Rex Stout: The Golden Spiders

From her tone and expression it seemed pretty plain that she didn’t intend to do anything her boy Pete wouldn’t have wanted her to do, and therefore we had a problem. With Purley’s deep suspicion that Wolfe, not to mention me, would rather be caught dead than with nothing up his sleeve, he sure wasn’t going to bow out. But without hesitation he arose, said, “I’ll go to the kitchen,” and headed for the door.

My surprise lasted half a second, until I realized where he was going. In the alcove at the rear end of the hall, across from the kitchen, there was a hole in the wall that partitioned the alcove from the office. On the office side the hole was covered with a trick picture, and from the alcove side, when you slid a panel, you could see and hear movements and sounds from the office. Purley knew all about it.

As Purley disappeared I thought it just as well to warn Wolfe. “The picture.”

“Certainly,” Wolfe said peevishly. He looked at Mrs. Drossos. “Well, madam?”

She was taking nothing for granted. She got up and went to the open door to look both ways in the hall, shut the door, and returned to her seat. “You know Pete got killed.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They told me, and I ran down to the street, and there he was. He was unconscious but he wasn’t dead. They let me ride in the ambulance with him. That was when he told me. He opened—”

She stopped. I was afraid it was going to bust, and so was she, but after sitting for half a minute without a muscle moving she had it licked and could go on. “He opened his eyes and saw me, and I put my head down to him. He said — I think I can tell you just what he said — he said, ‘Tell Nero Wolfe he got me. Don’t tell anybody but Nero Wolfe. Give him my money in the can.’”

She stopped and was rigid again. After a full minute of it Wolfe nudged her. “Yes, madam?”

She opened her bag, of black leather that had seen some wear but was good for more, fingered in it, extracted a small package wrapped in paper, and arose to put the package on Wolfe’s desk.

“There’s four dollars and thirty cents.” She stayed on her feet. “He made it himself, it’s his money that he kept in a tobacco can. That was the last thing he said, telling me to give you his money in the can; after that he was unconscious again, and he died before they could do anything at the hospital. I came away and came home to get his money and come and tell you. Now I’ll go back.” She turned, took a couple of steps, and turned again. “Did you understand what I told you?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Do you want me to do anything?”

“No, I think not. Archie?”

I was already there beside her. She seemed a little steadier on her feet than she had coming in, but I kept her arm anyway, on out to the stoop and down the seven steps to the sidewalk. She didn’t thank me, but since she may not even have known I was there I didn’t hold it against her.

Purley was in the hall when I re-entered, with his hat on. I asked him, “Did you shut the panel?”

“Taking candy from a kid I might expect,” he said offensively. “But taking candy from a dead kid, by God!”

He was leaving, and I sidestepped to block him. “Oaf. Meaning you. If we had insisted on her taking it back she would have—”

I chopped it off at his grin of triumph. “Got you that time!” he croaked, and brushed past me and went.

So as I stepped into the office I was biting a nail. It is not often that Purley Stebbins can string me, but that day he had caught me off balance because my sentiments had been involved. Naturally I reacted by trying to take it out on Wolfe. I went to his desk for the little packet, unfolded the paper, and arranged the contents neatly in front of him: two dollar bills, four quarters, nine dimes, and eight nickels.

“Right,” I announced. “Four dollars and thirty cents. Hearty congratulations. After income tax and deducting ten cents for expenses — the phone call to Stebbins yesterday — there will be enough left to—”

“Shut up,” he snapped. “Will you return it to her tomorrow?”

“I will not. Nor any other day. You know damn well that’s impossible.”

“Give it to the Red Cross.”

“You give it.” I was firm. “She may never come again, but if she does and asks me what we did with Pete’s money I won’t feel like saying Red Cross and I won’t feel like lying.”

He pushed the dough away from him, to the other edge of the desk, toward me. “You brought him into this house.”

“It’s your house, and you fed him cookies.”

That left it hanging. Wolfe picked up his current book from the other end of his desk, opened to his place, swiveled and maneuvered his seventh of a ton to a comfortable position, and started reading. I went to my desk and sat, and pretended to go over yesterday’s reports from Saul and Fred and Orrie while I considered the situation. Somewhat later I pulled the typewriter around, put in paper, and hit the keys. The first draft had some flaws, which I corrected, and then typed it again on a fresh sheet. That time I thought it would do. I turned to face Wolfe and announced, “I have a suggestion.”

He finished his paragraph, which must have been a long one, before glancing at me. “Well?”

“We’re stuck with this dough and have to do something with it. You may remember that you told Pete that the point is not so much to earn a fee as it is to feel that you earned it. I should think you would feel you earned this one if you blow it all on an ad in the paper reading something like this:

“Woman with spider earrings and scratch on cheek who on Tuesday, driving a car, told boy at Thirty-fifth Street and Ninth Avenue to get a cop, please communicate with Nero Wolfe at address in phone book.”

I slid the paper across his desk to him. “In the Times the fee might not quite cover it, but I’ll be glad to toss in a buck or two. I regard it as brilliant. It will spend Pete’s money on Pete. It will make Cramer and Stebbins sore, and Stebbins has it coming to him. And since there’s not one chance in a million that it will get a nibble, it won’t expose you to the risk of any work or involvement. Last but not least, it will get your name in the paper. What do you say?”

He picked up the sheet and glanced over it with his nose turned up. “Very well,” he agreed grumpily. “I hope to heaven this has taught you a lesson.”

The hardware manufacturer’s son was finally spotted and corralled the next day, Thursday afternoon. Since that was a hush operation for more reasons than one — to show you how hush, he wasn’t a hardware manufacturer and he wasn’t from Youngstown — I can supply no details. But I make one remark. If Wolfe felt that he earned the fee he soaked that bird for, no ego was ever put to a severer test.

So Thursday was a little hectic, with no spare time for consideration of the question whether, if we had taken a different slant on the case Pete had come to share with us, Pete might still be breathing. In the detective business there are plenty of occasions for that kind of consideration, and while there is no percentage in letting it get you down, it doesn’t hurt to take time out now and then for some auditing.

It had been too late Wednesday night to get the ad in for Thursday. Friday morning I had to grin at myself a couple of times. When I went down the two flights from my bedroom and entered the kitchen, the first thing I did after greeting Fritz was to turn to the ads in the Times for a look at ours. That rated a grin. It meant nothing, either professionally or personally, since the chance of getting an answer was even slimmer than my estimate of one in a million. The second grin came later, when I was dealing with corn muffins and sausage — Fritz having taken Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him according to schedule — with the Times in front of me on the rack, and the phone rang and I nearly knocked my chair over getting up to go for it. It was not someone answering the ad. Some guy on Long Island wanted to know if we could let him have three plants in bloom of Vanda caerulea. I told him we didn’t sell plants, and anyway that Vandas didn’t bloom in May.