Rex Stout - Prisoner's Base

I was not being completely cuckoo. I was a trained and experienced detective, there had been a murder that I was interested in and wanted to know more about, and the closest I could get to it at the moment was this room in which Priscilla had expected to sleep and eat her breakfast. I hadn’t the slightest expectation of finding anything helpful, and so wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t; and I did find something at that. On a shelf in the bathroom was a toothbrush and a soiled handkerchief. I took them to my room and put them on my dresser, and I still have them, in a drawer where I keep a collection of assorted professional relics.

There was no point in going up to the plant rooms and starting a squabble, so I went down to the office and opened the morning mail and fiddled around with chores. Somewhat later, when I became aware that I was entering a germination date of Cymbidium holfordianum on the card of Cymbidium pauwelsi , I decided I wasn’t in the mood for clerical work, returned things to the files, and sat and stared at my toes. There were four thousand things I wanted to know, and there were people I might have started asking, like Sergeant Purley Stebbins or Lon Cohen of the Gazette , but after all this was Nero Wolfe’s office and phone.

At eleven o’clock he came down, entered and crossed to his desk, got himself settled in his chair, and glanced through the little stack of mail I had put there under a paperweight. There was nothing of much interest and certainly nothing urgent. He cocked his head, focused on me, and stated, “It would have been like you to come up at ten o’clock for instructions as arranged.”

I nodded. “I know, but Cramer didn’t leave until five after, and I knew how you would react. Do you care to hear the details?”

“Go ahead.”

I gave him what I had got from Cramer. When I had finished he sat frowning at me with his eyes half closed, through a long silence. Finally he spoke. “You reported in full to Mr. Cramer?”

“I did. You said to unload.”

“Yes. Then Mr. Helmar will soon know, if he doesn’t already, of our stratagem, and I doubt if it’s worth the trouble to communicate with him. He wanted his ward alive and well, so he said, and that’s out of the question.”

I disagreed, not offensively. “But he’s our only contact, and, no matter how sore he is, we can start with him. We have to start somewhere with someone?”

“Start?” He was peevish. “Start what? For whom? We have no client. There’s nothing to start.”

The simple and direct thing to do would have been to blow my top, and it would have been a satisfaction — but then what? I refused to boil, and kept my voice even. “I don’t deny,” I told him, “that that’s one way to look at it, but only one, and there is at least one other. Like this. She was here and wanted to stay, and we kicked her out, and she got killed. I should think that would have some bearing on your self-esteem, which you were discussing last night. I should think that you do have something to start — a murder investigation. And you also have a client — your self-esteem.”

“Nonsense!”

“Maybe.” I stayed calm. “I would like to explain at length why I think it’s up to us to get the guy that killed Priscilla Eads, but I don’t want to waste your time or my breath just for the hell of it. Would it do any good?”

“No.”

“You won’t even consider it?”

“Why should I?” He fluttered a hand. “I am under no onus and am offered no reward. No.”

“Okay,” I stood up. “I guess I knew how it would be. You realize that I have my personal problem, and it’s different from yours. If I had turned her down and put her out yesterday afternoon as soon as I found out what she wanted, would she be in the morgue now? I doubt it. When you came down and I sprung her on you, you told me to get her out of the house before dinner. If I had, would she be in the morgue now? Probably not. It was absolutely my fault that she didn’t leave until nearly midnight, and she decided to go home, it doesn’t matter why. It may have been just to change her clothes and luggage, or she may have decided not to play — anyhow, she went home, and she got it. That’s my personal problem.”

“Archie.” He was gruff. “No man can hold himself accountable for the results of his psychological defects, especially those he shares with all his fellow men, such as lack of omniscience. It is a vulgar fallacy that what you don’t know can’t hurt you; but it is true that what you don’t know can’t convict you.”

“It’s still my personal problem. I can get along without omniscience, but I can’t get along with a goddam strangler going around being grateful to me for sending his victim to him, and I don’t intend to try. I’ll quit if you prefer it, but I’d rather take an indefinite leave of absence, starting now — without pay, of course. You can get Saul in. I’ll move to a hotel, but I suppose you won’t mind if I drop in occasionally in case I need something.”

He was glowering at me. “Do I understand you? Do you intend to go single-handed for the murderer of Miss Eads?”

“I don’t know about single-handed. I may need some hired help, but I’m going for him.”

“Pfui.” He was contemptuous. “Poppycock. Is Mr. Cramer such a bungler? And his men? So inept that you must assume their functions?”

I stared at him. “I’ll be damned. That, from you?”

He shook his head. “It won’t do, Archie. You’re trying to coerce me, and I won’t have it. I will not undertake a major and expensive operation, with no chance of income, merely because you have been piqued by circumstance. Your bluff won’t work. It would of course be folly for you to try any — what’s that for?”

I was too busy to answer him. With my jacket off, I had got a shoulder holster from a drawer and was strapping it on. That done, I took a Marley.32 and a box of cartridges, filled the cylinder, put the gun in the holster, and put my jacket back on. It was an effective retort to Wolfe, but that was not the sole reason for it. Ever since a certain regrettable experience some years back, I never left the house on an errand connected with a murder case without taking a gun, so I was merely following habit.

I faced Wolfe. “I’ll do my best to see that everybody understands that I’m not working for you. Some of them won’t believe it, but I can’t help that. I’ll come back for some things, and if I can’t make it until late I’ll phone to tell you what hotel I’m at. If you decide you’d rather have me quit, okay. I haven’t got time to discuss it now because I want to catch a guy before lunch.”

He sat with his lips pressed tight, scowling. I turned and went. Passing the hall rack, I snared my straw hat, not that I don’t hate to monkey with a hat in summer, but I might need the tone. Descending the seven steps of the stoop, I turned east as if I knew exactly where I was headed for, walked to Tenth Avenue and turned downtown, and at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street entered a drugstore, mounted a stool at the soda fountain, and ordered a chocolate egg malted with three eggs.

There was no guy I wanted to catch before lunch. I had got away from there because I knew I had to as soon as I saw there was no chance of harassing Wolfe into taking a hand. I didn’t blame him; he had no personal problem like mine. I wasn’t fussing about the problem. That was settled. Until further notice I had only one use for my time and faculties: to find out who the strangler was that I had sent Priscilla Eads to in a taxi, and wrap him up for delivery to the proper address, with or without help. I had no great ideas about galloping down Broadway on a white horse with his head on the point of a spear. I just wanted to catch the sonofabitch, or at least help.