Three Men Out

by Rex Stout

  "I Warned you," I said coldly. "It was designed for men, not mammoths. Let's go home." He tightened his lips, moved his massivity, lowered it, and tried to squeeze between the arms. No. He grasped the rail in front with both hands, wriggled loose, and got what he could of his fanny hooked on the edge of the seat. Mondor called to me across the great ex202 panse of Wolfe's back, "I depend with confidence on you, Arshee! You must make clear as it develops! What are the little white things?" I love baseball and I love the Giants, and I had fifty bucks up on that game, but I would have got up and gone but for one thing. It was working hours, and Wolfe pays my salary, and there were too many people, some of them alive and loose, who felt strongly that he had already lived too long. He is seldom out in the open, easy to get at, and when he is I like to be nearby. So I gritted my teeth and stuck. The ground crew finished smoothing off and hauled their drags away, the umpires did a huddle, the Giants trotted out on the field to their stations, the throng gave with a lusty excited roar, we all stood up for "The Star-Spangled Banner" and then sat again, with Wolfe perched on two slats and holding grimly to the rail. After southpaw Ed Romeike, 22-4 for the season, had burned a few over for the range. Lew Baker, the catcher, fired it to Tiny Garth at second. The Red Sox lead-off man came to the white line, the plate umpire said go, and Romeike looked around at the field, toed the rubber, went into his tricky windup, and shot a fast 203 one over the outside corner for strike one. The crowd let out a short sharp yell. My personal nightmare was bad enough. Mondor was our guest, and only eighteen hours ago I had taken three helpings of the quenelles bonne femme he had cooked in our kitchen, and would have made it four if I had had room; but trying to tell a foreigner what a base on balls is during a World Series game, with two men on, two down, and Oaky Asmussen at bat, is hard on the nerves. As for Wolfe, it wasn't so much the sight of him there in his concentrated misery; it was the certainty that by tomorrow he would have figured out a way to blame it on me, and that would start a feud. Bad enough, but more was to come, and not for me alone. One fly had plopped into the soup even before the game started, when the line-up was announced and Tiny Garth was named for second base, with no explanation. A buzz of amazement had filled the stands. Why not Nick Ferrone? Ferrone, a lanky big-eared kid just up from the bush five months back, had fielded and batted himself so far to the front that it was taken for granted he would be voted rookie of the year. He had been spectacular in the first 204 six games of the series, batting .427. Where was he today? Why Garth? Then the game. This was no personal nightmare of mine, it was all too public. In the first inning Con Prentiss, the Giants' shortstop, bobbled an easy grounder, and two minutes later Lew Baker, the catcher, trying to nab a runner at second, threw the ball six feet over Garth's head into the outfield. With luck, the Red Sox scored only one run. In the second inning Nat Neill, center fielder, misjudged a fly he could have walked under, tried to run in three directions at once, and had to chase it to the fence; and soon after that Prentiss grabbed a hard-hit ball on the hop and hurled it into the dirt three paces to the left of third base. By the time they got three out, Boston had two more runs. As the Giants came in for their turn at bat in the second, heading for the dugout, loud and bitter sarcasms from the stands greeted them. Then our section was distracted by an incident. A man in a hurry came plunging down the aisle, bumping my elbow as he passed, and pulled up alongside a front box occupied by six men, among them the Mayor of New York and oilman Emil Chisholm, who had provided our tick205 ets. The man spoke into the ear ofChisholm, who looked anything but happy. Chisholm said something to the Mayor and to another of his boxmates, arose and sidled out, and beat it up the aisle double quick, followed by the courier and also by cutting remarks from nearby fans who had recognized him. As my eyes went back to the arena. Con Prentiss, the Giant shonstop, swung at a floater and missed by a mile. There is no point in ray retailing the agony. As I said, at the end of the sixth the score was 11 to 1. Romeike was doing all right, and Boston had collected only three hits, but his support would have been pitiful on a sandlot. Joe Eston and Nat Neill had each made two errors, and Con Prentiss and Lew Baker three apiece. As they came to the dugout in the sixth, one wit yelled, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" at Eston, and the crowd, recognizing that classic moan to Shoeless Joe Jackson, let out a howl. They were getting really rough. As for me, I had had plenty of the tragedy out on the diamond and looked around for something less painful, and caught sight of the girl, in a box off to my right. I glommed her, not offensively. There were two of them. One was a redhead who 206 would start to get plump in a couple of years, almost worthy, but not quite. The other one, the glommee, had light brown hair and dark brown eyes, and was fully qualified. I had the feeling that she was not a complete stranger, that I had seen her somewhere before, but couldn't place her. The pleasure it gave me to look at her was not pure, because it was adulterated with resentment. She looked happy. Her eyes sparkled. Apparently she liked the way things were going. There is no law barring Boston fans from the Polo Grounds, but I resented it. Nevertheless, I continued the glommation. She was the only object I had seen there that day, on or off the field, that didn't make me want to shut my eyes and keep them shut, and I sure needed it. Something came between her and me. A man stopped at my elbow, leaned down, and asked my ear, "Are you Archie Goodwin?" I told him yes. "Is that Nero Wolfe?" I nodded. "Mr. Chisholm wants him in the clubhouse, quick." I reflected for two seconds, decided that this was straight from heaven, and slid for207 ward to tell Wolfe, "Mr. Chisholm invites us to the clubhouse. We'll avoid the crush. There's a chair there. He wan^to see you." He didn't even growl, "What about?" He didn't even growl. Turning to mutter something to Mondor, he pulled himself erect and sidestepped past me to the aisle. Mondor came after him. The courier led the way, and I brought up the rear. As we went up the concrete steps, single file, a shout came from somewhere on the left. "Go get 'em, Nero! Sick 'em!" Such is fame. 2 "This is urgent!" Emil Chisholm squeaked. "It's urgent!" There was no chair in the clubroom of the size Wolfe likes and needs, but there was a big leather couch, and he was on it, breathing hard and scowling. Mondor was seated over against the wall, out of it. Chisholm, a hefty broad-shouldered guy not as tall as me, with a wide thick mouth and a long straight nose, was too upset to stand or sit, so he was boiling around. I was standing near an open window. Through it came a 208 sudden swelling roar from the crowd out in the stands. "Shut that goddam window!" Chisholm barked. I did so. "I'm going home," Wolfe stated in his most conclusive tone. "But not until they have left. Perhaps, if you will tell me briefly--' "We've lost the series!" Chisholm shouted. Wolfe closed his eyes and opened them again. "If you'll keep your voice down?" he suggested. "I've had enough noise today. If losing the series is your problem, I'm afraid I can't help." "No. Nobody can." Chisholm stood facing him. "I blew up, damn it, and I've got to get hold of myself. This is what happened. Out there before the game Art got a suspicion--" "Art?" "Art Kinney, our manager. Naturally he was watching the boys like a hawk, and he got a suspicion something was wrong. That first--" "Why was he watching them like a hawk?" "That's his job! He's manager!" Chisholm 209 realized he was shouting again, stopped, clamped his jaw and clenched his fists, and after a second went on. "Also Nick Ferrone had disappeared. He was here with them in the clubhouse, he had got into uniform, and after they went out and were in the dugout he just wasn't there. Art sent Doc Soffer back here to get him, but he couldn't find him. He was simply gone. Art had to put Garth at second base. Naturally he was on edge, and he noticed things, the way some of the boys looked and acted, that made him suspicious. Then--" A door opened and a guy came running in, yelling, "Fitch hit one and Neill let it get by and Asmussen scored! Fitch went on to third!" I recognized him, chiefly by his crooked nose, which had got in the way of a line drive back in the twenties when he was a Cardinal inflelder. He was Beaky Durkin, now a Giant scout, with a recent new lease on life because he had dug up Nick Ferrone out in Arkansas. Chisholm jerked his arms up and pushed palms at Durkin
. "Get out! Get the hell out!" He took a threatening step. "Send Doc--hey. Doc! Come in here!" Durkin, backing out, collided with an210 other in the doorway. The other was Doc Softer, the Giants' veteran medico, bald, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a long torso and short legs. Entering, he looked as if his ten best-paying patients had just died on him. "I can't sweat it. Doc," Chisholm told him. "I'm nuts. This is Nero Wolfe. You tell him." "Who are you?" Wolfe demanded. Softer stood before him. "I'm Doctor Horton Softer," he said, clipping it. "Four of my men, possible five, have been drugged. They're out there now, trying to play ball, and they can't." He stopped, looking as if he were about to break down and cry, gulped twice, and went on. "They didn't seem right, there in the dugout. I noticed it, and so did Kinney. That first inning there was no doubt about it, something was wrong. The second inning it was even worse--the same four men. Baker, Prentiss, Neill, and Eston--and I got an idea. I told Kinney, and he sent me here to investigate. You see that cooler?" He pointed to a big white-enameled electric refrigerator standing against a wall. Mondor, seated near it, was staring at us. Wolfe nodded. "Well?" 211 "It contains mostly an assortment of drinks in bottles. I know my men's habits-- every little habit they've got, and big one too. I knew that after they get into uniform before a game those four men--the four I named--have the habit of getting a bottle of Beebright out of the cooler and--" "What is Beebright?" "It's a carbonated drink that is supposed to have honey in it instead of sugar. Each of those four drinks a bottle of it, or part of one, before he goes out to the field, practically without exception. And it was those four that were off--terrible; I never saw anything like it. That's why I got my idea. Kinney was desperate and told me to come and see, and I did. Usually the clubhouse boy cleans up here after the men leave for the field, but this being the deciding game of the World Series, today he didn't. Stuff was scattered around--as you see, it still is--and there was a Beebright bottle there on that table with a little left in it. It didn't smell wrong, and I didn't want to waste any tasting it. I had sent for Mr. Chisholm, and when he came we decided what to do. He sent for Beaky Durkin, who had a seat in the grandstand, because he knew Ferrone better than anyone else and might have some 212 idea that would help. I took the Beebright down the street to a drugstore, and made two tests. The first one, Ranwez's, didn't prove anything, but that was probably because it is limited--" ^ "Negatives may be skipped," Wolfe muttered.