
“You can. At my office any time.”
“Pfui. As you know, I never leave this house on business. If you’ll give Archie their names and addresses he’ll attend to it.”
Cramer said he’d have Stebbins phone and give them to me. I never saw him more cooperative, which meant that he had never been more frustrated.
They kept at it a while longer, but Cramer had nothing more of any importance to give Wolfe, and Wolfe hadn’t had anything to give Cramer to begin with. I listened with part of my brain, and with the other part tried to do a little offhand sorting and arranging. I had to admit that it would take quite a formula to have room for the two coincidences as such, and therefore they would probably have to be joined together somehow, but it was no part-brain job for me. Whenever dough passes without visible value received the first thing you think of is blackmail, so I thought of it, but that didn’t get me anywhere because there were too many other things in the way. It was obvious that the various aspects were not yet in a condition that called for the application of my particular kind of talent.
After Cramer had gone Wolfe sat and gazed at a distant corner of the ceiling with his eyes open about a thirty-second of an inch. I sat and waited, not wanting to disturb him, for when I saw his lips pushing out, and in again, and out and in, I knew he was exerting himself to the limit, and I was perfectly satisfied. There had been a good chance that he would figure that he had helped all he could for a while, and go back to his reading until Cramer made a progress report or somebody else got killed. But the editorial had stung him good. Finally he transferred the gaze to me and pronounced my name.
“Yes, sir,” I said brightly.
“Your notebook. Take this.”
I got ready.
“Former subscribers to the publication of Cyril Orchard, or to that of Beula Poole,
should communicate with me immediately. Put it in three papers, the Gazette, the News, and the Herald-Tribune. A modest display, say two inches. Reply to a box number. A good page if possible.”
“And I’ll call for the replies? It saves time.”
“Then do so.”
I put paper in the typewriter. The phone rang. It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins, to give me the names and addresses of the two Orchard subscribers they had dug up.
Chapter 15
SO BEGINNING MONDAY MORNING we were again a going concern, instead of a sitting-and-waiting one, but I was not in my element. I like a case you can make a diagram of. I don’t object to complications, that’s all right, but if you’re out for bear it seems silly to concentrate on hunting for moose tracks. Our fee depended on our finding out how and why Orchard got cyanided by drinking Madeline Fraser’s sugared coffee, and here we were spending our time and energy on the shooting of a female named Beula Poole. Even granting it was one and the same guy who pinched the lead pencils and spilled ink on the rug, if you’ve been hired to nail him for pencil stealing that’s what you should work at.
I admit that isn’t exactly fair, because most of our Monday activities had to do with Orchard. Wolfe seemed to think it was important for him to have a talk with those two subscribers, so instead of using the phone I went out after them. I had one of them in the office waiting for him at 11:00 A.M.—an assistant office manager for a big tile company. Wolfe spent less than a quarter of an hour on him, knowing, of course, that the cops had spent more and had checked him. He had bet on the races for years. In February a year ago he had learned that a Hialeah daily double featured in a sheet called Track Almanac had come through for a killing, and he had subscribed, though the ten bucks a week was a sixth of his salary. He had stayed with it for nine weeks and then quit. So much for him.
The other one was a little different. Her name was Marie Leconne, and she owned a snooty beauty parlor on Madison Avenue. She wouldn’t have accepted my invitation if she hadn’t been under the illusion that Wolfe was connected with the police, though I didn’t precisely tell her so. That Monday evening she was with us a good two hours, but left nothing of any value behind. She had subscribed to Track Almanac in August, seven months ago, and had remained a subscriber up to the time of Orchard’s death. Prior to subscribing she had done little or no betting on the races; she was hazy about whether it was little, or no. Since subscribing she had bet frequently, but she firmly refused to tell where, through whom, or in what amounts. Wolfe, knowing that I occasionally risk a finif, passed me a hint to have some conversation with her about pertinent matters like horses and jockeys, but she declined to cooperate. All in all, she kept herself nicely under control, and flew off the handle only once, when Wolfe pressed her hard for a plausible reason why she had subscribed to a tip sheet at such a price. That aggravated her terribly, and since the one thing that scares Wolfe out of his senses is a woman in a tantrum, he backed away fast.
He did keep on trying, from other angles, but when she finally left all we knew for sure was that she had not subscribed to Track Almanac in order to get guesses on the ponies. She was slippery, and nobody’s fool, and Wolfe had got no further than the cops in opening her up.
I suggested to Wolfe: “We might start Saul asking around in her circle.”
He snorted. “Mr. Cramer is presumably attending to that, and, anyway, it would have to be dragged out of her inch by inch. The advertisement should be quicker.”
It was quicker, all right, in getting results, but not the results we were after. There had not been time to make the Monday papers, so the ad’s first appearance was Tuesday morning. Appraising it, I thought it caught the eye effectively for so small a space. After breakfast, which I always eat in the kitchen with Fritz while Wolfe has his in his room on a tray, and after dealing with the morning mail and other chores in the office, I went out to stretch my legs and thought I might as well head in the direction of the Herald-Tribune Building. Expecting nothing so soon but thinking it wouldn’t hurt to drop in, I did so. There was a telegram. I tore it open and read:
CALL MIDLAND FIVE THREE SEVEN EIGHT FOUR LEAVE MESSAGE FOR DUNCAN GIVING APPOINTMENT
I went to the phone booth and put a nickel in the slot, with the idea of calling Cramer’s office to ask who Midland 5-3784 belonged to, but changed my mind. If it happened that this led to a hot trail we didn’t want to be hampered by city interference, at least I didn’t. However, I thought I might as well get something for my nickel and dialed another number. Fritz answered, and I asked him to switch it to the plant room.
“Yes, Archie?” Wolfe’s voice came, peevish. He was at the bench repotting, as I knew from his schedule, and he hates to be interrupted at that job. I told him about the telegram.
“Very well, call the number. Make an appointment for eleven o’clock or later.”
I walked back home, went to my desk, dialed the Midland number, and asked for Mr. Duncan. Of course it could have been Mrs. or Miss, but I preferred to deal with a man after our experience with Marie Leconne. A gruff voice with an accent said that Mr. Duncan wasn’t there and was there a message.
“Will he be back soon?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that I can take a message.”
I thereupon delivered one, that Mr. Duncan would be expected at Nero Wolfe’s office at eleven o’clock, or as soon thereafter as possible.
He didn’t come. Wolfe descended in his elevator sharp at eleven as usual, got himself enthroned, rang for beer, and began sorting plant cards he had brought down with him. I had him sign a couple of checks and then started to help with the cards. At half past eleven I asked if I should ring the Midland number to see if Duncan had got the message, and he said no, we would wait until noon.
The phone rang. I went to my desk and told it:
“Nero Wolfe’s office, Goodwin speaking.”
“I got your message for Duncan. Let me speak to Mr. Wolfe, please.”
I covered the transmitter and told Wolfe: “He says Duncan, but it’s a voice I’ve heard. It’s not a familiar voice, but by God I’ve heard it. See if you have.”
Wolfe lifted his instrument.
“Yes, Mr. Duncan? This is Nero Wolfe.”
“How are you?” the voice asked.
“I’m well, thank you. Do I know you, sir?”
“I really don’t know. I mean I don’t know if you would recognize me, seeing me, because I don’t know how foolishly inquisitive you may have been. But we have talked before, on the phone.”
“We have?”
“Yes. Twice. On June ninth, nineteen forty-three, I called to give you some advice regarding a job you were doing for General Carpenter. On January sixteenth, nineteen forty-six, I called to speak about the advisability of limiting your efforts in behalf of a Mrs. Tremont.”
“Yes. I remember.”
I remembered too. I chalked it against me that I hadn’t recognized the voice with the first six words, though it had been over two years since I had heard it—hard, slow, precise, and cold as last week’s corpse. It was continuing:
“I was pleased to see that you did limit your efforts as I suggested. That showed—”
“I limited them because no extension of them was required to finish the job I was hired for. I did not limit them because you suggested it, Mr. Zeck.” Wolfe was being fairly icy himself.
“So you know my name.” The voice never changed.
“Certainly. I went to some trouble and expense to ascertain it. I don’t pay much attention to threats, I get too many of them, but at least I like to know who the threatener is. Yes, I know your name, sir. Is that temerarious? Many people know Mr. Arnold Zeck.”
“You have had no occasion to. This, Mr. Wolfe, does not please me.”
“I didn’t expect it to.”
“No. But I am much easier to get along with when I am pleased. That’s why I sent you that telegram and am talking with you now. I have strong admiration for you, as I’ve sai
d before. I wouldn’t want to lose it. It would please me better to keep it. Your advertisement in the papers has given me some concern. I realize that you didn’t know that, you couldn’t have known it, so I’m telling you. The advertisement disturbs me. It can’t be recalled; it has appeared. But it is extremely important that you should not permit it to lead you into difficulties that will be too much for you. The wisest course for you will be to drop the matter. You understand me, don’t you, Mr. Wolfe?”
“Oh yes, I understand you. You put things quite clearly, Mr. Zeck, and so do I. I have engaged to do something, and I intend to do it. I haven’t the slightest desire either to please you or to displease you, and unless one or the other is inherent in my job you have no reason to be concerned. You understand me, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do. But now you know.”
The line went dead.
Wolfe cradled the phone and leaned back in his chair, with his eyes closed to a slit. I pushed my phone away, swiveled, and gazed at him through a minute’s silence.
“So,” I said. “That sonofabitch. Shall I find out about the Midland number?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Useless. It would be some little store that merely took a message. Anyway, he has a number of his own.”
“Yeah. He didn’t know you knew his name. Neither did I. How did that happen?”
“Two years ago I engaged some of Mr. Bascom’s men without telling you. He had sounded as if he were a man of resource and resolution, and I didn’t want to get you involved.”
“It’s the Zeck with the place in Westchester, of course?”
“Yes. I should have signaled you off as soon as I recognized his voice. I tell you nothing because it is better for you to know nothing. You are to forget that you know his name.”
“Like that.” I snapped my fingers, and grinned at him. “What the hell? Does he eat human flesh, preferably handsome young men?”
“No. He does worse.” Wolfe’s eyes came half open. “I’ll tell you this. If ever, in the course of my business, I find that I am committed against him and must destroy him, I shall leave this house, find a place where I can work—and sleep and eat if there is time for it—and stay there until I have finished. I don’t want to do that, and therefore I hope I’ll never have to.”