Stout, Rex - Black Orchids

by Black Orchids (lit)

  "It's nice of you to call," she said. "It's a-pleasant surprise. Naturally I thought you-last week, I mean-I thought you were just being a detective."

  "Don't kid me," I told her. "Anyone that dances the way you do being surprised at a phone call. Not that I suppose you're doing any dancing at present."

  "Not now. No."

  "Will you be leaving there soon?"

  "Not this week. We're trying to help Mr. Huddleston straighten things up."

  "Will you send me your address when you go?"

  "Why-yes. Certainly. If you want it."

  "I do you know. How would it be if I drove up there? Just to say hello?"

  "When? Now?"

  "Right now. I can be there in twenty minutes. I'd kind of like to see you."

  "Why-" Silence. "That would be all right. If you want to take the trouble."

  I told her it would be no trouble at all, hung up, went out to the roadster, and made for the entrance to the West Side Highway at 46th Street.

  I admit my timing was terrible. If I had arrived, say, between twelve thirty and one, they might have been in the house having lunch, and I could have said I had already eaten and waited for Janet on the terrace, which would have been a perfect opportunity. Of course as it turned out that would have made a monkey of me, so it was just as well that I dubbed it. As it was, leaving the car outside the fence, with the knife in one hip pocket and the trowel in the other, and the folded paper bags in the side pocket of my coat, I walked across the lawn to where Larry stood near the pool, glowering at it. When he heard me coming he transferred the glower to me.

  "Hello," I said amiably. "What, no alligators?"

  "No. They're gone."

  "And Mister? And the bears?"

  "Yes. What the hell are you doing here?"

  I suppose it would have been sensible to appease him, but he was really quite irritating. Tone and look both. So I said, "I came to play tag with Mister," and started for the house, but Janet appeared, cutting across the lawn. She looked prettier than I remembered her, or maybe not so much prettier as more interesting. Her hair was done differently or something. She said hello to me and let me have a hand to shake, and then told Larry:

  "Maryella says you'll have to help her with those Corliss bills. Some of them go back before she came, and she doesn't seem to trust my memory."

  Larry nodded at her, and, moving, was in front of me. "What do you want?" he demanded.

  "Nothing special," I said. "Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom-"

  "If you've got a bill, mail it. You'll get about three percent."

  I suppressed impulses and shook my head. "No bill. I came to see Miss Nichols."

  "Yes you did. You came to snoop-"

  But Janet had her hand on his arm. "Please, Larry. Mr. Goodwin phoned and asked to see me. Please?"

  I would have preferred smacking him, and it was irritating to see her with her hand on his arm looking up at him the way she did, but when he turned and marched off towards the house I restrained myself and let him go.

  I asked Janet, "What's eating him?"

  "Well," she said, "after all, you are a detective. And his aunt has died-terrible, it was terrible-"

  "Sure. If you want to call that grief. What was the crack about three per cent?"

  "Oh . . ." She hesitated. "But there's nothing secret about it, goodness knows. Miss Huddleston's affairs are tangled up. Everybody thought she was rich, but apparently she spent it as fast as she made it."

  "Faster, if the creditors are going to get three percent." I got started towards the terrace, and she came beside me. "In that case, the brother and the nephew are out of luck. I apologize to Larry. He's probably overcome by grief, after all."

  "That's a mean thing to say," Janet protested.

  "Then I take it back." I waved it away. "Let's talk about something else."

  I was thinking the best plan was to sit with her on the terrace, with the idea of getting her to leave me alone there for a few minutes, which was all I needed, but the hot noon sun was coming straight down, and she went on into the house with me behind her. She invited me to sit on a couch with her, but with the tools in my hip pockets I thought it was safer to take a chair facing her. We had a conversation.

  Of course the simplest thing would have been to tell her what I wanted to do and then go ahead and do it, and I deny that it was any suspicion of her, either as a letter writer or as a murderess, that kept me from doing that. It was the natural desire I had not to hurt her feelings by letting her know that my real purpose in coming was not just to see her. If things should develop it was good policy to have her friendly. So I played it for a solo. I was thinking it was about time to get on with it, and was figuring out an errand for her, preferably upstairs, that would be sure to keep her five minutes, when suddenly I saw something through the window that made me stare.

  It was Daniel Huddleston on the terrace with a newspaper bundle under his arm and a long-bladed knife in one hand and a, garden trowel in the other!

  I stood up to see better.

  "What is it?" Janet asked, and stood up too. I shushed her and whispered in her ear, "First lesson for a detective. Don't make any noise."

  Brother Daniel stopped near the center of the terrace, in front of the swing, knelt down on a flagstone, deposited the newspaper bundle and some folded newspapers beside him, and the trowel, and plunged the knife into the strip of turf at the edge of the flagstone. There was nothing furtive about it; he didn't do any glancing over his shoulder, but he worked fast. With the trowel he scooped out a hunk of the turf, the width of the strip, about six inches long and three inches deep, and rolled it in a piece of newspaper. Then a second one, to the right of the first hole, and then a third one, to the left, wrapping each separately.

  "What on earth does he think he's doing?" Janet whispered. I squeezed her arm.

  He was about done. Opening the package he had brought with him, he produced three strips of turf the size and shape of those he had just dug out, fitted them into the trench he had made, pressed them with his foot until they were level with the flagstone, remade the package with the three hunks he had removed, and the knife and trowel, and went off as if he were bound somewhere.

  I took Janet's hand and gave her an earnest eye. "Listen, girlie," I said, "my one fault is curiosity. Otherwise I am perfect. Don't forget that. It's time for your lunch anyway."

  She said something to my back as I made for the door. I emerged onto the terrace cautiously, slid across and into the hedge of shrubbery, made a hole and looked through. Daniel was forty paces away, going across the lawn not in the direction of the drive where my car was but the other way, off to the right. I decided to give him another twenty paces before emerging, and it was well that I did, for suddenly a voice sounded above me:

  "Hey, Uncle Dan! Where you going?"

  Daniel stopped in his tracks and whirled. I twisted my neck, and through the leaves got a glimpse of Larry's head sticking out of an upper window, and Maryella's beside it.

  Larry shouted, "We need you!"

  "See you later!" Daniel yelled.

  "But it's time for lunch!" Maryella called.

  "See you later!" Daniel turned and was off.

  "Now that's a performance," Maryella said to Larry.

  "Cuckoo," Larry declared.

  Their heads went in. But they might still have been looking out, so I scooted along the side of the house to the corner, and from there circled wide around evergreens and similar obstructions before swinging into the direction Daniel had taken. He wasn't in sight. This part of the premises was new to me, and the first thing I knew I ran smack into the fence in the middle of a thicket. I couldn't fight my way through on account of noise, so I doubled around, dashed along the edge of the thicket, and pretty soon hit a path. No sight of Daniel. The path took me to a series of stone steps up a steep bank, and up I went. Getting to the top, I saw him. A hundred feet ahead was a gate in the fence, and he was shutting
the gate and starting down a lane between rows of little trees. The package was under his arm. In a way I was more interested in the package than I was in him. What if he threw it down a sewer? So I closed up more than I would have for an ordinary tailing job, and proceeding through the gate, followed him down the lane. At the end of the lane, not far ahead, he stopped, and I dived into the trees.

  He had stopped at a curb, a paved street. The way cars were rolling by, apparently it was a main traffic street; and that point was settled when a double-decker bus jerked to a stop right square in front of Daniel, and he climbed on and-off the bus went.

  I hotfooted it to the corner. It was Marble Avenue. Riverdale is like that. The bus was too far away to read its number, and no taxi was in sight in either direction. I stepped into the street, into the path of the first car coming, and held up a commanding palm. By bad luck it was occupied by the two women that Helen Hokinson used for models, but there was no time to pick and choose. I hopped into the back seat, gave the driver a fleeting glimpse of my detective license, and said briskly:

  "Police business. Step on it and catch up with a bus that's ahead."

  The one driving emitted a baby scream. The other one said, "You don't look like a policeman. You get out. If you don't we'll drive to a police station."

  "Suit yourself, madam. While we sit and talk the most dangerous gangster in New York is escaping. He's on the bus."

  "Oh! He'll shoot at us."

  "No. He isn't armed."

  "Then why is he dangerous?"

  "For God's sake," I reached for the door latch, "I'll take a car with a man in it!"

  But the car started forward. "You will not," the driver said fiercely. "I'm as good a driver as any man. My husband says so."

  She was okay at that. Within a block she had it up to fifty, and she was good at passing, and it wasn't long before we caught up with the bus. At least, a bus. When it stopped at a corner I told her to get alongside, which she did neatly, and with my hand over my face I looked for him and there he was.

  "I'm shadowing him," I told the ladies. "I think he's on his way to meet a crooked politician. The first empty taxi we see you can let me out if you want to, but of course he might suspect a taxi, whereas he never would suspect a car like this with two good-looking well-dressed women in it."

  The driver looked grim. "In that case," she declared, "it is our duty."

  And by gum she crawled along behind that bus for a good three-quarters of an hour, to Riverside Drive, the whole length of the Drive, over to Broadway, and on downtown. I thought the least I could do was furnish diversion, which I did with tales of my experiences with gangsters and kidnappers and so forth. When Daniel was still on the bus after crossing 42nd Street I decided in disgust that he was probably bound for Headquarters, and I was so deeply considering the feasibility of intercepting him before he got there that I nearly missed it when he hopped to the sidewalk at 34th Street. Paying the ladies with thanks and a cordial smile, I jumped out and dodged through the midday shopping mob, and almost lost him. I picked him up going west on 34th.

  At Eighth Avenue he turned uptown. I kept twenty yards behind.

  At 35th he turned west again.

  That was when I got suspicious. Naturally. On he went, straight as a bullet. When he kept on west of Ninth Avenue, there was no question about it. I closed up. He began looking at the numbers on buildings, and came to the stoop and started up. Boy, I'm telling you, they don't get away from me. I get my man. I had trailed this one the length of New York, hanging on like a bulldog, right to Nero Wolfe's door.

  Chapter 5

  I had been thinking fast the last two blocks. I had considered, and rejected, three different maneuvers to keep Wolfe from finding out. They all seemed good, but I knew damn well none of them was good enough. He would find out all right, no matter what I did. So I bounded up the steps past Daniel, greeted him, let us in with my key, and took him to the office.

  Wolfe, at his desk, frowned at us. "How do you do, Mr. Huddleston. Archie. Where have you been?"

  "I know," I said, "it's about lunch time, so I'll make it brief. First cast a glance at this." I took the knife, the trowel, and the paper bags from my pockets and put them on his desk.

  Daniel stared and muttered something.

  "What is this flummery?" Wolfe demanded.

  "No flummery," I asserted. "Tools. It still didn't rain last night. So I went to Riverdale to get the piece of turf where the orangutan poured the iodine. Brother Daniel had the same idea. He was just ahead of me. He's got it in that newspaper. I thought he might be going to toss it in the river, so I tailed him and he led me here. So I look foolish but not dumb. Now you can laugh."

  He didn't. He looked at Daniel. "Is that what you have in that package, Mr. Huddleston?"

  "It is," Daniel said. "I want-"

  "Why did you bring it to me? I'm not a chemist. You are."

  "Because I want to authenticate it. I want-"

  "Take it to the police."

  "No." Daniel looked and sounded determined. "They think I'm nothing but a nuisance. Maybe I am. But if I analyze this myself, without someone to-"

  "Don't analyze it yourself. You have colleagues, friends, haven't you?"

  "None I would want to give this to."

  "Are you sure you have the piece where the iodine was poured?"

  "I am. A few drops were on the edge of the flagstone. I also have pieces taken from each side of that piece, for comparison."

  "Naturally. Who suggested this step to you?"

  "No one. It occurred to me this mornhtg, and I immediately went up there-"

  "Indeed. I congratulate you. Take it to the Fisher Laboratories. You know them, don't you?"

  "Certainly." Daniel flushed. "I happen not to have any cash at the moment. They are expensive."

  "Establish credit. Your sister's estate. Aren't you her nearest relative?"

  "There is no estate. The liabilities greatly exceed the assets."

  Wolfe looked annoyed. "You are careless not to have cash. Confound it, you should have cash. You understand, sir, my finger is not in this pie. I am not concerned. My lunch is ready. I should bid you good day. But you seem to be capable of using your brains, and that is so rare a phenomenon it is a pity to waste it. Archie, phone Mr. Weinbach at the Fisher Laboratories. Tell him to expect Mr. Huddleston, to rush the analysis he requires, and to charge it to me. You can pay the bill, sir, at your convenience."

  Daniel hesitated. "I have a habit-I am extremely backward about paying bills-"

  "You'll pay this one. I'll see that you do. What is argyrol?"

  "Argyrol? Why-it's a silver-protein compound. Silver vietllin."

  "It stains like iodine. Could tetanus bacilli live in it?"

  Daniel considered. "I believe they could. It's far weaker-"

  Wolfe nodded impatiently. "Tell Mr. Weinbach to try for it." He got up. "My lunch is waiting."

  After I had finished the phone call and ushered Daniel out, with his package, I joined Wolfe in the dining room. Since no discussion of business was permitted at meals, I waited until we were back in the office again before observing:

  "I ought to tell you that Janet saw him lifting that turf, and Maryella and the nephew-"

  "There is no reason to tell me. I am not concerned." He pointed to the knife and trowel, still on his desk. "Where did you get those things?"

  "Bought them."

  "Please put them somewhere. They are not to appear on the expense account."

  "Then I'll keep them in my room."

  "Do so. By all means. Please take a letter to Mr. Hoehn."

  His tone said, and that's the end of Miss Huddleston and her affairs for this office, for you, and for me.

  No doubt it would have been, except for his vanity. Or perhaps it wasn't vanity; it may be that the reason he permitted his privacy to be invaded again by brother Daniel was that he wanted to impress on him the desirability of getting the bill of the Fisher Laboratories paid as
soon as possible. At any rate, when Daniel turned up some hours later, a little before seven that evening, Fritz was told to bring him to the office. At first sight of him I knew he had something, by the look in his eye and the set of his jaw. He tramped over to Wolfe's desk and announced:

  "My sister was murdered."

  He got an envelope from his pocket, took out a paper and unfolded it, and fumbled the job because his hands were trembling. He swayed a little, steadied himself with a hand on the edge of the desk, looked around for a chair, and sat down.

  "I guess I'm a little weak from excitement," he said apologetically. "Then I had only an apple for breakfast, and I haven't eaten anything since."

  It was probably the one thing in the world he could have said to keep Wolfe from telling him to go to the police and telling me to bounce him out. The one kind of man that never gets the gate at that house is one with an empty stomach. Glaring at him, not sympathetically but indignantly, Wolfe pushed a button and, when Fritz appeared, inquired:

  "How far along is the soup?"

  "Quite ready, sir, except for the mushrooms."

  "Bring a bowl of it, crackers, cottage cheese, and hot tea."

  Daniel tried to protest, but Wolfe didn't even listen. He heaved a deep sigh and leaned back and shut his eyes, a man who had eaten nothing but an apple for twenty-four hours being too painful an object to look at. When Fritz came with the tray I had a table ready in front of Daniel, and he wolfed a couple of crackers and blew on a spoonful of soup and swallowed it.

  I had acquired the sheet of paper he had taken from the envelope, a report sheet from Fisher Laboratories, and was looking it over. After some more spoonfuls Daniel said:

  "I knew it. I was sure of it. There couldn't-"

  "Eat!" Wolfe commanded sternly.

  "I'm eating. I'm all right. You were correct about the argyrol. That was a good guess. Argyrol and nothing else." A fork conveyed a hunk of cottage cheese to Daniel's mouth, but he went on, "Not a trace of iodine. And millions of tetanus bacilli, hundreds of millions. Weinbach said he never saw anything like it. And they were all concentrated on the one piece of turf, on the grass stems and the soil surface. The other two pieces had no sign either of the silver vietllin or the tetanus. Weinbach said . . ."