by Rex Stout
“I want to see the spray.”
“Just a minute. We may-”
“There will be many minutes. Get him in here.”
I let him have his way because he wasn’t listening anyhow. I went to the front room and brought Tabby. When he got to Wolfe’s desk and Wolfe extended a hand, I thought Tabby was going to refuse to part with it until he touched the money, and so did he, but Wolfe growled like a lion at sight of a hunk of juicy meat, and Tabby handed him the spray, which had been crushed some, but not badly. Half of the dozen or so blossoms were intact. Wolfe looked them over, one by one, and then got a magnifying glass from a drawer and went over them again, with his lips closed so tight he didn’t have any. Finally he pushed his chair back, arose, and, holding the spray by the butt of the stem, made for the hall and the kitchen, where there were two refrigerators, one cool and one cold. Soon he returned, without the spray, crossed to his desk and sat, and announced, “I would give three thousand dollars for that plant.”
I shook my head. “Don’t look at me. No, thanks. And if you want to deal with Tabby, deal direct. Before I pay him I would like to report in detail, if and when you’ve got yourself enough under control to listen.”
“Pfui. Have you ever seen me out of control?”
“We can save that. Remind me some time. Sit down, Tabby.” I took the chair at my desk and proceeded to report, covering everything, which didn’t take long since no long conversations were involved. Apparently Wolfe was taking it in.
I ended up, “It depends on Mrs. Bynoe. As far as I know it could have been epilepsy. But if it was something else, something that gets the cops on it and makes them work, they’ll learn that the guy who tried to get at her in front of the church was the one who grabbed the orchids later, and they’ll probably find him. When they do, will he talk? Yes. Sooner or later, and I suspect sooner. So I think we might invite Tabby to stick around until we know the score.” I looked at my wristwatch. “It’s been over an hour. I can try Lon Cohen at the Gazette.”
Wolfe was frowning at me. “Do so.”
I swiveled and dialed. Usually I can get right through to Lon, but that time it took five minutes. When I finally got him he said he was in a boil and I made it snappy.
“A question, maybe two. Have you anything in about Mrs. Millard Bynoe?”
“Yes. She’s dead. That’s the boil. And last Wednesday you were here collecting pictures of her and her husband. I was just going to ring you. Where do you come in? And Nero Wolfe? Speak.”
“At present I’m just curious, and this call is absolutely off the record. If and when we do come in I’ll think of you. Where and when did she die, and what killed her?”
“On the sidewalk on Fifty-fourth Street between Madison and Fifth, about an hour ago. What, I don’t know, but they have taken the body to the morgue and the Commissioner is standing by, not to mention others. Are you going to open up or not?”
“I’m just curious. It itches. You might ring me every hour on the hour.”
He said sure, he had nothing else to do, and hung up. I turned and relayed it to Wolfe, and as I finished Tabby was out of his chair, his sharp little eyes darting from Wolfe to me and back again.
“I want my money,” he said, tending to squeak. “That’s what I want, see?” He started to tremble. “What the hell!”
I went and put a hand on his shoulder, friendly. “Take it easy, Tabby,” I told him. I turned to Wolfe. “I met this gentleman a couple of years ago in connection with one of our cases, and did him a little favor, but he doesn’t know my true character, or yours either. He suspects we may be tying a can on him, and he’s scared stiff, and you can’t blame him. Maybe he scares easy, but he has been around, and he knows they wouldn’t call the Commissioner in on Easter Sunday unless they had something, even for Mrs. Millard Bynoe, and I know it too. Ten to one it’s murder, and if so they’ll find Tabby, and if they find him they’ll find me, and if they find me they’ll find you.”
Wolfe was glaring at us. “Confound it,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “So you and Tabby have problems, not to mention me. You hired him, through me, to commit petty larceny, and that will make fine reading. He committed the larceny, but what’s worse, he has now got it in his head that we have framed him for something in a murder, and try to get it out. He’s too scared to listen to reason. You may think of something besides reason for him to listen to.”
“Is there any chance that he seized an opportunity? When he got in front of her as she crossed the sidewalk?”
“No. Cross it off. I saw it. And why? Skip it. Also, I know him and that’s not in him.”
“Who is he? What’s his name?”
“Just call him Tabby. He prefers it.”
“I want my money,” Tabby squeaked. “That’s all I want.”
Wolfe, eying him, took in air, clear down, and let it out again. “You understand, sir,” he said, “that this may be only a bugaboo. Mrs. Bynoe may have died of natural causes.”
“I want my money,” Tabby squeaked.
“No doubt. But she may not, and in that case the investigation will be thorough. We’ll soon know, and if it was murder I’m in a pickle. Putting it at a minimum, I would prefer not to have it published that I hired a man to steal a flower, especially if he tore it from her breast as she lay dying. You want your money. If I give it to you, and you leave, what will happen? Either you will spend it in an effort to keep yourself out of the hands of the police, not an attractive prospect for you; or you will go to the police at once and unburden yourself, not an attractive prospect for me.”
Wolfe sighed again. “So I’m not going to pay you, not-Let me finish, please. I shall not pay you now. There is a comfortable room on the third floor of this house, and my cook is unsurpassed if not unequaled. If you will occupy that room, communicate with no one, and not leave the house until I give the word, I will then pay you the hundred dollars and also ten dollars for each day you have been here.”
During the next minute Tabby opened his mouth three times to speak and each time closed it again. It was a hard chew for him, and when he finally got to the point of words they were not for Wolfe. He turned to me and demanded, “What about this guy?”
I grinned at him. “He could lie rings around you, Tabby. But he’s too damn conceited to double-cross a man, let alone a peanut. Also, if I count, I’ll sign it.”
He left me to squint at Wolfe, and after another chew he nodded. “Okay, but no lousy ten bucks a day. Twenty.”
As I mentioned, the offer of two Cs had been a mistake. Delusions of grandeur. Wolfe, being in a pickle, would probably have stood for it, but I put in. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “Ten a day and found, and wait till you taste the found.” I touched his elbow. “Come on and I’ll show you your room.”
Chapter 3
FIVE HOURS LATER, at seven-eighteen that evening, I went to answer the doorbell and found Inspector Cramer on the stoop. Since Lon Cohen had phoned around four o’clock to say that Mrs. Bynoe had been murdered, and to ask for copy, which he didn’t get, I had expected company sooner, but of course it had taken a little time for them to get a line on the photographers who had had box seats, or stands, in front of the church.
Tabby had chosen to lunch in his room from a tray instead of joining us in the dining room, but afterward he had relaxed enough to go with me to the basement to shoot some pool, and I spent the rest of the afternoon there with him, with time out for answering three phone calls and for performing a chore I thought advisable, namely, taking the roll of film from the Centrex and locking it in a desk drawer. We were in the basement when the doorbell rang, and I took Tabby up with me and sent him on upstairs before I opened up. Also, seeing Inspector Cramer through the one-way glass panel, I stepped into the office to see that the spray of Vanda wasn’t on view and to tell Wolfe who the caller was. He put down the book he was reading and growled.
After letting me take his hat and coat in the hall, which s
howed that he didn’t intend merely to fire a couple of shots and go, Cramer tramped ahead into the office, and when I entered he was seated in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk and was declining an invitation to have some beer; and as I crossed to my desk he spoke to my back.
“You, Goodwin. I want information, and I want it straight and fast. What were you doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today?”
I sat and raised my brows. “Why start there? Take the whole day. I woke up at eight o’clock, realized it was not only Sunday but also Easter Sunday, and decided to enjoy-”
“Stop clowning and answer my question!”
“Pfui,” Wolfe muttered.
I shook my head at Cramer. “You know better than that. Even when you’re worked up, as I can see you are, you still know better. What’s the ground?”
His keen blue-gray eyes, looking smaller than they were on account of his big round face, were hard at me. “Damn you,” he said, “I’m in a hurry, but I ought to know you by this time. A woman named Mrs. Millard Bynoe left that church today while you were there at the curb taking pictures. Her husband and a man named Frimm were with her. They crossed the avenue and walked east on Fifty-fourth Street, and in the middle of the block she suddenly collapsed and had convulsions, and she died there on the sidewalk. The body was taken to the morgue, and the preliminary report says there are signs of strychnine, and a needle was found in her abdomen. Details of the needle are being withheld, except that it is hollow and it had contained strychnine, and from its size and shape it could have been shot at her by a spring mechanism from a range up to twenty feet, maybe more, depending on the mechanism.”
Cramer’s eyes darted to Wolfe and back to me. “You want ground. It was approximately twelve minutes-say ten to fifteen-after she left the church that she collapsed on the sidewalk. As she was leaving the church there were at least five cameras aimed at her, five that I know about, and you were aiming one of them. What for?”
I was meeting his eyes. “You’ve got ground, all right,” I conceded. “You asked what I was doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today, and you sure have a right to know, so I’ll tell you.”
I did so, with all details of my words and actions, except that I didn’t mention Tabby or Mrs. Bynoe or orchids, and I didn’t include the fact that I had been present when Mrs. Bynoe collapsed. My finale was merely that I had strolled away from the church, to Madison Avenue, and taken a taxi home.
I leaned back. “That’s it,” I said. “I understand now why you came instead of inviting me down. Naturally you want the camera, and under the circumstances I don’t blame you.” I swiveled and got the Centrex, in its leather case with the strap, from the desk, and swiveled back. “Here it is. If you want to take it along I’d like a receipt.”
He said he certainly wanted to take it along, and I got at the typewriter and wrote a receipt, and he signed it. As I dropped it in a drawer he said that my signed statement should include a declaration that the camera I had given him was the one I had used in front of the church, and I said it would. When I turned back his eyes were leveled at me again.
“How well do you know Joseph Herrick?” he demanded.
“Not very well. I know he’s been a Gazette photographer for several years. I’ve met him around a few times, that’s all.”
“Do you know the other two men there with cameras? Or the girl?”
“No. Never saw any of them before. I don’t know their names.”
“Did you know Mrs. Bynoe?”
“No. Never saw her either.”
“You weren’t there for the purpose of aiming a camera at her?”
“At her? No.”
“What were you there for?”
I waved a hand. “To take pictures. Like ten thousand of my fellow citizens.”
“They weren’t all there in front of that church. You understand, Goodwin, the way it looks now, that needle was fired with some kind of a mechanism in one of those cameras that were focused on Mrs. Bynoe. You see things. Did you see anything peculiar about one of those cameras?”
“No. I’ll give it a thought, but I’m sure I didn’t.”
“Or anything peculiar about the manner or actions of any of those four people with cameras?”
“No. Again I’ll give it a thought, but no. Of course I was taking pictures myself and I wasn’t interested in them or their cameras.”
Cramer grunted. He regarded me for a long moment and then transferred to Wolfe. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ll just tell you why I came here instead of sending for Goodwin and the camera. Mrs. Bynoe was wearing a bunch of orchids, and her husband says they were very special orchids. There is only one plant in the world, and he has it. While she was lying on the sidewalk, in convulsion, a man darted in from the crowd and snatched the orchids off her and ran. Frimm grabbed his arm but he jerked away. Of course he didn’t stick the needle in her then, she was already dying, but that’s not the point. The point is that I know how you are on orchids, and that Goodwin was around. The orchids alone, or Goodwin alone, I might pass, but the two together-that’s why I’m here. I want to know if you have anything to say, and if so what, and I want to ask some questions.”
Wolfe’s lips had tightened. “Is it possible,” he inquired, “that you are intimating that it was Mr. Goodwin who took the orchids?”
“No. I know he didn’t. I have a description of the man who did. But you know damn well how it is when there’s a smell of either you or Goodwin within a mile of a murder, and here is Goodwin and orchids. Have you anything to say?”
“Yes. I request you to leave my house.”
“After you answer some questions.” Cramer leaned forward. “Have you any knowledge of the man who took the orchids from Mrs. Bynoe?”
Wolfe put his hands on the edge of his desk, pushed his chair back, and got his bulk upright, on his feet. “Mr. Cramer,” he said coldly, “your talent for making yourself offensive is extraordinary. Presumably investigating a murder, you invade my privacy in my home with the preposterous intent of involving me in the theft of a bunch of flowers.” He moved, walked halfway to the door, stopped, and turned. “If you wished to question me about your murder I would listen, and would even answer. I know nothing whatever about it. I know nothing about Mrs. Bynoe and I know no one who does, and I have no inkling of any information that could possibly be relevant to her murder. Since you assume that the needle was propelled by a mechanism concealed in one of the cameras, I will add that I also know nothing of any of the persons who were there with cameras, except Mr. Goodwin, and he has told you what he saw and did. If you want to nag him about it, and he cares to submit, there he is.”
He walked out. Cramer twisted his neck to watch him go, then twisted it back to give me a look.
“Nag hell,” he rasped. “Just a big gob of egomania, and you’re not much better. Okay, I’ll ask you, have you any knowledge of the man who took the orchids from Mrs. Bynoe?”
I looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but I work for him and-”
“Answer the question!”
“And you know how that is. It’s a strain, working for an egomaniac, but it’s good pay, and I simply can’t risk answering questions he wouldn’t answer. What he said about the murder goes for me too, I know absolutely nothing. On other matters, such as my acquaintance with posy snatchers, I have to pass. Look how you offended him.”
His eyes were going right through me. “You refuse to answer.”
“Certainly. I would also refuse to answer if you asked me if I stole this necktie. That would offend Mr. Wolfe. But if-”
“How would you like to come downtown for a session with Lieutenant Rowcliff?”
“I’d love it. I once got him stuttering in eight minutes, the best I ever did, and I’d like-”
I stopped because he was being rude. He arose and, with the camera in his hand and the strap dangling, headed for the door. Thinking he might have an idea of looking for Wolfe, I got up and followe
d, but in the hall he turned to the front, and, doubting if he would appreciate help with his coat, I merely stood and watched until he had let himself out and banged the door shut. Then I about-faced and went and pushed the swinging door to the kitchen.
It was a pleasant scene, the egomaniac having, as usual, his Sunday-evening snack with the cook. Fritz was on a stool at the long table in the center, steering a dripping endive core to his open mouth. Wolfe, seated at my breakfast table against the wall, was pouring honey on steaming halves of buttermilk biscuits. A glass and a bottle of milk were there, and I went and poured.
I asked where Tabby was and was told that a tray had been taken to his room. Fritz told me there were plenty of biscuits in the warmer, and I thanked him and got a couple.
“You know,” I said offhand as I picked up the jar of molasses, “this is a very interesting situation.” I poured molasses. “So many things could happen. For instance, Lon Cohen isn’t the only one at the Gazette who knows I was after pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Bynoe on Wednesday. For instance, when Cramer learns that the film has been removed from my camera-your camera-he’ll probably send a squad with a search warrant. For in-”
“I’m eating,” Wolfe muttered peevishly.
“But I’m not discussing business. This isn’t business, this is just a cliff you tumbled over while in pursuit of pleasure, and you’re hanging by your fingernails. So am I. For instance, if they find the driver of the taxi, and they will if they decide to, they’ll learn that Tabby had company and that we came here. If I had known then that there had been a murder he wouldn’t have brought us here, but I didn’t. For in-”
“Get rid of the film,” Wolfe ordered.
