by Rex Stout
I didn’t thank her for the time. I departed, not on the run, but fast enough to get outside and to the car without hearing any remarks. I pulled the car door shut and looked at both my wrist and the dash clock, a habit. Seventeen minutes past eleven. By the time I got to Main Street, only three short blocks, I had the situation analyzed. For the Dowd Roofing Company, which was a few doors from the library, I should turn right. For the road to Lame Horse I should turn left. I turned left.
I took my time on the curves and bumps and ups-and-downs, and when I reached the end of the black top at Vawter’s General Store it was three minutes after noon. Three o’clock Saturday afternoon in New York, and Saul might have found Manhattan so empty for the summer weekend that he had called it a day, so I pulled up in front of the Hall of Culture, went in, and got permission from Woody to use the phone. The arrangement was that Saul was not to call us unless he had something urgent; we were to call him. But all I got on two tries was no answer, so I returned to the car and headed for the cabin. In time for lunch, I thought.
There wasn’t any lunch. There was no one on the terrace, and no one in the big room, or in Lily’s room, or in mine, or in Wolfe’s. But there were noises in the kitchen, and I found Wade there, at the can opener, opening a can of clam chowder. I asked him if it was enough for two, and he said no but there was more in the storeroom. I went and opened the small refrigerator for a survey, and got out a Boone County ham-what there was left of one. As I got a knife from a drawer I asked, “Are they all riding range?”
He was dumping the chowder into a pot. “No, they’re on wheels. A car from the ranch. If I got it straight, you and Wolfe are going across to the ranch this afternoon?”
“That was the idea. Late this afternoon.”
“Well, Mrs Greve came and said she would like to give Wolfe a real Montana trout deal if she had some trout, and they collected some tackle and grub and took off for the river.”
“Including Mr Wolfe?”
“No, Lily and Diana and Mimi. And Mrs Greve. Wolfe, I don’t know. I was in my room, but I heard him in the kitchen and the storeroom around ten o’clock, so wherever he is he’s not starving. Beer or coffee?”
I said neither one, thanks, I’d have milk.
We ate our snacks in the kitchen, and he probably thought my mind was wandering, because it was. It wasn’t likely that Wolfe had hiked the three miles to Farnham’s, to harass DuBois and others, but where was he? Worthy said there had been no phone call that he knew of, but he had been in his room. In addition to the Wolfe problem there was the Worthy problem. I had been floundering around for two full weeks and hadn’t got a smell, and now Gil Haight’s alibi was tight as a drum, and there I was having a bite and chatting with a man who had had both means and opportunity. Instead of a sociable chat, what I wanted to say to him was this:
“Since we’re fellow guests I ought to tell you that at my request a man named Saul Panzer, who is better at almost anything than anyone else I know, is working on you in New York. If you ever had any contact there with Philip Brodell, he’ll get it, so you might as well tell me now. I’m going to phone him between six and seven today and every day.”
I had to use will power to keep from saying it. I wanted and needed some action, and I might get some by saying that to him. Of course if I did and there really was something that Saul could find, something good enough, it was more than possible that Worthy would no longer be around when six o’clock came, but then it would be just a chase, and that would suit me fine. But I used will power and vetoed it. Wolfe was paying me, and I was supposed to act on intelligence guided by experience only when he couldn’t be consulted. So Worthy probably thought my mind was wandering.
After doing the dishes, the few we had used, he went to his room and I went outdoors. The question was how well did I know Nero Wolfe? and in two minutes I had answered it. If he had decided to do something desperate like phoning to Lame Horse or Timberburg for a car, or starting off on foot for Farnham’s, he would have left a note for me and he hadn’t. But he hadn’t known when to expect me back from Timberburg, and he would want to know how I had made out with Gil Haight, so he wouldn’t want me to roam around looking for him. Therefore I knew where he was. I went in and changed my shoes and slacks, left by the creek terrace, and started the climb. For the first few hundred yards I went right along, but when I got near the picnic spot I took it easy-not quiet enough to stalk a deer, but easy. The creek was only some thirty feet away from that rock, and along there it was fairly noisy.
He wasn’t on the rock, but his coat and vest were, and a book, and a knapsack. He wasn’t in sight. I advanced to the edge of the creek bank, which sloped down a little steep ten or twelve rocky feet in August, and there he was, perched on a boulder surrounded by water dancing along, his pants rolled up above his knees, his feet in the water, and the sleeves of his yellow shirt rolled up.
I said, raising my voice above the creek’s noise, “You’ll freeze your toes.”
His head turned. “When did you get back?”
“Half an hour ago. I ate something and came straight here. Where are your cuff links?”
“In my coat pocket.”
I went to the rock, lifted the coat, and found them in the right-hand pocket. Those two Muso emeralds, bigger than robin eggs, had once been in the earrings of a female who had later died and left them to Wolfe in her will. Only a year ago a man had offered him thirty-five grand for them, and I didn’t want that to be added to the cost of his getting me back to New York. I put them in my pocket, and as I put his coat down I noticed that the book was The First Circle, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Not the one about Indians. I went back to the rim of the bank and said, “I met a woman who could tell you all about red men, especially the tribes west of the Mississippi River. Incidentally, she gave Gil Haight’s alibi two good legs and a coat of feathers.”
“Meaning?”
“Forget him.”
He slid his feet around under eight inches of fast water, moved them right and left and out and back, feeling for a good spot, got upright, and faced the bank. Knowing how easy it was to take a tumble walking those loose rocks of all sizes, not only in the fast water where you couldn’t see them but even on the dry bank where you could, I made it five to one that he would go down. But he didn’t. He made it to a big flat slab of granite halfway up the bank, where he had left his shoes and socks, sat, and said, “Report.”
“When you’re up here out of danger.”
“I can’t put my socks on until the sun dries and warms my feet.”
“You should have brought a towel.” I sat, on the lip of the bank. “Verbatim?”
“If you still have the knack.”
I reported. First the brief exchanges with the Haights, including Gil’s signed statement, which I read, and then Bessie Boughton. I was a little rusty on word-for-word recall, having had no practice since June, and it was a pleasure to get back into the swing of it. By the time I got to the tar and feathers it was coming as smooth as a tape recorder, though the conditions were unprecedented. I had never before reported with him sitting on a slab of granite barefooted, wiggling his toes.
“So,” I said, “if we get a replacement for Harvey it won’t be Gilbert Haight. She has covered him good to half past four. It’s possible, better than possible, that she tells it like it was-I beg your pardon, as it was-but even if she’s a damn liar she’s a good one, and any jury would take it hook, line, and feathers. But that’s not the point because no jury will ever hear it. The point is Jessup. You said he’s an ass, but is he a double-breasted ass?”
“No.”
“Then we forget Gil.”
“Confound it, yes.”
He reached for his socks and shoes, put them on, kept a hand on the granite slab while he got erect with a solid footing, and came on up. I didn’t offer a hand because he wouldn’t have taken it, and anyway the more exercise he got the better. As he rolled his pants and sleeves down I got the cuff link
s from my pocket, and of course I had to put them in; he couldn’t very well show at the cabin with his cuffs flapping. Not him. Then he went to the rock and got his vest and put it on, and his coat, sat, and said, “What is a real Montana trout deal?”
“That’s a good question,” I said, “and I’m sorry you asked it.” I went and sat on the other rock. “It depends on who’s cooking it, and when and where. The first real Montana trout deal-that is, the first one cooked by a paleface-was probably at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fried on a campfire in a rusty pan in buffalo grease, with salt if they had any left. Since then there have been hundreds of versions, depending on what was handy. There’s an old-timer in a hardware store in Timberburg who says that for the real thing you rub bacon grease on a piece of brown wrapping paper, wrap it around the trout, with the head and tail on and plenty of salt and pepper, and put it in the oven of a camp stove as hot as you can get it. The time depends on the size of the trout. Mrs Greve got her version from an uncle of hers who was probably inspired by what he had left at the tail end of a packing-in trip. She has changed two details: she uses aluminum foil instead of wrapping paper, and the oven of her electric range instead of a camp stove. It’s very simple. Put a thin slice of ham about three inches wide on a piece of foil, sprinkle some brown sugar on it and a few little scraps of onion, and a few drops of Worcestershire sauce. Lay the trout on it, scraped and gutted but with the head and tail on, and salt it. Repeat the brown sugar and onion and Worcestershire, wrap the foil around it close, and put it in a hot oven. If some of the trout are eight or nine inches and others are fourteen or so, the timing is a problem. Serve them in the foil.”
He did not scowl or growl but merely said, “It could be edible.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I have noticed. You haven’t said a single thing, even to me, about the feed, even the griddle cakes from a mass-produced mix or the stuff from the freezer. Obviously you gave yourself your word of honour, probably on your way to the airport, that you would take the insults to your palate without a murmur. I can hear you telling Fritz about it when we get back, assuming we do. I hope they get plenty of trout. What is your honest opinion of the canned consomm��?”
I thought it would do him good to get it off his chest, but evidently he didn’t. He said, “You can’t go to St. Louis. You’re needed here.”
“Sure. To crack alibis.”
“Pfui. Have you any comments about last evening?”
“None to add to the one I made on the way back, and the one you made. I still like both of them. I like the way Farnham told you about the mortgage. It could have a bearing. Then the way Sam Peacock tried to slide past that morning when Brodell went for a look at Berry Creek. You had to interrupt him twice, and when you asked if Brodell had mentioned meeting anyone he tugged at his neck rag and said you asked a lot of questions. If Brodell was alive I’d like to ask him about that Thursday morning.”
“Yes. Would Mr Peacock be available if we went there now?”
“Saturday afternoon, I doubt it.”
“Will he be at that gathering at Mr Stepanian’s place this evening?”
“He always is.”
“Then we’ll see him there.”
“We? You’re going?”
“Yes.”
My brows didn’t go up; I was too impressed. I just stared.
“I’m thirsty,” Wolfe said. “There are two cans of beer in the creek.”
I rose and went to get them.
Chapter 8
At twenty minutes past five, four of us were sharing the front room at the Greves’ house with the pictures and ribbons and medals-and the silver cup and the saddle. All men. Carol Greve and Flora Eaton, the widow out of luck, were in the kitchen preparing the real Montana trout deal, which was scheduled for six o’clock. Alma was somewhere with the baby. Wolfe and I had arrived at five, and Pete Ingalls and Emmett Lake had been there expecting us, but Mel Fox had been held up by something wrong with a horse and we were waiting for him. Emmett, an old cowhand in his forties who looked the part, had said only two words, “Sit here,” to me, but Pete had said a lot. From his build you would suppose his chief interest was in something that took plenty of muscle, but he was postgraduating in paleontology at the University of California, Berkeley, and this was his third summer at the Bar JR. Wolfe had asked him a question about the demonstrations at Berkeley, starting a run of remarks that would have carried us right up to suppertime if Mel Fox hadn’t stopped it by joining us. Mel said he was sorry to be late and shook hands with Wolfe. He moved a chair up near mine, yanked his Levi’s as he sat, a habit of his, looked at his hands, and said he hadn’t even washed up. He asked if he had missed something he ought to know.
Wolfe shook his head. “We waited for you. I have been here three days, Mr Fox, and you may have wondered why I haven’t seen you sooner.”
“I guess I’ve been too busy to do much wondering.”
“I envy you. Wondering is about all I have done.” Wolfe sent his eyes right and left to take them in. “Mr Goodwin has acquainted me with you gentlemen, and if he had included any reason to suspect that one of you shot Philip Brodell I wouldn’t have waited until now to speak with you. I am here in the forlorn hope that one of you knows something, unwittingly, that will supply a suggestion. To try to uncover it by asking you questions would take days. Instead, I ask you to talk. Mr Fox, you first. Talk about Philip Brodell and his death.”
“I’m not a great talker.” Mel looked at me and back at Wolfe. “I’ve talked it out with Archie.”
“I know, but let me hear you. Let your tongue go.”
“Well.” Mel crossed his legs. “I never traded more than twenty words with Brodell. That was one day last summer. A Sunday morning, I was at Vawter’s getting some things, and he came over and said who he was and said he wanted to buy a rope to take home and it ought to be a used rope, and he wanted to know did I have one I would sell him. I told him I didn’t. I guess it wasn’t even twenty words. Maybe I saw him one or two other times but not to speak to, he was nothing to me. Of course he wasn’t around when it came out that he was the father of Alma’s baby. Then I couldn’t say he was nothing to me, because Alma-well, I pulled porky quills out of her leg when she was only five years old. There was a lot of talk about him then, but mostly I just listened because I didn’t have much to say except I’d like to skin him alive.”
“Then perhaps you should be suspected.”
“Yeah, go ahead. The sheriff did a little.”
“Why did he stop?”
“Because Harvey was just as good as me or better, and he’s got it in for Harvey. And Harvey was out alone that afternoon, and I wasn’t. Emmett Lake was with me right through, and Pete Ingalls too part of the time. The sheriff knew Emmett wouldn’t lie for me because he thinks he ought to have my job.”
“Balls,” Emmett said.
He was ignored. Wolfe asked Mel, “You knew Brodell was back?”
“Yeah, we all did. We heard about it, Pete did and told us, the day after he came, a Tuesday. After supper that night the three of us had a big argument. Pete said we ought to offer to help Harvey and Carol keep an eye on Alma day and night to keep her from seeing him again, and Emmett said we ought to lay off because he might marry her, and I said it was up to her father and mother and we had to just leave it to them unless they asked us. Like every argument I ever had a part of, nobody changed anybody. But Harvey didn’t say anything in the morning and neither did Carol, and it was a working day for all of us, and after supper Pete went off somewhere, and Emmett had a bellyache and went to bed. I told Archie all this.”
“I know you did. The argument was resumed Wednesday evening?”
“Some. We had calmed down a little and we didn’t work up a sweat. Thursday too, we had calmed down even more. Harvey had told me that Carol was sure that Alma hadn’t seen him and wasn’t going to. But like I told Archie, Pete and I were talking about him Thursday after supper, out by the big corral, rig
ht at the time he was laying on that boulder with two holes through him. It showed me once more, when I heard about it Friday, that you don’t always know what you’re talking about.”
“How could you? Not only ignorance. Man’s brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious effort to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we still try. Please continue.”
Mel shook his head. “There’s nowhere to continue to. I know what you’re aiming at, you want to make it that somebody else shot that Brodell, not Harvey. I’d like that as much as you and Archie would, but if you want to brand a calf that’s hid in the brush, first you’ve got to find him and tie him. What about that Haight kid?”
“Mr Goodwin has eliminated him.”
“No dice, Mel,” I said. “I spent the morning on him, and he’s absolutely out.”
“Who’s in?”
“Nobody. That’s why we’re here. Mr Wolfe thought you might have heard something about Brodell that would point.”
“I’ve been too busy to hear anything much, with Harvey gone. I’ve been across the creek just once in these two weeks, to Timberburg to see Harvey, and Morley Haight wouldn’t let me. By God, I wish you could brand him.”
Wolfe’s eyes had gone right. “Mr Lake. Tell me about Mr Brodell.”
“Dang Brodell,” Emmett said.
Actually that isn’t what he said. But about a year ago I got a four-page letter from a woman in Wichita, Kansas, saying that she had read all of my reports and that as each of her fourteen grandchildren reached his or her twelfth birthday she gave him or her copies of three of them just to get them started. If I go ahead and report what Emmett Lake actually said I would almost certainly lose that nice old lady, and what about the grandchildren who aren’t twelve yet? I don’t like censorship any better than you do, and if the payoff was going to be that it was Emmett who shot Brodell, I would have to report him straight and kiss Wichita good-by. But he just happened to be around because it was a ranch and he was a cowhand, so I’ll edit him. Those of you who like the kind of words he liked can stick them in yourselves, and don’t skimp.
