“Indeed,” Wolfe said. “Do you have any thoughts?”
“It seems like somebody has waited an awfully long time before taking revenge on you. Any possibility that it’s someone other than the people connected to those five cases?”
“Of course it is possible,” Wolfe replied, “but those are the episodes that have generated the most intense animosity toward me by far.”
“I was at least peripherally involved in three … no, four of those cases, and I remember the anger,” Saul said. “What can I be doing?”
Wolfe’s mouth twitched. “I had hoped this would pique your interest. Can you make some inquiries—discreet ones, at least at first—about the living principals in those five files? We can bring on Fred, if you think it would help.”
“I’ll fly solo, at least for now,” Saul said, turning to me. “Are you hunkering down here?”
“Too damned much of the time,” I grumped. “I have snuck out—by the back way, of course—to take Lily Rowan to dinner and to transact some banking. Unfortunately, the latter activity has involved withdrawals lately, not deposits,” I added, looking at Wolfe.
“Any idea if your phantom caller knows about that passageway to Thirty-Fourth Street?”
“I’m not sure, but I doubt it.”
Saul nodded. “Because this rocky old island of ours is lacking in alleys, most people mistakenly think the only way in and out of a building is through the street entrance.”
“The paucity of alleyways in this city can be traced to an egregious decision made generations ago by so-called municipal planners,” Wolfe put in. “These men felt alleys would take up valuable space that could better be used for structures. The consequences of that act are all too apparent to anyone traversing New York’s streets: refuse piled high on the sidewalks in front of commercial establishments and residences, and garbage and delivery trucks parked and double-parked in front of these same buildings, impeding vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”
I was tempted to point out that because Wolfe rarely leaves the brownstone, he has little exposure to—and little reason to complain about—such unpleasant conditions as garbage and deliveries stacked up on so many Midtown sidewalks, but I was not about to debate the issue. Besides, our dinner guest had more to say about back entrances in Manhattan, and Wolfe loves to hear him talk.
“Over the years, I have come to discover all sorts of narrow passageways between buildings that lead away from presumably undetected rear exits,” Saul said.
“Handy for burglars to know,” I remarked.
“You can say that again, Archie. Case in point: A dozen or so years back, I got hired by a rag trade nabob who owned a duplex in a six-story building in the Village—a dandy setup. His wife’s jewels—a haul worth close to a half million—had been pilfered from an upstairs bedroom, or at least the most valuable ones had, the diamonds and rubies. The cops were stumped. There were doormen on duty around the clock, and they said they never admitted any strangers to the building, which I believed. However, the place had a rear exit that opened on a narrow, winding passage between two buildings that ended at MacDougal Street.
“The lock on the rear exit to the duplex was intact, which means it had been picked,” Saul continued. “That smelled like Eddie ‘Light Fingers’ Cornelius, who could work wonders with locks and who also was known for his skill at lifting expensive baubles. To make a long story short, I ran Eddie to ground before he could fence the stuff and gave him a choice: give me the diamonds and rubies or get turned over to the law.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Eddie coughed up the gems, you didn’t tell the cops, and you returned the ice to its owner like the noble fellow you are.”
“Bingo! But there’s more to the story that will interest both of you. I also got Eddie to give me a dandy fold-out map he had, although he didn’t like it one bit. He had put this map together himself, or so he claimed, and he did a good job. It covered Manhattan, river to river and from the Village on the south to Ninetieth Street on the north. It showed dozens of passageways between buildings that he had inked in. Very helpful for anyone wanting access to the rear of a structure.”
“Like maybe a jewel thief,” I observed. Saul grinned and took another sip of cognac.
“Most interesting,” Wolfe said. “But it begs a question.”
“The answer is no,” Saul replied.
I spun around in my chair. “What question? What did I miss here?”
Wolfe made a sound like a chuckle. “I wondered whether that map showed our own path from the back door to Thirty-Fourth Street, and Saul told me what I wanted to hear.”
“Hell, I could have told you so,” I said, trying to recover from being flummoxed. “Like it or not, we are not exactly in a high-rent district here. Nowhere near in a league with Park Avenue or the Upper East Side, or even certain parts of Greenwich Village. This Eddie character apparently knows where the pickings are best.”
“I will give him that,” Saul said. “He’s one slimy character, but he’s also damned shrewd.”
“Do we really care that our own back exit isn’t on his map?” I posed.
Saul nodded. “I think you should care and be thankful, Archie. Guys like Eddie, who are smart enough to come up with a map like he did, also know how valuable it can be to others who want to, shall we say, stay out of sight as much as possible. I’m under no illusion that the map I have is Eddie’s only copy. I would not be surprised to learn that he’s made copies of it and peddled them at a nice price to all sorts of people who prefer not to be seen on the streets.”
“I agree with your assumption,” Wolfe said, draining the last of his second post-dinner beer.
“Thank you, sir, and thank you also for the superb dinner,” Saul said. “Please convey my thanks to Fritz for another memorable gastronomic experience. Do you prefer that I leave the way I came?”
“I do. For now, let us maintain the fiction that we are an armed camp, letting no one in or out. We must remain vigilant. As Winston Churchill once said, ‘We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.’”
After Saul left and I bolted the back door, I poured myself a glass of milk in the kitchen and returned to the office, dropping into my desk chair. “Do you feel safer knowing that an unmarked car occupied by one of New York’s Finest sits at the end of the block, presumably protecting us from the forces of evil?” I asked.
Wolfe’s reply was a scowl.
“I feel the same way,” I told him. “But I will sleep well regardless. I have no doubt that our fortifications will keep the barbarians at bay.”
That earned me another scowl, which I returned with a grin as I rose to go upstairs to bed. It had been a long day.
Chapter 5
After putting away a breakfast of broiled Georgia ham and hash brown potatoes in the kitchen, I complimented Fritz on the ham and went to the office, where I glared at the telephone on my desk, wondering when we would get another call from the man—I continued to believe it was a man—with the high-pitched voice. As if it could read my mind, the instrument rang at that very moment.
I recited the usual “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking,” and held my breath.
“Oh yes, Mr. Goodwin, I know that you work with Mr. Wolfe.” It was a woman’s voice, with no regional accent. “You sound most pleasant,” she added.
“I am told my phone manners are one of my strongest suits, Miss—or is it Mrs… . ?”
“It’s Miss—Miss Cordelia Hutchinson.”
“A very nice name. What can we do for you?”
“I would like to … well, to hire your Mr. Nero Wolfe,” she said, her voice now just above a whisper, as if someone were listening.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes, yes I am, quite alone.” Still near a whisper.
“Then feel free to speak a little louder, Miss Hutchinson
. Tell me why you want to hire Mr. Wolfe.”
“It is very personal,” she confided. “Terribly personal.”
“I assure you that’s normally the case when people seek Mr. Wolfe’s assistance. But I will need more specifics about your concerns before I talk to him. As I am sure you can appreciate, he is a very busy man.”
“Oh, I am sure that he is, Mr. Goodwin, I am sure that he is. I have read much about his reputation. But won’t he accept me as a client if I say to you that my situation is very … well, very frightening?”
“I can ask him, of course, but I am being candid when I say that unless he knows more about your situation, he is not likely to see you.”
There was a long pause on the other end. I thought I might have lost her except that I could hear breathing.
“All right,” she sighed after a half-minute, which seemed longer. “Please tell Mr. Wolfe I am being blackmailed, and it is destroying my life.”
“Can you give me any more information about this blackmailing? As in: Who is doing it, and why? Take your time.”
“I do not think you realize how hard this is for me, Mr. Goodwin,” she said, her voice starting to crack. “I have thought about making this call now for almost a week. I am glad you can’t see me at this moment, because my hands are shaking.”
“You do realize, Miss Hutchinson, that if Mr. Wolfe does agree to see you, and that is by no means certain, he will ask you the same questions I am going to, and many, many more, some of them very direct and demanding of answers.”
“Yes … I understand that.”
“How did you hear from the blackmailer?”
“Letters, two of them, and a telephone call.”
“I assume you live in New York City?”
“I do now, yes. Up on Sutton Place, with my parents.”
“Where can I reach you?”
“I would prefer calling you again.”
“Have it your way. Because you seem to know something about Nero Wolfe, you are probably aware that he does not come cheap.”
“Money is not an issue for me, Mr. Goodwin.”
“All right, Miss Hutchinson. I will discuss your case, such as I know of it, with Mr. Wolfe today. I suggest you telephone me sometime after four this afternoon, and I will tell you his decision.”
“That is so very kind, thank you. You sound like a nice person. Please tell him that I am desperate.” Her voice began to crack again.
“I will tell him. I expect to hear from you shortly after four.” She promised she would call, and we signed off.
I then dialed the direct line of Lon Cohen of the New York Gazette, who I mentioned earlier. Lon is not only a good poker player, he is a newspaperman extraordinaire, and we have tapped his knowledge of the city and its inhabitants more times than I can count. But in return, he has gotten a bundle of scoops on cases Wolfe has solved. Lon does not have a title I am aware of at the Gazette, America’s fifth-largest daily newspaper, but he does have an office on the twentieth floor of the paper’s Midtown tower, just two doors from the publisher himself.
He answered on the first ring. “Tidings of the day, oh chronicler of the foibles and follies of the daily life in our nation’s greatest city,” I said.
“Calling to chortle because of your winnings with the pasteboards the other night?” he snapped.
“Heaven forbid that I should ever chortle. Over the long haul, you have picked my pocket more times than I have picked yours on the green baize of Saul’s poker table. I come before you, hat in hand, humbly seeking information.”
“Huh! You’ve never done anything humbly in your life. Well, out with it, gumshoe. We do have deadlines here, you know.”
“As you have so often reminded me. What can you tell me about one Cordelia Hutchinson?”
“The comely young railroad millionairess? What do you need to know? And why?”
“Whoa! One question at a time, scrivener. We may—and I do mean may—have us a client, but that is anything but certain right at the moment. And it is not for publication at this time.”
“Understood. I can tell you a little about said young lady off the top of my head, although I’ll call the morgue for the clips on her, if you’d like to take a look at them—but only in my office, of course.”
A half hour later, after leaving the brownstone by the rear exit, I was in Lon’s small, unadorned office with a dandy view of the Chrysler Building, listening to him chew out an editor in the newsroom fifteen floors below over the phone.
“What do you mean, our man on the Capitol beat doesn’t know how to reach the congressman? Whatever happened to enterprise reporting, for God’s sake? The guy is clearly holed up someplace and doesn’t want to talk about that lady he’s been seen with all over Washington. Where in the hell are our reporter’s contacts? Damn, if the Times or the Herald-Tribune or, heaven forbid, the Daily News, beats us to this, there will be hell to pay, and several people on this paper will be doing the paying—and that includes you.”
Lon slammed the receiver down so hard I thought it would break. “Pretty impressive,” I told him. “Are you always that hard to please?”
“Archie, you haven’t seen anything. Two weeks ago, I had a guy canned because of—oh, never mind, it’s not worth retelling. Okay, here are the Hutchinson clips.” He slid two fat envelopes across the desk to me.
“Your crew has written quite a bit about her,” I said.
“Almost all of it in the society pages, which I know you do not usually read. Am I sniffing a scandal someplace here?”
“Is the lady someone who might be part of a scandal?” I countered.
Lon ran his hand over dark, slicked-back hair. “Beats me, Archie. She’s young, single, twenty-four or so, nice-looking but just short of beautiful, or so I would say. You can look at the pictures of her and judge for yourself. The last few years, she’s been linked with a number of eligible swells, most of them who come from money like her.”
I went through the clippings and agreed with Lon’s assessment of Cordelia: Her photos showed her to be fresh-faced, well turned-out, and undeniably pretty—but beautiful? Not quite. An article several years old focused on her coming-out party on the rolling green of the family’s splendid estate up near Katonah. Other stories, some with pictures, placed her at elegant gatherings in Newport and the Hamptons, always smiling demurely and clad in elegant designer gowns.
The three most recent articles, all from the last six months, included pictures of Cordelia with Lance “Lanny” Mercer III, heir to the Mercer Aviation Corp. millions. Perhaps the respective families were hoping for a dynastic marriage to merge their rail and aeronautic empires.
All the while I was going through the Gazette’s material on Miss Hutchinson, Lon was on one or another of his three phones firing off orders like a drill sergeant addressing a bunch of raw recruits. “Always instructive to see you in action,” I told him, rising to leave. “Thanks for getting me the clips.”
“Just remember the favor,” he muttered, waving a hand absently and preparing to make another call. I pitied whoever would be its recipient.
I was back in the office transferring orchid germination records onto file cards at eleven when Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, placed a raceme of Cattleya in the vase on his desk blotter, asked if I had slept well, and buzzed Fritz in the kitchen for beer.
“I scanned the block from my bedroom window this morning, and it appears the police car is gone,” I told him when he had gotten his bulk settled and begun riffling through the morning mail I had opened and stacked on the desk.
“No doubt Inspector Cramer has lost interest in the foofaraw of the other night. He has plenty of larger day-to-day worries.”
“No doubt. By the way, we got a telephone call this morning.”
“From … that man?”
“No, from—believe it or
not—a prospective client.”
“Pah! I am not interested. You know that.”
“Pah, yourself. You are well aware of the sorry state of our bank balance. This is the answer to our prayers.”
“Yours, perhaps, but not mine,” Wolfe said, popping the cap on the first of two chilled bottles of beer Fritz had placed before him. “Besides, we have other matters to deal with.”
“Which is precisely what Saul is doing. We can’t let this bird knock us out of commission—and commissions. As you have so often said in this very room, it takes a lot of money to run the operation here, what with salaries for Fritz, Theodore, and me, to say nothing of the grocery bills, the books you buy by the dozen, and, of course, the beer.”
“I do not buy books by the dozen,” Wolfe said with a sniff.
“Okay, so I threw that in just to see if you were listening. But over the course of a year, you do help to keep our local bookseller, Mr. Murger, in the black. I’ve been getting rusty sitting around, and I need some action or I will start to get cranky. You surely don’t want that to happen.”
Wolfe raised his eyebrows. “Start to get cranky? I was not aware you had ever ceased.”
“Do you see what I mean? When we don’t have business, we get on each other’s nerves. I know you hate to hear this, but we need to be working, and not just for the money, although it helps.”
I was getting to him. He began tracing circles with his index finger on the arm of his chair and drew in his usual cubic bushel of air. Letting it out, he conceded, “All right, who was the caller?” I stifled a smile and mentioned her name.
“The railway heiress, I believe,” Wolfe said.
“So you read the society columns, eh?”
“On occasion. Report.”
I gave him a verbatim account of my conversation with Cordelia Hutchinson—hardly challenging given its brevity—and summarized my findings in the Gazette’s files on the young lady. As I talked, Wolfe’s facial expressions varied from unease to outright disgust. When I finished, he leaned back, eyes closed, and laced his hands over his stomach.
Archie in the Crosshairs Page 3
