Rex Stout - The Golden Spiders

Wolfe phoned his lawyer, Henry Parker, to ask about the process of a replevin and to tell him to get set for one in case Maddox kept his promise to make a grab for the ten grand. I had to track Parker down at a country club on Long Island.

Not a peep out of Jean Estey.

During the day three reporters phoned, and two made personal appearances on the stoop, but that was as far as they got. They didn’t like it that the Gazette had had an exclusive on Nero Wolfe’s working on the murder, and I sympathized with them.

My morning phone call to Lon Cohen at the Gazette was too early, and I left word for him to call me back, which he did. When I went there in the afternoon to collect a supply of prints of their best shots of the people we were interested in, I told Lon we could use a few dozen crucial inside facts, and he said he could too. He claimed they had printed everything they knew, though of course they had pecks of hot hearsay, such as that Mrs. Dennis Horan had once thrown a cocktail shaker at Mrs. Fromm, and that a certain importer had induced Vincent Lipscomb to publish an article favoring low tariffs by financing a trip to Europe. None of it seemed to me to be worth toting back to Thirty-fifth Street.

Anyway I had errands. For distribution of the photographs I met Saul Panzer at the Times Building, where he was boning up on displaced persons and Assadip; Orrie Cather at a bar and grill on Lexington Avenue, where he told me that the man who owed him a favor was playing golf at Van Cortlandt Park and could be seen later; and Fred Durkin at a restaurant on Broadway with his family, where Sunday dinner was $1.85 for adults and $1.15 for children. New York on a Sunday late in May is no place to open up a trail.

I made one little try on my own before heading back to Thirty-fifth Street. I don’t remember ever doing a favor for a jewelry salesman, but I did a big one once for a certain member of the NYPD. If I had done my duty as a citizen and a licensed detective, he would have got it good and would still be locked up, but there were circumstances. No one knows about it, not even Wolfe. The man I did the favor for has given me to understand that he would like to hold my coat and hat if I ever get in a brawl, but as far as possible I’ve steered clear of him. That Sunday I thought what the hell, give the guy a chance to work it off, and I rang him and met him somewhere.

I said I would give him five minutes to tell me who had killed Mrs. Fromm. He said the way it was going it would take him five years and no guarantee. I asked him if that was based on the latest dispatches, and he said yes. I said that was all I wanted to know and therefore withdrew my offer of five minutes, but if and when he could make it five hours instead of five years I would appreciate it if he would communicate.

He asked, “Communicate what?”

I said, “That it’s nearly ripe. That’s all. So I can tell Mr. Wolfe to dive for cover.”

“He’s too damn fat to dive.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, it’s a deal. You sure that’s all?”

“Absolutely.”

“I thought maybe you were going to ask for Rowcliff’s head with an apple in his mouth.”

I went home and told Wolfe, “Relax. The cops are playing eeny, meeny, miney, mo. They know more than we do, but they’re no closer to the answer.”

“How do you know?”

“Gypsies. It’s authentic, fresh, and strictly private. I saw the boys and gave them the photos. Do you want the unimportant details?”

“No.”

“Any instructions?”

“No.”

“No program for me for tomorrow?”

“No.”

That was Sunday night.

Monday morning I got a treat. Wolfe never shows downstairs until eleven o’clock. After breakfast in his room he takes the elevator to the roof for the two hours with the plants before descending to the office. For morning communication with me he uses the house phone unless there is something special. Apparently that morning was special, for when Fritz came to the kitchen after taking breakfast up he announced solemnly, “Audience for you. Levée !” I spell it French because he pronounced it so.

I had finished with the morning paper, in which there was nothing to contradict my gypsies, and when my coffee cup was empty I ascended the one flight, knocked, and entered. On rainy mornings, or even gray ones, Wolfe breakfasts in bed, after tossing the black silk coverlet toward the foot because stains are bad for it, but when it’s bright he has Fritz put the tray on a table near a window. That morning it was bright, and I had my treat. Barefooted, his hair tousled, with his couple of acres of yellow pajamas dazzling in the sun, he was sensational.

We exchanged good mornings, and he told me to sit. There was nothing left on his plate, but he wasn’t through with the coffee.

“I have instructions,” he informed me.

“Okay. I was intending to be at the bank at ten o’clock to deposit Mrs. Fromm’s check.”

“You may. You will proceed from there. You will probably be out all day. Tell Fritz to answer the phone and take the usual precautions with visitors. Report by phone at intervals.”

“The funeral is at two o’clock.”

“I know, and therefore you may come home for lunch. We’ll see. Now the instructions.”

He gave them to me. Four minutes did it. At the end he asked if I had any questions.

I was frowning. “One,” I said. “It’s clear enough as far as it goes, but what am I after?”

“Nothing.”

“Then that’s probably what I’ll get.”

He sipped coffee. “It’s what I’ll expect. You’re stirring them up, that’s all. You’re turning a tiger loose in a crowd — or, if that’s too bombastic, a mouse. How will they take it? Will any of them tell the police, and if so, which one or ones?”

I nodded. “Sure, I see the possibilities, but I wanted to know if there is any specific item I’m supposed to get.”

“No. None.” He reached for the coffee pot.

I went down to the office. In a drawer of my desk there is an assortment of calling cards, nine or ten different kinds, worded differently for different needs and occasions. I took some engraved ones with my name in the center and “Representing Nero Wolfe” in the corner, and on six of them I wrote in ink beneath my name, “To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.” With them in my wallet, and the check and bankbook in my pocket, and a gun under my armpit, I was fully loaded, and I got my hat and beat it.

I walked to the bank, a pleasant fifteen-minute stretch on a fine May morning, and from there took a taxi to Sixty-eighth Street. I didn’t know what the home of a deceased millionairess would be like on the day of her funeral, which was to be held in a chapel on Madison Avenue, but outside it was quieter than it had been Saturday. The only evidences of anything uncommon were a cop in uniform on the sidewalk, with nothing to do, and black crepe hanging on the door. It wasn’t the same cop as on Saturday, and this one recognized me. As I made for the door he stopped me.

“You want something?”

“Yes, officer, I do.”

“You’re Archie Goodwin. What do you want?”

“I want to ring that bell, and hand Peckham my card to take to Miss Estey, and enter, and be conducted within, and engage in conversation—”

“Yeah, you’re Goodwin all right.”

That called for no reply, and he merely stood, so I walked past him into the vestibule and pushed the bell. In a moment the door was opened by Peckham. He may have been well trained, but the sight of me was too much for him. Instead of keeping his eyes on my face, as any butler worthy of the name should do, he let his bewilderment show as he took in my brown tropical worsted, light tan striped shirt, brown tie, and tan shoes. In fairness to him, remember it was the day of the funeral.