After a prolonged sigh, he stirred. “Confound it, have her come.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning, eleven.”
“Should I have her arrive through the passageway?”
“Yes, give her the directions. If she asks you why, tell her it is to protect her privacy.”
“She’ll buy that. Do I have any other instructions in the meantime?”
“Find out if Saul has made any progress on his assignments and ask Miss Rowan her opinion of Miss Hutchinson. I presume their paths have crossed in the world of what the newspapers term ‘high society.’”
I mentioned Lily Rowan earlier. She and I have been what might be called “special friends” for years, and I see no need to elaborate on that term. Lily is very beautiful, very lazy, and very rich. Her wealth comes from her late father, an Irish immigrant who made a fortune building much of New York City’s current sewer system.
Although Nero Wolfe has an aversion to women, he long ago made an exception for Lily, at least in part because the first time they met, she asked, demurely, if she might be allowed to see his vast array of orchids in the greenhouse. This is a request Wolfe rarely rejects, as his pride in his orchids is every bit as great as his love of fine foods and good books.
Lily lives in a penthouse topping a ten-story building just off Park Avenue that contains, among other things, an off-white Austrian grand piano with ninety-seven keys; artworks by Renoir, Monet, Picasso, and Matisse; and a nineteen-by-thirty-four–foot Kashan carpet in seven colors. I have said that Lily is lazy, but I must also mention that she has a strong social conscience and generously lends both her time and her money to several “good works” organizations that aid the less fortunate. One more point: Lily’s wealth is not what attracted me to her, and whenever we venture out, whether to dinner, the theatre, or a hockey game at the Garden, I pay—period.
“To what do I owe this call, Escamillo?” Lily asked, using the name she tagged me with after I had had a run-in with a very angry bull in an Upstate meadow some years back.
“I seek information,” I told her.
“Ah, I might have known! Is that all I am to you, a source of dirt on the great and the near-great in this sordid metropolis of ours?”
“You know better than that, fair lady. I cherish you for your grace on the dance floor, your winning smile, your wonderful sense of humor, your love of the New York Rangers—which I share—and, of course, your ability to cheer me up when I fall into a dark mood.”
“You say the sweetest things to a girl. I trust you are not now in one of those dark moods.”
“No, but if I were, the sound of your voice would have lifted me out of it already. What I would like today is any knowledge you have of one Miss Hutchinson of the railroad dynasty.”
“The fetching Cordelia? Isn’t she just a bit young for you?”
“Age knows no barriers, where love is concerned.”
“Beautifully said, you sweet-talker. Now why do you really want to know about her?”
“You’ve seen right through me, as usual. Believe it or not, she may just become a client of ours.”
“That is indeed hard to believe. Cordelia and I don’t know each other well, but we did serve together on the board of an orphanage last year. I was rotating off the board as she was joining it, so we overlapped for a few months. I found her to be reserved and humble to the point of meekness, which I suspect is an affectation. If I had to use one word to describe her, it would be prissy.”
“Any gossip floating around about said maiden?”
“Not that I have heard, although I probably wouldn’t hear it, given that we run in different circles. I do know that she’s been spending a lot of time with a young man from a family that builds airplanes.”
“The Mercers.”
“It sounds like you’ve done some homework of your own.”
“A little. Just enough to know that I don’t know very much about Cordelia Hutchinson.”
“Of course, I am dying to know why she needs the services of Nero Wolfe and his noble associate Archie Goodwin. But I don’t suppose you are going to tell me now, are you?”
“Not at the moment, but perhaps when this all gets resolved, I may share some details with you—that is, if you are nice to me.”
“When have I not been nice to you, Escamillo?”
“Point taken. I have no complaints whatever about your behavior toward me. And I do like the sound of ‘noble associate.’”
“I am certainly glad to hear that. But beware of Cordelia. She may just try to beguile you with her coy ways.”
“Heaven forbid that you should think such a thing. After all, she’s practically a child.”
“Just remember, someone once said that age knows no barriers where love is concerned.”
I promised her I would keep that in mind.
Chapter 6
At two minutes after four that afternoon, the phone rang in the office. Answering as I usually do, I was greeted by Cordelia Hutchinson’s breathless voice. “Oh, Mr. Goodwin, have you talked to Mr. Wolfe?” I told her I had.
“Will he, will he … take me on?”
“That remains to be seen, Miss Hutchinson, but he will see you, which is progress of a sort. To protect your privacy, you are to come here via the back way,” I said, explaining that I would meet her on Thirty-Fourth Street in front of the auto repair shop.
“What should I do to persuade him to take me on as a client? I’ll do anything you say.”
“First, be prompt. Eleven means eleven, so be on Thirty-Fourth Street no later than ten-fifty. Answer all of his questions, fully and honestly. Do not, under any circumstances, get cute. He is very direct—some would say curt—very straightforward, and he does not appreciate people who try to flatter him. Anything else you want to know?”
“No … I guess not. Will you be present when I talk to him?”
“Yes, but it is his show all the way. I’m just there as an observer.”
“I am so glad that you will be there, though, Mr. Goodwin,” she said in a faux little-girl voice that was beginning to get on my nerves. “You sound like you’re a very nice man.”
I was tempted to tell her not to try flattering me, either, but I let her comment slide. No sense giving her a hard time; she would get enough of that from Wolfe.
In the office the next morning, I finished typing letters Wolfe had dictated the day before to three orchid growers and put them on his desk blotter for signing. Then I called Saul for an update.
“Slow going, Archie,” he said, “really slow. I feel like I’m taking Mr. Wolfe’s money under false pretenses—that is, if I even charge him for my time on this one. So far, I haven’t been able to eliminate anybody.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Fill me in.”
“I started out with the case of Charles Stinson, the guy who went to prison for killing that young woman down along the East River.”
“The man whose mother ripped into us for daring to suggest her angel was capable of such a horrible deed,” I said.
“Right, and from my visits with her neighbors, it seems that the woman remains absolutely convinced of her son’s innocence.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet,” Saul said. “Remember, Mr. Wolfe told me to make discreet inquiries. It seems Mrs. Stinson is not popular in her building or on the block. She has a mean temper, and often screams from her window at kids playing stickball on the sidewalk or in the street. She refuses to speak to most of her neighbors because of real or imagined slights, so I was told by several people.”
“Other than her son, has she got any relatives?”
“None. Her husband died about twenty years ago, and her son was an only child. The only mail she ever gets is bills or circulars—no cards or letters.”
“P
eople certainly like to know one another’s business, don’t they?”
Saul agreed. “I wasn’t even asked by any of these neighbors why I was interested in Anna Stinson. They were only too happy to volunteer their opinions about her, all of them negative. I had trouble leaving one woman’s flat; she wanted to tell me all about Mrs. S., as well as some of the other people in the building and why she couldn’t stand any of them.”
“Well, you sound none the worse for the experience, trying as it must have been. Do we know anything about how Charles Stinson is faring?”
“He’s still residing at Attica, of course. I just happen to know a guy fairly high up in the state penal system—I did a favor for him once—and he checked on Stinson for me. He’s apparently as reclusive as ever, keeps to himself, has no friends whatsoever on the inside, and seems to like it that way. He has been in and out of the psychiatric ward and suffers from depression. Barely speaks.”
“It seems unlikely he would enlist somebody to threaten us,” I observed.
“Unlikely isn’t a strong enough word,” Saul said. “I would use impossible.”
“So we scratch Charles Stinson off, but definitely not his mother. Who, or what, is next?”
“Alan Marx, the brother of Simeon, the stockbroker who strangled the blackmailing ballet dancer.”
“Another vocal member of the Nero Wolfe fan club.”
“This one’s a hard man to pin down, Archie. Like his brother, Alan has worked on Wall Street and, by all accounts, has been successful. He’s also a fine-art collector of note and a patron of all sorts of other arts, including opera, ballet, symphony, you name it. I did locate one broker who used to work with him and is with a different firm now. He told me that Alan Marx is a vindictive man who never forgets a slight, however minor. And I didn’t have any trouble getting the former coworker to open up on the subject. Unprompted, he even brought up Alan’s animosity toward Mr. Wolfe, which he said surfaced frequently when they had worked together.”
“It doesn’t sound like your source and Marx were exactly chummy.”
“No, and if I were to guess, I would venture that my source left Alan Marx’s brokerage house because of some sort of disagreement between them. When I pressed him on the subject, he clammed up.”
“It doesn’t appear we can cross the angry brother off our list.”
“Archie, based on what I’ve found, I would not cross anybody off yet, except Charles Stinson,” Saul said somberly.
“But, of course, not his vituperative mother. So the knives are out for us. Who’s next?”
“The Lester family, specifically Maybelle, sister of the late Toby, who hanged himself up in the Tombs. I managed to locate a former family maid, Helen Stark, who had worked for the Lester family until she got tired of Maybelle’s bullying ways and quit to take a job with another well-heeled family on the Upper East Side a little less than a year ago. Miss Stark told me the Lester woman is every bit as bitter about her brother’s fate as she was when he died. She told me she heard Maybelle mutter to herself about ‘that damned miserable Nero Wolfe’ a number of times.”
“How often I’ve muttered those very same words myself,” I said. “Do you consider this woman to be a reliable witness, given her less-than-pleasant history with the family?”
“I do, Archie. I say that partly because Helen Stark also had some sympathetic words for Maybelle. ‘I always tried to be tolerant of that sad lady, because I know her life has not been easy,’ Helen told me. ‘Her late father always favored Toby, and then she got herself jilted just two weeks before the big wedding her family had planned for her up at St. John the Divine. That soured her on marriage, and I hope I do not sound unkind when I say that she is not overly attractive, so she may not get another chance, whether she wants it or not. Even though she was not always nice to me, I do not wish her ill in any way. She’s had more than her share of misery, poor woman, despite her wealth. And she’s never gotten over her brother’s suicide.’”
“So Maybelle could still be gunning for us… . Make that me.”
“Maybe,” Saul replied. “She’s certainly got the dough to hire a hit man, if that happens to be in her plans.”
“You’re certainly full of good news,” I said. “Well, go ahead, depress me further. I can take it.”
“Next, we come to Grover Applegate Jr., son of the man who fleeced little old ladies and died in prison of a heart attack.”
“Ah, the ‘swindler of the century,’ or so the newspapers termed the father at the time.”
“And to this day, the son insists his old man was innocent,” Saul said.
“Just like Mrs. Stinson. Seems that nobody thinks those near and dear can possibly be possessed of evil. Have you talked to the son?”
“No, but through people I know in the financial world, I did get in touch with a man named Mark Whelan, who used to work with Junior at one of the big Wall Street banks. From what he said, the younger Applegate remains every bit as bitter as Maybelle Lester.”
“My boss sure knows how to make friends for life,” I said. “I don’t suppose the son works for the same banking house his father did?”
“No, and that may be at least part of his resentment. Whelan told me that when Junior tried to get a job there, the bank wouldn’t have anything to do with him because of his name. The Applegate stigma was too much for them. Not only that, he was also turned away by several other banks, and he was convinced he was being blackballed because of his father.”
“But he did finally land a job?”
“Yes, at a smaller banking house, according to Whelan,” Saul said. “They hired young Applegate because they felt he showed promise and deserved a chance to emerge from his father’s long shadow.”
“I sense there’s a but coming.”
“There is, Archie. But Applegate’s ‘poor me’ attitude was so all-consuming that it affected his performance. Several times, the higher-ups at the bank urged him to be more positive; his foul moods and grumbling about his father’s fate were casting a gloom over the office and causing coworkers to complain about him. The bank finally decided to let him go—although Whelan told me he got a better severance deal than his short tenure there, less than a year, merited.”
“So what is he doing now?” I asked.
“Whelan thinks he’s selling insurance, which is hardly a way to get rich quick. I wouldn’t worry too much about him from a financial standpoint, though. His wife comes from plenty of money, one of the big North Carolina tobacco companies. They have a co-op someplace on the Upper East Side that Whelan says was featured in a slick home decorating magazine once.”
“Is the elder Applegate’s wife alive?”
“I was about to bring that up. After her husband was found guilty of all his swindling, she got shunned by her neighbors and friends—make that former friends. Fortunately, she was left with enough money to live on, but she left the Park Avenue digs they had lived in for many years and is now somewhere over in Jersey, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. By the way, the fact she was ostracized is another reason her son is so bitter.
“One more thing,” Saul said. “Whelan told me he just happened to run into Applegate in a bar on First Avenue a month or so ago, and the guy was pretty well lit. He was still complaining about Nero Wolfe, using an adjective I won’t repeat.”
“You don’t have to. I get the picture.”
“Anyway, he went on ranting about Wolfe until damned near everybody in the saloon was looking at him, and the bartender had to tell him to pipe down or get out.”
“With that personality, it’s a wonder he ever sells any insurance.”
“Whelan is under the impression that he’s not doing very well,” Saul said. “Have you heard enough?”
I said I had, and he moved on to Bradley Jameson, the one-time Rangers goalie who had blamed Wolfe for prematurely endin
g his career. “He is one nasty piece of work,” Saul pronounced. “I talked to a copy editor in the Daily News sports department who I grew up with in Brooklyn, and he tells me Jameson has been arrested three or four times over the last few years for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. He slugged somebody in a bar fight and the guy ended up in the hospital with a broken nose. He came close to losing an eye.”
“Does Jameson have a job?”
“He was working for a while as—believe it or not—a bouncer at a saloon somewhere in Queens. But he got let go, for obvious reasons.”
“Yeah, I’ll say. Just what every bar needs: an employee who roughs up the would-be customers. So what is Jameson doing for a living now?”
“My man at the Daily News isn’t sure, but thinks he’s a night watchman at a manufacturing plant or a warehouse in Long Island City.”
“Well, at least that may keep him out of the bars at night, but it’s a sad downward spiral for someone who used to make headlines, and usually in a positive way.”
“Absolutely,” Saul said. “For what it’s worth, my source says Jameson has never stopped hating your boss. He apparently rips into Wolfe whenever he’s got an audience in a bar. Still says he’ll get even with him someday.”
“Given the guy’s track record in life these last few years, that sounds like an empty threat.”
“I would agree, Archie, although Jameson does have a group of apparently loyal friends among his drinking buddies. How smart they are is a whole different story.”
“Good point. Anything else to report?”
“No, sorry. As I said before, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to cross anyone off your ‘top five’ list.”
“At least we know a little more about all of them now. I’ll fill Wolfe in and get back to you with any further instructions.”
Chapter 7
Ten minutes after I hung up with Saul, the phone rang. I had a feeling about the call, and I was right.
Archie in the Crosshairs Page 4
