by Rex Stout
“Of course they are, Mrs. Boone. It was Friday evening when you were here with the others the first time, when you almost spoke up about it and changed your mind. Was it before that, or after?”
“It was after. It was the next day.”
“Then it was Saturday. Another thing that will help you to place it, Saturday morning you received an envelope in the mail containing your wedding picture and automobile license. Do you remember that? It was the same day?”
She nodded with assurance. “Yes, of course it was. Because I spoke of that, and she said she had written a letter to him-to the man who killed my husband- she knew my husband had always carried the wedding picture in the wallet that was missing-he had carried it for over twenty years-twenty-three years-”
The widow’s voice got away from her. She gave it up and gulped, sat without trying to go on, and gulped again. If she lost control completely and started noises and tears there was no telling what Wolfe would do. He might even have tried to act human, which would have been an awful strain on all of us. So I told her gruffly:
“Okay, Mrs. Boone, take your time. Whenever you get ready, what did she write a letter to the murderer for? To tell him to send you the wedding picture?”
She nodded and got enough voice back to mumble, “Yes.”
“Indeed,” Wolfe said to help out.
The widow nodded again. “She told me that she knew I would want that picture, and she wrote him to say that she knew about him and he must send it to me.”
“What else did she write him?”
“I don’t know. That’s all she told me about it.”
“But she told you who he was.”
“No, she didn’t.” Mrs. Boone halted again for a moment, still getting her voice back into place. “She said she wouldn’t tell me about that, because it would be too much to expect me not to show that I knew. She said I didn’t need to worry about his not being punished, there would be no doubt about that, and besides it would be dangerous for me to know. That’s where I now think I did wrong-that’s why I said I’m responsible for her death. If it would have been dangerous for me it was dangerous for her, especially after she wrote him that letter. I should have made her tell the police about it, and if she wouldn’t do it I should have broken my promise to her and told the police myself. Then she wouldn’t have been killed. Anyway she said she thought she was breaking a law, withholding information and concealing evidence, so I have that on my mind too, helping her break a law.”
“You can stop worrying about that, at least,” Wolfe assured her. “I mean the lawbreaking. That part of it’s all right. Or it will be, as soon as you tell me, and I tell the police, where Miss Gunther put the cylinder.”
“But I can’t. That’s another thing. I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”
Wolfe’s eyes had popped wide open. “Nonsense!” he said rudely. “Of course she told you!”
“She did not. That’s one reason I came to see you. She said I didn’t need to worry about the man who killed my husband being punished. But if that’s the only evidence…”
Wolfe’s eyes had gone shut again. There was a long silence. Mrs. Boone looked at me, possibly still in search of a resemblance, but whatever she was looking for her expression gave no indication that she was finding it. Finally she spoke to Wolfe again:
“So you see why I need advice…”
His lids went up enough to make slits. In his place I would at least have been grateful for all the corroboration of the guesses I had made, but apparently he was too overcome by his failure to learn where the cylinder was.
“I regret, madam,” he said, without any noticeable tremor of regret or anything like it, “that I can’t be of any help to you. There is nothing I can do. All I can give you is what you said you came for, advice, and you are welcome to that. Mr. Goodwin will drive you back to your hotel. Arriving there, telephone the police immediately that you have information for them. When they come, tell them everything you have told me, and answer their questions as long as you can stand it. You need have no fear of being regarded as guilty of lawbreaking. I agree with you that if you had broken your promise to Miss Gunther she would probably not have been killed, but it was she who asked you for the promise, so the responsibility is hers. Besides, she can afford it; it is astonishing, the burden of responsibility that dead people can bear up under. Dismiss that from your mind too if you can.” He was on his feet. “Good afternoon, madam.”
So I did get to drive a female Boone home from our office, though not Nina. Since it appeared that she had given us all she had and was therefore of no further immediate interest, I didn’t even bother to discover whether anyone was on her tail and confined myself to the duties of a chauffeur. She didn’t seem to care about conversing, which simplified matters. I delivered her safely at the Waldorf entrance and headed back downtown. Aside from the attention to driving, which was automatic, there was no point in trying to put my mind on my work, since I was being left out in the cold and therefore had no work, so I let it drift to Phoebe Gunther. I went back to the times I had been with her, how she had talked and acted, with my present knowledge of what she had been doing, and decided she had been utterly all right. I have an inclination to pick flaws, especially where young women are concerned, but on this occasion I didn’t have the list started by the time I got back home.
Wolfe was drinking beer, as I observed when I stepped inside the office door merely to tell him:
“I’ll be upstairs. I always like to wash my hands after I’ve been with certain kinds of policemen, meaning Inspector Ash, and I’ve-”
“Come in here. That letter and check. We’d better get that done.”
I gawked. “What, to the NIA?”
“Yes.”
“My God, you don’t mean you’re actually going to send it?”
“Certainly. Didn’t I tell that woman I would? Wasn’t it with that understanding that she told me things?”
I sat down at my desk and regarded him piercingly. “This,” I said sternly, “is not being eccentric. This is plain loony. What about Operation Payroll? And where did you suddenly get a scruple? And anyway, she didn’t tell you the one thing you wanted to know.” I abruptly got respectful. “I regret to report, sir, that the checkbook is lost.”
He grunted. “Draw the check and type the letter. At once.” He pointed to a stack of envelopes on his desk. “Then you can go through these reports from Mr. Bascom’s office. They just came by messenger.”
“But with no client-shall I phone Bascom to call it off?”
“Certainly not.”
I went to the safe for the checkbook. As I filled out the stub I remarked, “Statistics show that forty-two and three-tenths per cent of all geniuses go crazy sooner or later.”
He had no comment. He merely drank beer and sat. Now that I was to be permitted to know what Bascom’s men were doing, he wouldn’t even cooperate enough to slit open the envelopes. Whatever it was it must be good, since he evidently intended to go on paying for it with his own dough. I pounded the typewriter keys in a daze. When I put the check and letter before him to be signed I said plaintively:
“Excuse me for mentioning it, but a century from Mrs. Boone would have helped. That seems to be more our speed. She said she could afford it.”
He used the blotter. “You’d better take this to the post office. I suspect the evening collection from that box doesn’t get made sometimes.”
So I had some more chauffeuring to do. It was only a ten-minute walk to the post office on Ninth Avenue and back, but I was in no mood for walking. I only like to walk when I can see some future ahead of me. Returning, I put the car in the garage, since the evening would obviously be a complete blank.
Wolfe was still in the office, outwardly perfectly normal. He glanced at me, then at the clock, and back at me.
“Sit down a moment, Archie. You’ll have plenty of time to wash before dinner. Dr. Vollmer is coming to see us later, and you need some ins
tructions.”
At least his mind was still functioning enough to send for a doctor.
Chapter 31
DOC VOLLMER WAS DUE to arrive at ten o’clock. At five minutes to ten the stage was set, up in Wolfe’s bedroom. I was in Wolfe’s own chair by the reading lamp, with a magazine. Wolfe was in bed. Wolfe in bed was always a remarkable sight, accustomed to it as I was. First the low footboard, of streaky anselmo-yellowish with sweeping dark brown streaks-then the black silk coverlet, next the wide expanse of yellow pajama top, and last the flesh of the face. In my opinion Wolfe was quite aware that black and yellow are a flashy combination, and he used it deliberately just to prove that no matter how showy the scene was he could dominate it. I have often thought that I would like to see him try it with pink and green. The rest of the room-rugs and furniture and curtains-was okay, big and comfortable and all right to be in.
Doc Vollmer, admitted downstairs by Fritz and knowing his way around the house, came up the one flight alone and walked into the room, the door standing open. He was carrying his toolbox. He had a round face and round ears, and two or three years had passed since he had given up any attempt to stand with his belly in and his chest out. I told him hello and shook hands, and then he went to the bedside with a friendly greeting and his hand extended.
Wolfe twisted his neck to peer at the offered hand, grunted skeptically, and muttered, “No, thank you. What’s the ceiling on it? I don’t want any.”
Standing at the footboard, I began hastily, “I should have explained-” but Wolfe broke in, thundering at Vollmer, “Do you want to pay two dollars a pound for butter? Fifty cents for shoestrings? A dollar for a bottle of beer? Twenty dollars for one orchid, one ordinary half-wilted Laeliocattleya? Well, confound it, answer me!” Then he quit thundering and started muttering.
Vollmer lowered himself to the edge of a chair, put his toolbox on the floor, blinked several times at Wolfe, and then at me.
I said, “I don’t know whether it’s the willies or what.”
Wolfe said. “You accuse me of getting you here under false pretenses. You accuse me of wanting to borrow money from you. Just because I ask you to lend me five dollars until the beginning of the next war, you accuse me!” He shook a warning finger in the direction of Vollmer’s round astonished face. “Let me tell you, sir, you will be next! I admit that I am finished; I am finally driven to this extremity. They have done for me; they have broken me; they are still after me.” His voice rose to thunder again. “And you, you incomparable fool, you think to escape! Archie tells me you are masquerading as a doctor. Bah! They’ll take your clothes off! They’ll examine every inch of your skin, as they did mine! They’ll find the mark!” He let his head fall back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and resumed muttering.
Vollmer looked at me with a gleam in his eyes and inquired, “Who wrote his script for him?”
Managing somehow to control the muscles around my mouth, I shook my head despairingly. “He’s been like this for several hours, ever since I brought him back home.”
“Oh, he’s been out of the house?”
“Yes. From three-fifteen till six o’clock. Under arrest.”
Vollmer turned to Wolfe. “Well,” he said decisively. “The first thing is to get some nurses. Where’s the phone? Either that or take him to a hospital.”
“That’s the ticket,” I agreed. “It’s urgent. We must act.”
Wolfe’s eyes came open. “Nurses?” he asked contemptuously. “Pfui. Aren’t you a physician? Don’t you know a nervous breakdown when you see one?”
“Yes,” Vollmer said emphatically.
“What’s the matter with it?”
“It doesn’t seem to be-uh, typical.”
“Faulty observation,” Wolfe snapped. “Or a defect in your training. Specifically, it’s a persecution complex.”
“Who’s doing the persecuting?”
Wolfe shut his eyes. “I feel it coming on again. Tell him, Archie.”
I met Vollmer’s gaze. “Look, Doc, the situation is serious. As you know, he was investigating the Boone-Gunther murders for the NIA. The high command didn’t like the way Inspector Cramer was handling it and booted him, and replaced him with a baboon by the name of Ash.”
“I know. It was in the evening paper.”
“Yeah. In tomorrow’s evening paper you’ll learn that Nero Wolfe has returned the NIA retainer and quit.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“I’m telling you. Ash’s personal attitude toward Wolfe is such that he would rather slice his wrists than slash his throat because it would prolong the agony. Today he got a material witness warrant and Wolfe had to go to Centre Street, me taking him. Hombert had the warrant killed, for various reasons, but the main one was that Wolfe was working for the NIA, and if the NIA gets offended any worse than it is now it will probably fire the Mayor and everyone else and declare New York a monarchy. But. Wolfe no sooner gets home than he breaks off relations with the NIA. They’ll get his letter, with check enclosed, in the morning mail. Whereupon hell will pop wide open. What the NIA will do we don’t know and maybe we don’t care-I should say maybe Wolfe doesn’t care. But we know damn well what the cops will do. First, with Wolfe no longer sleeping with the NIA, that motive for tenderness will be gone. Second, they know that Wolfe has never yet had a murderer for a client, and they know what a job it is to pry him loose from money, especially thirty thousand bucks and up, and they will therefore deduce that one of the NIA boys is guilty, and that Wolfe knows it and knows who it is.”
“Who is it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, and since Wolfe’s a raving lunatic you can’t ask him. With that setup, it’s a cinch to read the future. The wagon will be at the door ready for him, with the papers all in order, any time after ten o’clock, possibly earlier. It’s a shame to disappoint them, but all I can do is meet them with another kind of paper, signed by a reputable physician, certifying that in Wolfe’s present condition it would be dangerous either to move him from his bed or to permit anyone to converse with him.”
I waved a hand. “That’s how it stands. Five years ago, the time Wolfe did you a little favor when that crook-what was his name? Griffin-tried to frame you on a malpractice suit, and you told Wolfe if he ever wanted anything all he had to do was ask for it, I warned you you might regret it some day. Brother, this is the day.”
Vollmer was rubbing his chin. He didn’t really look reluctant, merely thoughtful. He looked at Wolfe, saying nothing, and then returned to me and spoke:
“Naturally I have an uncontrollable itch to ask a lot of questions. This is absolutely fascinating. I suppose the questions wouldn’t be answered?”
“I’m afraid not. Not by me anyhow, because I don’t know the answers. You might try the patient.”
“How long will the certificate have to function?”
“I have no idea. Damn it, I tell you I’m ignorant.”
“If he’s bad enough to prohibit visitors I’ll have to insist on calling on him at least twice a day. And to make it good there ought to be nurses.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I grant there ought to be, but he would run a fever. Nurses are out. As for you, call as often as you want to. I may get lonely. And make that certificate as strong as they come. Say it would kill him if anybody whose name begins with A even looked at him.”
“It will be so worded as to serve its purpose. I’ll bring it over in ten minutes or so.” Vollmer stood up with his toolbox in his hand. “I did say that time, though, that Wolfe would get anything he asked for.” He looked at Wolfe. “It would be gratifying just to hear you ask me for something. How about it?”
Wolfe groaned. “They come in hordes,” he said distinctly, but in a phony voice. “In chariots with spiked wheels, waving the insolent banners of inflation! Five dollars for a pound of corned beef! Ten dollars for a squab! Sixty cents-”
“I’d better be going,” Vollmer said, and moved.
Chapter 32<
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I DIDN’T GET LONELY during the two and a half days- Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday-that the certificate worked. Newspapermen, cops, FBI’s, NIA’s-they all appreciated that I was holding the fort under trying circumstances and did their best to keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t fret. If ordinarily I earn twice as much as I get, which is a conservative estimate, during those sixty-some hours it was ten times as much at a minimum.
Throughout the siege Wolfe stayed put in his room, with the door locked and one of the keys in my pocket and one in Fritz’s. Keeping away from the office, dining room, and kitchen for that length of time was of course a hardship, but the real sacrifice, the one that hurt, was giving up his two-a-day trips to the plant rooms. I had to bully him into it, explaining that if a surprise detachment shoved a search warrant at me I might or might not be able to get him back into bed in time, and besides, Theodore slept out, and while he was no traitor he might inadvertently spill it that his afflicted employer did not seem to be goofy among the orchids. For the same reason I refused to let Theodore come down to the bedroom for consultations. I told Wolfe Thursday or Friday, I forget which:
“You’re putting on an act. Okay. Applause. Since it requires you to be out of circulation that leaves it strictly up to me and I make the rules. I am already handicapped enough by not knowing one single goddam thing about what you’re up to. We had a-”
“Nonsense,” he growled. “You know all about it. I have twenty men looking for that cylinder. Nothing can be done without that cylinder. It must be found and it will be. I simply prefer to wait here in my room instead of in jail.”
“Nuts.” I was upset because I had just spent a hot half hour with another NIA delegation down in the office. “Why did you have to break with the NIA before you went to bed to wait? Granting that one of them did it and you know all about it, which everybody is now sure of but you’ll have to show me, that was no reason to return their money in order to keep from having a murderer for a client, because you said yourself that no man was your client, the NIA was. Why in the name of God did you return their dough? And if this cylinder gag is not merely a stall, if it’s really it and all the it there is, as you say, what if it never is found? What are you going to do, stay in bed the rest of your life, with Doc Vollmer renewing the certificate on a monthly basis?”
