A Family Affair nwo-46

by Rex Stout

  But I’m not going to say it was a hunch I had that Saturday morning, because I don’t see how it could have been. It might have been just something I had for breakfast, but I don’t see how that was possible either, because Fritz had catered it as usual.

  Whatever caused it, I had it. When I am dressing and getting packed for a weekend at Lily Rowan’s pad in Westchester, which she calls The Glade, I thoroughly approve of the outlook. I enjoy shaving. I think my hair looks fine, and my zipper works like a dream. I’m willing to admit that being away from him for forty-eight hours is a factor-a change is good for you-but also I would breathe some fresh air and so forth.

  But not that time. The electric shaver was too noisy. My fingers didn’t like the idea of tying shoestrings. The tips of my necktie didn’t want to come out even. I could go on, but that’s enough to give you the idea. However, I made it. At least I didn’t trip going downstairs.

  Lily was expecting me out in front with the Heron at eleven o’clock, and it was only ten-twenty-five and there was no hurry, so I put my bag down in the hall, went to the kitchen to tell Fritz I was off, and to the office for a glance around. And as I was trying the knob of the safe, the phone rang. I should have left it to Fritz, but habit is habit, and I went and picked it up. “Nero Wolfe’s resid-” “I want to ask you just one question.”

  Lon Cohen.

  “If it can be answered yes or no, shoot.”

  “It can’t. Where and when did you last see Lucile Ducos alive?”

  I couldn’t sink onto my chair, because it was turned wrong. I kicked it to swivel it and sat on the edge. “I don’t believe it. Goddam it, I do not believe it.”

  “Yeah, they always say that. Are your eyes pop-” “Quit clowning. When?”

  “Forty minutes ago. We’ve just got a flash. On the sidewalk on Fifty-fourth Street a few yards from the house she lived in. Shot somewhere in the middle. Freebling is there, and Bob Adams is on the way. If -” I hung up.

  And my hand started for it to pick it up again. Actually. To pick it up and ring Homicide South to ask questions. Of course I pulled it back and sat and stared at it, first with my jaw set and then with my mouth open. Then I shut my eyes and my mouth.

  Then I did pick the phone up and dialed a number.

  After six rings: “Hello?”

  “Me. Good morning, only it isn’t. Just as I was leaving, Lon Cohen phoned. There has been another murder, less than an hour ago. Lucile Ducos, Pierre’s daughter. I’m stuck. I’m worse than stuck, I’m in up to my neck, and so is Wolfe. I hope you have a nice weekend. We don’t say. I’m sorry,’ so I won’t say it and neither will you. I’ll think of you every hour on the hour. Please think of me.”

  “I don’t ask if I can do anything, because if I could, you would tell me.”

  “I sure would. I will.”

  We hung up. I sat another three minutes, and then I got up and went and mounted the three flights to the plant rooms, taking my time. That was the third time, or maybe the fourth, I went down the aisles through those three rooms-the cool, then the moderate, then the warm-without seeing a thing. The benches could have been empty.

  In the potting room Theodore was sitting at his little desk, writing on his pad of forms, and Wolfe was standing at the long bench, inspecting something in a big pot-presumably an orchid plant, but at that moment I wouldn’t have known an orchid from a ragweed. As I crossed over he turned and scowled at me and said, “I thought you had gone.”

  “So did I. Lon Cohen phoned. Lucile Ducos was shot and killed about an hour ago on the sidewalk a few steps from her house. That’s all Lon knew.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “That’s exactly what I said. I didn’t either until I sat and went through the multiplication table. I beg your pardon for breaking a rule and interrupting you up here.”

  “Confound it, go.”

  I nodded. “Of course. Also of course Stebbins will be there and will take me down. You probably won’t see me for-” “No. Go to the country. Have your weekend. Tell Fritz to put the bolt on and ignore the telephone. I’ll call Saul and tell him to call Fred and Orrie.”

  “Uhuh. You haven’t sat and thought. For you two minutes should be enough. If the white apron-the maid-if she hasn’t talked, she will. They’ll know we were there. They’ll know she found me in Lucile’s room. They’ll know Lucile sat and watched me for an hour while I did Pierre’s room. So I know things about her they should know, and what I know, of course you know. If I disappear for the weekend and you bolt the door and don’t answer the phone, that will only make it worse. I have phoned Miss Rowan.”

  Up there, when he sits it’s usually on one of the stools at a bench, but there’s a chair nearly big enough over in a corner, and he crossed to it. Since he hates to tilt his head to look up at someone standing, I went and got one of the heavy boxes for shipping plants in pots and brought it over and sat.

  “It’s Saturday,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Parker will be somewhere playing golf, and even if I found him, judges won’t be available, and Coggin almost certainly has still got those warrants. If you want to sleep in your house tonight, you have got to count ten and consider letting go. Don’t scowl at me. I’m not trying to sell it, I’m not even suggesting it, I’m just telling you where I was when I finished the multiplication table. It seemed to me that even if we unloaded we could still go right on making inquiries about the commission of a capital crime on our private premises.”

  He growled, “You are trying to sell it.”

  “I am not. I’m game if you are. It’s eleven o’clock, time to go down anyway, so come and sit in that chair and lean back and shut your eyes and work your lips. Cramer may be on his way here now. If not, he soon will be, and he may actually have handcuffs. We have been getting away with murder, and you know it and he knows it. Now three murders, because if the white apron is talking he knows about that dinner and the slip of paper Pierre did not tell me about.”

  He got up and walked out. Marched out. He always moves as if he weighed a twelfth of a ton instead of a seventh. When the door to the warm room had closed behind him, Theodore said, “It’s always bad when you come up here.”

  I concede that as an orchid man Theodore may be as good as he thinks he is, but as a boon companion -a term I once looked up because Wolfe told me it was trite and shouldn’t be used-you can have him. So I didn’t bother to answer, and I would have liked to leave the box there for him to put back where it belonged, but that would have been like him, not me, so I didn’t. I picked it up and returned it before leaving.

  Wolfe had of course taken the elevator. When I entered the office he was standing over by the big globe, slowly turning it. Probably deciding where he wished he was, maybe with me along. I went to my desk and sat and said, “When Saul or Fred or Orrie hears the news he’ll probably call, especially Saul. If so, what do I tell him?”

  He turned the globe a few inches with his back to me. “To call Monday morning.”

  “He may be in the can Monday morning.”

  “Then call when Mr. Parker has got him out.”

  I got up and marched out. To the stairs and up to my room. One, the desire to kick his ample rump was so strong it was advisable to go where I couldn’t see him, and two, what I had put on for a weekend in the country was not right for a weekend where I might spend it. While I got out more appropriate items and stripped, I tried to remember a time when he had been as pigheaded as this and couldn’t. Then there must be a reason, and what was it? I was still working on that and putting on one of my oldest jackets when the phone rang and I went and got it “Nero Wolfe’s.”

  “You there, Archie? I thought you were going-” “So did I. I got a piece of news.”

  Saul Panzer. “Evidently you did too.”

  “Yes. Just now on the radio. I thought you were gone and he might need something.”

  “He does. He needs a kick in the ass and I was about to deliver it, so I came upstairs. I
asked him what to say if you called, and he said tell you to call Monday morning.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “My god, doesn’t he realize the cat’s loose?”

  “Certainly. I remarked that if he wanted to sleep here tonight he’d have to unload, and he just scowled at me. What did the radio tell you?”

  “Only that she got it and the police are investigating. And that she was the daughter of Pierre Ducos. I called not only to ask if he needed something but also to report. I phoned her this morning at nine o’clock and told her that Nero Wolfe wanted me to see her and ask her a couple of questions. She said go ahead and ask them, and I said not on the phone, and she said to call her around noon. When I called at nine o’clock a woman answered, I suppose the one you call the white apron, and I told her my name and I was working for Nero Wolfe.”

  “Good. That helps. That makes it even better. You’d better stick a toothbrush in your pocket.”

  “And a couple of paperbacks to read. If I’m going to stand mute I’ll have plenty of leisure.”

  “Happy weekend,” I said and hung up.

  There’s a shelf of books in my room, my property, and I went to get one-don’t know why, since I wasn’t in a mood for any book I had ever heard of -but realized that Fritz was probably wondering what the hell was going on. So I left, descended the two flights, and turned right at the bottom instead of left In the kitchen Fritz was at the big table doing something to something. Normally I would have noticed what, but not that time. AH the walls and doors on that floor are soundproofed, so I don’t know why he wasn’t surprised to see me. He merely asked, “Something happened?”

  I got on a stool. “Yes, and more to come. A woman got killed, and it should mean a change of program, but he’s trying to set a new world record for mules. Don’t bother about lunch for me. chew nails. I know you have problems with him too, garlic and juniper berries and bay leaf, but-” The doorbell. I slid off the stool, went to the hall, took one look through the one-way glass panel, and entered the office. Wolfe was at his desk with the middle drawer open, counting beer-bottle caps.

  “Sooner even than I expected,” I said. “Cramer. Saul called. He phoned Lucile Ducos at nine o’clock this morning. The maid answered and he told her his name and said he was working for you. He told Lucile Ducos he wanted to see her and ask her some questions, and she told him to call her around noon.”

  The doorbell rang.

  He said, “Grrrhh.”

  “I agree. Do I let Cramer in?”

  “Yes” I went to the front and opened the door, swung it wide, and he stepped in. I stood on the sill and looked out and down. His car was double-parked, with the driver in front at the wheel and one in the back seat I had seen but had never met. When I turned, no Cramer. I shut die door and went to the office.

  He was standing at the edge of Wolfe’s desk, his hat and coat on, talking.

  “… and I may sit down and I may not. I’ve got a stenographer out in the car. If bring him in, will you talk?”

  “No.”

  It’s barely possible that I have news for you. Do you know that Pierre Ducos’s daughter was shot down in front of her house four hours ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “You do. The old man still won’t talk, in any language, but a Homicide Bureau man and I have just spent an hour with Marie Garrou, the maid. Will you talk?”

  “No.”

  “‘Goddam it, Wolfe, what’s eating you?”

  “I told you three days ago that I was outraged and out of control. I am no longer out of control, but I am still outraged. Mr. Cramer. I respect your integrity, your ability, and your understanding. I even trust you up to a point; of course no man has complete trust in another, he merely thinks he has because he needs to and hopes to. And in this matter I trust only myself. As I said, I am outraged.”

  Cramer turned his head to look at me, but he didn’t see me. He turned back to Wolfe and leaned over to flatten bis palms on the desk. came here with a stenographer,” he said, “because I trust you too, up to a point I want to say something not as Inspector Cramer or Mr. Cramer to a private investigator or Mr. Wolfe, but just as Cramer to Wolfe. Man to man. If you don’t let go, you’re sunk. Done. Let me bring him in and talk to me. Now.”

  Wolfe shook his head. “I appreciate this. I do. But even as Wolfe to Cramer, no.”

  Cramer straightened up and turned and went.

  When the sound came of the front door opening and dosing, I didn’t even go to the hall fox a look.

  If he had stayed inside, all right, he had. I merely remarked to Wolfe, “About any one little fact, I never know for sure whether you have bothered to know it or not. You may or may not know that the Homicide Bureau is a bunch of cops that don’t take orders from Cramer. They’re under the DA.”

  “Yes.”

  So he might have known it and he might not. “And,” I said, “one of them helped him buzz Marie Garrou. I now know her name. And Cramer came straight here because he was sorry for you. That’s hard to believe, but he did, and you should send him a Christmas card if you’re where you can get one.”

  He squinted at me. “You changed your clothes.”

  “Certainly. I like to dress properly. This is my cage outfit. Coop. Hoosegow.”

  He opened the drawer, slid the bottle caps into it, shut the drawer, pushed his chair back, rose, and headed for the door. I supposed to tell Fritz to hurry lunch, but he turned right, and the elevator door opened and closed. Going up to tell Theodore to come tomorrow, Sunday. But I was wrong again; it went up only one flight. He was going to his room to change to his cage outfit, whatever that might be. It was at that point that I quit. The only possible explanation was that he really had a screw loose, and therefore my choice was plain. I could bow out for good, go to Twentieth Street, to either Stebbins or Cramer, and open the bag, or I could stick and take it as it came. Just wait and see.

  I don’t know, actually, why I stuck. I honestly don’t know. Maybe it was just habit, the habit of watching him pull rabbits out of hats. Or maybe it was good old-fashioned loyalty, true-blue Archie Goodwin, hats off everybody. Or maybe it was merely curiosity; what was eating him and could he possibly get away with it? But I know why I did what I did. It wasn’t loyalty or curiosity that sent me to the kitchen to get things from the refrigerator-just plain horse sense. It would probably be Coggin, and he would like it even better if we were just sitting down to lunch, and I had had enough of the sandwiches they brought you at the DA’s office. As I got out sturgeon and bread and milk and cucumber rings and celery and brandied cherries, Fritz looked but said nothing. He knows it is understood that it’s his kitchen, and if I take liberties without asking, it is not the moment for conversation. My copy of the Times was still in the rack on the little table, and I opened it to Sports. I felt sporty. I was on the cherries when the sound came of the elevator. When I went to the office Wolfe was at his desk with a crossword puzzle.

  I admit I have been working up to a climax, and here it is. Wolfe had gone up to change. But he had changed not to his oldest suit but his newest one-a soft light-brown with tiny yellow specks that you could see only under a strong light. He had paid Boynton $. for it only a month ago. The same shirt, yellow of course, but another tie, solid dark-brown silk. I couldn’t see his shoes, but he had probably changed them too. As I went to my desk and sat, I was trying to prepare a suitable remark, but it didn’t come because I knew I should have just learned something new about him, but what? “The mail,” he said.

  I hadn’t opened it. I reached to my desk tray, a hollowed-out slab of green marble, for the opener and began to slit, and for the next twenty minutes you might have thought it was just a normal weekday. I had my notebook and Wolfe was starting on the third letter when Fritz came to announce lunch, and Wolfe got up and went without a glance at me. I don’t know how he knew I had had mine.

  I had typed the two letters and was doing (be envelopes when the doorbell
rang. My watch said:, and the clock agreed. Evidently Coggin knew that Wolfe’s lunch hour was a quarter past one. I got up and went. But it wasn’t Coggin. It was a pair I had never seen before, standing stiff-backed shoulder to shoulder, and each one had a folded paper in his hand. When I opened the door, the one on the right said, “Warrants to take Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. You’re Goodwin. You’re under arrest.”

  “Well,” I said, “come in. While we get our coats on.”

  They crossed the sill and I shut the door. They were feet, pounds, very erect. I say “they” because they were twins, long narrow faces and big ears, but one was white and the other one black. “I’ve had my lunch,” I said, “but Mr. Wolfe has just started his. Could we let him finish? Half an hour?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  White said and started shedding his coat.

  “No hurry at all,” Black said.

  They took their time hanging up their coats. No hats. I showed them the door to the office and entered the dining room. Wolfe was opening his mouth for a forkful of something. “Two from the Homicide Bureau,” I said. “With warrants. I’m under arrest. I asked if you could finish your lunch, and they said sure, no hurry.”

  He nodded. I turned and went, in no hurry, in case he wished to comment, but he didn’t. In the office, White was in the red leather chair with Wolfe’s copy of the Times, and Black was over at the bookshelves looking at titles. I went to my desk, finished the envelopes and put things away, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. Sometimes it takes ten minutes to get Lon Cohen, but that time it took only two.