Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24

by Three Men Out

  He grunted. I took it for a yes, and moved. Outside the door to the hall and stairs stood one in uniform with whom I had already had a few little words. I addressed him. “I’m going down to buy Mr. Wolfe a pickle. Do I need to be passed out or in?”

  “You?” He used only the right half of his mouth for talking. “Shoot your way through. Huh?”

  “Right. Many thanks.” I went.

  5

  It was dumb to be so surprised, but I was. I might have known that the news that the Giants had been doped out of the game and the series, and that Nick Ferrone, the probable rookie of the year, had been murdered, would draw a record mob. Downstairs inside the entrance there were sentries, and outside a regiment was stretched into a cordon. I was explaining to a sergeant who I was and telling him I would be returning, when three desperate men, one of whom I recognized, came springing at me. All they wanted was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had to get really rude. I have been clawed at by newspapermen more than once, but I had never seen them quite as hungry as they were outside the Polo Grounds that October night. Finding they wouldn’t shake loose, I dived through the cordon and into the mob.

  It looked hopeless. The only parked cars in sight on the west side of Eighth Avenue were police cars. I pushed through to the fringe of the throng and made my way two blocks south. Having made inquiries of two Giants hours previously, I knew what I was looking for, a light blue Curtis sedan. Of course there was a thin chance that it was still around, but if it was I wanted it. I crossed the avenue and headed for the parking plaza. Two cops at the end of the cordon gave me a look, but it wasn’t the plaza they were guarding, and I marched on through. In the dim light I could see three cars over at the north end. Closer up, one was a Curtis sedan. Still closer, it was light blue. I went up to it. Two females on the front seat were gazing at me through the window, and one of them was my glommee. The radio was on. I opened the door, swung it wide, and said hello.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “My name’s Archie Goodwin. I’ll show credentials if you are Mrs. William Moyse.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing if you’re not Mrs. Moyse.”

  “What if I am?”

  She was rapidly erasing the pleasant memory I had of her. Not that she had turned homely in a few hours, but her expression was not only unfriendly but sour, and her voice was not agreeable. I got out my wallet and extracted my license card. “If you are,” I said, “this will identify me,” and proffered it.

  “Okay, your name’s Goodman.” She ignored the card. “So what?”

  “Not Goodman.” I pronounced it again. “Archie Goodwin. I work for Nero Wolfe, who is up in the clubhouse. I just came from there. Why not turn off the radio?”

  “I’d rather turn you off,” she said bitterly.

  Her companion, the redhead who had been with her in the box, reached for the knob, and the radio died. “Look, Lila,” she said earnestly, “you’re acting like a sap. Invite him in. He may be human. Maybe Bill sent him.”

  “What did Walt tell us?” Lila snapped at her. “Nero Wolfe is there working with the cops.” She came back at me. “Did my husband send you? Prove it.”

  I bent a knee to put a foot on the edge of the frame, not aggressively. “That’s one reason,” I said, “why Mr. Wolfe can’t stand women. The way they flop around intellectually. I didn’t say your husband sent me. He didn’t. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because for the past hour he has been kept in the locker room, conversing with a gathering of Homicide hounds, and still is. Mr. Wolfe sent me, but in a way it’s a personal problem I’ve got, and no one but you can help me.”

  “You’ve got a personal problem. You have. Take it away.”

  “I will if you say so, but wait till I tell you. Up to now they have only one reason for picking on your husband. The players left the clubhouse for the field in a bunch, all but one of them. One of them left later and got to the dugout five or six minutes after the others, and it was Bill Moyse. They all agreed on that, and Bill admits it. The cops figure that he had seen or heard something that made him suspect Nick Ferrone of doping the drinks—you know about that? That the Beebright was doped?”

  “Yes. Walt Goidell told me.”

  “And that he stayed behind with Ferrone to put it to him, and Nick got tough and he got tougher, with a baseball bat. That’s how the cops figure it, and that’s why they’re after Bill, as it stands now. But I have a private reason, which I have kept private except for Nero Wolfe, to think that the cops have got it twisted. Mr. Wolfe is inclined to agree with me, but he hasn’t told the cops because he has been hired by Chisholm and wants to earn a fat fee. My private slant is that if Bill did kill Ferrone—please note the ‘if’—it wasn’t because he caught Ferrone doping the drinks, but the other way around. Ferrone caught Bill doping the drinks, and was going to spill it, and Bill killed him.”

  She was goggling at me. “You have the nerve—” She didn’t have the words. “Why, you dirty—”

  “Hold it. I’m telling you. This afternoon at the game I was in a box. By the sixth inning I had had plenty of the game and looked around for something to take my mind off it, and I saw an extremely attractive girl. I looked at her some more. I had a feeling that I had seen her before but couldn’t place her. The score was eleven to one, and the Giants were flat on their faces, and that lovely specimen was exactly what my eyes needed, except for one flaw. She was having a swell time. Her eyes showed it, her whole face and manner showed it absolutely. She liked what was happening out on the field. There was that against her, but I looked at her anyhow.”

  She was trying to say something, but I raised my voice a little. “Wait till I tell you. Later, after the game, in the clubhouse, Bill Moyse said his wife was waiting for him, and someone made a crack about showing me her picture. Then it clicked. I remembered seeing a picture of his bride in the Gazette, and it was the girl I had seen in the stands. Again later, I had a chance to ask some of the players some questions, and I learned that she usually drove to games in Bill’s light blue Curtis sedan and waited for him after the game. It seemed to me interesting that it made the wife of a Giant happy to see the Giants getting walloped in the deciding game of a World Series, and Mr. Wolfe agreed, but he needed me there in the clubhouse. Finally he sent me to see if she was still around, and here I am. You see our problem. Why were you tickled stiff to see them losing?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “It’s perfectly ridiculous,” the redhead snorted.

  I shook my head. “Rejected. That won’t do. Mr. Wolfe accepts my judgment on girls. A pretty girl or a homely girl, a smart girl or a dumb girl, a sad girl or a happy girl—he knows I know. I have told him you were happy. If I go back and report that you flatly deny it, I don’t see how he can do anything but tell the cops, and that will be bad. They’ll figure that you wanted the Giants to lose because you knew Bill did, and why. Then of course they’ll refigure the murder and get a new answer—that Ferrone found out that Bill had doped the drinks, and Bill killed him. They’ll start on Bill all over again, and if they—”

  “Stop it!” She was hoarse. “For God’s sake!”

  “I was only saying, if they—”

  The redhead put in, leaning to the steering wheel and sticking out her chin. “How dumb can you get?” she demanded.

  “It’s not a ques—”

  “Phooey! You say you know girls! Do you know baseball girls? I’m one! I’m Helen Goidell, Walt’s wife. I would have liked to slap Lila this afternoon, sitting there gloating, much as I love her, but I’m not a sap like you! She’s not married to the Giants, she’s married to Bill! Lew Baker had batted two-thirty-two in the first six games of the series, and he had made two errors and had three bases stolen on him, and still they wouldn’t give Bill a chance! Lila had sat through those six games praying to see Bill walk out, and not once! What did she care about the series or the difference between winner’s and lose
r’s take? She wanted to see Bill in it! And look at Baker this afternoon! If he had been doped, all right, but Lila didn’t know it then! What you know about girls, you nitwit!”

  She was blazing. I did not blaze back.

  “I’m still willing to learn,” I said, not belligerently. “Is she right, Mrs. Moyse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I am too, on the main point? You were pleased to see the Giants losing?”

  “I said she was right.”

  “Yeah. Then I’ve still got a problem. If I accept your version and go and report to Wolfe accordingly, he’ll accept it too. Whether you think I know girls or not, he does. So that’s some responsibility for me. What if you’re a lot smoother and trickier than I think you are? Your husband is suspected of murder, and they’re still working on him. What if he’s guilty and they could squeeze out of you what they need to hook him? Of course eventually they’ll get to you and either squeeze it out or not, but how will I look if they do? That’s my problem. Have you any suggestions?”

  Lila had none. She wasn’t looking at me. She sat with her head lowered, apparently gazing at her hands, which were clasped together.

  “You sound almost human,” Helen Goidell said.

  “That’s deceptive,” I told her. “I turn it on and off. If I thought she had something Mr. Wolfe could use I’d stop at nothing, even hair-pulling. But at the moment I really don’t think she has. I think she’s pure and innocent and wholesome. Her husband is another matter. For her sake, I hope he wiggles out of it somehow, but I’m not taking any bets. The cops seem to like him, and I know cops as well as I do girls.” I removed my foot from the car frame. “So long, and so forth.” I turned to go.

  “Wait a minute.” It was Lila. I turned back. Her head was up.

  “Is this straight?” she asked.

  “Is what straight?”

  “You’re going to tell Mr. Wolfe you’re satisfied about me?”

  “Well. Satisfied is quite a word. I’m going to tell him I have bought your explanation of your happiness at the game—or rather, Mrs. Goidell’s.”

  “You could be a liar.”

  “Not only could be, I often am, but not at the moment.”

  She regarded me. “Shake hands with me.”

  I raised a paw. Her hand was cold, but her grip was firm, and in four seconds our temperatures had equalized. She let go.

  “Maybe you can tell me about Bill,” she said. “They don’t really think he killed Nick Ferrone, do they?”

  “They think maybe he did.”

  “I know he didn’t.”

  “Good for you. But you weren’t there, so you don’t have a vote.”

  She nodded. She was being hard and practical. “Are they going to arrest him? Will they really charge him with murder?”

  “I can’t say. They may have decided while we’ve been talking. They know the whole town will be rooting for someone to be locked up, and Bill is the leading candidate.”

  “Then I’ve got to do something. I wish I knew what he’s telling them. Do you know?”

  “Only that he’s denying he knows anything about it. He says he left the clubhouse after the others had gone because he went back to the locker room to change to other shoes.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t mean that. I mean whether he told them—” She stopped. “No. I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He knows something, and I know it too, about a man trying to fix that game. Only he wouldn’t tell, on account of me. I have to go and see someone. Will you come along?”

  “To see who?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way. Will you come?”

  “Where to?”

  “In the Fifties. Eighth Avenue.”

  Helen Goidell blurted, “For God’s sake, Lila, do you know what you’re saying?”

  If Lila replied I missed it, for I was on my way around the car. It had taken me no part of a second to decide. This sounded like something. It was a little headstrong to dash off with a damsel, leaving Wolfe up there with mass-production sandwiches, warm beer, and his one measly little fact he was saving up, but this might be really hot.

  By the time I got around to the other door Helen had it open and was getting out. Her feet on the ground, she turned to speak.

  “I don’t want any part of this, Lila. I do not! I wish to God I’d gone with Walt instead of staying with you!”

  Lila was trying to get a word in, but Helen wasn’t interested. She turned and trotted off toward the gate and the street. I climbed in and pulled the door shut.

  “She’ll tell Walt,” Lila said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. But does she know where we’re going?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She started the engine, levered to reverse, and backed the car. “To hell with friends,” she said, apparently to herself.

  6

  Under ordinary circumstances she was probably a pretty good driver, but that night wasn’t ordinary for her. As we swung right into 155th Street, there was a little click at my side was we grazed the fender of a stopped car. Rolling up the grade of Coogan’s Bluff, we slipped between two taxis, clearing by an inch, and both hackmen yelled at her.

  Stopping for a light at the crest, she turned her head and spoke. “It’s my Uncle Dan. His name is Gale. He came last night and asked me—”

  She fed gas and we shot forward, but a car heading uptown and squeezing the light was suddenly there smack in our path. With a lightning reflex her foot hit the brake, the other car zipped by with at least a foot to spare, she fed gas again, and the Curtis jerked forward.

  I asked her, “Taking the West Side Highway?”

  “Yes, it’s quicker.”

  “It will be if you make it. Just concentrate on that and let the details wait.”

  She got to the highway without any actual contact with other vehicles, darted across to the left lane, and stepped on it. The speedometer said fifty-five when she spoke again.

  “If I go ahead and tell you, I can’t change my mind. He wanted me to persuade Bill to fix the game. He said he’d give us ten thousand dollars. I didn’t even want to tell Bill, but he insisted, so I did. I knew what Bill would say—”

  She broke off to do some expert weaving, swerving to the middle lane, then on to the right, then a sprint, then swinging to the middle again just ahead of a tan convertible, and so back to the left again in front of a couple of cars that had slowed her down to under fifty.

  “Look,” I told her, “you could gain up to two minutes this way with luck, but getting stopped and getting a ticket would take at least ten. You’re driving—okay, but don’t try to talk too. You’re not that good. Hold it till we’re parked.”

  She didn’t argue, but she held the pace. I twisted around to keep an eye on the rear through the window, and stayed that way clear to Fifty-seventh Street. We rolled down the cobbled ramp and a block south turned left on Fifty-sixth Street, had a green light at Eleventh Avenue, and went through. A little short of Tenth Avenue we turned in to the curb and stopped. Lila reached for the handbrake and gave it a yank.

  “Let’s hear it,” I said. “Enough to go on. Is Uncle Dan a gambler?”

  “No.” Her face turned to me. “I’m trembling. Look, my hand’s trembling. I’m afraid of him.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “He runs a drugstore. He owns it. That’s where we’re going to see him. I know what Helen thinks—she thinks I should have told, but I couldn’t. My father and mother died when I was just a kid, and Uncle Dan has been good to me—as good as he could. If it hadn’t been for him I’d have been brought up in an orphans’ home. Of course Bill wanted to tell Art Kinney last night, but he didn’t on account of me, and that’s why he’s not telling the cops.”

  “Maybe he is telling them, or soon will.”

  She shook her head. “I know Bill. We decided we wouldn’t tell, and that settled it. Uncle Dan made me promise we wouldn’t tell before he said what he wanted.”
>
  I grunted. “Even so he was crowding his luck, telling you two about the program before signing you up. If he explained the idea of doping the Beebright, why—”

  “But he didn’t! He didn’t say how it was to be done, he just said there was an easy way of doing it. He didn’t tell us what it was; he didn’t get that far, because Bill said nothing doing, as I knew he would.”

  I eyed her. “You sure of that? He might have told Bill and not you.”

  “He couldn’t. I was there with them all the time. Certainly I’m sure.”

  “This was last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “Around eight o’clock. We had dinner early with Helen and Walt Goidell, and when we got home Uncle Dan was there waiting for us.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Our apartment on Seventy-ninth Street. He spoke to me alone first, and then insisted I had to ask Bill.”

  “And Bill turned him down flat?”

  “Of course he did!”

  “Bill didn’t see him alone later?”

  “Of course not!”

  “All right, don’t bite. I need to know. Now what?”

  “We’re going to see him. We’re going to tell him that we have to tell the cops, and we’re going to try to get him to come along. That’s why I wanted you with me, because I’m afraid of him—I mean I’m afraid he’ll talk me out of it. But they’ve got to know that Bill was asked to fix the game and he wouldn’t. If it’s hard on Uncle Dan that’s too bad, but I can’t help it; I’m for Bill. I’m for Bill all the way.”

  I was making myself look at her, for discipline. I was having the normal male impulses at the sight and sound of a good-looking girl in trouble, and they were worse than normal because I was partly responsible. I had given her the impression that the cops were about set to take her Bill on the big one, which was an exaggeration. I hadn’t mentioned that one reason they were keeping him was his recent reactions to the interest Nick Ferrone had shown in her, which of course had no bearing on anyone’s attempt to fix a ball game. True, she had been in a mess before I had got to her, but I had shoved her in deeper. What she needed now was understanding and sympathy and comforting, and since her friend Helen had deserted her I was all she had. Which was I, a man or a detective?