by Rex Stout
Now something had happened, something sensational, two days ago, and not a word about it in print. There was nothing in Nero Wolfe’s notice to Mr. Knapp to connect it with the Vails. If Helen Blount, Mrs. Vail’s friend, saw it, she might make a guess, but not for publication. I saw it not long after Wolfe went up to the plant rooms. Not waiting until five-thirty when a late edition of the Gazette is delivered to the old brownstone, I took a walk to the newsstand at 34th and Eighth Avenue. It was on page five, with plenty of margin. No one named Knapp could possibly miss it, but of course that wasn’t his name.
I had a date for that evening, dinner with a friend, and a show, and it was just as well. Most of the chores of a working detective, even Nero Wolfe’s right hand, not to mention his legs, are routine and pretty damn dull, and the idea of tailing a woman taking half a million bucks to a kidnaper was very tempting. Not only would it have been an interesting way to spend an evening, but there were a dozen possibilities. But since it was Wolfe’s case and I was working for him, I couldn’t do it without his knowledge and consent, and it would have been a waste of breath to mention it. He would have said pfui and picked up his book. So at six o’clock I went up to my room and changed and went to my date. But off and on that evening I wondered where our client was and how she was making out, and when I got home around one o’clock I had a job keeping myself from dialing her number before I turned in.
The phone rang. Of all the things that I don’t want to be wakened by, the one I resent most is the phone. I turned over, forced my eyes open enough to see that it was light and the clock said 7:52, reached for the receiver and got it to my ear, and managed to get it out: “Nero Wolfe’s residence, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
“Mr. Goodwin?”
“I thought I said so.”
“This is Althea Vail. I want to speak to Mr. Wolfe.”
“Impossible, Mrs. Vail. Not before breakfast. If it’s urgent, tell me. Have you—”
“My husband is back! Safe and sound!”
“Good. Wonderful. Is he there with you?”
“No, he’s at our country place. He just phoned, ten minutes ago. He’s going to bathe and change and eat and then come to town. He’s all right, perfectly all right. Why I’m phoning, he promised them he would say nothing, absolutely nothing, for forty-eight hours, and I’m not to say anything either. I didn’t tell him I had gone to Nero Wolfe; I’ll wait till he gets here. Of course I don’t want Mr. Wolfe to say anything. Or you. That’s why I’m phoning. You’ll tell him?”
“Yes. With pleasure. You’re sure it was your husband on the phone?”
“Certainly I’m sure!”
“Fine. Whether the notice helped or not. Will you give us a ring when your husband arrives?”
She said she would, and we hung up. The radio clicked on, and a voice came: “… has five convenient offices in New York, one at the—” I reached and turned it off. When I get to bed after midnight I set it for eight o’clock, the news bulletins on WQXR, but I didn’t need any more news at the moment. I had a satisfactory stretch and yawn, said aloud, “What the hell, no matter what Jimmy Vail says we can say Mr. Knapp must have seen it,” yawned again, and faced the fact that it takes will power to get on your feet.
With nothing pending I took my time, and it was after eight-thirty when I descended the two flights to the ground floor, entered the kitchen, told Fritz good morning, picked up my glass of orange juice, took a healthy sip, and felt my stomach saying thanks. I had considered stopping at Wolfe’s room on the way down but had vetoed it. He would have been in the middle of breakfast, since Fritz takes his tray up at eight-fifteen.
“No allspice in the sausage,” Fritz said. “It would be an insult. The best Mr. Howie has ever sent us.”
“Then double my order.” I swallowed juice. “You gave me good news, so I’ll give you some. The woman that came yesterday gave us a job, and it’s already done. All over. Enough to pay your salary and mine for months.”
“Fort bien.” He spooned batter on the griddle. “You did it last night?”
“No. He did it sitting down.”
“Yes? But he would do nothing without you to piquer.”
“How do you spell that?”
He spelled it. I said, “I’ll look it up,” put my empty glass down, went to the table against the wall where my copy of the Times was on the rack, and sat. I kept an eye on my watch, and at 8:57, when I had downed the last bite of my first griddle cake and my second sausage, I reached for the house phone and buzzed Wolfe’s room.
His growl came. “Yes?”
“Good morning. Mrs. Vail called an hour ago. Her husband had just phoned from their house in the country. He’s at large and intact and will come to town as soon as he cleans up and feeds. He promised someone, presumably Mr. Knapp, that neither he nor his wife will make a peep for forty-eight hours, and she wants us to keep the lid on.”
“Satisfactory.”
“Yeah. Nice and neat. But I’ll be taking a walk, to the bank to deposit her checks, and it’s only five more blocks to the Gazette. It’s bound to break soon, and I could give it to Lon Cohen to hold until we give the word. He’d hold it, you know that, and he would deeply appreciate it.”
“No.”
“You mean he wouldn’t hold it?”
“No. He has shown that he can be trusted. But I haven’t seen Mr. Vail, nor have you. It’s useful to have Mr. Cohen in our debt, but no. Perhaps later in the day.” He hung up. He would be two minutes late getting to the plant rooms on the roof. As Fritz brought my second cake and pair of sausages I said, “For a bent nickel I’d go up and peekay him.”
He patted my shoulder and said, “Now, Archie. If you should, you will. If you shouldn’t, you won’t.”
I buttered the cake. “I think that’s a compliment. It’s tricky. I’ll study it.”
For the next couple of hours, finishing breakfast and the Times (the notice was on page twenty-six), opening the mail, dusting our desks, removing yesterday’s orchids and putting fresh water in the vase, walking to the bank and back, and doing little miscellaneous office chores, I considered the situation off and on. It seemed pretty damn silly, being hired in connection with something as gaudy as the kidnaping of Jimmy Vail, merely to put a ad in the paper and collect a fee and then call it a day. But what else? I’m more than willing to peekay Wolfe when there’s any point or profit to it, but with Jimmy Vail back in one piece the job Wolfe had been hired for was done, so what? As soon as it broke, an army of cops and FBI scientists would be after Mr. Knapp, and they’d probably get him sooner or later. We were done, except for one little detail, to see Jimmy Vail whole. Mrs. Vail had said she would give us a ring when he arrived, and I would go up and ask him if Mr. Knapp had shown him the Gazette with the notice in it.
I didn’t have to. At 11:25 the doorbell rang. Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms and gone to his desk, put a spray of Oncidium marshallianum in the vase, torn yesterday from his desk calendar, and gone through the mail, and was dictating a long letter to an orchid collector in Guatemala. He hates to be interrupted when he’s doing something really important, but Fritz was upstairs, so I went, and there he was on the stoop. I told Wolfe, “Jimmy Vail in person,” and went and opened the door, and he said, “Maybe you know me? I know you.” He stepped in. “You’re a hell of a good dancer.”
I told him he was too, which was true, took his coat and hat and put them on the rack, and took him to the office, and he crossed to Wolfe’s desk, stood, and said, “I know you don’t shake hands. I once offered to fight a man because he called you a panjandrum; of course I knew he was yellow. I’m Jimmy Vail. May I sit down? Preferably in the red leather chair. There it is.” He went and sat, rested his elbows on the chair arms, crossed his legs, and said, “If I belch you’ll have to pardon me. I had nothing but cold canned beans for two days and three nights, and I overdid it on the bacon and eggs. My wife has told me about hiring you. Never has so much been spent on so little. Naturall
y I don’t like being called my wife’s property—who would?—but I realize you had to. I only saw it when my wife showed it to me, and I don’t know whether they saw it or not. Is that important?”
You wouldn’t have thought, looking at him and listening to him, that he had just spent sixty hours in the clutches of kidnapers, living on cold beans, and maybe not long to live even on beans, but of course he had cleaned up and had a meal, and the talk I had heard had never included any suggestion that he was a softy. His face was dead white, but it always was, and smooth and neat as it always was, and his dark eyes were bright and clear.
“It would be helpful to know,” Wolfe said, “but it isn’t vital. You came to tell me that? That you don’t know?”
“Not actually.” Vail lifted a hand to the neighborhood of his right temple and flipped his middle finger off the tip of his thumb. He had made that gesture famous during his career at the Glory Hole. “I just mentioned it because it may be important to us, my wife and me. If one of them saw that thing in the paper they know my wife has told you about it, and that may not be too good. That’s why I came and came quick. They told me to keep my trap shut for forty-eight hours, until Friday morning, and to see that my wife did too, or we would regret it. I think they meant it. I got a strong impression that they mean what they say. So my wife and I are going to keep it to ourselves until Friday morning, but what about you? You could put another notice in the paper to Mr. Knapp, saying that since the property has been returned the case is closed as far as you’re concerned. That you’re no longer interested. What do you think?”
Wolfe had cocked his head and was eying him. “You’re making an unwarranted assumption, Mr. Vail—that I too will keep silent until Friday morning. I told your wife that the obligation not to withhold knowledge of a major crime must sometimes bow to other considerations, for instance saving a life, but you are no longer in jeopardy. Now that I’ve seen you alive and at freedom, I cannot further postpone reporting to authority. A licensed private detective is under constraints that do not apply to the ordinary citizen. I don’t want to subject you or your wife—”
The phone rang, and I swiveled to get it. “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Good—”
“This is Althea Vail. Is my husband there?”
“Yes, he—”
“I want to speak to him.”
She sounded urgent. I proceeded as I did not merely out of curiosity. There was obviously going to be a collision between Wolfe and Jimmy Vail about saving it until Friday, and if that was what she was urgent about I wanted to hear it firsthand. So I told her to hold the wire, told him his wife wanted to speak to him, and beat it, to the kitchen and the extension there. As I got the receiver to my ear Mrs. Vail was talking.
“… terrible has happened. A man just phoned from White Plains, Captain Saunders of the State Police, he said, and he said they found a dead body, a woman, and it’s Dinah Utley, they think it is, and they want me to come to White Plains to identify it or send someone. My God, Jimmy, could it be Dinah? How could it be Dinah?”
JIMMY: I don’t know. Maybe Archie Goodwin will know; he’s listening in on an extension. Did he say how she was killed?
ALTHEA: No. He—
JIMMY: Or where the body was found?
ALTHEA: No. He—
JIMMY: Or why they think it’s Dinah Utley?
ALTHEA: Yes, things in her bag and in the car. Her car was there. I don’t think—I don’t want to—can’t I send Emil?
JIMMY: Why not? How about it, Goodwin? Emil is the chauffeur. He can certainly tell them whether it’s Dinah Utley or not. Must my wife go? Or must I go?
It was no use pretending I wasn’t there. “No,” I said, “not just for identification. Of course if it’s Dinah Utley they’ll want to ask both of you some questions, if there’s any doubt about how she died, but for that they can come to you. For identification only, even I would do. If you want to ask Mr. Wolfe to send me.”
ALTHEA: Yes! Do that, Jimmy!
JIMMY: Well … maybe … where did he say to come in White Plains?
ME: I know where to go.
ALTHEA: It must be Dinah! She didn’t come home last night and now—this is terrible—
JIMMY: Take it easy, Al. I’ll be there soon. Just take it easy and …
I cradled the phone and went back to the office. Vail was hanging up as I entered. I said to him, “Naturally I want to hear what a client of Mr. Wolfe’s has to say on his phone. And naturally you knew I would.” I turned to Wolfe. “A state cop called Mrs. Vail from White Plains. They have found a woman’s body, he didn’t say where, and from articles in her bag and her car they think it’s Dinah Utley. Also there must have been something that connected her with Mrs. Vail, maybe just the address. He asked Mrs. Vail to come to White Plains and identify her, and she doesn’t want to go, and neither does Mr. Vail. I suggested that she might want to ask you to send me.”
Wolfe was scowling at Vail. He switched it to me. “Did she die by violence?”
“Mrs. Vail doesn’t know. I’ve reported in full.”
“Look,” Vail said, “this is a hell of a thing.” He was standing at the corner of my desk. “Good God. This is a real shocker. I suppose I ought to go myself.”
“If it’s Miss Utley,” Wolfe said, “and if she died by violence, they’ll ask you where you were last night. That would be routine.”
“I’m not telling anyone where I was last night, not until Friday morning. Not even you.”
“Then you’ll be suspect. You and your wife should confer without delay. And if Mr. Goodwin goes to identify the body and it is Miss Utley, he will be asked about his association with her, when and where he has seen her. You know she was here yesterday?”
“Yes. My wife told me. But my God, he won’t tell them about that, why she came here!”
Wolfe leaned back and shut his eyes. Vail started to say something, saw he wouldn’t be heard, and stopped. He went to the red leather chair and sat, then got up again, walked halfway to the door, turned, and came back to Wolfe’s desk and stood looking down at him.
Wolfe’s eyes opened, and he straightened up. “Archie, get Mrs. Vail.”
“I’m here,” Vail said. “You can talk to me.”
“You’re not my client, Mr. Vail. Your wife is.”
I was dialing. The number was in my head, where I had filed it when I looked it up Tuesday night. A female voice said, “Mrs. Vail’s residence,” and I said Nero Wolfe wanted to speak with Mrs. Vail. After a wait our client’s voice came, “This is Althea Vail. Mr. Wolfe?” and I nodded to Wolfe and he took his phone. I stayed on, but I had to fight for it. Jimmy Vail came to take it away from me, reaching for it and getting his fingers on it, but I kept it against my ear and didn’t hear what he said because I was listening to Wolfe.
“Good morning, madam. I was gratified to see your husband, as of course you were. The telephone call you received from White Plains puts a new problem, and I offer a suggestion. I understand that you prefer not to go to White Plains to see if the dead woman is Miss Utley. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Archie Goodwin said he would go.”
Wolfe grunted. “Mr. Goodwin will always go. He is uh—energetic. But there are difficulties. If it is Miss Utley, he will be asked when and where he last saw her, and when he says she came to my office yesterday he will be asked for particulars. If he gives them in full he will have to include the fact that when she left we, he and I, had formed a strong suspicion that she was implicated in the kidnaping of your husband, and then—”
“Dinah? She was implicated? That’s ridiculous! Why did you suspect that?”
“I reserve that. I’ll explain it later—or I won’t. Then they’ll demand full information about the kidnaping, not only from Mr. Goodwin and me, but from you and your husband, and they won’t want to wait until Friday for it. That’s the prob—”
“But why did you suspect Dinah?”
“That will have to wait. So I offer a suggestion.
You gave me checks for sixty thousand dollars. I told you I would refund a portion of it if your husband came back alive, since it covered the contingency that I might have to meet the commitment I made in that published notice. I would prefer to keep it, but if I do I’ll have to earn it. My suggestion is that I send Mr. Goodwin to White Plains to look at the body. If it is Miss Utley, he identifies it, he says that he saw her for the first and last time when she came to my office yesterday in connection with a confidential job you had hired me for, and on instructions from me he refuses to give any further information. Also I engage that neither he nor I will disclose anything whatever regarding your husband’s kidnaping before eleven o’clock Friday morning unless you give your consent. That will expose us to inconvenience and possibly serious embarrassment, and I shall not feel obliged to return any money to you. I will owe you nothing, and you will owe me nothing. That’s my suggestion. I should add, not to coerce you, merely to inform you, that if it isn’t accepted I can no longer withhold my knowledge of a capital crime, kidnaping. I’ll have to inform the proper authority immediately.”
“That’s a threat. That’s blackmail.”
“Pfui. I’ve offered to incur a considerable risk for a moderate fee. I withdraw my suggestion. I’ll send you a check today. That will end—”
“No! Don’t hang up!” Nothing for five seconds. “I want to speak to my husband.”
“Very well.” Wolfe looked around, then at me, and demanded, “Where is he?”
I covered the transmitter. “Skipped. Right after you said we suspected that Dinah was implicated. Gone. I heard the front door close.”
“I didn’t.” He returned to the phone. “Your husband has left, Mrs. Vail, presumably to go to you. I didn’t see him go. I’ll send you a check—”
“No!” Another silence, a little longer. “All right, send Archie Goodwin. To White Plains.”
“With the understanding that I proposed?”
“Yes. But I want to know why you thought Dinah was implicated. That’s incredible!”
“To you, no doubt. It was merely a conjecture, possibly ill-grounded. Another time I may explain it, but not now. I must get Mr. Goodwin off. Permit me.”
