Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 14

by Trouble in Triplicate

  Wolfe muttered, “That’s hard to believe—inside a cigar—”

  “Right. I thought so too. The firm of Blaney and Poor has been making trick cigars for years, but they’re harmless, all they do is phut and make you jump. What’s in these twenty-four is anything but harmless—a special kind of instantaneous fuse the size of an ordinary thread, and a very special explosive capsule that was invented during the war and is still on the secret list. Even this is confidential, it’s made by the Beck Products Corporation, and their men and the FBI are raising hell trying to find out how this murderer got hold of them. That’s not for publication.”

  “I’m not a publisher.”

  “Okay.” Cramer got a cigar from his pocket, gazed at it with an attention that was not his habit, bit off an end, and lit it. Wolfe and I watched the operation, which we had both seen Cramer perform at least two hundred times, as if there was something very interesting about it.

  “Of course,” Wolfe remarked, “the Alta Vista people deny all knowledge.”

  “Sure. We let them analyze five of the twenty-four, after removing the fuses and capsules, and they say the fillers are theirs but the wrappers are not. They say whoever sliced them open and inserted the things and rewrapped them was an expert, and anyhow, anybody could see that.” Cramer sank his teeth deeper in his cigar. “Now then. There are six people connected with Blaney and Poor who are good at making trick cigars. Four of them are mixed up in this. Helen Vardis is one of their most highly skilled workers. Joe Groll is the foreman and can do anything. Blaney is the best of all, he shows them how. And Mrs. Poor worked there for four years when she was Martha Davis, up to two years ago when she married Poor.”

  Wolfe shuddered. “Six people good at making trick cigars. Couldn’t the murder have been a joint enterprise? Couldn’t you convict all of them?”

  “I don’t appreciate jokes about murder,” Cramer said morosely. “I wish I could. It’s a defect of character. As for getting the loaded cigars into Poor’s apartment, that also is wide open. He always had them delivered to his office, and the package would lie around there, sometimes as long as two or three days, until he took it home. So anybody might have substituted the loaded box. But now about Mrs. Poor. How do you like this? Naturally we gave the cigars and the box everything we had. It was a very neat job. But underneath the cigars we found two human hairs, one five inches long and one six and a half inches. We have compared them with hairs taken from various heads. Those two came from the head of Mrs. Poor. Unquestionably. So I think I’ll charge her.”

  Wolfe grunted and shut his eyes.

  I asked, perfectly friendly, “Hairs don’t have arches and loops and whorls, do they, Inspector?”

  “Nuts.” He glared at me. “Where’s your laboratory?”

  Wolfe’s eyes half opened. “I wouldn’t do it if I were you, Mr. Cramer.”

  “Oh.” He glared at Wolfe. “You wouldn’t.”

  “No, sir. Let me put it this way.” Wolfe maneuvered himself into position for an uplift and got to his feet. “You have her on trial. The hairs have been placed in evidence. I am the defense attorney. I am speaking to the jury.”

  Wolfe fixed his eyes on me. “Ladies and gentlemen, I respect your intelligence. The operation of turning those cigars into deadly bombs has been described to you as one requiring the highest degree of skill and the minutest attention. Deft fingers and perfect eyesight were essential. Since the slightest irregularity about the appearance of that box of cigars might have attracted the attention of a veteran smoker, you can imagine the anxious scrutiny with which each cigar was inspected as it was arranged in the box. And you can realize how incredible it is that such a person, so intently engaged on anything and everything the eye could see, could possibly have been guilty of such atrocious carelessness as to leave two of the hairs of her head in that box with those cigars. Ladies and gentlemen, I appeal to your intelligence! I put it to you that those hairs, far from being evidence that Martha Poor killed her husband, are instead evidence that Martha Poor did not kill her husband!”

  Wolfe sat down and muttered, “Then they acquit her, and whom do you charge next?”

  Cramer growled, “So she is your client after all.”

  “No, sir, she is not. It was Mr. Poor who paid me. You said you came here because you wanted to be fair. Pfui. You came here because you had misgivings. You had them because you are not a ninny. A jury would want to know, anyone concerned would want to know, if those hairs did not get in the box through Mrs. Poor’s carelessness, how did they get there? Who has had access to Mrs. Poor’s head or hairbrush? Manifestly that is a forlorn hope. The best chance, I would say, is the explosive capsules. Discover the tiniest link between anyone of the Beck Products Corporation and one of your suspects, and you have it, if not your case, at least your certainty. On that I couldn’t help, since I am no longer connected with the War Department. You can’t convict anybody at all, let alone Mrs. Poor, without an explanation of how he got the capsules. By the way, what about motive? Mrs. Poor was tired of smelling the smoke from her husband’s cigars, perhaps?”

  “No. Poor was a tightwad and she wanted money. She gets the whole works plus a hundred thousand insurance. Or according to that girl, Helen Vardis, she wanted Joe Groll and now they’ll get married.”

  “Proof?”

  “Oh, talk.” Cramer looked frustrated. “It goes away back to when Mrs. Poor was working there. I’ll tell you this, whether she’s your client or not. Naturally we’ve been having conversation with everybody at Blaney and Poor’s, both office and factory. The females all go thumbs down on her, the idea being that she’s a maneater. The males, just the opposite. According to them, she’s as pure as soap. Old-fashioned stick candy. If you ask me, another good reason for charging her.”

  “Specifications? By the females?”

  “No. None. But it’s unanimous.”

  “It would be.” Wolfe waved it away with a finger. “She married the proprietor, and women never forgive a woman for marrying a proprietor.” He frowned. “Another thing, Mr. Cramer, about a jury. As you know, I am strongly disinclined to leave this house for any purpose whatever. I detest the idea of leaving it to go to a courtroom and sit for hours on those wooden abominations they think are seats, and the thing they provide for witnesses is even worse. I would strain a point to avoid that experience; but if it can’t be avoided Mr. Goodwin and I shall have to testify that Mr. Poor sat in that chair and told us of his conviction that Mr. Blaney was going to kill him. You know juries; you know how that would affect them. Suppose, again, that I am the defense attorney and—”

  God help us, I thought, he’s going to address the jury again. But I got a break in the form of an excuse to skip it when the doorbell rang. Winking at Cramer as I passed him on my way to the hall, I proceeded to the front door and took a peek. What I saw seemed to call for finesse, so I opened the door just enough to slip through out to the stoop, shut the door behind me, and said, “Hello, let’s have a little conference.”

  Conroy Blaney squeaked at me, “What’s the idea?”

  I grinned at him amiably. “A policeman named Cramer is in Mr. Wolfe’s office having a talk, and I thought maybe you had had enough of him for a while. Unless you’re tailing him?”

  “Inspector Cramer?”

  I don’t know how he did it. Basically and visibly he was a chinless bald-headed runt, and his voice sounded like a hinge that needed oil, but there was something in the way he said Inspector Cramer that gave the double impression that (a) there was a rumor going around that Cramer did not actually exist, and (b) that if he did exist Conroy Blaney could make him stop existing by lifting a finger if he wanted to. I regarded him with admiration.

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you tailing him?”

  “Good heavens, no. I want to see Nero Wolfe.”

  “Okay, then follow me, and after we are inside, don’t talk. Get it?”

  “I want to see Nero Wolfe immediately.”

  �
�Will you follow instructions or won’t you? Do you also want to see Cramer?”

  “Very well, open the door.”

  As I inserted my key I was telling myself, murderer or not, I am going to be wishing this specimen was big enough to plug in the jaw before this is finished. He did, however, obey orders. I conducted him into the front room, the door connecting it with the office being closed, left him there on a chair, and went back by way of the hall.

  “It can wait,” I told Wolfe. “The man from Plehn’s with the Dendrobiums.”

  But a minute later Cramer was standing up to go. Knowing how suspicious he was, as well as how many good reasons he had had for being suspicious on those premises, and also knowing how cops in general love to open doors that don’t belong to them just to stick a head in, I escorted him to the front and let him out, then returned to the office and told Wolfe who the company was.

  Wolfe frowned. “What does he want?”

  “I think he wants to confess. I warn you, his squeak will get on your nerves.”

  “Bring him in.”

  V

  I expected to enjoy it and I did, only it didn’t last long. Blaney started off by rejecting the red leather chair and choosing one of the spares, which irritated both of us, since we like our routine.

  Perched on it, he began, “I was thinking on my way here, fate has thrown us together, Wolfe. You dominate your field and I dominate mine. We were bound to meet.”

  It caught Wolfe so completely off balance that he only muttered sarcastically, “Your field.”

  “That’s right.” In profile, from where I sat, Blaney looked like a gopher. “I am supreme. I imagine you and I are alike in more ways than one. Now I like to see things done in an orderly manner. So do you, don’t you?”

  Wolfe was speechless. But Blaney, obviously not giving a damn how he was, went on, “So first I’ll give you my four reasons for coming here and then we can take them up one at a time. One: I want a copy of the report you gave the police of what Gene Poor and Martha, his wife, told you about me. Two: discussion of whether your giving that report to the police was publication of a libel, and whether your withdrawal of it will satisfy me. Three: description of several methods by which I could kill a man without the slightest chance of detection. Four: a proposal to make an orchid, guaranteed exclusive to you, an imitation orchid plant in a pot, growing and blooming, that would talk! When the pot was lifted it would say distinctly, ‘Orchids to you!’ or anything of similar length.”

  “Good heavens,” Wolfe muttered incredulously.

  Blaney nodded with satisfaction. “I knew we would have many things in common. That’s my favorite expression, I use it all the time—good heavens. But you probably want to know where I stand, I would if I were you. I did not come here because of any fear on my own account. There is not the remotest chance of my safety being endangered. But Tuesday evening up at Gene’s apartment I heard a man saying to another man—I presume they were detectives—something about Mrs. Poor being Nero Wolfe’s client and in that case Mrs. Poor was as good as out of it, and Nero Wolfe had decided on Blaney and if so Blaney might as well get his leg shaved for the electrode. I knew that might be just talk, but I really think it would be a shame for you to make yourself ridiculous, and I don’t think you want to. I’m willing to take this trouble. You’re not a man to reach a conclusion without reasons. That wouldn’t be scientific, and you and I are both scientists. Tell me your reasons, one by one, and I’ll prove they’re no good. Go ahead.”

  “Archie.” Wolfe looked at me. “Get him out of here.”

  There wasn’t the slightest indication from Blaney that anyone had said anything except him, and I was too fascinated to move.

  Blaney went on, “The truth is, you have no reasons. The fact that Gene was afraid I would kill him proves nothing. He was a born coward. I did describe to him some of the methods by which I could kill a man without detection, but that was merely to impress upon him the fact that he continued to own half of the business by my sufferance and therefore my offer of twenty thousand dollars for his half was an act of generosity. I wouldn’t condescend to kill a man. No man is worth that much to me, or that little.”

  As he went on his squeak showed a tendency to hoarsen.

  “So you have no reasons. I suspected you didn’t, but if you did I wanted to answer them. We can go back to my one, two, and three later, but right now about this talking orchid. When I get hold of a creative idea I can’t concentrate on anything else. You will have to give me three or four orchid plants to work from, and they ought to be your favorite plants. And here’s the stroke of genius, I was saving this, the voice that does the talking will be—your voice! Whoever you send it to, preferably a lady, she will lift the pot, suspecting nothing, and your own voice, the voice of Nero Wolfe, will say to her, Orchids to you! Probably she’ll drop the pot But—”

  He had performed a miracle. I saw it with my own eyes, Nero Wolfe fleeing in haste from his own office. He had chased many a fellow being from that room, but that was the first time he had ever himself been chased. It became evident that he wasn’t even going to risk staying on that floor when the sound was heard of the door of his elevator banging open and shut.

  I told Blaney, “Overlook it. He’s eccentric.”

  Blaney said, “So am I.”

  I nodded. “Geniuses are.”

  Blaney was frowning. “Does he really think I killed Gene Poor?”

  “Yeah. He does now.”

  “Why now?”

  I waved it away. “Forget it. I’m eccentric too.”

  Blaney was still frowning. “There’s another possibility. The idea of the orchid having his voice doesn’t appeal to him. Then how about its having your voice? You have a good baritone voice. I would let you have it at cost, and you could give it to him for Christmas. Let’s see how it would sound. Say it in a medium tone, Orchids to you—”

  The house phone buzzed, and I swung my chair around and took it. It was Wolfe, on his room extension.

  “Archie. Is that man gone?”

  “No, sir. He wants me—”

  “Get him out of there at once. Phone Saul and tell him to come here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line went dead. So he had actually been stirred up enough to blow some dough on the case. Saul Panzer, being merely the best all-around investigator west of Nantucket, not counting me, came to twenty bucks a day plus expenses.

  To get Blaney out I nearly had to carry him.

  VI

  As luck would have it, Saul Panzer was not to be had at the moment. Since he was free-lancing, you never knew. I finally got it that he was out on Long Island on a job for Atlantic and left word for him to call. He did so around three and said he would be able to get to the office soon after six o’clock.

  It became obvious that to Wolfe, who had been stirred up, money was no object, since he blew another dollar and eighty cents on a phone call to Washington. I got it through without any trouble to General Carpenter, head of G-2, under whom I had been a major and for whom Wolfe had helped to solve certain problems connected with the war. The favor he asked of Carpenter, and of course got, was a telegram that would open doors at the premises of the Beck Products Corporation.

  Not satisfied with that, he opened another valve. At ten minutes to four he said to me, “Archie. Find out whether it seems advisable for me to talk with that man Joe Groll.”

  “Yes, sir. Tea leaves? Or there’s a palmist over on Seventh—”

  “See him and find out. Why did he ask where Blaney was up there Tuesday evening? Anything else.”

  “As, for instance, when does he marry Mrs. Poor and did she ever eat him?”

  “Anything.”

  So after he went up to the plant rooms I phoned the office of Blaney and Poor and got Joe Groll. No persuasion was required. His tone implied that he would be glad to talk with anybody, any time, anywhere, after business hours. He would be free at five-thirty. I told
him I’d be waiting for him at the corner of Varick and Adams in a brown Wethersill sedan.

  He was twenty minutes late. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologized as he climbed in front beside me. “I only quit being a GI hero two months ago, and they gave me my old job back, and it keeps me busy catching up.”

  His glance at me was a question, but I postponed answering it, because my eye being used to taking in things, I had noticed something on the sidewalk in the twilight. Sure enough, as I let the clutch in and we slid away from the sidewalk, somebody’s desire to find a taxi got practically frantic. To oblige, I took my time. When I saw in the mirror that a taxi had actually been snagged, I fed gas and went ahead. Then I answered the question his glance had asked.

  “I don’t sport a ruptured duck because I didn’t get over to kill any Germans. They gave me a majority so I could run errands for Nero Wolfe while he was winning the war. There’s a bar and grill on Nineteenth Street that has good Scotch. All right?”

  He didn’t object, so I kept my course, crowding no lights so as not to complicate matters for the taxi behind. Its driver was no bargain, because when I pulled up in front of Pete’s Bar & Grill, instead of going on by the sap swerved toward the curb not more than thirty yards back.

  In addition to good Scotch, Pete’s had booths partitioned to the ceiling, which furnished privacy. Seated in one of them, I was surprised to realize that you could make out a case for calling Joe Groll handsome. They had overdone it a little on the ears, but on the whole he was at least up to grade if not fancy. After we got our drinks I remarked casually, “As I told you on the phone, I want to discuss this murder. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe. Poor and his wife came to see him Tuesday afternoon, to tell him Blaney was going to dissolve the partnership by killing Poor.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I know.”