by Rex Stout
“That’s a wonderful idea,” I said. “Gee, it’s a good thing I stopped, I never would have thought of it. See you tomorrow. Good night. Woody.” I turned and walked out.
As I opened the car door Lily said, “He’s not coming?” but I waited until we were on the way to answer.
“Some day,” I said, “I will brown him in oil and sprinkle garlic on him. He is expecting phone calls. He suggested that I bathe and eat and go to bed. So either he has got something hot started that he thinks he doesn’t need my help with, or he is cooking up one of his screwy charades that he knows I wouldn’t like. Listen to me. That shows the frame of mind I’m in. You don’t cook a charade. Now as I lie and soak in a tub of water just hot enough, I won’t be making careful plans for tomorrow; I’ll be wondering what the hell we’re in for. From now on ignore me. Pretend I’m not here. If there was a dog at the cabin to come bouncing to greet me, I’d kick it.”
She said nothing for a mile, then: “I could go and borrow Bill Farnham’s dog.”
“Fine. Do that.”
As we turned into the lane: “But you’re going to eat.”
“You’re damn right I am. I’m starving.”
The ignition-key routine at the cabin was not to bother about it in the daytime, but the last one using the car in the afternoon or evening was supposed to take it in and put it at a certain spot on a shelf in the big room. So I took it, to show Lily and whom it might concern, meaning me, that I was through with it for the night. If Woody reneged on his offer to drive Wolfe home, he could walk.
I ate. Clean as a scraped trout, shaved, shampooed, manicured, teeth brushed, clad in a handsome gray silk belted toga with black dots, over white pajamas with no dots, I sat in the kitchen with Lily and ate turtle soup, two filets mignons, hashed-brown potatoes, bread and butter, milk, spinach with mushrooms and Madeira, honeydew melon, and coffee. Twice Diana came and asked if she could get us anything and we said no thanks, and the third time, when Mimi was pouring coffee, she asked if she could have some and we said yes. As she sat she said she had been dying to ask me about being in jail, and so was Wade; and she called him and he came.
I told them about the jail, making it pretty damn grim, putting in some bugs that were apparently attracted by the disinfectant, and a couple of lizards. Then they asked about the finding of Sam Peacock’s body, and then the big question, who killed him and why? On that, of course, I said that their guess was as good as mine, or better, since I had been in the clink; and I suggested a game of pinochle. I said a friendly game of pinochle would help to get my mind off of the ordeal I had been through. I did not say that it would be satisfactory, for me, to have Wolfe come and find me enjoying myself, with no concern for trivial things like murders; I merely thought it. Lily knew, of course; as we rose to go to the big room a corner of her mouth was up with that understanding smile that means, any woman to any man, How well I know you.
But I didn’t get the satisfaction. Shortly after eleven o’clock sounds came: a car stopping out in front, the car door slamming, the car moving again, faint footsteps, a door opening and closing, and footsteps in the long hall, receding. We had been visible through the window, but he had gone to the door to the hall and to his room.
“Nero the great,” Wade said. “I’m not jeering, Archie, or if I am it’s not at his talents, only at his manners. If he doesn’t want to tell us about things he might at least take the trouble to say good night to his hostess. And you. Does he even know you’re out of jail?”
I nodded. “Oh, sure. Lily and I stopped at Woody’s and he was there. He was watching Woody cook something the Turks stole from the Armenians. Your deal, Diana.” I was entering the score. “If you’ll deal me a two-hundred meld we’ll collect.”
She did and we did, though I almost spoiled it by making a dumb lead.
My decision to go and tell Wolfe good night was not a wag of my tail. As I told Lily when Diana and Wade had gone to their rooms, it was just possible that he had had a reason for putting on an act with Woody there, and a broad-minded man like me should give him a chance to say so. Therefore I went down the long hall, quietly even on the tile in my soft deerskin slippers, knocked on the door at the end, barely heard the “Come in,” and entered. He was in his yellow pajamas, barefooted, in the chair by the window, which was closed.
“I may sleep until noon,” I said. “Good night.”
“Pfui. Sit down.”
“I need a lot of rest after-”
“Confound it, sit down!”
I went to a chair and sat.
“I assume,” he said, “that Miss Rowan has told you that Mrs Greve brought that girl.”
“Yes. And she took some pictures and sent them to Saul, who is in St. Louis, and you and Jessup have been working on Peggy Truett practically nonstop. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“So am I. It should be a settled policy that all interviews with women are handled by you. Then you know that she is at the ranch. Mr Jessup put her under arrest yesterday evening; the current euphemism is ‘protective custody.’ She is being protected from annoyance by Sheriff Haight, with Mrs Greve and Miss Greve as her warders. She was and is an essential link. It’s worthy of remark that although you were confined you supplied a name that made it possible to arrange for the denouement.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“It’s arranged?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got it?”
“Yes. The last call from Saul, an hour ago, settled it, and I called Mr Jessup to tell him. A man or men will arrive in Helena at nine tomorrow morning and proceed to Timberburg. I am stretching a point and telling you that. The circumstances do not permit that I tell you more at present.”
My mouth opened and shut again. My eyes took him in, from the high and wide forehead down across the sea of yellow to the bare feet, and back up again. “If this is one of your spectacular razzle-dazzles,” I said, “with a long and tricky fuse, and if you leave me out because I might refuse to play, and if it blows up in your face, you won’t lose a client or a fee, you’ll lose me, and after what you’ve gone through the last five days, that would be a shame.”
“It would indeed.” He shook his head. “It isn’t that, Archie. You’ll have to await the event. But I must consult you now on a detail. I observed that with the other car there was a key which had to be turned to make it start, as with my cars which you drive, and the key was not left in the car overnight. It was brought inside and placed on a shelf. Is there a similar key with the car Miss Rowan has now?”
Naturally I suspected him of changing the subject just to sidetrack me, but I said only, “Yes.”
“And the car can’t be started without it?”
“It can be, but you have to have a couple of tools and you have to know how. I could do it, but you couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t even with the key, and certainly wouldn’t. Is the key for Miss Rowan’s car on the shelf now?”
“It should be. I put it there.”
“Get it in the morning, before breakfast, and put it in your pocket. I could do that myself, but it would be awkward if Miss Rowan wanted to use the car. That’s the detail. It’s late. Good night.”
There was no point, absolutely none, in wasting my breath on either a comment or a question, and I was tired all over. I rose, said good night, and went. By the time I got to my room I had decided that either Wade Worthy or Diana Kadany was it, and by the time I was under the blanket with the light out I had decided it was Wade because I couldn’t see Diana smashing Sam Peacock’s skull with a rock.
Chapter 13
At five minutes past nine Tuesday morning I concluded that it couldn’t be either Wade or Diana.
The conclusion was on good and sufficient grounds. As you know, having murder suspects for fellow guests had been hard for Wolfe to take, and if one of them was no longer merely a possible candidate, if the denouement he had arranged for was to put the tag on one of them, he certainly
wouldn’t show up for a sociable breakfast, even if it meant going without. But when I entered the kitchen, with the car key in my pocket, there he was, seated across from Wade, drinking orange juice, talking man to man. Mimi was at the range turning French toast, Lily was arranging bacon on a platter, and Diana was pouring coffee. As I exchanged good mornings and joined Wolfe and Wade at the table I was not in a mood to be the life of the party. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t be eating breakfast with a murderer, but in that case why did I have that car key in my pocket?
The answer came with the second batch of French toast. The conversation had been mostly about jails, which apparently had a fascination for Diana. Wolfe was telling about one in Austria he had once escaped from, and he turned to Lily and said, “Speaking of escape, Miss Rowan, it would be ungracious to regard my departure from here as an escape, but I didn’t come for pleasure, and I won’t pretend that I shall be sorry to get back to my proper milieu. Mr Goodwin and I will be leaving soon, probably tomorrow morning. Your hospitality and your tolerance of my temperament have been the mitigation.”
Lily was gawking at him, and she is not a gawker. She looked at me, saw nothing helpful, and looked at him. “You say���” She returned to me. “You’re going too, Archie?”
I don’t know what I would have said, with the other two guests there, if Wolfe hadn’t fielded it. “It’s barely possible,” he said, “that the event will not meet my expectation, but I don’t think so. I spoke on the telephone yesterday, several times, with a man in St. Louis-a man named Saul Panzer, whom I sent there-and there seems to be no doubt. Mr Panzer had photographs of people who are now in Montana, and one of them has been identified by several people in St. Louis. Six years ago, in the summer of nineteen sixty-two, a young woman met a violent death. She was strangled, throttled with a man’s belt. The belt and other evidence pointed to a man named Carl Yaeger as the probable culprit, but he wasn’t apprehended because he couldn’t be found. He had decamped. He has never been found-until now. One of the photographs Mr Panzer had was of Carl Yaeger, and a St. Louis policeman is now on his way to Montana. Indeed-what time is it, Archie?”
“Nine-thirty-seven.”
“Then he arrived at Helena half an hour ago and is now en route to Timberburg.” He focused on Lily. “So it is reasonable to suppose that my expectation will be realized. I don’t give you the man’s name-the name you know him by-because of my semi-official status. My commitment to Mr Jessup. But I can tell you that certain evidence indicates that Carl Yaeger is remarkably versatile in method. He strangled a woman, shot a man, and crushed another man’s skull with a rock. Not many murderers have so patly fitted the crime to the occasion. So Mr Greve will soon be released, probably in time for Mr Goodwin and me to greet him before we leave.”
Lily was squinting at him. “Then you-you really-”
“We really have brought it off. Yes. I tell you now because I would like to exchange favours with you. I need some trout. I know there are more and larger trout in the river, but there are some in the creek, and the size I prefer. If you and Miss Kadany and Mimi will take the day for it you can reasonably expect to be back by five o’clock with enough for my purpose. Can’t you?”
Lily was still squinting. “That depends on your purpose.”
“That’s my favour. Yours, for me, is to get the trout. Mine, for you, is to serve a real Nero Wolfe trout deal at your table. It can’t be true truite Montbarry because some of the ingredients are not at hand, but I’ll manage. If you will?”
Lily sent me a look that asked, “Is this part of a screwy charade that you don’t like?” I answered out loud, “Of course if I went along we’d be sure of getting enough, but I may be needed to run an errand. Anyway, three of you-you only have to get five or six ten-inchers apiece.”
I had had to change my conclusion again, the second time in less than an hour, since it was now obvious: I had the car key in my pocket because Wade Worthy was it and he had been tipped off. But what came next? Was Wolfe sending the females off to spare them the sight of one guest being forcibly detained by another guest? If so, why hadn’t he waited until they were gone to raise the curtain? Those questions, and others like them, were in my mind as Wolfe finished his fifth or sixth piece of French toast, and Wade decided he had had enough toast and bacon but kept his hand steady as he lifted his coffee cup, and Lily and Diana and Mimi agreed that they had better leave by ten o’clock and take a can of salmon eggs just in case. I said Wade and I would clean up but was ignored, and as they started operations we left-Wade to the right, to his room, and Wolfe across to the outside door. I followed him out to the terrace and across it. Apparently he was going to the car to make sure the key wasn’t there, but he went on by, nearly to the beginning of the lane, stopped, and said, “We’re out of earshot.”
“Yeah. We’re also out of step. I wait until Miss Rowan is even further out of earshot and then show him my credentials and take him? Is that it?”
“No. If it were, I would have told you beforehand. There is nothing for you to do, or me either, until Mr Haight comes for him, with the St. Louis policeman. That will probably be around one o’clock. The St. Louis man will get to Timberburg about noon, and according to Mr Jessup he will go to the sheriffs office. That’s the normal procedure. And Mr Haight will bring him here.”
I was staring at him. “And meanwhile, I do not take Carl Yaeger alias Wade Worthy?”
“Yes. You do not. I presume he will not be here when they arrive. How and where he will have gone, I don’t know. Finding that the key to Miss Rowan’s car is not available, he will probably cross the creek and go to the ranch, hoping to take one of the cars there, but Mrs Greve and Mr Fox will have made sure that he can’t. Therefore he will have to walk-or run-presumably to Lame Horse. Stop staring at me. If I don’t tell you the details of the arrangement you’ll probably go dashing off in pursuit, so I had better tell you.”
He told me.
Chapter 14
They came at ten minutes past one.
Wolfe and I were seated in the two best chairs on the terrace, discussing the character and career of Woodrow Stepanian. With the women gone, and Wade gone, we were as alone as if we had been in the old brownstone on West 35th Street. We hadn’t seen Wade go, so he had probably crossed the creek for a try for a car at the ranch, as Wolfe had supposed. We had been very busy. I had put the clothes I had worn in jail out to air, draped on bushes, because there wouldn’t be time to have them washed or cleaned. I had done a thorough job on Wade’s room, not to get anything on or about him, but to collect and remove everything connected with the book he wasn’t going to write. It filled two cartons, which I took to Lily’s room. I took a look around her room, and mine, and the big room, to see if anything was missing, but that was just a professional gesture, since he had left on foot in a hurry and needed to travel light. I had phoned Mid-Continent Airlines in Helena to reserve two seats on the morning flight to Denver and a connecting flight to New York. Wolfe had done four things: packed most of his belongings, inspected every shelf and cupboard in the storeroom, but not the freezers, to get ingredients for a real Nero Wolfe trout deal, read a chapter in the book about Indians, and made a casserole of eggs boulang��re for our early lunch. Before joining him on the terrace I had locked the windows and outside doors of the cabin.
It was Haight’s black Olds sedan that came down the lane and stopped right in the middle of the clearing. Three men climbed out-Haight, Ed Welch, and a six-foot square-jawed guy in a blue suit that looked as if it had been traveled in, which was to be expected if he had just arrived from St. Louis. All the attention Wolfe and I got was side glances. The stranger came and stood at the edge of the terrace, and Haight and Welch went and pushed the button at the cabin door. Getting no response, they knocked, twice, the second time good and loud. Haight pulled the screen door open and tried the knob of the solid one with no luck. He said something to Welch, and Welch went to the other door, to the hall, and tried
that. He returned to Haight, and they both left the terrace at the right end and disappeared around the corner of Lily’s room. The stranger turned and approached Wolfe and me, and spoke. “I’m Sergeant Schwartz of the St. Louis police. I believe you’re Nero Wolfe.”
Wolfe nodded. “I am. And Mr Archie Goodwin. You may as well sit.”
“Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure, Mr Goodwin.” But he didn’t sit; he stood and looked around at the scenery, and in a couple of minutes the other two appeared, at the left, having circled the house. Haight came and confronted me and demanded, “Where’s Miss Rowan?”
I shook my head. “I’m out on bail. Standing mute.”
“You goddam punk, where’s Wade Worthy?”
I tapped my lips with a fingertip.
Wolfe said, “I’m articulate, Mr Haight. But I like eyes at a level, so you’ll have to sit down if you want to talk.”
“Where’s Wade Worthy?”
“Sit down or leave. All of you. This will take a while. Carl Yaeger, alias Wade Worthy, is not on the premises.”
“Where is he?”
“Sit down or go.”
Sergeant Schwartz was moving. He went to a chair facing Wolfe, sat, and asked politely, “Where is Carl Yaeger, Mr Wolfe?”
“I don’t know. I should mention that we were expecting you, Mr Schwartz. I assume you have met Mr Saul Panzer, whom I sent to St. Louis. Having spoken with him on the telephone late last evening, I knew you were coming.”
Schwartz nodded. “I knew you knew. You don’t know where Carl Yaeger is?”
“No.”
“When did you see him last?”
“About four-” Wolfe stopped because of the noise made by the chairs Haight and Welch were shoving. When they were in them he said, “About four hours ago. But it-”
“Is he in the cabin?” Haight demanded.
“No. I said-”
“Why are the doors locked with you sitting out here?”
