Rex Stout - Cordially Invited to Meet Death

At Eighth Avenue he turned uptown. I kept twenty yards behind.

At 35th he turned west again.

That was when I got suspicious. Naturally. On he went, straight as a bullet. When he kept on west of Ninth Avenue, there was no question about it. I closed up. He began looking at the numbers on buildings, and came to the stoop and started up. Boy, I’m telling you, they don’t get away from me. I get my man. I had trailed this one the length of New York, hanging on like a bulldog, right to Nero Wolfe’s door.

I had been thinking fast the last two blocks. I had considered, and rejected, three different maneuvers to keep Wolfe from finding out. They all seemed good, but I knew damn well none of them was good enough. He would find out all right, no matter what I did. So I bounded up the steps past Daniel, greeted him, let us in with my key, and took him to the office.

Wolfe, at his desk, frowned at us. “How do you do, Mr. Huddleston. Archie. Where have you been?”

“I know,” I said, “it’s about lunch time, so I’ll make it brief. First cast a glance at this.” I took the knife, the trowel, and the paper bags from my pockets and put them on his desk.

Daniel stared and muttered something.

“What is this flummery?” Wolfe demanded.

“No flummery,” I asserted. “Tools. It still didn’t rain last night. So I went to Riverdale to get the piece of turf where the orangutan poured the iodine. Brother Daniel had the same idea. He was just ahead of me. He’s got it in that newspaper. I thought he might be going to toss it in the river, so I tailed him and he led me here. So I look foolish but not dumb. Now you can laugh.”

He didn’t. He looked at Daniel. “Is that what you have in that package, Mr. Huddleston?”

“It is,” Daniel said. “I want—”

“Why did you bring it to me? I’m not a chemist. You are.”

“Because I want to authenticate it. I want—”

“Take it to the police.”

“No.” Daniel looked and sounded determined. “They think I’m nothing but a nuisance. Maybe I am. But if I analyze this myself, without someone to—”

“Don’t analyze it yourself. You have colleagues, friends, haven’t you?”

“None I would want to give this to.”

“Are you sure you have the piece where the iodine was poured?”

“I am. A few drops were on the edge of the flagstone. I also have pieces taken from each side of that piece, for comparison.”

“Naturally. Who suggested this step to you?”

“No one. It occurred to me this morning, and I immediately went up there—”

“Indeed. I congratulate you. Take it to the Fisher Laboratories. You know them, don’t you?”

“Certainly.” Daniel flushed. “I happen not to have any cash at the moment. They are expensive.”

“Establish credit. Your sister’s estate. Aren’t you her nearest relative?”

“There is no estate. The liabilities greatly exceed the assets.”

Wolfe looked annoyed. “You are careless not to have cash. Confound it, you should have cash. You understand, sir, my finger is not in this pie. I am not concerned. My lunch is ready. I should bid you good day. But you seem to be capable of using your brains, and that is so rare a phenomenon it is a pity to waste it. Archie, phone Mr. Weinbach at the Fisher Laboratories. Tell him to expect Mr. Huddleston, to rush the analysis he requires, and to charge it to me. You can pay the bill, sir, at your convenience.”

Daniel hesitated. “I have a habit — I am extremely backward about paying bills—”

“You’ll pay this one. I’ll see that you do. What is argyrol?”

“Argyrol? Why — it’s a silver-protein compound. Silver vietllin.”

“It stains like iodine. Could tetanus bacilli live in it?”

Daniel considered. “I believe they could. It’s far weaker—”

Wolfe nodded impatiently. “Tell Mr. Weinbach to try for it.” He got up. “My lunch is waiting.”

After I had finished the phone call and ushered Daniel out, with his package, I joined Wolfe in the dining room. Since no discussion of business was permitted at meals, I waited until we were back in the office again before observing:

“I ought to tell you that Janet saw him lifting that turf, and Maryella and the nephew—”

“There is no reason to tell me. I am not concerned.” He pointed to the knife and trowel, still on his desk. “Where did you get those things?”

“Bought them.”

“Please put them somewhere. They are not to appear on the expense account.”

“Then I’ll keep them in my room.”

“Do so. By all means. Please take a letter to Mr. Hoehn.”

His tone said, and that’s the end of Miss Huddleston and her affairs for this office, for you, and for me.

No doubt it would have been, except for his vanity. Or perhaps it wasn’t vanity; it may be that the reason he permitted his privacy to be invaded again by brother Daniel was that he wanted to impress on him the desirability of getting the bill of the Fisher Laboratories paid as soon as possible. At any rate, when Daniel turned up some hours later, a little before seven that evening, Fritz was told to bring him to the office. At first sight of him I knew he had something, by the look in his eye and the set of his jaw. He tramped over to Wolfe’s desk and announced:

“My sister was murdered.”

He got an envelope from his pocket, took out a paper and unfolded it, and fumbled the job because his hands were trembling. He swayed a little, steadied himself with a hand on the edge of the desk, looked around for a chair, and sat down.

“I guess I’m a little weak from excitement,” he said apologetically. “Then I had only an apple for breakfast, and I haven’t eaten anything since.”

It was probably the one thing in the world he could have said to keep Wolfe from telling him to go to the police and telling me to bounce him out. The one kind of man that never gets the gate at that house is one with an empty stomach. Glaring at him, not sympathetically but indignantly, Wolfe pushed a button and, when Fritz appeared, inquired:

“How far along is the soup?”

“Quite ready, sir, except for the mushrooms.”

“Bring a bowl of it, crackers, cottage cheese, and hot tea.”

Daniel tried to protest, but Wolfe didn’t even listen. He heaved a deep sigh and leaned back and shut his eyes, a man who had eaten nothing but an apple for twenty-four hours being too painful an object to look at. When Fritz came with the tray I had a table ready in front of Daniel, and he wolfed a couple of crackers and blew on a spoonful of soup and swallowed it.

I had acquired the sheet of paper he had taken from the envelope, a report sheet from Fisher Laboratories, and was looking it over. After some more spoonfuls Daniel said:

“I knew it. I was sure of it. There couldn’t—”

“Eat!” Wolfe commanded sternly.

“I’m eating. I’m all right. You were correct about the argyrol. That was a good guess. Argyrol and nothing else.” A fork conveyed a hunk of cottage cheese to Daniel’s mouth, but he went on, “Not a trace of iodine. And millions of tetanus bacilli, hundreds of millions. Weinbach said he never saw anything like it. And they were all concentrated on the one piece of turf, on the grass stems and the soil surface. The other two pieces had no sign either of the silver vietllin or the tetanus. Weinbach said...”

The doorbell rang, but I kept my seat and left it for Fritz because I had no reason to expect any undesirable intrusions. As it turned out, however, it was exactly the kind of invasion Wolfe resents more than anything else. An insurance salesman or a wife wanting her husband tailed is merely a mosquito to be brushed off, with me to do the brushing, but this wasn’t as simple as that. The sound of Fritz’s voice came from the hall, in indignant protest, and then the door flew open and Inspector Cramer strode in. I mean strode. His first glance caught me, and was it withering. Then he saw who Daniel was, emitted a triumphal grunt, spread his feet apart, and rasped out: