by Rex Stout
Owen had got up to take the check and hand it to Wolfe. Wolfe took a squint at it and let it drop to the desk.
“Indeed.” Wolfe picked up the check, gave it another look, and dropped it again. “Have you consulted the other parties to our arrangement?”
“No, and I don’t intend to. What do you care? That’s the full amount, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the amount’s all right. But why this headlong retreat? What has suddenly scared you so?”
“Nothing has scared me.” Anderson came forward in his chair. “Look, Wolfe. I came down here myself to make sure there’s no slip-up on this. The deal is off, beginning right now. If you listened to the Fraser program this morning you didn’t hear my product mentioned. I’m paying that off too, and clearing out. If you think I’m scared you don’t know me. I don’t scare. But I know how to take action when the circumstances require it, and that’s what I’m doing.”
He left his chair, leaned over Wolfe’s desk, stretched a short fat arm, and tapped the check with a short stubby forefinger. “I’m no welcher! I’ll pay your expenses just like I’m paying this! I’m not blaming you, to hell with that, but from this minute—you—are—not—working—for—me!”
With the last six words the finger jabbed the desk, at the rate of about three jabs to a word.
“Come on Fred,” the president commanded, and the pair tramped out to the hall.
I moseyed over as far as the office door to see that they didn’t make off with my new twenty-dollar gray spring hat, and, when they were definitely gone, returned to my desk, sat, and commented to Wolfe:
“He seems to be upset.”
“Take a letter to him.”
I got my notebook and pen. Wolfe cleared his throat.
“Not dear Mr. Anderson, dear sir. Regarding our conversation at my office this morning, I am engaged with others as well as you, and, since my fee is contingent upon a performance, I am obliged to continue until the performance is completed. The check you gave me will be held in my safe until that time.”
I looked up. “Sincerely?”
“I suppose so. There’s nothing insincere about it. When you go out to mail it go first to the bank and have the check certified.”
“That shifts the contingency,” I remarked, opening the drawer where I kept letterheads, “to whether the bank stays solvent or not.”
It was at that moment, the moment when I was putting the paper in the typewriter, that Wolfe really settled down to work on the Orchard case. He leaned back, shut his eyes, and began exercising his lips. He was like that when I left on my errand, and still like that when I got back. At such times I don’t have to tiptoe or keep from rustling papers; I can bang the typewriter or make phone calls or use the vacuum cleaner and he doesn’t hear it.
All the rest of that day and evening, up till bedtime, except for intermissions for meals and the afternoon conclave in the plant rooms, he kept at it, with no word or sign to give me a hint what kind of trail he had found, if any. In a way it was perfectly jake with me, for at least it showed that he had decided we would do our own cooking, but in another way it wasn’t so hot. When it goes on hour after hour, as it did that Friday, the chances are that he’s finding himself just about cornered, and there’s no telling how desperate he’ll be when he picks a hole to bust out through. A couple of years ago, after spending most of a day figuring one out, he ended up with a charade that damn near got nine human beings asphyxiated with ciphogene, including him and me, not to mention Inspector Cramer.
When both the clock and my wrist watch said it was close to midnight, and there he still was, I inquired politely:
“Shall we have some coffee to keep awake?”
His mutter barely reached me: “Go to bed.”
I did so.
Chapter 21
I NEEDN’T HAVE WORRIED. He did give birth, but not to one of his fantastic freaks. The next morning, Saturday, when Fritz returned to the kitchen after taking up the breakfast tray he told me I was wanted.
Since Wolfe likes plenty of air at night but a good warm room at breakfast time it had been necessary, long ago, to install a contraption that would automatically close his window at 6:00 A.M. As a result the eight o’clock temperature permits him to have his tray on a table near the window without bothering to put on a dressing gown. Seated there, his hair not yet combed, his feet bare, and all the yardage of his yellow pajamas dazzling in the morning sun, he is something to blink at, and it’s too bad that Fritz and I are the only ones who ever have the privilege.
I told him it was a nice morning, and he grunted. He will not admit that a morning is bearable, let alone nice, until having had his second cup of coffee, he has got himself fully dressed.
“Instructions,” he growled.
I sat down, opened my notebook, and uncapped my pen. He instructed:
“Get some ordinary plain white paper of a cheap grade; I doubt if any of ours will do. Say five by eight. Type this on it, single-spaced, no date or salutation.”
He shut his eyes. “Since you are a friend of Elinor Vance, this is something you should know. During her last year at college the death of a certain person was ascribed to natural causes and was never properly investigated. Another incident that was never investigated was the disappearance of a jar of cyanide from the electroplating shop of Miss Vance’s brother. It would be interesting to know if there was any connection between those two incidents. Possibly an inquiry into both of them would suggest such a connection.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. No signature. No envelope. Fold the paper and soil it a little; give it the appearance of having been handled. This is Saturday, but an item in the morning paper tells of the withdrawal of Hi-Spot from sponsorship of Miss Fraser’s program, so I doubt if those people will have gone off for week ends. You may even find that they are together, conferring; that would suit our purpose best. But either together or singly, see them; show them the anonymous letter, ask if they have ever seen it or one similar to it; be insistent and as pestiferous as possible.”
“Including Miss Vance herself?”
“Let circumstances decide. If they are together and she is with them, yes. Presumably she has already been alerted by Mr. Cramer’s men.”
“The professor? Savarese?”
“No, don’t bother with him.” Wolfe drank coffee. “That’s all.”
I stood up. “I might get more or better results if I knew what we’re after. Are we expecting Elinor Vance to break down and confess? Or am I nagging one of them into pulling a gun on me, or what?”
I should have known better, with him still in his pajamas and his hair tousled.
“You’re following instructions,” he said peevishly. “If I knew what you’re going to get I wouldn’t have had to resort to this shabby stratagem.”
“Shabby is right,” I agreed, and left him.
I would of course obey orders, for the same reason that a good soldier does, namely he’d better, but I was not filled with enough zeal to make me hurry my breakfast. My attitude as I set about the preliminaries of the operation was that if this was the best he could do he might as well have stayed dormant. I did not believe that he had anything on Elinor Vance. He does sometimes hire Saul or Orrie or Fred without letting me know what they’re up to or, more rarely, even that they’re working for him, but I can always tell by seeing if money has been taken from the safe. The money was all present or accounted for. You can judge my frame of mind when I state that I halfway suspected that he had picked on Elinor merely because I had gone to a little trouble to have her seated nearest to me the night of the party.
He was, however, right about the week ends. I didn’t start on the phone calls until nine-thirty, not wanting to get them out of bed for something which I regarded as about as useful as throwing rocks at the moon. The first one I tried, Bill Meadows, said he hadn’t had breakfast yet and he didn’t know when he would have some free time, because he was due at Miss Fraser’s apartment a
t eleven for a conference and there was no telling how long it would last. That indicated that I would have a chance to throw at two or more moons with one stone, and another couple of phone calls verified it. There was a meeting on. I did the morning chores, buzzed the plant rooms to inform Wolfe, and left a little before eleven and headed uptown.
To show you what a murder case will do to people’s lives, the password routine had been abandoned. But it by no means followed that it was easier than it had been to get up to apartment 10B. Quite the contrary. Evidently journalists and others had been trying all kinds of dodges to get a ride in the elevator, for the distinguished-looking hallman wasn’t a particle interested in what I said my name was, and he steeled himself to betray no sign of recognition. He simply used the phone, and in a few minutes Bill Meadows emerged from the elevator and walked over to us. We said hello.
“Strong said you’d probably show up,” he said. Neither his tone nor his expression indicated that they had been pacing up and down waiting for me. “Miss Fraser wants to know if it’s something urgent.”
“Mr. Wolfe thinks it is.”
“All right, come on.”
He was so preoccupied that he went into the elevator first.
I decided that if he tried leaving me alone in the enormous living room with the assorted furniture, to wait until I was summoned, I would just stick to his heels, but that proved to be unnecessary. He couldn’t have left me alone there because that was where they were.
Madeline Fraser was on the green burlap divan, propped against a dozen cushions. Deborah Koppel was seated on the piano bench. Elinor Vance perched on a corner of the massive old black walnut table. Tully Strong had the edge of his sitter on the edge of the pink silk chair, and Nat Traub was standing. That was all as billed, but there was an added attraction. Also standing, at the far end of the long divan, was Nancylee Shepherd.
“It was Goodwin,” Bill Meadows told them, but they would probably have deduced it anyhow, since I had dropped my hat and coat in the hall and was practically at his elbow. He spoke to Miss Fraser:
“He says it’s something urgent.”
Miss Fraser asked me briskly, “Will it take long, Mr. Goodwin?” She looked clean and competent, as if she had had a good night’s sleep, a shower, a healthy vigorous rub, and a thorough breakfast.
I told her I was afraid it might.
“Then I’ll have to ask you to wait.” She was asking a favor. She certainly had the knack of being personal without making you want to back off. “Mr. Traub has to leave soon for an appointment, and we have to make an important decision. You know, of course, that we have lost a sponsor. I suppose I ought to feel low about it, but I really don’t. Do you know how many firms we have had offers from, to take the Hi-Spot place? Sixteen!”
“Wonderful!” I admired. “Sure, I’ll wait.” I crossed to occupy a chair outside the conference zone.
They forgot, immediately and completely, that I was there. All but one: Nancylee. She changed position so she could keep her eyes on me, and her expression showed plainly that she considered me tricky, ratty, and unworthy of trust.
“We’ve got to start eliminating,” Tully Strong declared. He had his spectacles off, holding them in his hand. “As I understand it there are just five serious contenders.”
“Four,” Elinor Vance said, glancing at a paper she held. “I’ve crossed off Fluff, the biscuit dough. You said to, didn’t you, Lina?”
“It’s a good company,” Traub said regretfully. “One of the best. Their radio budget is over three million.”
“You’re just making it harder, Nat,” Deborah Koppel told him. “We can’t take all of them. I thought your favorite was Meltettes.”
“It is,” Traub agreed, “but these are all very fine accounts. What do you think of Meltettes, Miss Fraser?” He was the only one of the bunch who didn’t call her Lina.
“I haven’t tried them.” She glanced around. “Where are they?”
Nancylee, apparently not so concentrated on me as to miss any word or gesture of her idol, spoke up: “There on the piano, Miss Fraser. Do you want them?”
“We have got to eliminate,” Strong insisted, stabbing the air with his spectacles for emphasis. “I must repeat, as representative of the other sponsors, that they are firmly and unanimously opposed to Sparkle, if it is to be served on the program as Hi-Spot was. They never liked the idea and they don’t want it resumed.”
“It’s already crossed off,” Elinor Vance stated. “With Fluff and Sparkle out, that leaves four.”
“Not on account of the sponsors,” Miss Fraser put in. “We just happen to agree with them. They aren’t going to decide this. We are.”
“You mean you are, Lina.” Bill Meadows sounded a little irritated. “What the hell, we all know that. You don’t want Fluff because Cora made some biscuits and you didn’t like ‘em. You don’t want Sparkle because they want it served on the program, and God knows I don’t blame you.”
Elinor Vance repeated, “That leaves four.”
“All right, eliminate!” Strong persisted.
“We’re right where we were before,” Deborah Koppel told them. “The trouble is, there’s no real objection to any of the four, and I think Bill’s right, I think we have to put it up to Lina.”
“I am prepared,” Nat Traub announced, in the tone of a man burning bridges, “to say that I will vote for Meltettes.”
For my part, I was prepared to say that I would vote for nobody. Sitting there taking them in, as far as I could tell the only strain they were under was the pressure of picking the right sponsor. If, combined with that, one of them was contending with the nervous wear and tear of a couple of murders, he was too good for me. As the argument got warmer it began to appear that, though they were agreed that the final word was up to Miss Fraser, each of them had a favorite among the four entries left. That was what complicated the elimination.
Naturally, on account of the slip of paper I had in my pocket, I was especially interested in Elinor Vance, but the sponsor problem seemed to be monopolizing her attention as completely as that of the others. I would of course have to follow instructions and proceed with my errand as soon as they gave me a chance, but I was beginning to feel silly. While Wolfe had left it pretty vague, one thing was plain, that I was supposed to give them a severe jolt, and I doubted if I had what it would take. When they got worked up to the point of naming the winner—settling on the lucky product that would be cast for the role sixteen had applied for—bringing up the subject of an anonymous letter, even one implying that one of them was a chronic murderer, would be an anticlimax. With a serious problem like that just triumphantly solved, what would they care about a little thing like murder?
But I was dead wrong. I found that out incidentally, as a by-product of their argument. It appeared that two of the contenders were deadly rivals, both clawing for children’s dimes: a candy bar called Happy Andy and a little box of tasty delights called Meltettes. It was the latter that Traub had decided to back unequivocally, and he, when the question came to a head which of those two to eliminate, again asked Miss Fraser if she had tried Meltettes. She told him no. He asked if she had tried Happy Andy. She said yes. Then, he insisted, it was only fair for her to try Meltettes.
“All right,” she agreed. “There on the piano, Debby, that little red box. Toss it over.”
“No!” A shrill voice cried. It was Nancylee. Everyone looked at her. Deborah Koppel, who had picked up the little red cardboard box, asked her:
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s dangerous!” Nancylee was there, a hand outstretched. “Give it to me. I’ll eat one first!”
It was only a romantic kid being dramatic, and all she rated from that bunch, if I had read their pulses right, was a laugh and a brush-off, but that was what showed me I had been dead wrong. There wasn’t even a snicker. No one said a word. They all froze, staring at Nancylee, with only one exception. That was Deborah Koppel. She held the box away
from Nancylee’s reaching hand and told her contemptuously:
“Don’t be silly.”
“I mean it!” The girl cried. “Let me—”
“Nonsense.” Deborah pushed her back, opened the flap of the box, took out an object, popped it into her mouth, chewed once or twice, swallowed, and then spat explosively, ejecting a spray of little particles.
I was the first, by maybe a tenth of a second, to realize that there was something doing. It wasn’t so much the spitting, for that could conceivably have been merely her way of voting against Meltettes, as it was the swift terrible contortion of her features. As I bounded across to her she left the piano bench with a spasmodic jerk, got erect with her hands flung high, and screamed:
“Lina! Don’t! Don’t let—”
I was at her, with a hand on her arm, and Bill Meadows was there too, but her muscles all in convulsion took us along as she fought toward the divan, and Madeline Fraser was there to meet her and get supporting arms around her. But somehow the three of us together failed to hold her up or get her onto the divan. She went down until her knees were on the floor, with one arm stretched rigid across the burlap of the divan, and would have gone the rest of the way but for Miss Fraser, also on her knees.
I straightened, wheeled, and told Nat Traub: “Get a doctor quick.” I saw Nancylee reaching to pick up the little red cardboard box and snapped at her: “Let that alone and behave yourself.” Then to the rest of them: “Let everything alone, hear me?”
Chapter 22
AROUND FOUR O’CLOCK I could have got permission to go home if I had insisted, but it seemed better to stay as long as there was a chance of picking up another item for my report. I had already phoned Wolfe to explain why I wasn’t following his instructions.
All of those who had been present at the conference were still there, very much so, except Deborah Koppel, who had been removed in a basket when several gangs of city scientists had finished their part of it. She had been dead when the doctor arrived. The others were still alive but not in a mood to brag about it.
