Rex Stout: Black Orchids

“What’s the matter?” Wolfe inquired peevishly.

“I smelled ciphogene. I still do.”

“I know. Theodore fumigated those plants a little while ago and opened the door too soon. There’s not enough to do any harm.”

“Maybe not,” I muttered, “but I wouldn’t trust that stuff on top of the Empire State Building on a windy day.” The door to the fumigating room was standing open and I glanced inside. The benches were empty, as well as I could tell in the half dark. It had no glass. The smell didn’t seem any stronger inside. I returned to Wolfe.

“How’s Mr. Cramer?” he asked. “Stewing?”

I looked at him suspiciously. His asking that, and the tone of his voice, and the expression on his face — any one would have been enough for me the way I knew him, and the three together made it so obvious that the only question was how he got that way.

I confronted him. “Which one did you crack?” I demanded. “Rose or Anne?”

“Neither,” he replied complacently. “I had an hour’s talk with Miss Lasher while you were still sleeping, and later some conversation with Miss Tracy. They still clutch their secrets. When Mr. Hewitt—”

“Then where did you lap up all the cream? What are you gloating about?”

“I’m not gloating.” He cocked his massive head on one side and rubbed his nose with a forefinger. “It is true that I have conceived a little experiment.”

“Oh, you have. Goody. Before or after Cramer carts us off to the D.A.’s office?”

Wolfe chuckled. “Is that his intention? Then it must be before. Is Miss Tracy with him?”

“Yes. The youthful Updegraff is in the kitchen. He’s going to marry Anne provided your experiment doesn’t land him in the coop for murder.”

“I thought you were affianced to Miss Tracy.”

“That’s off. If I married her he’d stand around in front of the house and make me nervous. He’s started it already.”

“Well, that saves us the trouble of sending for him. Keep him. When Mr. Hewitt arrives send him up to me immediately. Go down and get Mr. Dill on the phone and put him through to me. On your way make sure that Miss Lasher is in her room and going to stay there and not have hysterics. Except for Mr. Dill, and Mr. Hewitt when he comes, don’t disturb me. I have some details to work out. And by the way, do not mention ciphogene.”

His tone and look of smug self-satisfaction were absolutely insufferable. Not only that, as I well knew, they were a sign of danger for everyone concerned. When he was in that mood God alone could tell what was going to happen.

I went back through the plant rooms to the door to the stairs with my fingers crossed.

It was nearly an hour later, 11:45, and I was alone in the office, when the door to the front room opened and Anne and Cramer entered. She looked mad and determined, and Cramer didn’t appear to be exactly exultant, so I gathered that no great friendship had burst its bud.

“Where’s Updegraff?” Cramer asked.

“Upstairs.”

“I want to see Wolfe.”

I buzzed the house phone, got an answer, held a brief conversation, and told the Inspector:

“He says to come up. Hewitt and Dill are up there.”

“I’d rather see him down here.”

That irritated me, and anyway I was already jumpy, waiting for Wolfe’s experiment to start exploding. “My God,” I said, “you’re fussy. On arrival you insist on going upstairs right through me or over me. Now you have to be coaxed. If you want him down here go up and get him.”

He turned. “Come, Miss Tracy, please.”

She hesitated. I said, “Fred’s up there. Let’s all go.”

I led the way and they followed. I took the elevator because the stairway route went within ten feet of the door to the south room and Rose might pick that moment to sneeze.

I was half expecting to see one of the peony-growers tied up and the other three applying matches to his bare feet, but not at all. We single-filed through twenty thousand orchids in the four plant rooms and entered the potting room, and there they were in the fumigating room, with the lights turned on, chatting away like pals. In the potting room Theodore was sloshing around with a hose, washing old pots.

“Good morning, Mr. Cramer!” Wolfe called. “Come in!”

Theodore was so enthusiastic with the hose that spray was flying around, and we all stepped into the fumigating room. Fred and Dill were there, seated on the lower tier of a staggered bench, and Wolfe was showing Hewitt a sealed joint in the wall. He was leaning on the handle of an osmundine fork, like a giant shepherd boy resting on his staff, and was expounding with childish enthusiasm:

“... so we can stick them in here and close the door, and do the job with a turn of the valve I showed you in the potting room, and go on with our work outside. Twice a year at the most we do the whole place, and we use ciphogene for that, too. It’s a tremendous improvement over the old methods. You ought to try it.”

Hewitt nodded. “I think I will. I’ve been tempted to, but I was apprehensive about it, such deadly stuff.”

Wolfe shrugged. “Anything you use is dangerous. You can’t kill bugs and lice and eggs and spores with incense. And the cost of installation is a small item, unless you include a sealed chamber, which I would certainly advise—”

“Excuse me ,” Cramer said sarcastically.

Wolfe turned. “Oh, yes, you wanted to speak to me.” He sidled around the end of a bench, sat down on a packing box, gradually giving it his weight, and kept himself upright with nothing to lean against, holding the osmundine fork perpendicular, with the handle-end resting on the floor, like Old King Cole with his scepter. He simpered at the Inspector, if an elephant can simper.

“Well, sir?”

Cramer shook his head. “I want you and Goodwin and Miss Tracy. So does the District Attorney. At his office.”

“You don’t mean that, Mr. Cramer.”

“And why the hell — why don’t I mean it?”

“Because you know I rarely leave my home. Because you know that citizens are not obligated to regulate their movements by the caprice of the District Attorney or to dart around frantically at your whim. We’ve had this out before. Have you an order from a court?”

“No.”

“Then if you have questions to ask, ask them. Here I am.”

“I can get an order from a court. And the D.A. is sore and probably will.”

“We’ve had that out before, too. You know what you’ll get if you try it.” Wolfe shook his head regretfully. “Apparently you’ll never learn. Confound you, you can’t badger me. No one on earth can badger me except Mr. Goodwin. Why the devil do you rile me by trying it? It’s a pity, because I’m inclined to help you. And I could help you. Do you want me to do you a favor?”

If the man who knew Wolfe best was me, next to me came Inspector Cramer. Over and over again through the years, he tried bluster because it was in his system and had to come out, but usually he knew when to drop it. So after narrowing his eyes at Wolfe without answering, he kicked a packing box a couple of feet to where there was more leg room, sat down and said calmly:

“Yeah, I’d love to have you do me a favor.”

“Good, Archie, bring Miss Lasher up here.”

I went. On my way downstairs I thought, so here she goes to the wolves. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t especially fond of her, but my pride was hurt. It wasn’t like Wolfe; it wasn’t like us at all.

She was standing looking out of a window, biting her nails. The minute she saw me she started on a torrent. She couldn’t stand it any longer, cooped up like that, she had to get out of there, she had to use a telephone—