by Rex Stout
"The rug," he said. "You said there's a fine Tekke."
He not only inspected the Tekke, he looked at every rug in the house. Perfectly natural. He likes good rugs and knows a lot about them, and he seldom has a chance to see any but his own. Then he spent half an hour examining the elevator and running it up and down while I looked into the bed problem. A very enjoyable evening, but there was no point in poking. We turned in, finally, in the two spare rooms on the fourth floor. His had a nice rug which he said was an eighteenth-century Feraghan.
Sunday morning a smell woke me—at least it was the first thing I was aware of—a smell I knew well. It was faint, but I recognized it. I got erect and went out to the head of the stairs and sniffed; no doubt about it. I went down three flights to the kitchen and there he was, eating breakfast in his shirt sleeves. Eggs au beurre noir. He was playing house.
He said good morning. "Tell me twenty minutes before you're ready."
"Sure. Wine vinegar, I presume?"
He nodded. "Not very good, but it will do."
I went back up.
An hour and a half later, after eating breakfast and cleaning up, I found him in the big room on the second floor, in a big chair he had pulled over to a window, reading a book. I was still determined not to poke. I asked politely, "Shall I go out and get papers?"
"As you please. If you think it safe."
He wasn't playing house, he was camping out. You don't care about newspapers when you're camping out.
"Perhaps I should ring Mrs. Valdon and tell her where we are."
"That might be advisable, yes."
My valve popped open. "Listen, sir. There are times when you can afford to be eccentric and times when you can't. Maybe you can afford it even now, but not me. I quit."
He lowered the book slowly. "It's a summer Sunday, Archie. Where are people? Specifically, where is Mr. Upton? We are boxed up here. Will you undertake, using the telephone, to find Mr. Upton and persuade him to come here to talk with me? Supposing you could, would it be prudent?"
"No. But that's not the only line that's open. Who squawked to the cops? I might get that on the phone. That would make one less to work on."
"There isn't time for that approach. We can't shave, we can't change our shirts or socks or underwear. When you go for papers get toothbrushes. I must see Mr. Upton. I have been considering Mrs. Valdon. When you phone her ask her to come this evening, after dark, alone. Will she come?"
"Yes."
"Another detail I've considered. There's no hurry, but since you're fuming—can you get Saul?"
"Yes. His answering service."
"Here tomorrow morning. I am considering Ellen Tenzer's niece. Anne?"
"Yes."
"If I properly understood her métier, she replaces office workers temporarily absent?"
"Right." My brows went up. "I'll be damned. Of course. It's certainly possible. I should have thought of it myself."
"You were too busy fuming. Speaking of fuming, the sturgeon is quite good, and I would like to try it fumé à la Muscovite. When you go for papers could you get some fennel, bay leaf, chives, parsley, shallots, and tomato paste?"
"At a delicatessen Sunday morning? No."
"A pity. Get any herbs they have."
A licensed private detective, and he didn't even know what you can expect to find in a delicatessen.
So the Sunday passed pleasantly—newspapers, books, television, all anyone could ask for. The sturgeon was fine, even with replacements for herbs temporarily absent. When I phoned Lucy and told her she had house guests and she was invited to come and spend the night with us, her first thought was sheets. Had there been any on the beds? Told that there had been, she was so relieved that our being fugitives from the law didn't really matter. Around nine o'clock Saul called, having got the message from the answering service, and I told him where to come in the morning. He had rung the office Saturday evening and again Sunday morning, having heard what had happened to Carol Mardus, and when Fritz had told him we weren't there and that was all he knew he had of course been a little fumé, knowing, as he did, that no limb was too long and narrow for Wolfe to crawl out on if he got peeved enough.
Not knowing if Lucy had another key, I stayed in the kitchen with a couple of magazines after supper, ready to answer the doorbell, but a little after ten o'clock I heard the door open and close and went to the hall to greet her. Needing two hands, or arms, for a satisfactory greeting between detective and client, she let her bag drop to the floor. That accomplished, I picked up the bag.
"I know why you're down here," she said. She looked very wholesome in a pale green summer dress and a dark green jacket. A well-tanned skin with a flush is more striking in town than at the beach. She took the bag. "You thought I might not be—discreet. You are conceited, but I like you anyway. Did you mean what you said on the phone? You and Nero Wolfe are actually hiding?"
I explained enough of the situation for her to get the idea, including what Krug and Bingham had said about Dick being the father of the baby. "So," I said, "the job you hired Mr. Wolfe for is done. All that's left now is a couple of murders, and if you want to get us out of your house just pick up the phone. The DA would be glad to send a car for us. It's been nice to know you. If I'm conceited you've helped it along. But first Mr. Wolfe would like to ask you something."
"Tell me the truth, Archie. Do you really think I might?"
"Certainly. You don't owe him anything. As for me, I'm not that conceited. I'm not actually conceited at all. I merely think it's common sense to like myself."
She smiled. "Where is he?"
"One flight up."
Wolfe left his chair when we entered the big room. An uninvited guest can at least be courteous. After exchanging greetings with him she glanced around, probably surprised that the place wasn't a mess with two men loose in it overnight. Then she told Wolfe she hoped he had been comfortable.
He grunted. "I have never been more uncomfortable in my life. No reflection on your hospitality is intended; I thank you heartily for the haven; but I'm a hound, not a hare. Mr. Goodwin has described the situation? Chairs, Archie."
I was already moving two of them up, knowing that he would stick there with the roomiest one and the reading light. We sat.
Wolfe regarded her. "We're in a pickle. I ask you bluntly, madam, can you be steadfast?"
She frowned. "If you mean can I hold my tongue, yes, I can. I told Archie yesterday that I would."
"The police will press you, now that they have connected Carol Mardus with me and therefore with you, and I have decamped. You're my client and I should be shielding you, but instead you're shielding me. And Mr. Goodwin. He can thank you on his own behalf and no doubt will; for myself, I am deeply obliged, and I must ask you to extend the obligation. I need to see Manuel Upton as soon as possible. Will you get him here tomorrow morning?"
"Why—yes, if I can."
"Without telling him I'm here. He once told me that if you wanted a favor from him you could ask him. Very well, ask him to come to see you."
"And if he comes, what do I say?"
"Nothing. Just get him in the house. If I can't keep him in with words, Mr. Goodwin can with muscle. Do you like eggs?"
She laughed. She looked at me, so I laughed too.
Wolfe scowled. "Confound it, are eggs comical? Do you know how to scramble eggs, Mrs. Valdon?"
"Yes, of course."
"To use Mr. Goodwin's favorite locution, one will get you ten that you don't. I'll scramble eggs for your breakfast and we'll see. Tell me forty minutes before you're ready."
Her eyes widened. "Forty minutes?"
"Yes. I knew you didn't know."
Chapter 18
MANUEL UPTON CAME at a quarter to twelve Monday morning.
There had been a few little developments. The client had admitted to Wolfe, in my hearing, that she didn't know how to scramble eggs. I had admitted to him, in her hearing, that the scrambled eggs I had just eaten we
re fully up to Fritz's very best. He had admitted to her, in my hearing, that forty was more minutes than you could expect a housewife to spend exclusively on scrambling eggs, but he maintained that it was impossible to do it to perfection in less, with each and every particle exquisitely firm, soft, and moist.
The News, which I had to go out for, stated that the late Carol Mardus had once been a bosom friend of the late Richard Valdon, famous novelist, but there was no hint that that was anything more than an interesting item in her record which the public had a right to know.
Saul had come at half past nine as arranged, and had been instructed regarding Anne Tenzer. He had reported that he had phoned Fritz at eight o'clock, and had been told that Homicide dicks were holding down the office day and night, in shifts, by authority of a search warrant, and that one of them was listening in; and Saul had said that he was calling just to say that he had nothing on and was available for an errand if Wolfe had one. He also reported that he had heard from a reliable source—which he wouldn't name even to us—that a slip of paper with Wolfe's phone number on it had been found in Carol Mardus's apartment. So maybe no one had squawked. Maybe Cramer had merely been going to ask Wolfe if he had ever seen or heard of Carol Mardus, but that would have been enough to light the fuse. Saul was given three hundred dollars' worth of tens and twenties. Anne Tenzer might be broke and appreciate it.
The reception for Upton was simply staged. Lucy was tending door anyway, since there might possibly be an official caller for her, and she let him in, took him up to the second floor, and led him into the big room. I had moved the roomiest chair over near the couch, and Wolfe was in it. I was standing. Upton entered, saw us, and stopped. He turned to Lucy, but she wasn't there. She had slipped out and was shutting the door, as agreed.
Upton turned back to confront Wolfe. He was such a shrimp that with Wolfe sitting and him standing their eyes were almost at a level. He looked even smaller than I remembered. "You fat mountebank," he croaked. He wheeled and started for the door, found me in the way, blocking him, and stopped.
"Sorry," I said. "Road closed."
He had too much sense to argue with the help when it was obvious that the help would need only one hand. He turned his back on me. "This is absurd," he croaked. "This is New York, not Montenegro."
So, I thought, he's anti-Montenegro. I didn't say it, merely thought it, so it's not on my record.
Wolfe motioned to a chair. "You might as well sit, Mr. Upton. We're going to talk at length. If you mean it's absurd to hold you against your will, not at all. There are three of us to refute any accusation you might make. The handicap of your size precludes violence; Mr. Goodwin could dangle you like a marionette. Sit down."
Upton's jaw was set. "I'll talk with Mrs. Valdon."
"Perhaps, later. After you have told me all you know about Carol Mardus."
"Carol Mardus?"
"Yes."
"I see. I mean I don't see. Why do you—" He bit it off. Then: "You're here in Lucy Valdon's house. So you're still stringing her along. Have you sold her the idea that Carol Mardus sent her the anonymous letters? Now that she's dead?"
"There were no anonymous letters."
Upton gawked at him. There was a chair nearer to him than the couch, but he went to the couch and sat. "You can't get away with that," he said. "Three other men were there when you told us about the anonymous letters."
Wolfe nodded. "I've spoken with them again, Saturday afternoon, day before yesterday, and told them the anonymous letters were mere invention, invented by me to account for my request for lists of names. The lists didn't help any, but I have completed the job Mrs. Valdon hired me for. She no longer needs me; I am in her house only by her sufferance. I am now after a murderer. During my conversation with those three men Saturday afternoon the opinion was advanced that you killed Carol Mardus. That's what I want to discuss with you, the likelihood that you're a murderer."
"Blah." Upton cocked his head. "You know, I hand it to you. You've built a reputation on pure gall. Also you're a liar. No one advanced the opinion that I killed Carol Mardus. Did he say why I killed her? What are you really after? Why did you have Lucy Valdon get me down here?"
"To get some information I badly need. When did you learn that Carol Mardus came to see me on Friday?"
"More blah. I wouldn't have supposed you'd try that old worn-out trick—she came to see you, and she told you something, and she's dead. I suppose she told you I had threatened to kill her. Something like that?"
"No." Wolfe shifted in the chair. The back was too high for him to lean back properly as he did at home. "If we're to talk to any purpose I'll have to expound it. I engaged with Mrs. Valdon to find the mother of a baby that had been left in the vestibule of her house. I did so, at great expense and after much floundering about. It was Carol Mardus. She came to me on Friday to learn how much I knew, and I obliged her. To dispose of the baby when she returned from Florida with it, she had enlisted the help of a friend, a man. Call him X."
"Make it Z. X has been overworked."
Wolfe ignored it. "There were four men whom Miss Mardus might have gone to for help in such a matter: Willis Krug, Julian Haft, Leo Bingham, and yourself. Her choice, X, was not a happy one. The problem of the immediate disposal of the infant was well solved; it was placed in the care of one Ellen Tenzer, a retired nurse who lived alone in a house she owned in Mahopac. But Miss Mardus had told X that Richard Valdon was the father of the baby, and that was a mistake. For two reasons. There were two facts about X that Miss Mardus had not sufficiently considered: one, that he had himself been denied, and was still denied, the pleasure of her intimate favors, and resented it; and two, that he had the soul of an imp. Imp defined as a little malignant spirit. Being an editor, you know words."
Upton didn't say.
"So when the baby was four months old, and the expense of its upkeep made it desirable to dispose of it differently and permanently, X indulged himself in what he no doubt regarded as merely a prank. Choosing a Sunday in May because he knew Mrs. Valdon would be at home alone that evening, he got the baby from Ellen Tenzer, pinned to its blanket a slip of paper on which he had printed a message, deposited it in the vestibule of Mrs. Valdon's house, and telephoned her that there was something in her vestibule. The message is in my office safe. It said— Your memory is more exact than mine, Archie."
I was in the chair Upton had passed by. "Quote," I said. "'Mrs. Richard Valdon this baby is for you because a boy should live in his father's house.' End quote."
"Repeat it," Upton commanded me.
I repeated it.
"A little malignant spirit," Wolfe said. "He not only had the pleasure of perturbing Mrs. Valdon; there was the added fillip of telling Miss Mardus what he had done. But Mrs. Valdon came to me, and it took Mr. Goodwin and me just three days to learn that the baby had been in the care of Ellen Tenzer. Mr. Goodwin went to see her and spoke with her, and she was alarmed. I doubt if she knew how the baby had been disposed of; she probably didn't know who the mother was; but she did know that its origin was supposed to be a secret, never to be revealed. She communicated with X, and they met that evening. The soul of an imp is a strange phenomenon. It had led him to perform what he regarded as a permissible prank, but the threat of its imminent disclosure was intolerable. Permissible but not disclosable. He was with Ellen Tenzer in her car, and his strangling her was not on sudden impulse, for he must have had the cord with him."
Upton stirred on the couch. He was listening with both ears and both eyes. "I would give something," he said, "to know how much of this is invention. All of it?"
"No. Most of it is established or can be. Some, not much, is surmise on valid grounds. This next is surmise, for Miss Mardus did not tell me whether or when she had suspected that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. She must have suspected it if she knew that her baby had been in Ellen Tenzer's care, but she may not have known that. Did she read newspapers?"
"What?"
"Did Miss Mardu
s read newspapers?"
"Of course."
"Then it is not a surmise that after her talk with me she did suspect that X had killed Ellen Tenzer. More than a mere suspicion. The newspapers had reported Mr. Goodwin's visit to Ellen Tenzer. Must I elucidate that?"
"No."
"Then the rest is manifest. After her talk with me Miss Mardus did what Ellen Tenzer had done after her talk with Mr. Goodwin; she communicated with X. They met that evening, and he had a piece of cord in his pocket. Not, from the published descriptions, the same kind of cord he had used with Ellen Tenzer. A shrewd precaution. The threat now was disclosure not merely of a nasty prank, but of murder. He strangled her—this time, perhaps, in his own car—and dumped the body in an alley. An alley on Perry Street, less than a block from the building where Willis Krug lives. Returning her to her former husband? That's not even surmise, merely comment. That would be suitably impish, wouldn't it?"
"Finish it," Upton croaked. "Surmise who is X."
"That's risky, Mr. Upton. That might be slander."
"Yes. It might. Apparently they don't know any of this at the District Attorney's office. I was there most of yesterday. Shouldn't you tell them?"
"I should, yes. I haven't. I shall when I can name X."
"Then you're withholding evidence?"
"I'm doing something much worse; I'm conspiring to obstruct justice. So are Mr. Goodwin and Mrs. Valdon. That's why you must be detained until I can name X."
"You sit there and calmly …" Upton let it hang. "It's unbelievable. Why me? Why are you telling me?"
"I needed to discuss it with you. I talked with Bingham and Krug and Haft on Saturday, and I wanted to talk with you. One of them advanced the opinion, not explicitly but by implication, that you had killed Carol Mardus. His point was that you would not have let her take a six months' vacation unless she confided in you the compelling reason for it, that you knew she was pregnant, and that therefore she had probably had your help in disposing of the baby. Hence the conclusion that you are X. Surely not wanton. When I said I wanted to discuss the likelihood that you're a murderer you said blah. I don't think you can dismiss it so cavalierly."
