by Rex Stout
One thing sure, that rock hadn’t been there long.
I bent over double so as to use both hands to pick it up, touching it only with the tips of four fingers, and straightened to take a look. The best bet would of course be prints, but one glance showed that to be an outside chance. It was rough all over, hundreds of little indentations, with not a smooth spot anywhere. But I still held it with my fingertips, because while prints had been the best bet they were by no means the only one. I was starting to turn, to move away from the brook to better footing, when a voice came from right behind me.
“Looking for hellgrammites?”
I swiveled my head. It was Connie Emerson. She was close enough to reach me with a stretched arm, which would have meant that she was an expert at the silent approach, if it hadn’t been for the noise of the brook.
I grinned at the clear strong blue of her eyes. “No, I’m after gold.”
“Really? Let me see—”
She took a step, lit on a stone with a bad angle, gave a little squeal, and toppled into me. Not being firmly based, over I went, and I went clear down because I spent my first tenth of a second trying to keep my fingertip hold on my prize, but I lost it anyway. When I bounced up to a sitting position Connie was sprawled flat, but her head was up and she was stretching an arm in a long reach for something, and she was getting it. My greenish gray stone had landed less than a foot from the water, and her fingers were ready to close on it. I hate to suspect a blue-eyed blonde of guile, but if she had it in mind to toss that stone in the water to see it splash all she needed was another two seconds, so I did a headlong slide over the rocks and brought the side of my hand down on her forearm. She let out a yell and jerked the arm back. I scrambled up and got erect, with my left foot planted firmly in front of my stone.
She sat up, gripping her forearm with her other hand, glaring at me. “You big ape, are you crazy?” she demanded.
“Getting there,” I told her. “Gold does it to you. Did you see that movie, Treasure of Sierra Madre?”
“Damn you.” She clamped her jaw, held it a moment, and released it. “Damn you, I think you broke my arm.”
“Then your bones must be chalk. I barely tapped it. Anyway, you nearly broke my back.” I made my voice reasonable. “There’s too much suspicion in this world. I’ll agree not to suspect you of meaning to bump me if you’ll agree not to suspect me of meaning to tap your arm. Why don’t we move off of these rocks and sit on the grass and talk it over? Your eyes are simply beautiful. We could start from there.”
She pulled her feet in, put a hand—not the one that had reached for my stone—on a rock for leverage, got to her feet, stepped carefully across the rocks to the grass, climbed the bank, and was gone.
My right elbow hurt, and my left hip. I didn’t care for that, but there were other aspects of the situation that I liked even less. Counting the help, there were six or seven men in and around the house, and if Connie told them a tale that brought them all down to the brook it might get embarrassing. She had done enough harm as it was, making me drop my stone. I stooped and lifted it with my fingertips again, got clear of the rocks and negotiated the bank, walked down the drive and on out to the car, and made room for the stone in the medicine case, wedged so it wouldn’t roll around.
I didn’t stop for lunch in Westchester County, either. I took to the parkways and kept going. I didn’t feel really elated, since I might have got merely a stray hunk of granite, not Exhibit A at all, and I didn’t intend to start crowing unless and until. So when I left the West Side Highway at Forty-sixth Street, as usual, I drove first to an old brick building in the upper Thirties near Ninth Avenue. There I delivered the stone to a Mr. Weinbach, who promised they would do their best. Then I drove home, went in and found Fritz in the kitchen, ate four sandwiches—two sturgeon and two home-baked ham—and drank a quart of milk.
Chapter 18
When I swallowed the last of the milk it wasn’t five o’clock yet, and it would be more than an hour before Wolfe came down from the plant rooms, which was just as well since I needed to take time out for an overhaul. In my room up on the third floor I stripped. There was a long scrape on my left knee and a promising bruise on my left hip, and a square inch of skin was missing from my right elbow. The scratch on my cheek was developing nicely, getting new ideas about color every hour. Of course it might have been worse, at least nobody had run a car over me; but I was beginning to feel that it would be a welcome change to take on an enemy my own sex and size. I certainly wasn’t doing so well with women. In addition to the damage to my hide, my best Palm Beach suit was ruined, with a big tear in the sleeve of the coat. I showered, iodined, bandaged, dressed, and went down to the office.
A look in the safe told me that if I was right in supposing that the specialist to be hired was Mr. Jones, he hadn’t been hired yet, for the fifty grand was still all there. That was a deduction from a limited experience. I had never seen the guy, but I knew two things about him: that it was through him that Wolfe had got the dope on a couple of Commies that had sent them up the river, and that when you bought from him you paid in advance. So either it wasn’t to be him or Wolfe hadn’t been able to reach him yet.
I had been hoping for a phone call from Weinbach before Wolfe descended at six o’clock, but it didn’t come. When Wolfe entered, got seated behind his desk, and said “Well?” I thought I was still undecided about including the stone in my report before hearing from Weinbach, but he had to know about Connie, so I kept on to the end. I did not, however, tell him that it was a remark of Madeline’s that made me think of stones, thinking it might irritate him to know that a woman had helped out.
He sat frowning.
“I was a little surprised,” I said smugly, “that you didn’t think of a stone yourself. Doc Vollmer said something rough and heavy.”
“Pfui. Certainly I thought of a stone. But if he used a stone all he had to do was walk ten paces to the bridge and toss it into the water.”
“That’s what he thought. But he missed the water. Lucky I didn’t take the attitude you did. If I hadn’t—”
The phone rang. A voice that hissed its esses was in my ear. Weinbach of the Fisher Laboratories hissed his esses. Not only that, he told me who he was. As I motioned to Wolfe to get on, I was holding my breath.
“That stone you left with me,” Weinbach said. “Do you wish the technical terms?”
“I do not. I only want what I asked for. Is there anything on it to show it was used, or might have been used, to slam a man on the head?”
“There is.”
“What!” I hadn’t really expected it. “There is?”
“Yes. Everything is dried up, but there are four specks that are bloodstains, five more that may be bloodstains, one minute piece of skin, and two slightly larger pieces of skin. One of the larger pieces has an entire follicle. This is a preliminary report and none of it can be guaranteed. It will take forty-eight hours to complete all the tests.”
“Go to it, brother! If I was there I’d kiss you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Forget it. I’ll get you a Nobel Prize. Write the report in red ink.”
I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “Okay. He was murdered. Connie did it or knows who did. She knew about the stone. She stalked me. I should have established a personal relationship with her and brought her down here. Do you want her? I’ll bet I can get her.”
“Good heavens, no.” His brows had gone up. “I must say, Archie, satisfactory.”
“Don’t strain yourself.”
“I won’t. But though you used your time well, to the purpose you were sent for, all you got was corroboration. The stone proves that Mr. Kane’s statement was false, that Mr. Rony was killed deliberately, and that one of those people killed him, but there’s nothing new in that for us.”
“Excuse me,” I said coldly, “for bringing in something that doesn’t help.”
“I don’t say it doesn’t help. If and when t
his gets to a courtroom, it will unquestionably help there. Tell me again what Mrs. Emerson said.”
I did so, in a restrained manner. Looking back now, I can see that he was right, but at the time I was damn proud of that stone.
Since it gives the place an unpleasant atmosphere for one of us to be carrying a grudge, I thought it would be better if I got even immediately, and I did so by not eating dinner with him, giving as a reason my recent consumption of sandwiches. He loves to talk when he’s eating, business being taboo, so as I sat alone in the office, catching up with the chores, my humor kept getting better, and by the time he rejoined me I was perfectly willing to speak to him—in fact, I had thought up a few comments about the importance of evidence in criminal cases which would have been timely and appropriate.
I had to put off making them because he was still getting himself arranged to his after-dinner position in his chair when the doorbell rang and, Fritz being busy with the dishes, I went to answer it. It was Saul Panzer and Orrie Cather. I ushered them into the office. Orrie got comfortable, with his legs crossed, and took out a pipe and filled it, while Saul sat erect on the front half of the big red leather chair.
“I could have phoned,” Saul said, “but it’s a little complicated and we need instructions. We may have something and we may not.”
“The son or the mother?” Wolfe asked.
“The son. You said to take him first.” Saul took out a notebook and glanced at a page. “He knows a lot of people. How do you want it, dates and details?”
“Sketch it first.”
“Yes, sir.” Saul closed the notebook. “He spends about half his time in New York and the rest all over. Owns his own airplane, a Mecklin, and keeps it in New Jersey. Belongs to only one club, the Harvard. Has been arrested for speeding twice in the past three years, once—”
“Not a biography,” Wolfe protested. “Just items that might help.”
“Yes, sir. You might possibly want this: he has a half interest in a restaurant in Boston called the New Frontier. It was started in nineteen forty-six by a college classmate, and young Sperling furnished the capital, around forty thousand, probably from his father, but that’s not—”
“A night club?”
“No, sir. High-class, specializing in sea food.”
“A failure?”
“No, sir. Successful. Not spectacular, but going ahead and showed a good profit in nineteen forty-eight.”
Wolfe grunted. “Hardly a good basis for blackmail. What else?”
Saul looked at Orrie. “You tell him about the Manhattan Ballet.”
“Well,” Orrie said, “it’s a bunch of dancers that started two years ago. Jimmy Sperling and two other guys put up the dough, and I haven’t found out how much Jimmy’s share was, but I can. They do modern stuff. The first season they quit town after three weeks in a dump on Forty-eighth Street, and tried it in the sticks, but that wasn’t so good either. This last season they opened in November at the Herald Theater and kept going until the end of April. Everybody thinks the three angels got all their ante back and then some, but that will take checking. Anyhow they did all right.”
It was beginning to sound to me as if we were up against a new one. I had heard of threats to tell a rich man how much his son had sunk, but not to tell how much his son was piling up. My opinion of Jimmy needed some shuffling.
“Of course,” Orrie went on, “when you think of ballet you think of girls with legs. This ballet has got ’em all right; that’s been checked. Jimmy is interested in ballet or why would he kick in? He goes twice a week when he’s in New York. He also is personally interested in seeing that the girls get enough to eat. When I got that far I naturally thought I was on the way to something, and maybe I am but not yet. He likes the girls and they like him, but if that has led to anything he wouldn’t want put in the paper it’ll have to wait for another installment because I haven’t caught up to it yet. Shall I keep trying?”
“You might as well.” Wolfe went to Saul. “Is that all you have?”
“No, we’ve got plenty,” Saul told him, “but nothing you might want except maybe the item I wanted to ask about. Last fall he contributed twenty thousand dollars to the CPBM.”
“What’s that?”
“Committee of Progressive Business Men. One of the funny fronts. It was for Henry A. Wallace for President.”
“Indeed.” Wolfe’s eyes, which had been nearly closed, had opened a little. “Tell me about it.”
“I can’t tell you much, because it was afternoon when I scared it up. Apparently nobody was supposed to know about the contribution, but several people do, and I think I can get onto them if you say so. That’s what I wanted to ask about. I had a break and got a line on a man in the furniture business who was pro-Wallace at first but later broke loose. He claims to know all about Sperling’s contribution. He says Sperling made it in a personal check for twenty thousand, which he gave to a man called Caldecott one Thursday evening, and the next morning Sperling came to the CPBM office and wanted his check back. He wanted to give it in cash instead of a check. But he was too late because the check had already been deposited. And here’s what I thought made it interesting; this man says that since the first of the year photostats of three different checks—contributions from three other people—have turned up in peculiar circumstances. One of them was his own check, for two thousand dollars, but he wouldn’t give me the names of the other two.”
Wolfe’s brow was wrinkled. “Does he say that the people running the organization had the photostats made for later use—in peculiar circumstances?”
“No, sir. He thinks some clerk did it, either for personal use or as a Republican or Democratic spy. This man says he is now a political hermit. He doesn’t like Wallace, but he doesn’t like Republicans or Democrats either. He says he’s going to vote the Vegetarian ticket next time but go on eating meat. I let him talk. I wanted to get all I could because if there was a photostat of young Sperling’s check—”
“Certainly. Satisfactory.”
“Shall I follow up?”
“By all means. Get all you can. The clerk who had the photostats made would be a find.” Wolfe turned to me. “Archie. You know that young man better than we do. Is he a ninny?”
“If I thought so,” I said emphatically, “I don’t now. Not if he’s raking in profits on a Boston restaurant and a Manhattan ballet. I misjudged him. Three to one I know where the photostat of Jimmy’s check is. In a safe at the office of Murphy, Kearfot and Rony.”
“I suppose so. Anything else, Saul?”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if the next item had been that Jimmy had cleaned up a million playing the ponies or running a chicken farm, but evidently he hadn’t tried them yet. Saul and Orrie stayed a while, long enough to have a drink and discuss ways and means of laying hands on the Republican or Democratic spy, and then left. When I returned to the office after letting them out I considered whether to get rid of the comments I had prepared regarding the importance of evidence in criminal cases, and decided to skip it.
I would just as soon have gone up to bed to give my bruises a rest, but it was only half past nine and my middle drawer was stuffed with memos and invoices connected with the repairs on the roof. I piled them on the desk and tackled them. It had begun to look as if Wolfe’s estimate of the amount of the damage wasn’t far off, and maybe too low if you included replacement of some of the rarer hybrids that had got rough treatment. Wolfe, seeing what I was at, offered to help, and I moved the papers over to his desk. But, as I had often discovered before, a man shouldn’t try to run a detective business and an orchid factory at the same time. They’re always tripping over each other. We hadn’t been at the papers five minutes when the doorbell rang. I usually go when it’s after nine o’clock, the hour when Fritz changes to his old slippers, so I went.
I switched on the stoop light, looked through the one-way glass panel, opened the door, said, “Hello, come in,” and Gwenn Sperling crossed the
threshold.
I closed the door and turned to her. “Want to see the worm?” I gestured. “That way.”
“You don’t seem surprised!” she blurted.
“It’s my training. I hide it to impress you. Actually I’m overcome. That way?”
She moved and I followed. She entered the office, advanced three steps, and stopped, and I detoured around her.
“Good evening, Miss Sperling,” Wolfe said pointedly. He indicated the red leather chair. “That’s the best chair.”
“Did I phone you I was coming?” she demanded.
“I don’t think so. Did she, Archie?”
“No, sir. She’s just surprised that we’re not surprised.”
“I see. Won’t you sit down?”
For a second I thought she was going to turn and march out, as she had that afternoon in the library, but if the motion had been made she voted it down. Her eyes left Wolfe for a look at me, and I saw them stop at my scratched cheek, but she wasn’t enough interested to ask who did it. She dropped her fur neckpiece onto a yellow chair, went to the red leather one and sat, and spoke.
“I came because I couldn’t persuade myself not to. I want to confess something.”
My God, I thought. I hope she hasn’t already signed a statement. She looked harassed but not haggard, and her freckles showed hardly at all in that light.
“Confessions often help,” Wolfe said, “but it’s important to make them to the right person. Am I the one?”
“You’re just being nice because I called you a worm!”
“That would be a strange reason for being nice. Anyhow, I’m not. I’m only trying to help you get started.”
