by Rex Stout
Cramer was reddening up again.
Wengert cleared his throat. "Look, Wolfe," he said, not belligerently, "we're here to talk sense."
"Good. Why not start?"
"I am. The interest of the people and government of the United States is involved in this case. My job is to protect that interest. I know you and Goodwin can keep your mouths shut when you want to. I am now talking off the record. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Goodwin?"
"Good here."
"See that you keep it good. Arthur Rackell told his aunt that he was working with the FBI. That was a lie. He was either a member of the Communist party or a fellow traveler, we're not sure which. We don't know who he told, besides his aunt, that he was with the FBI, but we're working on it and so are the police. He may have been killed by a Communist who heard it somehow and believed it. There were other motives, personal ones, but the Communist angle comes first until and unless it's ruled out. So you can see why we're in on it. The public interest is involved, not only of this city and state but the whole country. You see that?"
"I saw it," Wolfe muttered, "when I sent Mr. Goodwin to see you day before yesterday."
"We'll skip that." Wengert didn't want to offend. "The point is, what about you? I concede that all you're after is to catch the murderer and collect a fee. But we know you sent Goodwin to Miss Devlin yesterday to offer to pay her to say
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|she saw Miss Goheen in the act. We also know that you likely to pull such a stunt just for the hell of it. You i exactly what you were doing and why you were doing say you have regard for the public interest. All right, |inspector here represents it, and so do I, and we want you up for us. We confidently expect you to. What and : are you after, and where does that stunt get you?" A)lfe was regarding him sympathetically through half eyes. "You're not a nincompoop, Mr. Wengert." The ; moved. "Nor you, Mr. Cramer." il'TThat's something," Cramer growled. , "It is indeed, considering the average. But your coming to put this to me, either peremptorily or politely, was I considered. Shall I explain?" ; "If it's not too much bother."
"I'll be as brief as possible. Let us make a complex supposii--that I got Mr. and Mrs. Rackell's permission for an raordinary disbursement for a stated purpose; that I sent |r. Goodwin to see Miss Devlin; that he told her I had conluded that Miss Goheen had murdered Arthur Rackell and she had seen the act; that I suggested that she should inform i fine police of that fact; and that, as compensation for her I' -embarrassment and distress, I engaged to pay her a large sum of money which would be provided by Mr. and Mrs. Rackell." Wolfe upturned a palm. "Supposing I did that, it was not an attempt to suborn perjury, since it cannot be shown that I intended her to swear falsely, but certainly I was exposing myself to a claim for damages from Miss Goheen. That was a calculated risk I had to take, and whether the calculation was sound depended on the event. There was also a risk of being charged with obstruction of justice, and that too depended on the event. Should it prove to serve justice instead of obstructing it, and should Miss Goheen suffer no unmerited damage, I would be fully justified. I hope to be. I expect to be."
"Then you can--"
"If you please. But suppose, having done all that, I now admit it to you and tell you my calculations and intentions.
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Then you'll either have to try to head me off or be in it with me. It would be jackassery for you to head me off--take my word for it; it would be unthinkable. But it would also be unthinkable for you to be in it, either actively or passively. Whatever the outcome may be, you cannot afford to be associated with an offer to pay a large sum of money to a person involved in a murder case for disclosing a fact, even an authentic one. Your positions forbid it. I'm a private citizen and can stand it; you can't. What the devil did you come here for? If I'm headed for defeat, opprobrium, and punishment, then I am. Why dash up here only to get yourselves confronted with unthinkable alternatives?"
Wolfe fluttered a hand. "Luckily, this is just talk. I was merely discussing a complex supposition. To return to reality, I will be glad to give you gentlemen any information that you may properly require--and Mr. Goodwin too, of course. So?"
They looked at each other. Cramer let out a snort. Wengert pulled at his ear and gazed at me, and I returned the gaze, open-faced and perfectly innocent. He found that not helpful and transferred to Wolfe.
"You called the turn," he said, "when you told Goodwin to phone Miss Devlin. I should have foreseen that. That was dumb." i
The phone rang, and I swiveled and got it. "Nero Wolfe's office, Archie Goodwin speaking."
"This is Rattner."
"Oh, hello. Keep it down, my ears are sensitive."
"Durkin sent me to phone so he could stay on the subject. The subject came out of the house at seven nineteen East Fifty-first Street at eleven forty-one. He was alone. He walked to Lexington and around the corner to a drugstore and is in there now in a phone booth. I'm across the street in a restaurant. Any instructions?"
"Not a thing, thank you. Give my love to the family."
"Right."
It clicked off, and I hung up and swiveled back to rejoin the party, but apparently it was over. They were on their 42
feet, and Wengert was turning to go. Cramer was saying, ". . . but it's not all off the record. I just want that understood."
He turned and followed Wengert out. I saw no point in dashing past them out to the door, since two grown men should be up to turning a knob and pulling, but I stepped to the hall to observe. When they were outside and the door closed I went back in and remarked to Wolfe, "Very neat. But what if they had let me phone her?"
He made a face. "Pfui. If they had got it from her they wouldn't have called on me. They would have sent for you, possibly with a warrant. That was one of the contingencies."
"They might have let me phone her anyway."
"Unlikely, since that would have disclosed their knowledge --to her and therefore to anyone--and betrayed their informant. But if they had, while she was on her way I would have proceeded with them, and they would have left before she arrived."
I put the yellow chair back in place. "All the same I'm glad they didn't and so are you. That was Rattner on the phone, reporting for Fred. Heath was with Miss Devlin an hour and four minutes. He left at eleven forty-one and was in a phone booth in a drugstore when Rattner called."
"Satisfactory." He picked up his pencil and bent over the crossword puzzle with a little sigh.
S"j*UNE twenty-first is supposed to be the longest day, but this QiJ year it was August third. It went on for weeks after Cramer and Wengert left. I spent it all in the office, and it was no fun. There was only one thing that could keep us floating, but there were a dozen that could sink us. They might lose him. Or he might handle it by phone--most unlikely, but not impossible. Or Wolfe might have it figured entirely wrong; he himself gave it one in twenty. Or Heath might meet him or her some place where they couldn't be nailed. Or a city or
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federal employee might horn in and ruin it. Or and or and
or.
Five bucks an hour had been added to the outgo. If and when the call came that would start me moving, I didn't want to waste any precious minutes or even seconds finding transportation, so Herb Aronson had his taxi parked at the filling station at the corner of Eleventh Avenue, on us. Also he came to us for lunch and again, at seven in the even'ing, for dinner.
Every time the phone rang and I grabbed it, I wanted it and I didn't. It might be the starting gun, but on the other hand it might be the awful news that they had lost him. Keeping a tail on a guy in New York, especially if he has an important reason for wanting privacy, needs not only great skill but also plenty of luck. We were buying the skill, in Saul and Fred and Orrie, but you can't buy luck.
The luck held, and so did they. There were two more calls from Fred, via Rattner, before two o'clock, when he was relieved by Orrie Cather. One was to report that Heath, after calls at an
optician's and a bookstore, had entered a restaurant on Forty-fifth Street and was lunching with two men, not known to me as described, and the other was to tell where Orrie could find him. There was still no sign of an official tail. During the afternoon and early evening there was a series of reports from Orrie. Heath and his companions left the restaurant at 2:52, taxied to the apartment house on Sixty-ninth Street where Heath lived, and entered. At 5:35 the two men emerged and walked off. At 7:03 Heath came out and took a taxi to Chezar's restaurant, where he met Delia Devlin and they dined. At 9:14 they left and taxied to the gray brick house on Fifty-first Street and went in. Heath was still in there at ten o'clock, the hour for Orrie to be relieved by Saul Panzer, and it was at the corner of Fifty-first and Lexington that Orrie and Saul connected.
By that time I would have been chewing on a railroad spike if I had had one, and Wolfe was working hard trying to be serene. Between nine-thirty and ten-thirty he made four trips to the bookshelves, trying different ones, setting a record.
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I snarled at him, "What's the matter, restless?"
"Yes," he said placidly. "Are you?"
"Yes."
It came a little before eleven. The phone rang, and I got it. It was Bill Doyle.
He seemed to be panting. "I'm out of breath," he said, wasting some of it. "When he left there he got smart and started tricks. We let him spot Al and ditch him, you know how Saul works it, but even then we damn near lost him. He came to Eighty-sixth and Fifth and went in the park on foot. A woman was sitting on a bench with a collie on a leash, and he stopped and started talking to her. Saul thinks you'd better come."
"So do I. Describe the woman."
"I can't. I was keeping back and didn't get close enough."
"Where is Saul?"
"On the ground under a bush."
"Where are you?"
"Drugstore. Eighty-sixth and Madison."
"Be at the Eighty-sixth-Street park entrance. I'm coming."
I whirled and told Wolfe, "In Central Park. He met a woman with a dog. So long."
"Are you armed?"
"Certainly." I was at the door.
"They will be desperate."
"I already am."
I let myself out, ran down the stoop and to the corner. Herb was in his hack, listening to the radio. At sight of me on the lope he switched it off, and by the time I was in he had the engine started. I told him, "Eighty-sixth and Fifth," and we rolled.
We went up Eleventh Avenue instead of Tenth because with the staggered lights on Tenth you can't average better than twenty-five. On Eleventh you can make twelve or more blocks on a light if you sprint, and we sprinted. At Fifty-sixth we turned east, had fair luck crosstown, and turned left on Fifth Avenue. I told Herb to quit crawling, and he told me to get out and walk. When we reached Eighty-sixth Street I had
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the door open before the wheels stopped, hopped out, and crossed the avenue to the park side.
Bill Doyle was there. He was the pale gaunt type, from reading too much about horses and believing it. I asked him, "Anything new?"
"No. I been here waiting."
"Can you show me Saul's bush without rousing the dog?"
"I can if he's still there. It's quite a ways."
"Within a hundred yards of them take to the grass. They mustn't hear our footsteps stopping. Let's go."
He entered the park by the paved path, and I trailed. The first thirty paces it was upgrade, curving right. Under a park light two young couples had stopped to have an argument, and we detoured around them. The path leveled and straightened under overhanging branches of trees. We passed another light. A man swinging a cane came striding from the opposite direction and on by. The path turned left, crossed an open space, and entered shrubbery. A little further on there was a fork, and Doyle stopped.
"They're down there a couple of hundred feet," he whispered, pointing to the left branch of the fork. "Or they were. Saul's over that way."
"Okay, I'll lead. Steer me by touch."
I stepped onto the grass and started alongside the right branch of the fork. It was uphill a little, and I had to duck under branches. I hadn't gone far when Doyle tugged at my sleeve, and when I turned he pointed to the left. "That bunch of bushes there," he whispered. "The big one in the middle. That's where he went, but I can't see him."
My sight is twenty-twenty, and my eyes had got adjusted to the night, but for a minute I couldn't pick him up. When I did the huddled hump under the bush was perfectly plain. A ripple ran up my spine. Since Saul was still there, Heath was still there too, under his eye, and almost certainly the woman with the dog was there also. Of course I couldn't see them, on account of the bushes. I considered what to do. I wanted to confront them together, before they separated, but if Saul was close enough to hear their words I didn't want to bust it 46
up. The most attractive idea was to sneak across to Saul's bush and join him, but I might be heard, if not by them by the dog. Standing there, peering toward Saul's bush, concentrated, with Doyle beside me, I became aware of footsteps behind me, approaching along the path, but supposed it was just a late park stroller and didn't turn--until the footsteps stopped and a voice came.
"Looking for tigers?"
I wheeled. It was a flatfoot on park patrol. "Good evening, officer," I said respectfully. "Nope, just getting air."
"The air's the same if you stay on the path." He approached on the grass, looking not at us but past us, in the direction we had been gazing. Suddenly he grunted, quickened his step, and headed straight for Saul's bush. Apparently he had good eyes too. There was no time to consider. I muttered fast at Doyle's ear, "Grab his cap and run--jump, damn it!"
He did. I will always love him for it, especially for not hesitating a tenth of a second. Four leaps got him to the cop, a swoop of his hand got the cap, and away he scooted, swerving right to double back to the path. I stood in my tracks. The cop acted by reflex. Instead of ignoring the playful prank and proceeding to inspect the object under the bush, or making for me, he bounded after Doyle and his cap, calling a command to halt. Doyle, reaching the path and streaking along it, had a good lead, but the cop was no snail. They disappeared. All that commotion changed the situation entirely. I made it double quick to the left across the grass until I reached the other fork of the path, and kept going. Around a bend, there they were--Heath seated on a bench with a woman, a big collie lying at their feet. When I stopped in front of them the collie rose to its haunches and made a noise, asking a question. I had a hand in a coat pocket.
"Tell the dog it's okay," I suggested. "I hate to shoot a dog."
"Why should you--" Heath started, and stopped. He stood up.
"Yeah, it's me," I said. "Representing Nero Wolfe. It won't
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help if you scream, there's two of us. Come on out, Saul. Watch the dog, it may not wait for orders."
There was a sound from the direction of the bushes, and in a moment Saul appeared, circling around to join me on the right. The dog made a noise that was more of a whine than a growl, but it didn't move. The woman put a hand on its head. I asked Saul, "Could you hear what they said?"
"Most of it. I heard enough."
"Was it interesting?"
"Yes."
"This is illegal," Heath stated. He was half choked with indignation or something. "This is an invasion�"
"Nuts. Save it; you may need it. I have a cab parked at the Eighty-sixth-Street entrance. Four of us with the dog will just fill it comfortably. Mr. Wolfe is expecting us. Let's go."
"You're armed," Heath said. "This is assault with a deadly weapon."
"I'm going home," the woman said, speaking for the first time. "I'll telephone Mr. Wolfe, or my husband will, and we'll see about this. I brought my dog to the park, and this gentleman and I happened to get into conversation. This is outrageous. You won't dare to harm my dog."
She got up, and the collie was instantly erect by her, against her knee.
/> "Well," I conceded, "I admit I hate to shoot a dog. I also admit that Mr. Wolfe likes himself so well that he'll steal the throne on the Day of Judgment if they don't watch him. So you go on home with Towser, and Saul and I will call on the police and the FBI, and I'll tell them what I saw, and Saul will tell them what he saw and heard. But don't make the mistake of thinking you can talk them out of believing us. We have our reputations just as you have yours."
They looked at each other. They looked at me and back at each other.
"We'll see Mr. Wolfe," the woman said.
Heath looked right and then left, as if hoping there might be someone else around to see, and then nodded at her.
"That's sensible," I told them. "You lead the way, Saul. lEighty-sixth-Street entrance."
^e left the collie in Herb's taxi, parked at the curb in front of Wolfe's place. There has never been a dog in I that house, and I saw no point in breaking the precedent for one who was on such strained terms with me. Herb, on advice, closed the glass panels.
I went ahead up the stoop to open the door and let them in, put them in the front room with Saul, and went through to 5 the office.
"Okay," I told Wolfe, "it's your turn. They're here." Behind his desk, he closed the book he had been reading | and put it down. He asked, "Mrs. Rackell?"
"Yes. They were there on a bench, with dog, and Saul was behind a bush and could hear, but I don't know what. I gave them their choice of the law or you, and they preferred 1 you. She probably thinks she can buy out. You want Saul I 6rst?"
"No. Bring them in." "But Saul can tell you--" "I don't need it. Or if I do-we'll see." "You want him in too?" "Yes."
I went and opened the connecting door and invited them, | and they entered. As Mrs. Rackell crossed to the red leather chair and sat her lips were so tight there were none. Heath's jf face had no expression at all, but it must be hard to display feeling with that kind of round pudgy frontispiece even if you try. Saul took a chair against the far wall, but Wolfe told him to move up, and he transferred to one at the end of my desk.
