The Rubber Band

by Rex Stout

  The two women asked simultaneously, "Well?"

  "Well… Archie, bring Saul."

  I jumped from habit and not from enthusiasm. I was half sore. I didn't like it. I found Saul in the kitchen drinking port wine and telling Fred and Fritz stories, and led him to the office. He stood in front of Wolfe's desk.

  "Yes, sir."

  Wolfe spoke, not to him. "Miss Lindquist, this is Mr. Saul Panzer. I would trust him further than might be thought credible. He is himself a bachelor, but has acquaintances who are married and possibly even friends, with the usual living quarters-an apartment or a house. Have you anything to say to him?"

  But the Lindquist mind was slow. She didn't get it. Clara Fox asked Wolfe, "May I?"

  "Please do."

  She turned to Saul. "Miss Lindquist would like to be in seclusion for a while- a few days- she doesn't know how long. She thought you might know of a place… one of your friends…"

  Saul nodded. "Certainly, Miss Lindquist." He turned to Wolfe. "Is there a warrant out?"

  "No. Not yet."

  "Shall I give the address to Archie?"

  "By no means. If I need to communicate with Miss Lindquist I can do so through General Delivery. She can notify me on the telephone what branch."

  "Shall we go out the back way onto Thirty-fourth Street?"

  "I was about to suggest it. When you are free again, return here. Tonight." Wolfe moved his eyes. "Is there anything of value in your luggage at the hotel. Miss Lindquist?"

  She was standing up. She shook her head. "Not much. No."

  "Have you any money?"

  "I have thirty-eight dollars and my ticket home."

  "Good. Opulence. Good night. Miss Lindquist. Sleep well."

  Clara Fox was up too. She went to the other woman and put her hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. "Good night, Hilda. It's rotten, but… keep your chin up."

  Hilda Lindquist said in a loud voice, "Good night, everybody," and turned and followed Saul Panzer out of the room. In a few seconds I could hear their footsteps on the stairs leading down to the basement, where a door opened onto the court in the rear. We were all looking at Wolfe, who was opening a bottle of beer. I was thinking, the old lummox certainly fancies he's putting on a hot number, I suppose he'll send Miss Fox to board with his mother in Buda Pesth. It looked to me like he was stepping off over his head.

  He looked at Mike Walsh. "Now, sir, your turn. I note your symptoms of disapproval, but we are doing the best we can. In the kitchen is a man named Fred Durkin, whom you have seen. Within his capacity, he is worthy of your trust and mine. I would suggest-"

  "I don't want any Durkin." Walsh was on his feet again. "I don't want anything from you at all. I'll just be going."

  "But Mr. Walsh." Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. "Believe me, it will not pay to be headstrong. I am not by nature an alarmist, but there are certain features of this affair-"

  "So I notice." Walsh stepped up to the desk. "The features is what I don't like about it." He looked at Clara Fox, then at me, then at Wolfe, letting us know what the features were. "I may be past me prime, but I'm not in a box yet. What kind of a shenanigan would ye like to try on an old man, huh? I'm to go out and hide, am I? Do I get to ask a question or two?"

  "That's three." Wolfe sighed. "Go ahead."

  Walsh whirled on me. "You, Goodwin's your name? Was it you that answered the phone yesterday, the call that came for Harlan Scovil?"

  "No." I grinned at him. "I wasn't here."

  "Where was you?"

  "At the office of the Seaboard Products Corporation, where Miss Fox works."

  "Ha! Was you indeed. You wasn't here. I suppose it couldn't have been you that phoned here to Harlan."

  "Sure it could have, but it wasn't. Listen, Mr. Walsh-"

  "I've listened enough. I've been listening to this Clara Fox for a year and looking at her pretty face, and I had no reason to doubt her maybe, and this is what's come out of it, I've helped lead my old friend Harlan Scovil into an ambush to his death. My old friend Harlan." He stopped abrupdy, and shut his lips tight, and looked around at us while a big fat tear suddenly popped out of each of his eyes and rolled on down, leaving a mark across his wrinkles. He went on, "I ate a meal with you. A meal and three drinks. Maybe I'd like to puke it up someday. Or maybe you're all square shooters, I don't know, but I know somebody ain't, and I'm going to find out who it is. What's this about them being after Miss Fox for stealing money? I can find out about that too. And if I want anything collected from this English Marquis nobleman, I can collect it myself. Good night to ye all." He turned and headed for the door.

  Wolfe snapped, "Get him, Archie."

  Remembering the gun on his hip, I went and folded myself around him and locked him. He let out a snarl and tried some twisting and unloosed a couple of kicks at my shins, but in four seconds he had sense enough to see it was no go. He quivered a little and then stood quiet, but I kept him tight. He said, "It's me now, is it?"

  Wolfe spoke across the room at him. "You called me an idiot, Mr. Walsh. I return the compliment. What is worse, you are hot-headed. But you are an old man, so there is humanity's debt to you. You may go where you please, but I must warn you that every step you take may be a dangerous step. Furthermore, when you talk, every word may be dangerous not only to you but to Miss Fox and Miss Lindquist. I strongly advise you to adopt the precautions-"

  "I'll do me own precautions."

  "Mike!" Clara Fox came, her hand out. "Mike, you can't be thinking… what Mr. Wolfe says is right. Don't desert us now. Turn him loose, Mr. Goodwin. Shake hands, Mike."

  He shook his head. "Did you see him grab me, and all I was doing was walking out on me own feet? I hate the damn detectives and always have, and what was he doing at your office? And if you're my enemy, Clara Fox, God help you, and if not then you can be my friend. Not now. When he turns me loose I'll be going."

  Wolfe said, "Release him, Archie. Good night, Mr. Walsh."

  I let my muscles go and stepped back, Mike Walsh put a hand up to feel his ribs, turned to look at me, and then to Wolfe. He said, "But I'm no idiot. Show me that back way."

  Clara Fox begged him, "Don't go. Mike."

  He didn't answer her. I started for the kitchen, and he followed me after stopping in the hall for his hat and coat. I told Fred to see him through the court and the fence and the passage leading to 34th Street, and switched on the basement light for them. I stood and watched them go down. I hadn't cared much for Wolfe's hot number anyhow, and now it looked like worse than a flop, with that wild Irishman in his old age going out to do his own precautions. But I hadn't argued about letting him go, because I knew that kind as well as Wolfe did and maybe better.

  When I went back to the office Clara Fox was still standing up. She asked, "Did he really go?"

  I nodded. "With bells on."

  "Do you think he meant what he said?" She turned to Wolfe. "I don't think he meant it at all. He was just angry and frightened and sony. I know how he felt. He felt that Harlan Scovil was killed because we started this business, and now he doesn't want to go away and hide. I don't either. I don't want to run away."

  "Then it is lucky you won't have to." Wolfe emptied his glass, returned it to the tray, and slid the tray around to the other side of the pen block. That meant that he had decided he had had enough beer for the day, and therefore that he would probably open only one more bottle before going upstairs, provided he went fairly soon. He sighed. "You understand, Miss Fox, this is something unprecedented. It has been many years since any woman has slept under this roof. Not that I disapprove of them, except when they attempt to function as domestic animals. When they stick to the vocations for which they are best adapted, such as chicanery, sophistry, self-adornment, cajolery, mystification and incubation, they are sometimes splendid creatures. Anyhow… you will find our south room, directly above mine, quite comfortable. I may add that I am foolishly fond of good form, good color, and fine texture, and I have
good taste in those matters. It is a pleasure to look at you. You have unusual beauty. I say that to inform you that while the idea of a woman sleeping in my house is theoretically insupportable, in this case I am willing to put up with it."

  "Thank you. Then I'm to hide here?"

  "You are. You must keep to your room, with the curtains drawn. Elaborate circumspection will be necessary and will be explained to you. Mr. Goodwin will attend to that. Should your stay be prolonged, it may be that you can join us in the dining room for meals; eating from a tray is an atrocious insult both to the food and the feeder; and in that case, luncheon is punctually at one and dinner at eight. But before we adjourn for the night there are one or two things I need still to know; for instance, where were you and Miss Lindquist and Mr. Walsh from five to six o'clock this evening?"

  Clara Fox nodded. "I know. That's why you asked me if I had killed anybody, and I thought you were being eccentric. But of course you don't believe that. I've told you we were looking for Harlan Scovil."

  "Let's get a schedule. Put it down, Archie. Mr. Goodwin informed me that you left the Seaboard office at a quarter past five."

  She glanced at me. "Yes, about that. That was the time I was supposed to get Harlan Scovil at his hotel on Forty-fifth Street, and I didn't get there until nearly half past five. He wasn't there. I looked around on the street and went a block to another hotel, thinking possibly he had misunderstood me, and then went back again and he still wasn't there. They said he had been out all afternoon as far as they knew. Hilda was at a hotel on Thirtieth Street, and I had told Mike Walsh to be there in the lobby at a quarter to six, and I was to call there for them. Of course I was late, it was six o'clock when I got there, and we decided to try Harlan Scovil's hotel once more, but he wasn't there. We waited a few minutes and then came on without him, and got here at six-thirty." She stopped, and chewed on her lip. "He was dead… then. While we were there waiting for him. And I was planning… I thought…"

  "Easy, Miss Fox. We can't resurrect. So you know nothing of Miss Lindquist's and Mr. Walsh's whereabouts between five and six. Easy, I beg you. Don't tell me again I'm an idiot or you'll have me believing it. I am merely filling in a picture. Or rather, a rough sketch. I think perhaps you should leave us here with it and go to bed. Remember, you are to keep to your room, both for your own safety and to preserve me from serious annoyance. Mr. Goodwin-"

  "I know." She frowned at him and then at me. "I thought of that when you said I was to stay here. You mean what they call accessory after the fact-"

  "Bosh." Wolfe straightened in his chair and his hand went forward by automatism, but there was no beer there. He sent a sharp glance at me to see if I noticed it, and sat back again. "I can't be an accessory after a fact that never existed. I am acting on the assumption that you are not criminally involved either in larceny or in murder. If you are, say so and get out. If you are not, go to bed. Fritz will show you your room." He pushed the button. "Well?"

  "I'll go to bed." She brushed her hair back. "I don't think I'll sleep."

  "I hope you will, even without appetite for it. At any rate, you won't walk the floor, for I shall be directly under you." The door opened, and Wolfe turned to it "Fritz. Please show Miss Fox to the south room, and arrange towels and so on. In the morning, take her roses to her with breakfast, but have Theodore slice the stems first. And by the way. Miss Fox, you have nothing with you. The niceties of your toilet you will have to forego, but I believe we can furnish a sleeping garment. Mr. Goodwin owns some handsome silk pajamas which his sister sent him on his birthday, from Ohio. They are hideous, but handsome. I'm sure he won't mind. I presume, Fritz, you'll find them in the chest of drawers near the window. Unless… would you prefer to get them for Miss Fox yourself, Archie?"

  I could have thrown my desk at him. He knew damn well what I thought of those pajamas. I was so sore I suppose it showed in my cheeks, because I saw Fritz pull in his lower lip with his teeth. I was slower on the come-back than usual, and I never did get to make one, for at that instant the doorbell rang, which was a piece of luck for Nero Wolte. I got up and strode past them to the hall.

  I was careless for two reasons. I was taking it for granted it was Saul Panzer, back from planting Hilda Lindquist in seclusion; and the cause of my taking something for granted when I shouldn't, since that's always a bad thing to do in our business, was that my mind was still engaged with Wolfe's vulgar attempt to be funny. Anyhow, the fact remains that I was careless. I whirled the lock and took off the bolt and pulled the door open.

  They darned near toppled me off my pins with the edge of the door catching my shoulder. I saved myself from falling and the rest was reHex. There were two of them, and they were going right on past in a hurry. I sprang back and got in front and gave one of them a knee in the belly and used a stiff-arm on the other. He started to swing, but I didn't bother about it, I picked up the one that had stopped my knee and just used him for a whisk broom and depended on speed and my 180 pounds. The combination swept the hall out. We went through the door so fast that the first guy stumbled and fell down the stoop, and I dropped the one I had in my arms and turned and pulled the door shut and heard the lock click. Then I pushed the bell-button three times. The guy that had fallen down the stoop, the one who had tried to plug me, was on his feet again and coming up, with words.

  "We're officers-"

  "Shut up." I heard footsteps inside, and I called through the closed door. "Fritz? Tell Mr. Wolfe a couple of gentlemen have called and we're staying out on the porch for a talk. And hey! Those things are in the bottom drawer."

  VIII

  I SAID, "What do you mean, officers? Army or Navy?"

  He looked down at me. He was an inch taller than me to begin with, and he was stretching it. He made his voice hard enough to scare a schoolgirl right out of her socks. "Listen, bud. I've heard about you. How'd you like to take a good nap on some concrete?"

  The other officer was back on his ankles too, but he was a short guy. He was built something like a whisk broom, at that. I undertook to throw oil on the troubled waters. Ordinarily I might have enjoyed a nice rough cussing-match, but I wanted to find out something and get back inside. I summoned a friendly grin.

  "What the hell, how did I know you had badges? Okay, thanks, sergeant. All I knew was the door bumping me and a cyclone going by. Is that a way to inspire confidence?"

  "All right, you know we've got badges now." The sergeant humped up a shoulder and let it drop, and then the other one. "Let us in. We want to see Nero Wolfe."

  "I'm sorry, he's got a headache."

  "We'll cure it for him. Listen. A friend of mine warned me about you once. He said the time would come when you would have to be taken down. Maybe that's the very thing I came here for. But so far it's a matter of law. Open that door or I'll open it myself. I want to see Mr. Wolfe on police business."

  "There's no law about that. Unless you've got a warrant."

  "You couldn't read it anyhow. Let us in."

  I got impatient. "What's the use wasting time? You can't go in. The floor's just been scrubbed. Wolfe wouldn't see you anyhow, at this time of night. Tell me what you want like a gentleman and a cop, and I'll see if I can help you."

  He glared at me. Then he put his hand inside to his breast pocket and pulled out a document, and I had a feeling in my knees like a steering wheel with a shimmy. If it was a search warrant the jig was up right there. He unfolded it and held it for me to look, and even in the dim light from the street lamp one glance was enough to start my heart off again. It was only a warrant to take into custody. I peered at it and saw among other things the name Ramsey Muir, and nodded.

  The sergeant grunted, "Can you see the name? Clara Fox."

  "Yeah, it's a nice name."

  "We're going in after her. Open up."

  I lifted the brows. "In here? You're crazy."

  "All right, we're crazy. Open the door."

  I shook my head, and got out a cigarette, and lit up. I sa
id, "Listen, sergeant. There's no use wasting the night in repartee. You know damn well you've got no more right to go through that door than a cockroach unless you've got a search warrant. Ordinarily Mr. Wolfe is more than willing to cooperate with you guys; if you don't know that, ask Inspector Cramer. So am I. Hell, some of my best friends are cops. I'm not even sore because you tried to rush me and I got excited and thought you were mugs and pushed you. But it just happens that we don't want company of any kind at present."

  He grunted and glared. "Is Clara Fox in there?"

  "Now that's a swell question." I grinned at him. "Either she isn't, in which case I would say no, or she is and I don't want you to know it, in which case would I say yes? I might at that, if she was somewhere else and I didn't want you to go there to look for her."

  "Is she in there?"

  I just shook my head at him.

  "You're harboring a fugitive from justice."

  "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."

  The short dick, the one I had swept the hall with, piped up in a tenor, "Take him down for resisting an officer."

  I reproved him. "The sergeant knows better than that. He knows they wouldn't book me, or if they did I read about a man once that collected enough to retire on for false arrest."

  The big one stood and stared into my frank eyes for half a minute, then turned and descended the stoop and looked up and down the street. I didn't know whether he expected to see the Russian Army or a place to buy a drink. He called up to his brother in arms, "Stay here, Steve. Cover that door. I'll go and phone a report and probably send someone to cover the rear. When that bird turns his back to go in the house give him a kick in the ass."

  I waved at him, "Good night, sergeant," pushed the button three shorts, took my key from my pocket, unlocked the door, and went in. If that tenor had tickled me I'd have pulled his nose. I slid the bolt in place. Fritz was standing in the middle of the hall with my automatic in his hand. I said, "Watch out, that thing's loaded."