Rex Stout - Counterfeit for Murder

“Brandy?” Fritz asked me.

“I don’t like brandy,” she said.

“Tea?”

“I don’t like tea. Where’s my bag?”

“Coffee,” I told Fritz. “She must like something.” He went. Wolfe had disappeared. “Sniff this,” I told her, handing her the bottle, and went to the hall. The package was over by the rack, and her handbag was on the floor near the wall. I didn’t know how it got there, and I still don’t, but since I reject Wolfe’s fundamental principle I assume that a fainting woman can hang onto something. Returning to the patient, I was just in time to keep her from rolling off the couch. She was trying to pull the cushions out from under her middle. When I put a hand on her shoulder she protested, “Pillows are for heads, Buster. Can’t you tell my head from my fanny? Give me the bag.”

I handed it to her and she turned onto her side, propping on her elbow, to open it. Apparently her concern was for a particular item, for after a brief glance inside she was closing it, but I said, “Here, put this in,” and offered the package.

She didn’t take it. “So I’m still alive,” she said. “I’m froze stiff, but I’m alive. Don’t Nero Wolfe believe in heat?”

“It’s seventy in here,” I told her. “When you faint your blood does something. Here’s your package.”

“Did you open it?”

“No.”

“I knew you wouldn’t. I’m still dizzy.” Her head went back down. “You’re such a detective, maybe you can tell me what he was going to do if he killed me. He would have had to stop the car and get out to get the bag. Wouldn’t he?”

“I should think so. If it was the bag he wanted.”

“Of course it was.” She took a deep breath, and another. “He thought the package was in it. Anyhow, it was your fault I was there, what you said about the button. I’ve been intending to sew that button on for a month, and when you said to have one put on and charge it to you, that was too much. I hadn’t done anything about my clothes on account of a man for twenty years, and here was a man offering to buy me a button. So I went home and sewed it on.”

She stopped to breathe. I stuck the package in my pocket. “Where is home?” I asked.

“Forty-seventh Street. Between Eighth and Ninth. So that’s why I was there, but you keep your head, Buster. Don’t offer to buy me some hair dye. When I left I was going to take a Ninth Avenue bus to come back here, and walking along Forty-seventh Street the car came on the sidewalk behind me and hit me here.” She touched her right hip. “Bumping up over the curb must have spoiled his aim. It didn’t hit me hard enough to knock me down, so I must have stumbled when I jumped. Anyhow I fell, and I must have rolled over more than once because I was walking near the curb and I came against a building. Is that Nero Wolfe?”

The door to the office had opened and Wolfe was there, scowling at us. I told her yes, and told him. “Miss Hattie Annis. She’s telling me why she was late for her appointment. She went to her house on Forty-seventh Street, and coming back a car climbed the curb and hit her. I know there’s no chair here big enough for you, but she ought to stay flat a little longer.”

“I am capable of standing for two minutes,” he said stiffly.

“You don’t look it,” Hattie said. “You would do fine for Falstaff.”

“Finish it,” I told her. “And the car went on?”

“It must have. When I got up it was gone. A man and a woman helped me up, and another man stopped, but nothing was broke and I could walk. So I walked. I didn’t want to try climbing on a bus. I kept in close to the buildings, and I stopped to rest about every block, and the last two blocks I didn’t think I would make it, but I did. How did you know I was there if I fainted?”

“You rang the bell. I caught you before you hit bottom.”

“And you carried me in and I missed it. Carried by a man and didn’t know it. What’s life up to?”

Wolfe came in a step. “Madam. I told Mr. Goodwin I would give you two minutes.”

She had lifted her head and I had put a cushion under it. “I appreciate it,” she said. “A wonderful day. Buster carries me in and Falstaff gives me two minutes — and here’s another one with coffee!”

Fritz coming with the coffee eased the situation. To Wolfe anyone having food or drink in his house is a guest, and guests have to be humored, within reason. He couldn’t tell me to bounce her while I was bringing a stand for the tray and Fritz was filling her cup. So he stood and scowled. When she had taken a sip he spoke.

“Mr. Goodwin said you have something that you think is good for a reward. What is it?”

She had sat up and taken off the woolen gloves. She took another sip. “That’s good coffee,” she said. “First I’ll tell you how I got it. I own that house on Forty-seventh Street. I was born in it.” Another sip. “Do you happen to know that all stage people are crazy?”

Wolfe grunted. “They have no monopoly.”

“Maybe not, but theirs is a special kind. I’m not saying I like them, but they give me a feeling. My father owned a theater. My house is only an eight-minute walk from Times Square, and I only need one room and a kitchen, so they can live there whether they can pay or not. Five of them are living there now — three men and two girls — and they use the kitchen. They’re supposed to make their beds and keep their rooms decent, and some of them do. I never go in their rooms. My room is the second floor front—”

“If you please.” Wolfe was curt. “To the point.”

“I’ll get there, Falstaff. Let the lady talk.” She took a sip. “Good coffee. The ground floor front is the parlor. Nobody goes in there much since my mother died years ago, but once a week I go in and look around, and when I went in yesterday afternoon a mouse ran out from under the piano and went in back of the bookshelves. Do you believe a mouse could run up a woman’s leg?”

“No.” Wolfe was emphatic.

“Neither do I. I got my umbrella from the hall and poked behind the shelves, but he didn’t come out. There’s no back to the shelves, so if I took the books out I’d have him. The bottom shelf has a History of the Thirteen Colonies in ten volumes and a set of Macaulay with the backs coming off. I took them all out, but the mouse wasn’t there. He must have moved while I was getting the umbrella. But in back of the books was a little package I had never seen before, and I opened it, and that’s what I’ve got. If I took it to the cops, good-by. We can split the reward three ways, you and me and Buster here.”

“What’s in it?”

Her head turned. “Open it, Buster.”

I took it from my pocket, sat on a chair, untied the string, and unwrapped the paper. It was a stack of new twenty-dollar bills. I flipped through it at a corner and then at another corner. All twenties.

“Imagine handing that to the cops,” Hattie said. “Of course he knew I had it and he tried to kill me.”

Wolfe grunted. “How much, Archie?”

“About two inches thick. Two hundred and fifty to the inch. Ten thousand dollars, more or less.”

“Madam. You say he tried to kill you. Who?”

“I don’t know which one.” She put her cup down and picked up the pot to pour. “It could be one of the girls, but I’d rather not. If he hadn’t tried to kill me I would just as soon—”

The doorbell rang. After putting the lettuce and paper and string on the chair, I went to the hall and took a look. It was a medium-sized round-shouldered stranger in a dark gray overcoat and a snap brim nearly down to his ears. Before opening the door I shut the one to the front room.

“Yes, sir?”

He took a leather fold from a pocket, flipped it open, and offered it. I took it, Treasury Department of the United States. Secret Service Division. Albert Leach. In the picture he had no hat on, but it was probably him. I handed it back.