Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 10

by Not Quite Dead Enough

  I beat him to the door with a skip and a jump, and closed it when we were through. In the corridor people, mostly in uniform, were looking out of doors, and popping out. Some were headed for the far end of the corridor, a couple of them running. Voices came from up ahead, and a curtain of smoke or dust, or both, came drifting toward us, pushing a sour sharp smell in front of it. We went on into it, to the end, and turned right.

  It was one swell mess. It looked exactly like a blurred radiophoto with the caption, Our Troops Taking an Enemy Machine-Gun Nest in a Sicilian Village. Debris, crumbled plaster, a door hanging by one hinge, most of a wall gone, men in uniform looking grim. Standing in what had been the doorway, facing out, was Colonel Tinkham. When two men tried to push past him into what had been Ryder’s room, he barred the way and bellowed, “Stand back! Back to that corner!” They backed up, but only about five paces, where they bumped into Wolfe and me. Others were behind us and around us.

  From the commotion in the rear one voice was suddenly heard above the others: “General Fife!”

  A lane opened up, and in a moment Fife came striding through. At sight of him Tinkham moved forward from the doorway, and behind Tinkham, from within, came Lieutenant Lawson. They both saluted, which may sound silly, but somehow didn’t look silly. Fife returned it and asked, “What’s in there?”

  Lawson spoke. “Colonel Ryder, sir.”

  “Dead?”

  “Good God, yes. All blown apart.”

  “Anyone else hurt?”

  “No, sir. No sign of anybody.”

  “I’ll take a look. Tinkham, clear this hall. Everybody back where they belong. No one is to leave the premises.”

  Nero Wolfe rumbled in my ear, “This confounded dust. And smell. Come, Archie.”

  That was the only occasion I remember when he willingly climbed a flight of stairs. Not knowing what orders had already been given to the corporal by the elevators, he probably wanted to avoid delay. Nobody interfered with us, since going to the eleventh floor was not leaving the premises. He marched straight through the anteroom to General Fife’s office, with me at his heels, straight to the big leather chair with its back to a window, sat down, got himself properly adjusted, and told me:

  “Telephone that place, wherever it is, and tell them to send some beer.”

  Chapter 3

  Our old friend and foe, Inspector Cramer of the Homicide Squad, tilted his cigar up from the corner of his mouth and again ran his eye over the sheet of paper in his hand. I had typed the thing myself from General Fife’s dictation. It read:

  Colonel Harold Ryder of the United States Army was accidentally killed at four o’clock this afternoon when a grenade exploded in his office at 17 Duncan Street. It is not known exactly how the accident occurred. The grenade was of a new type, with great explosive power, not yet issued to our forces, and was in Colonel Ryder’s possession officially, in the line of duty. Colonel Ryder was attached to the New York unit of Military Intelligence headed by Brigadier General Mortimer Fife.

  “Even so,” Cramer growled, “it’s pretty skimpy.”

  Wolfe was still in the big leather chair, with three empty beer bottles on the window sill behind him. Fife was seated behind his desk. I had stepped across to hand Cramer the paper and then propped myself against the wall at ease.

  “You may elaborate it as you see fit,” Fife suggested without enthusiasm. He looked a little bedraggled.

  “Sure.” Cramer removed his cigar. “Elaborate it with what?” He waved it away with the cigar. “You’re an Army man. I’m a policeman. I’m paid by the City of New York to investigate sudden or suspicious death. So I need facts. Such as, where did the grenade come from and how did it get into his desk drawer? How much carelessness would it take to make it go off accidentally? Such as, can I see one like it? Military security says nothing doing. What I don’t know won’t hurt me. But it does hurt me.”

  Fife said, “I let you bring your men in and go over it.”

  “Damn sweet of you.” Cramer was really upset. “This building is not United States property and it’s in my borough, and you talk about letting me!” He waggled the sheet of paper. “Look here, General. You know how it is as well as I do. Ordinarily, if there was no background to this, I’d rub it out without a murmur. But Captain Cross was working under Ryder, that’s one fact I’ve got, and Cross was murdered. And right here in the building, here when it happened, and sitting here now in your office when I enter, is Nero Wolfe. I’ve known Wolfe for something like twenty years, and I’ll tell you this. Show me a corpse, any corpse, under the most ideal and innocent circumstances, with a certificate signed by every doctor in New York, including the Medical Examiner. Then show me Nero Wolfe anywhere within reach, exhibiting the faintest sign of interest, and I order the squad to go to work immediately.”

  “Bosh.” Wolfe nearly opened his eyes. “Have I ever imposed on you, Mr. Cramer?”

  “What!” Cramer goggled at him. “You’ve never done anything else!”

  “Nonsense. At any rate, I’m not imposing on you now. All this is a waste of time. You know very well you can’t bulldoze the Army, especially not this branch of it.” Wolfe sighed. “I’ll do you a favor. I believe the mess down there hasn’t been disturbed. I’ll go down and take a look at it. I’ll consider the situation, what I know of it, which is more than you’re likely ever to find out. Tomorrow I’ll phone you and give you my opinion. How will that do?”

  “And meanwhile?” Cramer demanded.

  “Meanwhile you take your men out of here and stay out. I remind you of the opinion I gave you regarding Captain Cross.”

  Cramer stuck his cigar back in his mouth and clamped his teeth on it, folded the paper and put it in his pocket, leaned back, and hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, with an air implying that he was there for the duration. He was glaring at Wolfe. Then he jerked forward in his chair and growled, “Phone me tonight.”

  “No.” Wolfe was positive. “Tomorrow.”

  Cramer regarded him three seconds more, then stood up and addressed General Fife. “I’ve got nothing against the Army. As an Army. We can’t fight a war without an Army. But it would suit me fine if the whole goddamn outfit would clear out of my borough and get on ships bound for Germany.” He turned and went.

  Wolfe sighed again.

  Fife pursed his lips and shook his head. “You can’t blame him.”

  “No,” Wolfe agreed. “Mr. Cramer is constantly leaping at the throat of evil and finding himself holding on for dear life to the tip of its tail.”

  “What?” Fife squinted at him. “Oh. I suppose so.” He got out his handkerchief and used it on his brow and face and neck, removing an old smear but producing new ones. He shot me a glance, and went back to Wolfe. “About Ryder. I’d rather discuss it with you privately.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “Not without Major Goodwin. I use his memory. Also for years I’ve found his presence an irritant which stimulates my cells. What about Ryder? Wasn’t it an accident?”

  “I suppose it was. What do you think?”

  “I haven’t thought. Nowhere to start. Could it have been an accident? If he took it from the drawer and it dropped on the floor?”

  “No,” Fife declared. “Out of the question. Anyway, it was somewhere above the desk when it exploded. The desk top was smashed downward. And that pin is joltproof. It requires a sharp firm lateral pull.”

  “Then it wasn’t an accident,” Wolfe said placidly. “Suicide remains, and so does—By the way, what about that woman in his anteroom? That female in uniform. Where was she?”

  “Not there. Out to lunch.”

  “Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows went up. “At four o’clock?”

  “So she told Tinkham. He spoke with her when she returned. She’s waiting outside now. I sent for her.”

  “Get her in here. And may I—?”

  “Certainly.” Fife lifted his phone and spoke in it.

  In a moment the door opened and Sergeant Br
uce entered. She came in three steps, getting the three of us at a glance, stopped with her heels together, and snapped a salute. She appeared to be quite herself, only extremely solemn. She advanced when she was told to.

  “This is Nero Wolfe,” Fife said. “He’ll ask you some questions, and you’ll answer as from me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sit down,” Wolfe told her. “Archie, if you’ll move that chair around? Excuse me, General, if I violate regulations, a major waiting on a sergeant, but I find it impossible to regard a woman as a soldier and don’t intend to try.” He looked at her. “Miss Bruce. That’s your name?”

  “Yes, sir. Dorothy Bruce.”

  “You were at lunch when that thing exploded?”

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice was as clear and composed as it had been when she told me she was in my eye.

  “Is that your usual lunch hour? Four o’clock?”

  “No, sir. Shall I explain?”

  “Please. With a minimum of sirs. I am not a field marshal in disguise. Go ahead.”

  “Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, that was automatic. I have no usual lunch hour. At Colonel Ryder’s request, I mean his order, I have been going to lunch whenever he did, so I would be on duty when he was in his office. Today he didn’t go to lunch—that is, I don’t think he did—at least he didn’t come out through the anteroom and let me know he was going, as he always had done. When he called me in at a quarter to four to give me some instructions, he asked if I had had lunch and said he had forgotten about it, and told me to go then. I went down to the corner drugstore and had a sandwich and coffee. I got back at twenty past four.”

  Wolfe’s half-closed eyes never left her face. “The corner drugstore?” he inquired mildly. “Didn’t you hear the explosion or see any excitement?”

  “No, sir. The drugstore is a block and a half away, around on Mitchell Street.”

  “You say Colonel Ryder didn’t go to lunch? Was he constantly in his office right through to a quarter to four?”

  “I think I qualified that. I said he didn’t come out through the anteroom. Of course he could have left by the other door at any time, the one direct from his room to the outer hall, and re-entered the same way. He often used that door.”

  “Was that door kept locked?”

  “Usually it was, yes, sir.” She hesitated. “Should I confine myself to the question?”

  “We want information, Miss Bruce. If you have it we want it.”

  “Only about that door. Colonel Ryder had a key to it, of course. But on two occasions I saw him, going out that way, intending to return soon, push the button that released the lock so that he could get back in without using the key. If you want details like that—”

  “We do. Have you got some more?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. I only mentioned that because you asked if that door was kept locked.”

  “Have you any idea how this thing happened?”

  “Why—” Her eyes flickered. “I thought—I understand it was a grenade Colonel Ryder had in his desk.”

  Fife shot at her, “How do you know it was a grenade?”

  Her head pivoted to him. “Because, sir, everyone is saying that it was. If it was a secret—it isn’t now.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Wolfe said peevishly. “If you please, General. Have you any idea, Miss Bruce, how the grenade got exploded?”

  “Certainly not! I mean—no, sir.”

  “It is permissible to mean certainly not,” Wolfe murmured at her. “You know nothing whatever about it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What were the instructions Colonel Ryder gave you at a quarter to four when he called you in?”

  “Only routine matters. He said he was leaving for the day, and told me to sign the letters, and that he wouldn’t be in tomorrow and I should cancel any appointments he had.”

  “That was all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were his confidential secretary?”

  “Well—I don’t know how confidential I was. I have been here less than two weeks and had never met Colonel Ryder before. I suppose, really, for that sort of job, I was still on trial. I only came up from Washington ten days ago.”

  “What had you been doing in Washington?”

  “I was secretary to one of General Carpenter’s assistants. Lieutenant Colonel Adams.”

  Wolfe grunted, and closed his eyes. Sergeant Bruce sat and waited. Fife had his lips pressed into a straighter line than usual, apparently restraining himself. He wasn’t accustomed to playing audience while someone else asked questions, but probably hadn’t forgotten the time Wolfe had made him look silly in front of three lieutenants and a private who had been tailing a distinguished visitor from Mexico. Wolfe grunted again, this time what I called his number-three grunt, which meant he was displeased, and I had no idea what had riled him. I thought Sergeant Bruce had been courteous, co-operative, and cute. Then he opened his eyes, shifted his center of gravity, and got his hands braced on the chair arms, and of course that explained it. He was displeased because he had decided he was going to stand up.

  He did so, rumbling, “That’s all for the present, Miss Bruce. You’ll be available, of course. As you know, General, I promised Mr. Cramer I’d take a look at the ruins. Come, Archie.” He took a step. But Fife stopped him:

  “Just a minute, please. All right, Bruce, you may go.”

  She arose, hesitated a moment, then faced the general. “May I ask you something, sir?”

  “Yes. What?”

  “They won’t let me take anything from my room, sir. I have some things—just personal belongings—I was away over the week-end and came direct to the office from the station this morning. Colonel Ryder gave me a passout—but I suppose it isn’t valid—now.”

  “All right, go ahead.” Fife sounded fed up. “I’ll send instructions to Colonel Tinkham—By the way—” He squinted at her. “You have no office and no job. Temporarily. You sound intelligent and capable. Are you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The devil you are. We’ll see. Report in my anteroom tomorrow morning. If you have favorite tools, bring them with you. You’d better get them out of there now, that place will be cleaned up tonight. Tell Colonel Tinkham—no, I’ll tell him. You may go.”

  She saluted, whirled, and went out like a soldier.

  Fife waited until the door had closed behind her before he spoke to Wolfe. “You were saying something. Before we had Bruce come in.”

  “Nothing of importance.” Wolfe was curt, as always when he talked standing up. “Accident, no. Suicide, possibly. Murder? It appears that anyone might have entered that room when Ryder wasn’t there, without being observed, since Ryder might have gone out by the hall door and left it unlocked.”

  “Entered? And then what?”

  “Oh, as his fancy struck him. Got the grenade from the desk. Took it away. Later, when Miss Bruce left, entered the anteroom, opened the door there into Ryder’s room, pulled the pin from the grenade, tossed it at Ryder, and pumped back into the hall. That, of course, raises the interesting point that presumably only six people knew the grenade was there: Tinkham, Lawson, Shattuck, you, Goodwin, me. I know of nothing that eliminates anyone but the last two. Take you, for instance. You’ve been here all afternoon?”

  Fife’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “That’s a good plan; start at the top. Yes, I’ve been here, but I’m afraid I can’t prove I haven’t left this room. Shattuck came back with me after lunch, but he left around two-thirty. Then I dictated for half an hour, but after that I guess you have me.”

  Wolfe grunted. “Bah! This is nothing but gibberish, as it stands now. I’ll run down and take a look.”

  He stalked out and I followed. As I was pulling the front door to, softly since it was a general’s door, I heard Fife at his phone asking for Colonel Tinkham.

  There was delay down on the tenth floor, at the scene. In what had been the doorway to Colonel Ryder’s room from th
e hall stood a corporal with accouterments. The fact that he would have weighed over 200 even without the accouterments made it seem all the more formidable when he said no one could enter, including us. When Wolfe told me to go and get Fife and haul him down there, I stalled; and, as I expected, in a minute Colonel Tinkham arrived to tell the corporal it was okay, orders from General Fife. Then Tinkham joined our party by preceding us into the shambles. Wolfe asked him if anything had been taken out, and Tinkham said no, the police had given it a good going over but hadn’t been permitted to remove anything, and neither had anyone else.

  It was still broad daylight in that corner room, with a nice breeze from the windows, since there was no glass left in them. As we looked things over, stepping to avoid chunks of plaster and similar obstructions, various details were worthy of note. By a freak of the blast, the partition to the hall was a wreck, but the one to the anteroom only had a couple of cracks. The door to the anteroom was standing open, and looked intact but a little cockeyed. Two of the chairs were nothing but splinters, four were battered and scarred, and Ryder’s own chair, against the wall back of his desk, didn’t have a mark. The desk top was smashed and pockmarked, as if someone had first dropped a two-ton weight on it and then used it for a target with a shotgun loaded with slugs. On it and all around that area were bloodstains, from single drops up to a big blob the size of a dishpan on the floor back of the desk. The remains of the suitcase and its contents, also on the floor, were over near the door to the anteroom, the contents strewn around, the suitcase twisted and riddled so that for a second I didn’t recognize it. Everywhere, in all directions, were little pieces of metal, as small as the head of a pin or as big as a thumbnail, black on one side and pink on the other. Anyone anywhere in that room when the thing exploded would have stopped at least a dozen of them—and they would have stopped him. I dropped a couple in my pocket to add to my collection in a drawer at home.