Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 14

by Trouble in Triplicate

  I eyed him coldly. “You scold us when we lie, and you scold us when we tell the truth. What does the city pay you for anyhow?”

  Back in the office there was the morning mail, which had been ignored on account of the interruption of the early visitor. I got busy with the opener. There was the usual collection of circulars, catalogues, appeals, requests for advice without enclosed check, and other items, fully up to the pre-war standard, and I was getting toward the bottom of the stack without encountering anything startling or promising when I slit another envelope and there it was.

  I stared at it. I picked up the envelope and stared at that. I don’t often talk to myself, but I said loud enough for me to hear, “My goodness.” Then I left the rest of the mail for later and went and mounted the three flights to the plant rooms on the roof. Proceeding through the first three departments, past everything from rows of generating flasks to Cattleya hybrids covered with blooms, I found Wolfe in the potting room, with Theodore Horstmann, the orchid nurse, examining a crate of sphagnum that had just arrived.

  “Well?” he demanded with no sign of friendliness. The general idea was that when he was up there I interrupted him at my peril.

  “I suppose,” I said carelessly, “that I shouldn’t have bothered you, but I ran across something in the mail that I thought you’d find amusing,” and I put them on the bench before him, side by side: the envelope with his name and address printed on it by hand, in ink, and the piece of paper that had been clipped from something with scissors or a sharp knife, reading in large black script, printed but not by hand:

  YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE—

  AND I WILL WATCH YOU DIE!

  “It sure is a coincidence,” I remarked, grinning at him.

  III

  I thought he would at least mutter “Indeed,” but he didn’t. He looked at the exhibits for a moment without touching them, sent me a sharp glance indicating an instantaneous suspicion that I was implicated, and said without any perceptible quiver, “I’ll look over the mail at eleven o’clock as usual.”

  It was the grand manner all right. Seeing he was impervious, I retrieved the exhibits without a word, returned to the office, and busied myself with the chores—letters to write, vital statistics of orchids to enter on cards, and similar manly tasks. Nor did he fudge on the time. It was eleven on the dot when he came down, got into his oversized chair behind his desk, and began the routine—going through the mail I had not discarded, signing checks, inspecting the bank balance, dictating letters and memos, glancing down at his calendar pad, and ringing for beer. Not until Fritz had brought the beer and he had irrigated his interior did he lean back in his chair, let his eyes go half shut, and observe:

  “Archie, you could easily have clipped that thing from the magazine, bought an envelope and printed my name and address on it, stamped it and mailed it. Nothing would have been simpler.”

  I grinned at him and shook my head. “Not my style. Besides, what for? I never exert myself without a purpose. Besides again, would I be apt to infuriate and embitter you at this moment, when I know General Carpenter will phone for your opinion?”

  “You will, of course, postpone your trip to Washington.”

  I let my frank, open countenance betray surprise. “I can’t. I have an appointment with a lieutenant general. Anyhow, why?” I indicated the envelope and clipping on his desk. “That tomfoolery? No panic is called for. I doubt the urgency of your peril. A man planning a murder doesn’t spend his energy clipping pieces out of adver—”

  “You are going to Washington?”

  “Yes, sir. I have a date. Of course I could phone Carpenter and tell him your nerves are a little shaky on account of an anony—”

  “When do you leave?”

  “I have a seat on the six o’clock train, but I could take a later—”

  “Very well. Then we have the day. Your notebook.”

  Wolfe leaned forward to pour beer and drink, and then leaned back again. “I offer a comment on your jocosity. When Mr. Jensen called here yesterday and showed us that thing we had no inkling of the character of the person who had sent it. It might have been merely the attempt of a coward to upset his digestion. We no longer enjoy that ignorance. This person not only promptly killed Mr. Jensen, with wit equal to his determination, but also killed Mr. Doyle, a stranger, whose presence could not have been foreseen. We now know that this person is cold-blooded, ruthless, quick to decide and to act, and an egomaniac.”

  “Yes, sir. I agree. If you go to bed and stay there until I get back from Washington, letting no one but Fritz enter the room, I may not be able to control my tongue when with you but actually I will understand and I won’t tell anybody. You need a rest anyway. And don’t lick any envelopes.”

  “Bah.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. “That thing was not sent to you. Presumably you are not on the agenda.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And this person is dangerous and requires attention.”

  “I agree.”

  “Very well.” Wolfe shut his eyes. “Take notes as needed. It may be assumed, if this person means business with me as he did with Mr. Jensen, that this is connected with the case of Captain Peter Root. I had no other association whatever with Mr. Jensen—learn the whereabouts of Captain Root.”

  “The court-martial gave him three years in the cooler.”

  “I know it. Is he there? Also, what about that young woman, his fiancée, who raised such a ruction about it and called me a mongrel bloodhound? A contradiction in terms—not a good epithet. Her name is Jane Geer.” Wolfe’s eyes half opened for an instant. “You have a habit of knowing how to locate personable young women without delay. Have you seen that one recently?”

  “Oh,” I said offhand, “I sort of struck up an acquaintance with her. I guess I can get in touch with her. But I doubt—”

  “Do so. I want to see her. Excuse me for interrupting, but you have a train to catch. Also inform Inspector Cramer of this development and suggest that he investigate Captain Root’s background—his relatives and intimates—anyone besides Miss Geer who might thirst for vengeance at his disgrace. I’ll do that. If Captain Root is in prison, arrange with General Fife to bring him here. I want to have a talk with him. Where is the clipping received yesterday by Mr. Jensen? Ask Mr. Cornwall and Mr. Cramer. There is the possibility that this is not another one like it, but the same one.”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. This one is clipped closer to the printing at the upper right.”

  “I noticed that, but ask anyway. Inspect the chain bolts on the doors and test the night gong in your room. Fritz will sleep in your room tonight. I shall speak to Fritz and Theodore. All of this can easily be attended to by telephone except Miss Geer, and that is your problem. Do not for the present mention her to Mr. Cramer. I want to see her before he does. When will you return from Washington?”

  “I should be able to catch a noon train back—my appointment’s at nine. Getting here around five.” I added earnestly, “If I can clear it with Carpenter to cross the ocean, I will of course arrange not to leave until this ad-clipper has been attended to. I wouldn’t want—”

  “Don’t hurry back on my account. Or alter your plans. You receive a salary from the government.” Wolfe’s tone was dry, sharp, and icy, plainly intended to pierce all my vital organs at once. He went on with it, “Please get General Fife on the phone. We’ll begin by learning about Captain Root.”

  The program went smoothly, all except the Jane Geer number. If it hadn’t been for her I’d have been able to make the six o’clock train with hours to spare. Fife reported back on Root in thirty minutes, to the effect that Root was in the clink on government property down in Maryland and would be transported to New York without delay for an interview with Wolfe, which appeared to contradict the saying that democracies are always ungrateful. Cornwall said he had turned the clipping and envelope Jensen had received over to Inspector Cramer, and Cramer verified it and said he had it. But Cramer seemed to b
e too busy for an extended phone conversation, and I understood why when, shortly after we had finished lunch, he arrived at our place in person, sat down in the red leather chair and narrowed his eyes at Wolfe, emitted a hoarse, grating chuckle and said offensively:

  “Interested, involved, and curious.”

  Naturally Wolfe tossed it back at him, but after three minutes of fast and hot tongue work they patched it up and discussed matters. Cramer had the Jensen clipping with him, and they compared the two and found they were from copies of the same magazine, a piece of information which I would have considered no bargain at a nickel. We emptied the bag on the Captain Root episode, all but the Jane Geer item, and Cramer said he would do a survey of Root’s history and connections. As for the official investigation of the Jensen murder, they still had the entire population of the metropolitan area for suspects, which gave them plenty of room to move around in. When Cramer’s recital made it evident that the squad had got nowhere at all, Wolfe saw fit to make a couple of cracks and Cramer returned the compliment, so the conference ended on the same breezy note it had begun with.

  On Jane Geer the luck was low. When before noon I phoned the advertising agency she worked for I was told that she was somewhere in Long Island admiring some client’s product for which she was to produce copy. When I finally did get her, after four o’clock, she went willful on me, presumably because she regarded my phoning five times in one day as evidence that my primal impulses had been aroused and I was beginning to pant. She would not come to Nero Wolfe’s place unless I went after her and bought her a cocktail first. So I met her a little after five at the Calico Room at the Churchill, and bought.

  She had put in a full day’s work, but looking at her you might have thought she had come straight from an afternoon nap and a relaxing bath.

  It was not my opinion, at that stage of affairs, that this special item of God’s second-thought bounty for man was guilty of premeditated and cold-blooded murder. Because of my interest in human nature I had found occasion, in the brief period since I had first met her, to discover that she was capable of strong feelings over a wide range of territory, and that she did not believe in limiting their expression to little hints like darting the eyes. I had never seen her scratch or pull hair, but I had known her only two months or so, and unquestionably she packed the potential. However, I felt that the Jensen-Doyle massacre, one of them a perfect stranger, did not belong in her repertory; and I knew she had acquired a different slant on the Captain Root incident since the day she called Wolfe a mongrel bloodhound.

  She darted her brown eyes at me. I didn’t say she never darted, I said she didn’t stop there. “Let me,” she said, “see your right forefinger.”

  I poked it at her. She rubbed its tip gently with the tip of her own. “I wondered if it had a callus. After dialing my number five times in less than five hours. Are you trying to win some kind of a bet? Or did you dream about me?” She sipped her Tom Collins, bending her head to get her lips to the straw. A strand of her hair slipped forward over an eye and a cheek, and I reached across and used the same finger to put it back in place.

  “I took that liberty,” I told her, “because I wish to have an unobstructed view of your lovely phiz. I want to see if you turn pale or your eyes get glassy.”

  “Overwhelmed by you so near?”

  “No, I know that reaction—I correct for it. Anyhow I doubt if I’m magnetic right now because I’m sore at you for making me miss a train.”

  “I didn’t phone you this time. You phoned me.”

  “Okay.” I drank. “You said on the phone that you still don’t like Nero Wolfe and you wouldn’t go to see him unless you knew what for and maybe not even then. So this is what for. He wants to ask you whether you intend to kill him yourself or hire the same gang that you got to kill Jensen and Doyle. So he’ll know what to expect.”

  “Mercy.” She looked my face over. “You’d better put your humor on a diet. It’s taking on weight.”

  I shook my head. “Ordinarily I would enjoy playing catch with you, as you are aware, but I can’t miss all the trains. I’m not even trying to be funny, let alone succeeding. I was instructed to tell you this if necessary. Because Wolfe’s life has been threatened in the same manner as Jensen’s was, the supposition is that Jensen was murdered for revenge, for what he did to Captain Root. Because of the cutting remarks you made when Root was trapped, and your general attitude, there is a tendency to want to know what you have been doing lately. Wolfe wants to ask you. If you wonder why I didn’t start with some grade A detecting by finding out where you were last night between eleven and twelve, that wouldn’t help any because what if you hired—”

  “Stop.” She stopped me. “I’m dreaming.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s fantastic.”

  “Sure. Lots of things are.”

  “Nero Wolfe seriously thinks I—did that? Or had it done?”

  “I didn’t say so. He wants to discuss it with you.”

  Her eyes flashed. Her tone took on an edge. “It is also extremely corny. And the police? Have you kindly arranged that when Wolfe finishes with me I proceed to headquarters? Would you be good enough to phone my boss in the morning and let him know where I am? I can’t begin to tell you—”

  “Listen, Tiger-eyes.” She let me cut her off, which was a pleasant surprise. “Have you noticed me sneaking up on you from behind? If so, draw it for me. I have explained a situation. Your name has not been mentioned to the police, though they have consulted us. You are, let us assume, as innocent as a cheeping chick, which you do not, however, resemble in visible physical aspects.”

  “Thank you.” The edge was even sharper.

  “You’re welcome. But since the police are onto the Root angle they are apt to get a steer in your direction without us, and it wouldn’t hurt if Wolfe had already satisfied himself that you wouldn’t kill a fly.”

  “By what process?” She was scornful. “I suppose he asks me if I ever committed murder, and I smile and say no, and he apologizes and gives me an orchid.”

  “Not quite. He’s a genius. He asks you questions like do you bait your own hook when you go fishing, and you reveal yourself without knowing it.”

  “It sounds fascinating.” Her eyes suddenly changed, and the line of her lips. She had been struck with an idea. “I wonder,” she said.

  “What is it, and we’ll both wonder.”

  “Sure.” Her eyes had changed more. “This wouldn’t by any chance be a climax you’ve been working up to? You with a thousand girls and women so that you have to issue ration books so many minutes to a coupon, and yet finding so much time for me? Leading up, heaven knows why, and I don’t care to go to heaven to find out, to this idiotic frame—”

  “Turn that one off,” I broke in, “or I’ll begin to get suspicious myself. You know darned well why I have found time for you, having a mirror as you do. I have been experimenting to test my emotional reaction to form, color, touch, and various perfumes, and I have been deeply grateful for your co-operation. For you to pretend to imagine that the experiment we have been carrying on was on my part preparation for a frame-up for murder is an insult both to my intelligence and my emotional integrity.”

  “Ha, ha.” She stood up, her eyes not softening nor her tone melting. “I am going to see Nero Wolfe. I welcome an opportunity to reveal myself to Nero Wolfe. Do I go or are you taking me?”

  I took her. I paid the check and we went out and got a taxi.

  During the brief ride downtown and crosstown she got more realistic. She said, among other things, “I was taken in by Peter Root. I thought he was innocent and was being made the goat. So I expressed myself accordingly, and why shouldn’t I? But I am over all that, as you know unless you are a two-faced subhuman Pithecanthropus, and this business about the murder of that Jensen, which I read about in the morning paper, is utter poppycock. I’m a working girl. After my experience with the charming, irresistible Peter I wouldn’t mar
ry a combination of Winston Churchill and Victor Mature. I wouldn’t even marry you. I have a future. I intend to become the first female vice-president of the biggest advertising agency in the country. I never will, or anyway not for years, if my name is made public as a suspect in a murder case. The publicity about me in the Peter Root business didn’t help me any, and this would about finish me.”

  “Don’t,” I advised her, “take that line with Nero Wolfe. His attitude toward women as business executives is a little peculiar, not to mention his attitude toward women.”

  “I’ll handle Nero Wolfe.”

  “Hooray. No one ever has yet.”

  I didn’t get to see her try, because she didn’t get to see Wolfe.

  Since chain-bolt orders were in effect, my key wouldn’t let us in and I had to ring the doorbell for Fritz. I had just pushed the button when who should appear, mounting the steps to join us on the stoop, but the Army officer that they use for a model when they want to do a picture conveying the impression that masculine comeliness will win the war. I admit he was handsome; I admitted it to myself right then, when I first saw him. He looked preoccupied and concentrated, but even so he found time for a glance at Jane, which was actually nothing against him, especially when you consider that she also found time for a glance at him.

  At that moment the door swung open and I spoke to Fritz. “Okay, thanks. Is Mr. Wolfe in the office?”

  “No, he’s up in his room.”

  “All right, I’ll take it.” Fritz departed, and I maneuvered into position to dominate the scene, on the door-sill facing out. I spoke to the masculine model.

  “Yes, Major? This is Nero Wolfe’s place.”

  “I know it is.” He had a baritone voice that suited him to a T. “I want to see him. My name is Emil Jensen. I am the son of Ben Jensen, who was killed last night.”