“Indeed,” Wolfe said loud enough for me to hear. I saw that he was reading it too, and spoke:
“If the cops hadn’t already been there and got it, and if Miss Gunther didn’t have me on a string, I’d run up to see Mrs. Boone and get that envelope.”
“Three or four men in a laboratory,” Wolfe said, “will do everything to that envelope but split its atoms. Before long they’ll be doing that too. But this is the first finger that has pointed in any direction at all.”
“Sure,” I agreed, “now it’s a cinch. All we have to do is find out which of those one thousand four hundred and ninety-two people is both a sentimentalist and a realist, and we’ve got him.”
We went back to our papers.
Nothing more before dinner. After the meal, which for me consisted chiefly of thin toast and liver pâté on account of the way Fritz makes the pâté, we had just got back to the office again, a little before nine when a telegram came. I took it from the envelope and handed it to Wolfe, and after he had read it he passed it over to me. It ran:
NERO WOLFE 922 WEST 35 NYC
CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO
CONTINUE SURVEILLANCE OF ONEILL BUT
BELIEVE IT ESSENTIAL THIS BE DONE
ALTHOUGH CAN GUARANTEE NOTHING
BRESLOW
I put my brows up at Wolfe. He was looking at me with his eyes half open, which meant he was really looking.
“Perhaps,” he said witheringly, “you will be good enough to tell me what other arrangements you have made for handling this case without my knowledge?”
I grinned at him. “No, sir. Not me. I was about to ask if you have put Breslow on the payroll and if so at how much, so I can enter it.”
“You know nothing of this?”
“No. Don’t you?”
“Get Mr. Breslow on the phone.”
That wasn’t so simple. We knew only that Breslow was a manufacturer of paper products from Denver, and that, having come to New York for the NIA meeting, he was staying on, as a member of the Executive Committee, to help hold the fort in the crisis. I knew Frank Thomas Erskine was at the Churchill and tried that, but he was out. Hattie Harding’s number, which was in the phone book, gave me a don’t answer signal. So I tried Lon Cohen again at the Gazette, which I should have done in the first place, and learned that Breslow was at the Strider-Weir. In another three minutes I had him and switched him to Wolfe, but kept myself connected.
He sounded on the phone just the way he looked, red-faced with anger.
“Yes, Wolfe? Have you got something? Well? Well?”
“I have a question to ask—”
“Yes? What is it?”
“I am about to ask it. That was why I had Mr. Goodwin learn your number, and call it and ask for you, so you could be on one end of the telephone and me on the other end, and then I could ask you this question. Tell me when you are ready, sir.”
“I’m ready! Damn it, what is it?”
“Good. Here it is. About that telegram you sent me—”
“Telegram? What telegram? I haven’t sent you any telegram!”
“You know nothing about a telegram to me?”
“No! Nothing whatever! What—”
“Then it’s a mistake. They must have got the name wrong. I suspected as much. I was expecting one from a man named Bristow. I apologize, sir, for disturbing you. Good-by.”
Breslow tried to prolong the agony, but between us we got him off.
“So,” I remarked, “he didn’t send it. If he did, and didn’t want us to know it, why would he sign his name? Do we have it traced? Or do we save energy by assuming that whoever sent it knows about phone booths?”
“Confound it,” Wolfe said bitterly. “Probably someone peddling herrings. But we can’t afford to ignore it.” He glanced at the wall clock, which said three minutes past nine. “Find out if Mr. O’Neill is at home. Just ask him—no. Let me have him.”
The number of O’Neill’s residence, an apartment on Park Avenue was listed, and I got both it and him. Wolfe took it, and told him about the request from Adamson, the NIA lawyer, and fed him a long rigmarole about the inadvisability of written reports. O’Neill said he didn’t care a hang about reports, written or otherwise, and they parted friends.
Wolfe considered a moment. “No. We’ll let him go for tonight. You had better get him in the morning as he leaves. If we decide to keep it up we can get Orrie Cather.”
Chapter 13
Tailing as a solo job in New York can be almost anything, depending on the circumstances. You can wear out your brain and muscles in a strenuous ten-hour stretch, keeping contact only by using all the dodges on the list and inventing some more as you go along, and then lose him by some lousy little break that nothing and no one could have prevented. Or you can lose him the first five minutes, especially if he knows you’re there. Or, also in the first five minutes, he can take to a chair somewhere, an office or a hotel room, and stay there all day, not giving a damn how bored you get.
So you never know, but what I fully expected was a long day of nothing since it was Sunday. A little after eight in the morning I sat in a taxi which, headed downtown, was parked on Park Avenue in the Seventies, fifty paces north of the entrance to the apartment house where O’Neill lived. I would have given even money that I would still be there six hours later, or even twelve, though I admitted there was a fair chance of our going to church at eleven, or to a restaurant for two o’clock dinner. I couldn’t even read the Sunday paper with any satisfaction because I had to keep my eye on the entrance. The taxi driver was my old stand-by Herb Aronson, but he had never seen O’Neill. As the time went by we discussed various kinds of matters, and he read aloud to me from the Times.
At ten o’clock we decided to get a bet down. Each of us would write on a slip of paper the time that we thought my man would stick his nose out, and the one that was furthest off would pay the other one a cent a minute for the time he missed it by. Herb was just handing me a scrap he tore from the Times for me to write my guess on when I saw Don O’Neill emerging to the sidewalk.
I told Herb, “Save it for next time. That’s him.”
Whatever O’Neill did, it would be awkward, because his doorman knew us by heart by that time. He had previously signaled to Herb for a customer, and Herb had turned him down. What O’Neill did was look toward us, with me keeping my face in a corner so he couldn’t see it if his vision was good for that distance, and speak to the doorman, who shook his head. That was about as awkward as it could get, unless O’Neill had walked to us for a conference.
Herb told me out of the corner of his mouth, “Our strategy stinks. He takes a taxi and we ride his tail, and when he comes home the doorman tells him he’s being followed.”
“So what was I to do?” I demanded. “Disguise myself as a flower girl and stand at the corner selling daffodils? Next time you plan it. This whole tailing idea has got to be a joke. Start your engine. Anyhow, he’ll never get home. We’ll pinch him for murder before the day’s out. Start your engine! He’s getting transportation.”
The doorman had been blowing his whistle, and a taxi on its way south had swerved and was stopping at the curb. The doorman opened the door and O’Neill got in, and the taxi slid away. Herb got into gear and we moved.
“This,” Herb said, “is the acme. The absolute acme. Why don’t we just pull up to him and ask where he’s going?”
“Because,” I said, “you don’t know an acme when you see one. He has no reason at all to think we’re following him unless he has been alerted, and in that case nothing would unalert him and we are lost. Keep back a little more—just enough not to let a light part us.”
Herb did so, and managed the light stops as if his heart was in it. With the thin traffic of Sunday morning, there were only two of them before we got to Forty-sixth Street, where O’Neill’s cab turned left. One block over, at Lexington Avenue, it turned right, and in another minute it had stopped at the entrance to Grand Central
Station.
We were two cars behind. Herb swung to the right and braked, and I stepped out behind a parked car and grinned at him. “Didn’t I tell you? He’s hopping it. See you in court.” As soon as O’Neill had paid his driver and started across the sidewalk I left cover.
I was still selling it short. What I would have settled for at that stage was a ride out to Greenwich to join a week-end party for some drinks and maybe poker. At any rate, O’Neill didn’t seem to be in any doubt as to what he would settle for, for he marched down the long corridor and across the concourse of the station like a man with a destination. He gave no sign of suspecting that anyone had an eye on him. Where he finally wound up was not one of the train entrances, but the main parcel room on the upper level. I lingered at a distance, with a corner handy. There were several ahead of him and he waited his turn, then handed in a ticket, and in a minute or so was given an object.
Even from where I stood, about thirty feet off, the object looked as if it might be of interest. It was a little rectangular leather case. He grabbed it up and went. I was now somewhat less interested in keeping my presence undetected, but a lot more interested in not losing him, so I closed up some, and nearly stepped on his heels when he suddenly slowed up, almost to a stop, put the case inside his topcoat, got his arm snugly around it, and buttoned the coat. Then he went on. Instead of returning to the Lexington Avenue entrance he went up the ramp toward Forty-second Street, and when he got to the sidewalk turned left, to where the taxis stop in front of the Commodore Hotel. He still hadn’t spotted me. After a short wait he snared a cab, opened the door and got in, and reached to pull the door shut.
I decided that would not do. It would have been nice to know what address he would give the driver if there were no interruptions, but that wasn’t vital, whereas if I lost contact with that leather case through the hazards of solo tailing I would have to get a job helping Hattie Harding sew on buttons. So I moved fast enough to use a hand to keep the door from closing and spoke:
“Hello there, Mr. O’Neill! Going uptown? Mind giving me a lift?”
I was on the seat beside him, and now, willing to do my share, pulled the door shut.
I am not belittling him when I say he was flustered. It would have flustered most men. And he did pretty well.
“Why, hello, Goodwin! Where did you come from? I’m—well, no, the fact is I’m not going uptown. I’m going downtown.”
“Make up your mind,” the driver growled through at us.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told O’Neill cheerfully. “I just want to ask you a couple of questions about that leather case that’s under your coat.” I said to the driver, “Go ahead. Turn south on Eighth.”
The driver was glaring at me. “It’s not your cab. What is this, a hard touch?”
“No,” O’Neill told him. “It’s all right. We’re friends. Go ahead.”
The cab moved. There was no conversation. We passed Vanderbilt and, after waiting for a light, were crossing Madison when O’Neill leaned forward to tell the driver:
“Turn north on Fifth Avenue.”
The driver was too hurt to reply, but when we got to Fifth and had a green light he turned right. I said:
“All right if you want to, but I thought we would save time by going straight to Nero Wolfe’s place. He will be even curiouser than I am about what’s in that thing. Of course we shouldn’t discuss it in this taxi, since the driver doesn’t like us.”
He leaned forward again and gave the driver his home address on Park Avenue. I thought that over for three blocks and voted against it. The only weapon I had on me was a pen-knife. Since I had been watching that entrance since eight o’clock it was unlikely that the NIA Executive Committee was assembled in O’Neill’s apartment, but if they were, and especially if General Erskine was with them, it would require too much exertion on my part to walk out of there with that case. So I spoke to O’Neill in an undertone:
“Lookit. If he’s a public-spirited citizen, and if he hears anything that gives him the idea this is connected with murder, he’ll probably stop at the first cop he sees. Maybe that’s what you want too, a cop. If so you will be glad to know that I don’t like the idea of your apartment and if we go there I’ll display a license to that doorman, put my arms around you, and make him call the Nineteenth Precinct, which is at 153 East Sixty-seventh Street, Rhinelander four, one-four-four-five. That would create a hubbub. Why not get rid of this eavesdropper and talk it over on a bench in the sunshine? Also I saw the look in your eye and don’t try it. I’m more than twenty years younger than you and I do exercises every morning.”
He relinquished the expression of a tiger about to leap and leaned forward to tell the driver:
“Stop here.”
Although I doubted if he carried shooters, I didn’t want him fooling around his pockets, so I settled with the meter myself. We were at Sixty-ninth Street. After the cab had rolled off we crossed the avenue, walked to one of the benches against the wall enclosing Central Park, and sat down. He was keeping his left arm hooked tight around the object under his coat.
I said, “One easy way would be for me to take a look at it, inside and out. If it contains only black market butter, God bless you.”
He turned sideways to regard me as man to man. “I’ll tell you, Goodwin.” He was choosing his words. “I’m not going to try a lot of stuff like indignation about your following me and that kind of stuff.” I thought he wasn’t choosing very well, repeating himself, but I was too polite to interrupt. “But I can explain how I happen to have this case, absolutely innocently—absolutely! And I don’t know any more than you do about what’s in it—I have no idea!”
“Let’s look and see.”
“No.” He was firm. “As far as you know, it’s my property—”
“But is it?”
“As far as you know it is, and I have a right to examine it privately. I mean a moral right, I admit I can’t put it on the ground of legal right because you have offered to refer it to the police and that is of course legally correct. But I do have the moral right. You first suggested that we should go with it to Nero Wolfe. Do you think the police would approve of that?”
“No, but he would.”
“I don’t doubt it.” O’Neill was in his stride now, earnest and persuasive. “But you see, neither of us actually wants to go to the police. Actually our interests coincide. It’s merely a question of procedure. Look at it from your personal angle: what you want is to be able to go to your employer and say to him, ‘You sent me to do a job, and I have done it, and here are the results,’ and then deliver this leather case to him, and me right there with you if you want it that way. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
“We will go. I assure you, Goodwin, we will go.” He was so sincere it was almost painful. “But does it matter exactly when we go? Now or four hours from now? Of course it doesn’t! I have never broken a promise in my life. I’m a businessman, and the whole basis of American business is integrity—absolute integrity. That brings us back to my moral rights in this matter. What I propose is this: I will go to my office, at 1270 Sixth Avenue. You will come there for me at three o’clock, or I will meet you anywhere you say, and I will have this leather case with me, and we will take it to Nero Wolfe.”
“I don’t—”
“Wait. Whatever my moral rights may be, if you extend me this courtesy you deserve to have it acknowledged and appreciated. When I meet you at three o’clock I will hand you one thousand dollars in currency as evidence of appreciation. A point I didn’t mention: I will guarantee that Wolfe will know nothing about this four-hour delay. That will be easy to arrange. If I had the thousand dollars with me I would give it to you now. I have never broken a promise in my life.”
I looked at my wrist and appealed to him, “Make it ten thousand.”
He wasn’t staggered, but only grieved, and he wasn’t even grieved beyond endurance. “That’s out of the question
,” he declared, but not in a tone to give offense. “Absolutely out of the question. One thousand is the limit.”
I grinned at him. “It would be fun to see how far up I could get you, but it’s ten minutes to eleven, so in ten minutes Mr. Wolfe will come down to his office and I don’t like to keep him waiting. The trouble is it’s Sunday and I never take bribes on Sunday. Forget it. Here are the alternatives: You and I and the object under your coat go now to Mr. Wolfe. Or give me the object and I take it to him, and you go for a walk or take a nap. Or I yell at that cop across the street and tell him to call the precinct, which I admit I like least, but you’ve got your moral rights. Heretofore I’ve been in no hurry, but now Mr. Wolfe will be downstairs, so I’ll give you two minutes.”
He wanted to try. “Four hours! That’s all! I’ll make it five thousand, and you come with me and I’ll give it to you—”
“No. Forget it. Didn’t I say it’s Sunday? Come on, hand it over.”
“I am not going to let this case out of my sight.”
“Okay.” I got up and crossed to the curb and stood so as to keep one eye out for a taxi and one on him. Before long I flagged an empty and it turned in to me and stopped. It had probably been years since Don O’Neill had done anything he disapproved of as strongly as he did of arising and walking to the cab and getting in, but he made it. I dropped beside him and gave the driver the address.
Chapter 14
Ten hollow black cylinders, about three inches in diameter and six inches long, stood on end in two neat rows on Wolfe’s desk. Beside them, with the lid open, was the case, of good heavy leather, somewhat battered and scuffed. On the outside of the lid a big figure four was stamped. On its inside a label was pasted:
BUREAU OF PRICE REGULATION
POTOMAC BUILDING
Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 11 Page 7
