Three Men Out

by Rex Stout

  "That's right." "Do the police share Mr. Wolfe's--skepticism?"

  172 "You can take what he said as coming from me." "Then no matter what I tell you about why I went to see Heller, you'll investigate it? You'll check it?" "Not necessarily. If it fits all right, and if we can't connect it with the murder, and if it's a private confidential matter, we'll let it go at that. If we do check any, we'll be careful. There are enough innocent citizens sore at us already." Her eyes darted back to Wolfe. "What about you, Mr. Wolfe? Will you have to check?" "I sincerely hope not. Let Mr. Cramer's assurance include me." Her eyes went around. "What about these men?" "They are trained confidential assistants. They hold their tongues or they lose their jobs." The tip of her tongue came out and went in. "I'm not satisfied, but what can I do? If my only choice is between this and the whole New York detective force pawing at me, the Lord knows I take this. I phoned Leo Heller ten days ago, and he came to my office and spent two hours there. It was a business matter, not a personal one. I'm going to tell 173 you exactly what it was, because I'm no good at ad libbing a phony. I was a damn fool to say that about the stolen ring." She was hating it, but she went on. "You said I have sense enough to get and hold a well-paid job in a highly competitive field, but if you only knew. It's not a field, it's a corral of wild beasts. There are six female tigers trying to get their claws on my job right now, and if they all died tonight there would be six others tomorrow. If it came out what I went to Leo Heller for, that would be the finish of me." The tip of her tongue flashed out and in. "So that's what this means to me. A magazine like Mode has two main functions, reporting and predicting. American women want to know what is being made and worn in Paris and New York, but even more they want to know what is going to be made and worn next season. Mode's reporting has been good enough--I've been all right on that-- but for the past year our predictions have been utterly rotten. We've got the contacts, but something has gone haywire, and our biggest rival has made monkeys of us. Another year like that, even another season, and good-by." Wolfe grunted. "To the magazine?" 174 "No, to me. So I decided to try Leo Heller. We had carried a piece about him, and I had met him. The idea was to give him everything we had--and we had plenty--about styles and colors and trends for the past ten years, and have him figure the probabilities six months ahead. He thought it was feasible, and I don't think he j1 was a faker. He had to come to the office to go through our stuff, and of course I had to camouflage it, what he was there for, but that wasn't hard. Do you want to know what I told them he was doing?" "I think not," Wolfe muttered. "So he came. I phoned him the next day, and he said it would take him at least a week to determine whether he had enough information to make up a probability formula. Yesterday I phoned again, and he said he had something to discuss and asked me to call at his place this morning. I went. You know the rest of it." She stopped. Wolfe and Cramer exchanged glances. "I would like," Wolfe said, "to have the name of the six female tigers | who are after your job." She turned white. I have never seen the [color leave a face faster or more completely. 175 "Damn you," she said in bitter fury. "So you're a rat like everybody else!" Wolfe showed her a palm. "Please, madam. Mr. Cramer will speak for himself, but I have no desire to betray you to your enemies. I merely want--" He saved his breath, because his audience was leaving. She got up, retrieved her mink from the other chair, draped it over her arm, turned, and headed for the door. Stebbins looked at Wolfe, Wolfe shook his head, and Stebbins trailed after her. As he left the room at her heels, Cramer called to him, "Bring Busch!" Then he turned on Wolfe to protest. "What the hell, you had her open. Why give her a breath?" Wolfe made a face. "The wretch. The miserable wretch. Her misogyny was already in her bones; now her misandry is too. She was dumb with rage, and it would have been futile to keep at her. But you're keeping her?" "You're right we are. For what?" He was out of his chair, glaring down at Wolfe. "Tell me for what! Except for dragging out of that woman, there's not one >> kJ.U.A^A^ He was off again. I miss no opportunity of resenting Inspector Cramer--I enjoy it, 176 and it's good for my appetite--but I must admit that on that occasion he seemed to me to have a point. I still had seen or heard no indication whatever that Wolfe's statement hhat he had a lead was anything but a stall, md it was half-past two in the morning, and pive of them had been processed, with only one to go. So as Cramer yapped at my | employer I did not cheer him on or offer him an orchid, but I had a private feeling that some of the sentiments he expressed were not positively preposterous. He was still at it when the door opened to admit Stebbins with the sixth customer. The sergeant, after conducting this one to the seat the others had occupied facing Wolfe and Cramer, did not go to the chair against the wall, which he had favored throughout the evening. Instead, he lowered his bulk onto one at Cramer's left, only two arms' lengths from the subject. That was interesting because it meant that he was voting for Karl Busch as his pick of the lot, and while Stebbins had often been wrong I had known him, more than once, to be right. Karl Busch was the slick, sly, swarthy little article with his hair pasted to his scalp. In the specifications on his transcript I had noted the key NVMS, meaning No Visible 177 Means of Support, but that was just a nod to routine. The details of the report on him left no real doubt as to the sources he tapped for jack. He was a Broadway smoothie, third grade. He was not in the theater or sports or the flicks or any of the tough rackets, but he knew everyone who was, and as the engraved lettuce swirled around the midtown corners and got trapped in the nets of the collectors, legitimate and otherwise, he had a hundred little dodges for fastening onto a specimen for himself. To him Cramer's tone was noticeably different. "This is Nero Wolfe," he rasped. "Answer his questions. You hear, Busch?" Busch said he did. Wolfe, who was frowning, studying him, spoke. "Nothing is to be gained, Mr. Busch, by my starting the usual rigmarole with you. I've read your statement, and I doubt if it would be worth while to try to pester you into a contradiction. But you had three conversations with Leo Heller, and in your statement they are not reported, merely summarized. I want the details of those conversations, as completely as your memory will furnish. Start with the first one, two months ago. Exactly what was said?" 178 Busch slowly shook his head. "Impos[sible, mister." "Word by word, no. Do your best." "Huh-uh." "You won't try?" "It's this way. If I took you to the pier and ast you to try to jump across to Brooklyn, what would you do? You'd say it was impossible and why get your feet wet. That's me." "I told you," Cramer snapped, "to answer his questions." Busch extended a dramatic hand in appeal. "What do you want me to do, make it up?" "I want you to do what you were told, to the best of your ability." "Okay. This will be good. I said to him, 'Mr. Heller, my name's Busch, and I'm a broker.' He said broker of what, and I said of anything people want broken, just for a gag, but he had no sense of humor and I saw he didn't, so I dropped that and explained. I told him there was a great demand among all kinds of people to know what horse was going to win a race the day before the race was run or even an hour ijbefore, and I had read about his line of Iwork and was thinking that he could help to 179 meet that demand. He said that he had thought several times about using his method on horse races, but he didn't care himself to use the method for personal bets because he wasn't a betting man, and for him to make up one of his formulas for just one race would take an awful lot of research and it would cost so much it wouldn't be worth it for any one person unless that person made a high-bracket plunge." "You're paraphrasing it," Wolfe objected. "I'd prefer the words that were used." "This is the best of my ability, mister." "Very well. Go on." "I said I wasn't a high-bracket boy myself, but anyway that wasn't here or there or under the rug, because what I had in mind was a wholesale setup. I had figgers to show him. Say he did ten races a week. I could round up at least twenty customers right off the bat. He didn't need to be any God Almighty always right; all he had to do was crack a percentage of forty or better, and it would start a fire you couldn't put out if you ran a river down it. We could have a million customers if we wanted 'em, but we wouldn't want 'em. We wou
ld hand-pick a hundred and no more, and each one would |(| ante one C per week, which if I can add at 180 all would make ten grand every sennight. That would--" "What?" Wolfe exploded. "Ten grand every what?" "Sennight." "Meaning a week?" "Sure." "Where the deuce did you pick up that fine old word?" "That's not old. Some big wit started it around last summer." "Incredible. Go on." "Where was-- Oh, yeah. That would make half a million little ones per year, and Heller and me would split it. Out of my half I would expense the operating, and out of his half he would expense the dope. He would have to walk on his nose to cut under a hundred grand all clear, and I wouldn't do so bad. We didn't sign no papers, but he could smell it, and after two more talks he agreed to do a dry run on three races. The first one he worked on, his answer was the favorite, a horse named White Water, and it won, but what the hell, it was just exercise for that rabbit. The next one, there were two sweethearts in a field of nine, and it was heads or tails between those two, and Heller had the winner all right, a horse named 181 Short Order, but on a fifty-fifty call you don't exactly panic. But get this next one." Busch gestured dramatically for emphasis. "Now get it. This animal was forty to one, but it might as well have been foui hundred. It was a musclebound sore-jointed hyena named Zero. That alone, a horse named Zero, was enough to put the curse of six saints on it, but also it was the kind of looking horse which if you looked at it would make you think promptly of canned dog food. When Heller came up with that horse, I thought oh-oh, he's a loon after all, and watch me run. Well, you ast me to tell you the words we used, me and Heller. If I told you some I used when that Zero horse won that race, you would lock me up. Not only was Heller batting a thousand, but he had kicked through with the most-- What are you doing, taking a nap?" We all looked at Wolfe. He was leaning back with his eyes shut tight, and was motionless except for his lips, which were pushing out and in, and out and in, and again out and in. Cramer and Stebbins and I knew what that meant: something had hit his hook, and he had yanked and had a fish on. A tingle ran up my spine. Stebbins arose and took a step to stand at Busch's elbow. 182 ( ramer tried to look cynical but couldn't i iake it; he was as excited as I was. The proof of it was that he didn't open his trap; he just sat with his eyes on Wolfe, along with the rest of us, looking at the lip movements as if they were something really special.

  "What the hell!" Busch protested. "Is he having a fit?" Wolfe's eyes opened, and he came forward in his chair. "No, I'm not," he snapped, "but I've been having one all evening. Mr. Cramer. Will you please have Mr. Busch removed? Temporarily." Cramer, with no hesitation, nodded at Purley, and Purley touched Busch's shoulder, and they went. The door closed behind them, but it wasn't more than five seconds before it opened again and Purley was back with us. He wanted as quick a look at the fish as his boss and me. "Have you ever," Wolfe was asking Cramer, "called me, pointblank, a dolt and a dotard?" "Those aren't my words, but I've certainly called you." "You may do so now. Your opinion of me at its lowest was far above my present opinion of myself." He looked up at the 183 clock, which said five past three. "We now need a proper setting. How many of your staff are in my house?" "Fourteen or fifteen." "We want them all in here, for the effect of their presence. Half of them should bring chairs. Also, of course, the six persons we have interviewed. This shouldn't take too long--possibly an hour, though I doubt it. I certainly won't prolong it." Cramer was looking contrary. "You've already prolonged it plenty. You mean you're prepared to name him?" "I am not. I haven't the slightest notion who it is. But I am prepared to make an attack that will expose him--or her--and if it doesn't, I'll have no opinion of myself at all." Wolfe flattened his palms on his desk, for him a violent gesture. "Confound it, don't you know me well enough to realize when I'm ready to strike?" "I know you too damn well." Cramer looked at his sergeant, drew in a deep breath, and let it out. "Oh, nuts. Okay, Purley. Collect the audience." 184 The office is a good-sized room, but there wasn't much unoccupied space left when ithat gathering was fully assembled. There were twenty-seven of us all told. The biggest assortment of Homicide employees I had ever gazed upon extended from wall to wall in the rear of the six subjects, with four of them filling the couch. Cramer was planted in the red leather chair, with Stebbins on his left, and the stenographer was hanging on at the end of my desk. The six citizens were in a row up front, and none of them looked merry. Agatha Abbey was the only person present who rated two chairs, one for herself and one for her mink, but no one was bothering to resent it in spite of the crowding. Their minds were on other matters. Wolfe's eyes went from right to left and back again, taking them in. He spoke. "I'll have to make this somewhat elaborate, so that all of you will clearly understand the 185 situation. I could not at the moment hazard even a venturesome guess as to which of you killed Leo Heller, but I now know how to find out, and I propose to do so." The only reaction visible or audible was John R. Winslow clearing his throat. Wolfe interlaced his fingers in front of his middle mound. "We have from the first had a hint that has not been imparted to you. Yesterday--Tuesday, that is--Heller telephoned here to say that he suspected that one of his clients had committed a serious crime and to hire me to investigate. I declined for reasons we needn't go into, but Mr. Goodwin, who is subordinate only when it suits his temperament and convenience, took it upon himself to call on Heller this morning to discuss the matter." He shot me a glance, and I met it. Merely an incivility. He went on to them, "He entered Heller's office but found it unoccupied. Tarrying there for some minutes, and meanwhile exercising his highly trained talent for observation, he noticed, among other details, that some pencils and an eraser from an overturned jar were arranged on the desk in a sort of pattern. Later that same detail was of course noted by the police, after Heller's body had been found and they had 186 been summoned; and it was a feature of that detail which led Mr. Cramer to come to see me. He assumed that Heller, seated at his desk and threatened with a gun, knowing or thinking he was about to die, had made the pencil pattern to leave a message, and that the purpose of the message was to give a clue to the identity of the murderer. On that point I agreed with Mr. Cramer. Will you all approach, please, and look at this arrangement on my desk? These pencils and the eraser are placed approximately the same as those on Heller's desk, with you, not me, Ion Heller's side of the desk. From your side you are seeing them as Heller intended them to be seen." The six did as requested, and they had company. Not only did most of the homicide subordinates leave their chairs and come forward for a view, but Cramer himself got up and took a glance--maybe just curiosity, but I wouldn't put it past him to suspect Wolfe of a shenanigan. However, the pencils and eraser were properly placed, as I ascertained by arising and stretching to peer over shoulders. When they were all seated again Wolfe resumed. "Mr. Cramer had a notion about ie message which I rejected and will not 187 bother to expound. My own notion of it, conceived almost immediately, came not as a coup d'eclat, but merely a stirring of memory. It reminded me vaguely of something ] had seen somewhere; and the vagueness disappeared when I reflected that Heller had been a mathematician, academically qualified and trained. The memory was old, and I checked it by going to my shelves for a book I had read some ten years ago. Its title is Mathematics for the Million, by Hogben. After verifying my recollection, I locked the book in a drawer because I thought it would be a pity for Mr. Cramer to waste time leafing through it." "Let's get on," Cramer growled. Wolfe did so. "As told in Mr. Hogben's book, more than two thousand years ago what he calls a matchstick number script was being used in India. Three horizontal lines stood for three, two horizontal lines stood for two, and so on. That was indeed primitive, but it had greater possibilities than the clumsy devices of the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans. Around the time of the birth of Christ some brilliant Hindu improved upon it by connecting the horizontal lines with diagonals, making the units unmistakable." He pointed to the arrangement 188 on his desk. "These five pencils on your left form a three exactly as the Hindus formed a three, and the three pencils on your right form a two. These Hindu s
ymbols are one of the great landmarks in the history of number language. You will note, by the way, that our own forms of the figure three and of the figure two are taken directly from these Hindu symbols." A couple of them got up to look, and Wolfe politely waited until they were seated again. "So, since Heller had been a mathematician, and since those were famous patterns in the history of mathematics, I assumed that the message was a three and a two. But evidence indicated that the eraser was also a part of the message and must be included. That was simple. It is the custom of an academic mathematician, if he wants to scribble 'four times six,' or 'seven times kline,' to use for the 'times' not an X, as we laymen do, but a dot. It is so well-known a �custom that Mr. Hogben uses it in his book without thinking it necessary to explain it, and therefore I confidently assumed that the |eraser was meant for a dot, and that the message was three times two, or six." I Wolfe compressed his lips and shook his head. "That was an impetuous imbecility. 189 During the whole seven hours that I sat here poking at you people, I was trying to find some connection with the figure six that would either set one of you clearly apart, or relate you to the commission of some crime, or both. Preferably both, of course, but either would serve. In the interviews the figure six did turn up with persistent monotony, but with no promising application, and I could only ascribe it to the mischief of coincidence. "So at three o'clock in the morning I was precisely where I had been when I started. Without a fortuitous nudge, I can't say how long it would have taken me to become aware of my egregious blunder; but I got the nudge, and I can at least say that I responded promptly and effectively. The nudge came from Mr. Busch when he mentioned the name of a horse. Zero." He upturned a palm. "Of course. Zero! I had been a witless ass. The use of the dot as a symbol for 'times' is a strictly modern device. Since the rest of the message, the figures three and two, were in Hindu number script, surely the dot was too--provided that the Hindus had made any use of the dot. And what made my blunder so unforgivable was that the Hindus had in 190 deed used a dot; they had used it, as is I explained in Hogben's book, for the most ' brilliant and imaginative invention in the whole history of the language of numbers. For when you have once decided how to write three and how to write two, how are you going to distinguish among thirty-two and three hundred and two and three thousand and two and thirty thousand and two? That was the crucial problem in number language, and the Greeks and Romans, for all their intellectual eminence, never succeeded in solving it. Some Hindu genius did, twenty centuries ago. He saw that the secret was position. Today we use our zero exactly as he did, to show position, but instead of a zero he used a dot. That's what the dot was in the early Hindu number language; it was used like our zero. So Heller's message was not three times two, or six; it was three zero two, or three hundred and two." Susan Maturo started, jerking her head up, and made a noise. Wolfe rested his eyes on her. "Yes, Miss Maturo. Three hundred and two people died in the explosion and fire at the Montrose Hospital a month ago. You mentioned that figure when you were talking with me, but even if you hadn't, it is 191 so imbedded in the consciousness of everyone who reads newspapers or listens to radio, it wouldn't have escaped me. The moment I realized that Heller's message was the figure three hundred and two, I would certainly have connected it with that disaster, whether you had mentioned it or not." "But it's--" She was staring. "You mean it is connected?" "I'm proceeding on that obvious assumption. I am assuming that through the information one of you six people furnished Leo Heller as factors for a formula, he formed a suspicion that one of you had commited a serious crime, and that his message, the figure three hundred and two, indicates that the crime was planting in the Montrose Hospital that bomb that caused the deaths of three hundred and two people--or at least involvement in that crime." It seemed as if I could see or feel muscles tightening all over the room. Most of those dicks, maybe all of them, had of course been working on the Montrose thing. Cramer pulled his feet back and his hands were fists. Purley Stebbins took his gun from his holster and rested it on his knee and leaned forward, the better to have his eyes on all six of them. 192 "So," Wolfe continued, "Heller's message identified not the person who was about to kill him, not the criminal, but the crime. That was superbly ingenious, and, considering the situation he was in, he deserves our deepest admiration. He has mine, and I retract any derogation of him. It would seem natural to concentrate on Miss Mature, since she was certainly connected with that disaster, but first let's clarify the matter. I'm going to ask the rest of you if you have at any time visited the Montrose Hospital, or been connected with it in any way, or had dealings with any of its personnel. Take the question just as I have stated it." His eyes went to the end of the row, at the left. "Mrs. Tillotson? Answer, please. Have you?" "No." It was barely audible. "Louder, please." "No!" His eyes moved. "Mr. Ennis?" "I have not. Never." "We'll skip you, Miss Maturo. Mr. Busch?" "I've never been in a hospital." "That answers only a third of the question. Answer all of it." "The answer is no, mister." 193 "Miss Abbey?" "I went there once about two years ago, to visit a patient, a friend. That was all." The tip of her tongue came out and went in. "Except for that one visit I have never been connected with it in any way or dealt with any of its personnel." "That is explicit. Mr. Winslow?" "No to the whole question. An unqualified no." "Well." Wolfe did not look frustrated. "That would seem to isolate Miss Mature, but it is not conclusive." His head turned. "Mr. Cramer. If the person who not only killed Leo Heller but also bombed that hospital is among these six, I'm sure you won't want to take the slightest risk of losing him. I have a suggestion." "I'm listening," Cramer growled. "Take them in as material witnesses, and hold them without bail if possible. Starting immediately, collect as many as you can of the former staff of that hospital. There were scores who survived, and other scores who were not on duty at the time. Get all of them if possible, spare no effort, and have them look at these people and say if they have ever seen any of them. Meanwhile, of course, you will be working on Miss Mature, 194 but you have heard the denials of the other five, and if you get reliable evidence that one of them has lied I'm sure you will need no further suggestion from me. Indeed, if one of them has lied and leaves this room in custody with that lie undeclared, that alone will be half the battle. I'm sorry--" "Wait a minute." All eyes went to one spot. It was Jack Ennis, the inventor. His thin colorless lips were twisted, with one end up, but not in an attempt to smile. The look in his eyes showed that he had no idea of smiling. "I didn't tell an exact lie," he said. Wolfe's eyes were slits. "Then an inexact lie, Mr. Ennis?" "I mean I didn't visit that hospital as a hospital. And I didn't have dealings with them, I was just trying to. I wanted them to give my X-ray machine a trial. One of them was willing to, but the other two talked him down." "When was this?" "I was there three times, twice in December and once in January." "I thought your X-ray machine had a Haw." "It wasn't perfect, but it would work, and it would have been better than anything 195 they had. I was sure I was going to get it in, because he was for it--his name is Halsey-- and I saw him first, and he wanted to try it. But the other two talked him out of it, and one of them was very--he--" He petered out. Wolfe prodded him. "Very what, Mr. Ennis?" "He didn't understand me! He hated me!" "There are people like that. There are all kinds of people. Have you ever invented a bomb?" "A bomb?" Ennis's lips worked, and this time I thought he actually was trying to smile. "Why would I invent a bomb?" "I don't know. Inventors invent many things. If you have never tried your hand at a bomb, of course you have never had occasion to get hold of the necessary materials-- for instance, explosives. It's only fair to tell you what I now regard as a reasonable hypothesis: that you placed the bomb in the hospital in revenge for an injury, real or fancied; that included in the data you gave Leo Heller was an item or items which led him to suspect you of that crime; that something he said led you, in turn, to suspect that he suspected; that when you went to his place this morning you went armed, pre196 pared for action if your suspicion was verified; that when you entered the building you recognized
Mr. Goodwin as my assistant; that you went up to Heller's office and asked him if Mr. Goodwin was there for an appointment with him, and his answer heightened or confirmed your suspicion, and you produced the gun; that--" "Hold it," Cramer snapped. "I'll take it from here. Purley, get him out and--" Purley was a little slow. He was up, but Ennis was up faster and off in a flying dive for Wolfe. I dived too, and got an arm and jerked. He tore loose, but by then a whole squad was there, swarming into him, and since I wasn't needed I backed off. As I did so someone dived at me, and Susan Maturo was up against me, gripping my lapels. "Tell me!" she demanded. "Tell me! Was it him?" I told her promptly and positively, to keep her from ripping my lapels off. "Yes," I said, in one word. Two months later a jury of eight men and four women agreed with me. 197 This Won't Kill You At the end of the sixth inning the score was Boston 11, New York 1. I would not have believed that the day would ever come when, seated in a lower box between home and first, at the seventh and deciding game of the World Series between the Giants and Red Sox, I would find myself glomming a girl, no matter who. I am by no means above glomming a girl if she is worthy, but not at the Polo Grounds, where my mind is otherwise occupied. That awful day, though, I did. The situation was complex and will have to be explained. It was a mess even before the game started. Pierre Mondor, owner of the famous Mondor's Restaurant in Paris, was visiting New York and was our house guest. He got the notion, God knows how or why, that Wolfe had to take him to a baseball game, and Wolfe's conception of the obligations of a host wouldn't let him use his power of veto. Tickets were no prob- 201 lem, since Emil Chisholm, oil millionaire and part-owner of the Giants, considered himself deeply in Wolfe's debt on account of a case we had handled for him a few years back. So that October afternoon, a Wednesday, I got the pair of them, the noted private detective and the noted chef, up to the Polo Grounds in a taxi, steered them through the mob into the entrance, along the concrete ramps, and down the aisle to our box. It was twenty past one--only ten minutes to game time--and the stands were jammed. I motioned to Mondor, and he slid in and sat. Wolfe stood and glared down at the wooden slats and metal arms. Then he lifted his head and glared at me. "Are you out of your senses?" he demanded.