by Rex Stout
He halted. Wolfe asked, “And you wish us to learn the truth of the matter?”
“Yes. Of course. That’s what I want.” Perry cleared his throat. “But I also want you to consider her record of probity and faithful service. And I would like to ask you, in discussing the affair with Mr. Muir, to give him to understand that you have been engaged to handle it as you would any investigation of a similar nature. In addition, I wish your reports to be made to me personally.”
“I see.” Wolfe’s eyes were half closed. “It seems a little complex. I would like to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. Let us make it clear. You are not asking us to discover an arrangement of evidence that will demonstrate the employee’s guilt. Nor are you engaging us to devise satisfactory proof of her innocence. You merely want us to find the truth.”
“Yes,” Perry smiled. “But I hope and believe that the truth will be her innocence.”
“As it may be. And who is to be our client, you or the Seaboard Products Corporation?”
“Why … that hadn’t occurred to me. The corporation, I should think. That would be best.”
“Good.” Wolfe looked at me. “If you please, Archie.” He leaned back in his chair, twined his fingers at the peak of his middle mound, and closed his eyes.
I whirled on my swivel, with my notebook. “First the money, Mr. Perry. How much?”
“Thirty thousand dollars. In hundred-dollar bills.”
“Egad. Payroll?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Well, yes, call it payroll.”
“It would be better if we knew about it.”
“Is it necessary?”
“Not necessary. Just better. The more we know the less we have to find out.”
“Well … since it is understood this is strictly confidential … you know of course that in connection with our business we need certain privileges in certain foreign countries. In our dealings with the representatives of those countries we sometimes need to employ cash sums.”
“Okay. This Mr. Muir you mentioned, he’s the paymaster?”
“Mr. Ramsey Muir is the senior vice-president of the corporation. He usually handles such contacts. On this occasion, last Friday, he had a luncheon appointment with a gentleman from Washington. The gentleman missed his train and telephoned that he would come on a later one, arriving at our office at five-thirty. He did so. When the moment arrived for Mr. Muir to open the drawer of his desk, the money was gone. He was of course greatly embarrassed.”
“Yeah. When had he put it there?”
An interruption came from Wolfe. He moved to get upright in his chair, then to arise from it. He looked down at Perry:
“You will excuse me, sir. It is the hour for my prescribed exercise and, following that, attention to my plants. If it would amuse you, when you have finished with Mr. Goodwin, to come to the roof and look at them, I would be pleased to have you.” He moved halfway to the door, and turned. “It would be advisable, I think, for Mr. Goodwin to make a preliminary investigation before we definitely undertake the commission you offer us. It appears to present complexities. Good day, sir.” He went on out. The poker-dart board had been moved to his bedroom that morning, it being a business day with appointments.
“A cautious man.” Perry smiled at me. “Of course his exceptional ability permits him to afford it.”
I saw Perry was sore by the color above his cheekbones. I said, “Yeah. When had he put it there?”
“What? Oh, to be sure. The money had been brought from the bank and placed in Mr. Muir’s desk that morning, but he had looked in the drawer when he returned from lunch, around three o’clock, and saw it intact. At five-thirty it was gone.”
“Was he there all the time?”
“Oh, no. He was in and out. He was with me in my office for twenty minutes or so. He went once to the toilet. For over half an hour, from four to until about four-forty, he was in the directors’ room, conferring with other officers and Mr. Savage, our public relations counsel.”
“Was the drawer locked?”
“No.”
“Then anyone might have lifted it.”
Perry shook his head. “The executive reception clerk is at a desk with a view of the entire corridor; that’s her job, to know where everyone is all the time, to facilitate interviews. She knows who went in Muir’s room, and when.”
“Who did?”
“Five people. An office boy with correspondence, another vice-president of the company, Muir’s stenographer, Clara Fox, and myself.”
“Let’s eliminate. I suppose you didn’t take it?”
“No. I almost wish I had. When the office boy was there, Muir was there too. The vice-president, Mr. Arbuthnot, is out of the question. As for Muir’s stenographer, she was still there when the loss was discovered—most of the others had gone home—and she insisted that Muir search her belongings. She has a little room next to Muir’s, and had not been out of it except to enter his room. Besides, he has had her for eleven years, and trusts her.”
“Which leaves Clara Fox.”
“Yes.” Perry cleared his throat. “Clara Fox is our cable clerk—a most responsible position. She translates and decodes all cables and telegrams. She went to Muir’s office around a quarter after four, during his absence, with a decoded message, and waited there while Muir’s stenographer went to her own room to type a copy of it.”
“Has she been with you long?”
“Three years. A little over.”
“Did she know the money was there?”
“She probably knew it was in Muir’s office. Two days previously she had handled a cablegram giving instructions for the payment.”
“But you think she didn’t take it.”
Perry opened his mouth and closed it again. I put the eye on him. He didn’t look as if he was really undecided; it seemed rather that he was hunting for the right words. I waited and looked him over. He had clever, careful, blue-gray eyes, a good jaw but a little too square for comfort, hair no grayer than it should be considering he must have been over sixty, a high forehead with a mole on the right temple, and a well-kept healthy skin. Not a layout that you would ordinarily regard as hideous, but at that moment I wasn’t observing it with great favor, because it seemed likely that there was something phony about the pie he was inviting me to stick my finger into; and I give low marks to a guy that asks you to help him work a puzzle and then holds out one of the pieces on you. I don’t mind looking for the fly in a client’s ointment, but why throw in a bunch of hornets?
Perry finally spoke. “In spite of appearances, I am personally of the opinion that Clara Fox did not take that money. It would be a great shock to me to know that she did, and the proof would have to be unassailable.”
“What does she say about it?”
“She hasn’t been asked. Nothing has been said, except to Arbuthnot, Miss Vawter—the executive reception clerk—and Muir’s stenographer. I may as well tell you, Muir wanted to send for the police this morning, and I restrained him.”
“Maybe Miss Vawter took it.”
“She has been with us eighteen years. I would sooner suspect myself. Besides, someone is constantly passing in the corridor. If she left her desk even for a minute it would be noticed.”
“How old is Clara Fox?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Oh. A bit junior, huh? For such a responsible position. Married?”
“No. She is a remarkably competent person.”
“Do you know anything of her habits? Does she collect diamonds or frolic with the geegees?”
Perry stared at me. I said, “Does she bet on horse races?”
He frowned. “Not that I know of. I am not personally intimate with her, and I have not had her spied on.”
“How much does she get and how do you suppose she spends it?”
“Her salary is thirty-six hundred. So far as I know, she lives sensibly and respectably. She has a small flat somewhere, I believe, and she has a little car—I have
seen her driving it. She—I understand she enjoys the theater.”
“Uh-huh.” I flipped back a page of my notebook and ran my eye over it. “And this Mr. Muir who leaves his drawer unlocked with thirty grand inside—might he have been caught personally with his financial pants down and made use of the money himself?”
Perry smiled and shook his head. “Muir owns some twenty-eight thousand shares of the stock of our corporation, worth over two million dollars at the present market, besides other properties. It was quite usual for him to leave the drawer unlocked under those circumstances.”
I glanced at my notebook again, and lifted my shoulders a shade and let them drop negligently, which meant that I was mildly provoked. The thing looked like a mess, possibly a little nasty, with nothing much to be expected in the way of action or profit. The first step, of course, after what Wolfe had said, was for me to go take a look at the 32nd floor of the Seaboard Building and enter into conversation. But the clock on the wall said 4:20. At six the attractive telephone voice with her out-of-town friend was expected to arrive; I wanted to be there, and I probably wouldn’t be if I once got started chasing that thirty grand. I said to Perry:
“Okay. I suppose you’ll be at your office in the morning? I’ll be there at nine sharp to look things over. I’ll want to see most of—”
“Tomorrow morning?” Perry was frowning. “Why not now?”
“I have another appointment.”
“Cancel it.” The color topped his cheekbones again. “This is urgent. I am one of Wolfe’s oldest clients. I took the trouble to come here personally …”
“Sorry, Mr. Perry. Won’t tomorrow do? My appointment can’t very well be postponed.”
“Send someone else.”
“There’s no one available who could handle it.”
“This is outrageous!” Perry jerked up in his chair. “I insist on seeing Wolfe!”
I shook my head. “You know you can’t. You know darned well he’s eccentric.” But then I thought, after all, I’ve seen worse guys, and he’s a client, and maybe he can’t help it if he gets on Mayor’s Committees, perhaps they nag him. So I got out of my chair and said, “I’ll go upstairs and put it up to Wolfe, he’s the boss. If he says—”
The door of the office opened. I turned. Fritz came in, walking formal as he always did to announce a caller. But he didn’t get to announce this one. The caller came right along, two steps behind Fritz, and I grinned when I saw he was stepping so soft that Fritz didn’t know he was there.
Fritz started, “A gentleman to—”
“Yeah, I see him. Okay.”
Fritz turned and saw he had been stalked, blinked, and beat it. I went on observing the caller, because he was a specimen. He was about six feet three inches tall, wearing an old blue serge suit with no vest and the sleeves a mile short, carrying a cream-colored ten-gallon hat, with a face that looked as if it had been left out on the fire escape for over half a century, and walking like a combination of a rodeo cowboy and a panther in the zoo.
He announced in a smooth low voice, “My name’s Harlan Scovil.” He went up to Anthony D. Perry and stared at him with half-shut eyes. Perry moved in his chair and looked annoyed. The caller said, “Are you Mr. Nero Wolfe?”
I butted in, suavely. “Mr. Wolfe is not here. I’m his assistant. I’m engaged with this gentleman. If you’ll excuse us …”
The caller nodded, and turned to stare again at Perry. “Then who—you ain’t Mike Walsh? Hell no, Mike was a runt.” He gave Perry up, and glanced around the room, then looked at me. “What do I do now, sit down and hang my hat on my ear?”
I grinned. “Yeah. Try that leather one over there.” He panthered for it, and I started for the door, throwing over my shoulder to Perry, “I won’t keep you waiting long.”
Upstairs, in the plant-rooms on the roof, glazed-in, where Wolfe kept his ten thousand orchids, I found him in the middle room turning some off-season Oncidiums that were about to bud, while Horstmann fussed around with a pot of charcoal and osmundine. Wolfe, of course, didn’t look at me or halt operations; whenever I interrupted him in the plant-rooms he pretended he was Joe Louis in his training camp and I was a boy peeking through the fence.
I said, loud so he couldn’t also pretend he didn’t hear me, “That millionaire downstairs says I’ve got to go to his office right now and begin looking under the rugs for his thirty grand, and there’s an appointment here for six o’clock. I expressed a preference to go tomorrow morning.”
Wolfe said, “And if your pencil fell to the floor and you were presented with the alternative of either picking it up or leaving it there, would you also need to consult me about that?”
“He’s exasperated.”
“So am I.”
“He says it’s urgent, I’m outrageous, and he’s an old client.”
“He is probably correct all around. I like particularly the second of his conclusions. Leave me.”
“Very well. Another caller just arrived. Name of Harlan Scovil. A weather-beaten plainsman who stared at Anthony D. Perry and said he wasn’t Mike Walsh.”
Wolfe looked at me. “You expect, I presume, to draw your salary at the end of the month.”
“Okay.” I wanted to reach out and tip over one of the Oncidiums, but decided it wouldn’t be diplomatic, so I faded.
When I got back downstairs Perry was standing in the door of the office with his hat on and his stick in his hand. I told him, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Well?”
“It’ll have to be tomorrow, Mr. Perry. The appointment can’t be postponed. Anyhow, the day’s nearly gone, and I couldn’t do much. Mr. Wolfe sincerely regrets—”
“All right,” Perry snapped. “At nine o’clock, you said?”
“I’ll be there on the dot.”
“Come to my office.”
“Right.”
I went and opened the front door for him.
In the office Harlan Scovil sat in the leather chair over by the bookshelves. As, entering, I lamped him from the door, I saw that his head was drooping and he looked tired and old and all in; but at the sound of me he jerked up and I caught the bright points of his eyes. I went over and wheeled my chair around to face him.
“You want to see Nero Wolfe?”
He nodded. “That was my idea. Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Wolfe will be engaged until six o’clock, and at that time he has another appointment. My name’s Archie Goodwin. I’m Mr. Wolfe’s confidential assistant. Maybe I could help you?”
“The hell you are.” He certainly had a smooth soft voice for his age and bulk and his used-up face. He had his half-shut eyes on me. “Listen, sonny. What sort of a man is this Nero Wolfe?”
I grinned. “A fat man.”
He shook his head in slow impatience. “It ain’t to the point to tease a steer. You see the kind of man I am. I’m out of my country.” His eyes twinkled a little. “Hell, I’m clear over the mountains. Who was that man that was in here when I came?”
“Just a man. A client of Mr. Wolfe’s.”
“What kind of a client? Anybody ever give him a name?”
“I expect so. Next time you see him, ask him. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“All right, sonny.” He nodded. “Naturally I had my suspicions up, seeing any kind of a man here at this time, but you heard me remark that he wasn’t Mike Walsh. And God knows he wasn’t Vic Lindquist’s daughter. Thanks for leaving my ideas free. Could I have a piece of paper? Any kind.”
I handed him a sheet of typewriter bond from my desk. He took it and held it in front of him spread on the palms of his hands, bent his head over it and opened his mouth, and out popped a chew of tobacco the size of a hen’s egg. I’m fairly observant, but I hadn’t suspected its existence. He wrapped the paper around it, clumsily but thoroughly, got up and took it to the wastebasket, and came back and sat down again. His eyes twinkled at me.
“There seems to be very little spittin’ done east of
the Mississippi. A swallower like me don’t mind, but if John Orcutt was here he wouldn’t tolerate it. But you was asking me if there’s anything you can do for me. I wish to God I knew. I wish to God there was a man in this town you could let put your saddle on.”
I grinned at him. “If you mean an honest man, Mr. Scovil, you must have got an idea from a movie or something. There’s just as many honest men here as the other side of the mountains. And just as few. I’m one. I’m so damn honest I often double-cross myself. Nero Wolfe is almost as bad. Go ahead. You must have come here to spill something besides that chew.”
With his eyes still on me, he lifted his right hand and drew the back of it slowly across his nostrils from left to right, and then, after a pause, from right to left. He nodded. “I’ve traveled over two thousand miles, from Hiller County, Wyoming, to come here on an off chance. I sold thirty calves to get the money to come on, and for me nowadays that’s a lot of calves. I didn’t know till this morning I was going to see any kind of a man called Nero Wolfe. All that is to me is just a name and address on a piece of paper I’ve got in my pocket. All I knew was I was going to see Mike Walsh and Vic’s daughter and Gil’s daughter, and I was supposed to be going to see George Rowley, and by God if I see him and what they say is true I’ll be able to fix up some fences this winter and get something besides lizards and coyotes inside of ’em. One thing you can tell me anyhow, did you ever hear of any kind of a man called a Marquis of Clivers?”
I nodded. “I’ve read in the paper about that kind of a man.”
“Good for you. I don’t read much. One reason, I’m so damn suspicious I don’t believe it even if I do read it, so it don’t seem worth the trouble. I’m here now because I’m suspicious. I was supposed to come here at six o’clock with the rest of those others, but I had my time on my hands anyhow, so I thought I might as well ride out and take a look. I want to see this Nero Wolfe man. You don’t look to me like a man that goes out at night after lambs, but I want to see him. What really made me suspicious was the two daughters. God knows a man is bad enough when you don’t know him, but I doubt if you ever could get to know a woman well enough to leave her loose around you. I never really tried, because it didn’t ever seem to be worth the trouble.” He stopped, and drew the back of his hand across his nostrils again, back and forth, slowly. His eyes twinkled at me. “Naturally, your opinion is that I talk a good deal. That’s the truth. It won’t hurt you any, and it may even do you good. Out in Wyoming I’ve been talking to myself like this for thirty years, and by God if I can stand it you can.”
