by Rex Stout
I emptied the pitcher into the glass. “So I guess Sperling’s hunch was good and he really is a Commie. With a picture of the card and the assortment I got of Rony, I should think you could get that lined up by that character who has appeared as Mr. Jones on our expense list now and then. He may not actually be Uncle Joe’s nephew, but he seems to be at least a deputy in the Union Square Politburo. Can’t you get him to research it?”
Fritz had brought another tray, with beer, and Wolfe poured the last of the second bottle.
“I could, yes.” He drank and put the glass down. “But it would be a waste of Mr. Sperling’s money. Even if that is Mr. Rony’s card and he is a party member, as he well may be, I suspect that it is merely a masquerade.” He wiped his lips. “I have no complaint of your performance, Archie, which was in character, and I should know your character; and I can’t say you transgressed your instructions, since you had a free hand, but you might have phoned before assuming the risks of banditry.”
“Really.” I was sarcastic. “Excuse me, but since when have you invited constant contact on a little job like tripping up a would-be bridegroom?”
“I haven’t. But you were aware that another factor had entered, or at least been admitted as conjecture. It is no longer conjecture. You didn’t phone me, but someone else did. A man—a voice you are acquainted with. So am I.”
“You mean Arnold Zeck?”
“No name was pronounced. But it was that voice. As you know, it is unmistakable.”
“What did he have to say?”
“Neither was Mr. Rony’s name pronounced, nor Mr. Sperling’s. But he left no room for dubiety. In effect I was told to cease forthwith any inquiry into the activities or interests of Mr. Rony or suffer penalties.”
“What did you have to say?”
“I—demurred.” Wolfe tried to pour beer, found the bottle was empty, and set it down. “His tone was more peremptory than it was the last time I heard it, and I didn’t fully conceal my resentment. I stated my position in fairly strong terms. He ended with an ultimatum. He gave me twenty-four hours to recall you from your weekend.”
“He knew I was up there?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned.” I let out a whistle. “This Rony boy is really something. A party member and one of Mr. Z.’s little helpers—which isn’t such a surprising combination, at that. And not only have I laid hands on him, but Saul and Ruth have too. Goddam it! I’ll have to—when did this phone call come?”
“Yesterday afternoon—” Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Saturday, at ten minutes past six.”
“Then his ultimatum expired eight hours ago and we’re still breathing. Even so, it wouldn’t have hurt to get time out for changing our signals. Why didn’t you phone me and I could—”
“Shut up!”
I lifted the brows. “Why?”
“Because even if we are poltroons cowering in a corner, we might have the grace not to talk like it! I reproach you for not phoning. You reproach me for not phoning. It is only common prudence to keep the door bolted, but there is no possible—”
That may not have been his last syllable, but if he got one more in I didn’t hear it. I have heard a lot of different noises here and there, and possibly one or two as loud as the one that interrupted Wolfe and made me jump out of my chair halfway across the room, but nothing much like it. To reproduce it you could take a hundred cops, scatter them along the block you live in, and have them start unanimously shooting windows with forty-fives.
Then complete silence.
Wolfe said something.
I grabbed a gun from a drawer, ran to the hall, flipped the switch for the stoop light, removed the chain bolt, opened the door, and stepped out. Across the street to the left two windows went up, and voices came and heads poked out, but the street was deserted. Then I saw that I wasn’t standing on the stone of the stoop but on a piece of glass, and if I didn’t like that piece there were plenty of others. They were all over the stoop, the steps, the areaway, and the sidewalk. I looked straight up, and another piece came flying down, missed me by a good inch, and crashed and tinkled at my feet. I backed across the sill, shut the door, and turned to face Wolfe, who was standing in the hall looking bewildered.
“He took it out on the orchids,” I stated. “You stay here. I’ll go up and look.”
As I went up the stairs three at a time I heard the sound of the elevator. He must have moved fast. Fritz was behind me but couldn’t keep up. The top landing, which was walled with concrete tile and plastered, was intact. I flipped the light switch and opened the door to the first plant room, the warm room, but I stopped after one step in because there was no light. I stood for five seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and by then Wolfe and Fritz were behind me.
“Let me get by,” Wolfe growled like a dog ready to spring.
“No.” I pushed back against him. “You’ll scalp yourself or cut your throat. Wait here till I get a light.”
He bellowed past my shoulder. “Theodore! Theodore!”
A voice came from the dim starlit ruins. “Yes, sir! What happened?”
“Are you all right?”
“No, sir! What—”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt, but what happened?”
I saw movement in the direction of the corner where Theodore’s room was, and a sound came of glass falling and breaking.
“You got a light?” I called.
“No, the doggone lights are all—”
“Then stay still, damn it, while I get a light.”
“Stand still!” Wolfe roared.
I beat it down to the office. By the time I got back up again there were noises from windows across the street, and also from down below. We ignored them. The sight disclosed by the flashlights was enough to make us ignore anything. Of a thousand panes of glass and ten thousand orchid plants some were in fact still whole, as we learned later, but it certainly didn’t look like it that first survey. Even with the lights, moving around through that jungle of jagged glass hanging down and protruding from plants and benches and underfoot wasn’t really fun, but Wolfe had to see and so did Theodore, who was okay physically but got so damn mad I thought he was going to choke.
Finally Wolfe got to where a dozen Odontoglossum harryanum, his current pride and joy, were kept. He moved the light back and forth over the gashed and fallen stems and leaves and clusters, with fragments of glass everywhere, turned, and said quietly, “We might as well go downstairs.”
“The sun will be up in two hours,” Theodore said through his teeth.
“I know. We need men.”
When we got to the office we phoned Lewis Hewitt and G. M. Hoag for help before we called the police. Anyway, by that time a prowl car had come.
Chapter 6
Six hours later I pushed my chair back from the dining table, stretched all the way, and allowed myself a good thorough yawn without any apology, feeling that I had earned it. Ordinarily I have my breakfast in the kitchen with Fritz, and Wolfe has his in his room, but that day wasn’t exactly ordinary.
A gang of fourteen men, not counting Theodore, was up on the roof cleaning up and salvaging, and an army of glaziers was due at noon. Andy Krasicki had come in from Long Island and was in charge. The street was roped off because of the danger from falling glass. The cops were still nosing around out in front and across the street, and presumably in other quarters too, but none was left in our house except Captain Murdoch, who, with Wolfe, was seated at the table I was just leaving, eating griddlecakes and honey.
They knew all about it, back to a certain point. The people who lived in the house directly across the street were away for the summer. On its roof they had found a hundred and ninety-two shells from an SM and a tommy gun, and they still had scientists up there collecting clues to support the theory that that was where the assault had come from, in case the lawyer for the defense should claim that the shells had been dropped by pigeons. Not that
there was yet any call for a lawyer for the defense, since there were no defendants. So far there was no word as to how they had got to the roof of the unoccupied house. All they knew was that persons unknown had somehow got to that roof and from it, at 2:24 A.M., had shot hell out of our plant rooms, and had made a getaway through a passage into Thirty-sixth Street, and I could have told them that much without ever leaving our premises.
I admit we weren’t much help. Wolfe didn’t even mention the name of Sperling or Rony, let alone anything beginning with Z. He refused to offer a specific guess at the identity of the perpetrators, and it wasn’t too hard to get them to accept that as the best to be had, since it was quite probable that there were several inhabitants of the metropolitan area who would love to make holes not only in Wolfe’s plant rooms but in Wolfe himself. Even so, they insisted that some must be more likely to own tommy guns and more willing to use them in such a direct manner, but Wolfe said that was irrelevant because the gunners had almost certainly been hired on a piece-work basis.
I left the breakfast table as soon as I was through because there were a lot of phone calls to make—to slat manufacturers, hardware stores, painters, supply houses, and others. I was at it when Captain Murdoch left and Wolfe took the elevator to the roof, and still at it when Wolfe came down again, trudged into the office, got himself lowered into his chair, leaned back, and heaved a deep sigh.
I glanced at him. “You’d better go up and take a nap. And I’ll tell you something. I can be just as stubborn as you can, and courage and valor and spunk are very fine things and I’m all for them, but I’m also a fairly good bookkeeper. If this keeps up, as I suppose it will, the balance sheet will be a lulu. I have met Gwenn socially and therefore might be expected to grit my teeth and stick; but you haven’t, and all you need to do is return his retainer. What I want to say is that if you do I promise never to ride you about it. Never. Want me to get the Bible?”
“No.” His eyes were half closed. “Is everything arranged for the repairs and replacements?”
“As well as it can be now.”
“Then call that place and speak to the elder daughter.”
I was startled. “Why her? What reason have you—”
“Pfui. You thought you concealed the direction your interest took—your personal interest—but you didn’t. I know you too well. Call her and learn if all the family is there—all except the son, who probably doesn’t matter. If they are, tell her we’ll be there in two hours and want to see them.”
“We?”
“Yes. You and I.”
I got at the phone. He was not really smashing a precedent. It was true that he had an unbreakable rule not to stir from his office to see anyone on business, but what had happened that night had taken this out of the category of business and listed it under struggle for survival.
One of the help answered, and I gave my name and asked for Miss Madeline Sperling. Her husband’s name had been Pendleton, but she had tossed it in the discard. My idea was to keep to essentials, but she had to make it a conversation. Rony had called Gwenn only half an hour ago and told her about the holdup, and of course Madeline wanted it all over again from me. I had to oblige. She thought she was worried about my head, and I had to assure her there were no bad cracks in it from the bandit’s blow. When I finally got her onto the subject at hand, though, and she knew from the way I put it that this was strictly business and deserved attention, she snapped nicely into it and made it straight and simple. I hung up and turned to Wolfe.
“All set. They’re there, and she’ll see that they stay until we come. We’re invited for lunch.”
“Including her sister?”
“All of ’em.”
He glanced at the clock, which said 11:23. “We should make it by one-thirty.”
“Yeah, easy. I think I know where I can borrow an armored car. The route goes within five miles of where a certain man has a palace on a hill.”
He made a face. “Get the sedan.”
“Okay, if you’ll crouch on the floor or let me put you in the trunk. It’s you he’s interested in, not me. By the way, what about Fred and Orrie? I’ve phoned Saul and warned him that there are other elements involved besides the law boys, and I should think Fred and Orrie might take a day off. After you have a talk with the family, whatever you’re going to say, you can have them pick it up again if that’s the program, which I hope to God it isn’t.”
He made that concession. I couldn’t get Fred or Orrie, but they would certainly call in soon and word was left with Fritz to tell them to lay off until further notice. Then Wolfe had to go up to the roof for another look while I went to the garage for the car, so it was nearly noon when we got rolling. Wolfe, in the back seat as always, because that gave him a better chance to come out alive when we crashed, had a firm grip on the strap with his right hand, but that was only routine and didn’t mean he was any shakier than usual when risking his neck in a thing on wheels. However, I noticed in the mirror that he didn’t shut his eyes once the whole trip, although he hadn’t been in bed for thirty hours now.
The day was cloudy and windy, not one of June’s best samples, though no rain fell. When we were approaching Stony Acres and reached the spot on the secondary road where Rony and I had been assaulted by highwaymen, I stopped to show Wolfe the terrain, and told him Saul had reported that the take from Rony had been three hundred and twelve bucks, and was awaiting instructions for disposal.
Wolfe wasn’t interested in the terrain. “Are we nearly there?”
“Yes, sir. A mile and a half.”
“Go ahead.”
When we rolled up to the front entrance of the mansion, we were honored. It was not the sad-looking guy in a mohair uniform who appeared and came to us, but James U. Sperling himself. He was not smiling. He spoke through the open car window.
“What does this mean?”
He couldn’t be blamed for not knowing that Wolfe would never stay in a vehicle any longer than he had to, since their acquaintance was brief. Before replying, Wolfe pushed the door open and manipulated himself out onto the gravel.
Meanwhile Sperling was going on. “I tried to get you on the phone, but by the time I got the number you had left. What are you trying to do? You know damn well I don’t want this.”
Wolfe met his eye. “You looked me up, Mr. Sperling. You must know that I am not hairbrained. I assure you that I can justify this move, but I can do so only by proceeding with it. When I have explained matters to you and your family, we’ll see if you can find any alternative to approval. I’ll stake my reputation that you can’t.”
Sperling wanted to argue it then and there, but Wolfe stood pat, and seeing that he had to choose between letting us come on in and ordering us off the place, the Chairman of the Board preferred the former. He and Wolfe headed for the door. Since no help had shown up, I took the car around the house to a graveled plaza in the rear, screened by shrubbery, left it there, and made for the nearest entrance, which was the west terrace. As I was crossing it a door opened and there was Madeline. I told her hello.
She inspected me with her head cocked to one side and the big dark eyes half open. “You don’t look so battered.”
“No? I am. Internal injuries. But not from the holdup. From—” I waved a hand. “You ought to know.”
“I’m disappointed in you.” Her eyes went open. “Why didn’t you shoot them?”
“My mind was elsewhere. You ought to know that too. We can compare notes on that some other time. Thank you very much for stalling it until it was too late for your father to head us off. Also thank you for taking my word for it that this is the best we can do for Gwenn. How many names have I got here now and where do they fit?”
“Oh, you’re Archie everywhere. I explained that much to Webster and Paul and Connie too, because they’ll eat lunch with us and it would have been too complicated, and anyway with Nero Wolfe here—they’re not halfwits. Incidentally, you’ve made lunch late; we usually have it at
one, so come on. How’s your appetite?”
I told her I’d rather show her than tell her, and we went in.
Lunch was served in the big dining room. Wolfe and I were the only ones with neckties on, though the day was too chilly for extremes like shorts. Sperling had a striped jacket over a light blue silk shirt open at the neck. Jimmy and Paul Emerson were sporting dingy old coat sweaters, one brown and one navy. Webster Kane varied it with a wool shirt with loud red and yellow checks. Mrs. Sperling was in a pink rayon dress and a fluffy pink sweater, unbuttoned; Connie Emerson in a dotted blue thing that looked like a dressing gown but maybe I didn’t know; Gwenn in a tan shirt and slacks; and Madeline in a soft but smooth wool dress of browns and blacks that looked like a PSI fabric.
So it was anything but a formal gathering, but neither was it free and easy. They ate all right, but they all seemed to have trouble deciding what would be a good thing to talk about. Wolfe, who can’t stand a strained atmosphere at meals, tried this and that with one and then another, but the only line that got anywhere at all was a friendly argument with Webster Kane about the mechanism of money and a book by some Englishman which nobody else had ever heard of, except maybe Sperling, who may have known it by heart but wasn’t interested.
When that was over and we were on our feet again, there was no loitering around. The Emersons, with Paul as sour as ever and Connie not up to form in her dressing gown if she will excuse me, went in the direction of the living room, and Webster Kane said he had work to do and went the other way. The destination of the rest of us had apparently been arranged. With Sperling in the lead, we marched along halls and across rooms to arrive at the library, the room with books and a stock ticker where I had wangled the master key and had later phoned Saul Panzer. Wolfe’s eyes, of course, immediately swept the scene to appraise the chairs, which Sperling and Jimmy began herding into a group; and, knowing he had had a hard night, I took pity on him, grabbed the best and biggest one, and put it in the position I knew he would like. He gave me a nod of appreciation as he got into it, leaned back and closed his eyes, and sighed.
