Rex Stout: Counterfeit for Murder

My rule is, never be rude to anyone unless you mean it. But when I looked through the one-way glass panel of the front door and saw her out on the stoop, my basic feelings about the opposite sex were hurt. Granting that women can’t stay young and beautiful forever, that the years are bound to show, at least they don’t have to let their gray hair straggle over their ears or wear a coat with a button missing or forget to wash their face, and this specimen was guilty on all three counts. So, as she put a finger to the button and the bell rang, I opened the door and told her, “I don’t want any, thanks. Try next door.” I admit it was rude.

“I would have once, Buster,” she said. “Thirty years ago I was a real treat.”

That didn’t help matters any. I have conceded that the years are bound to show.

“I want to see Nero Wolfe,” she said. “Do I walk right through you?”

“There are difficulties,” I told her. “One, I’m bigger than you are. Two, Mr. Wolfe can be seen only by appointment. Three, he won’t be available until eleven o’clock, more than an hour from now.”

“All right, I’ll come in and wait. I’m half froze. Are you nailed down?”

A notion struck me. Wolfe believes, or claims he does, that any time I talk him into seeing a female would-be client he knows exactly what to expect if and when he sees her, and this would show him how wrong he was.

“Your name, please?” I asked her.

“My name’s Annis. Hattie Annis.”

“What do you want to see Mr. Wolfe about?”

“I’ll tell him when I see him. If my tongue’s not froze.”

“You’ll have to tell me, Mrs. Annis. My name—”

“Miss Annis.”

“Okay. My name is Archie Goodwin.”

“I know it is. If you’re thinking I don’t look like I can pay Nero Wolfe, there’ll be a reward and I’ll split it with him. If I took it to the cops they’d do the splitting. I wouldn’t trust a cop if he was naked as a baby.”

“What will the reward be for?”

“For what I’ve got here.” She patted her black leather handbag, the worse for wear, with a hand in a woolen glove.

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell Nero Wolfe. Look, Buster, I’m no Eskimo. Let the lady in.”

That wasn’t feasible. I had been in the hall with my hat and overcoat and gloves on, on my way for a morning walk crosstown to the bank to deposit a check for $7417.65 in Wolfe’s account, when I had seen her through the one-way glass panel aiming her finger at the bell button. Letting her in and leaving her in the office while I took my walk was out of the question. The other inhabitants of that old brownstone on West 35th Street, the property of Nero Wolfe except for the furniture and other items in my bedroom, were around but they were busy. Fritz Brenner, the chef and housekeeper, was in the kitchen making chestnut soup. Wolfe was up in the plant rooms on the roof for his two-hour morning session with the orchids, and of course Theodore Horstmann was with him.

I wasn’t rude about it. I told her there were several places nearby where she could spend the hour and thaw out — Sam’s Diner at the corner of Tenth Avenue, or the drug store at the corner of Ninth, or Tony’s tailor shop where she could have a button sewed on her coat and charge it to me. She didn’t push. I said if she came back at a quarter past eleven I might have persuaded Wolfe to see her, and she turned to go, and then turned back, opened the black leather handbag, and took out a package wrapped in brown paper with a string around it.

“Keep this for me, Buster,” she said. “Some nosy cop might take it on himself. Come on, it won’t bite. And don’t open it. Can I trust you not to open it?”

I took it because I liked her. She had fine instincts and no sense at all. She had refused to tell me what was in it, and was leaving it with me and telling me not to open it — my idea of a true woman if only she would comb her hair and wash her face and sew a button on. So I took it, and told her I would expect her at a quarter past eleven, and she went. When I had seen her descend the seven steps to the sidewalk and turn left, toward Tenth Avenue, I shut the door from the inside and took a look at the package. It was rectangular, some six inches long and three wide, and a couple of inches thick. I put it to my ear and held my breath, and heard nothing. But you never know what science will do next, and there were at least three dozen people in the metropolitan area who had it in for Wolfe, not to mention a few who didn’t care much for me, so instead of taking it to the office, to my desk or the safe, I went to the front room and stashed it under the couch, If you ask if I untied the string and unwrapped the paper for a look, your instincts are not as fine as they should be. Anyhow, I had gloves on.

Also there had been nothing doing for more than a week, since we had cleaned up the Brigham forgery case, and my mind needed exercise as much as my legs and lungs, so walking crosstown and back I figured out what was in the package. After discarding a dozen guesses that didn’t appeal to me I decided it was the Hope diamond. The one that had been sent to Washington was a phony. I was still working on various details, such as Hattie Annis’s real name and station and how she had got hold of it, on the last stretch approaching the old brownstone, and therefore got nearly to the stoop before I saw that it was occupied. Perched on the top step was exactly the kind of female Wolfe expects to see when I talk him into seeing one. The right age, the right face, the right legs — what showed of them below the edge of her fur coat. The coat was not mink or sable. As I started to mount she got up.

“Well,” she said. “A grand idea, this outdoor waiting room, but there ought to be magazines.”

I reached her level. The top of her fuzzy little turban was even with my nose. “I suppose you rang?” I asked.

“I did. And was told through a crack that Mr. Wolfe was engaged and Mr. Goodwin was out. Mr. Goodwin, I presume?”

“Right.” I had my key ring out. “I’ll bring some magazines. Which ones do you like?”

“Let’s go in and look them over.”

Wolfe wouldn’t be down for more than half an hour, and it would be interesting to know what she was selling, so I used the key on the door and swung it open. When I had disposed of my hat and coat on the hall rack I ushered her to the office, moved one of the yellow chairs up for her, and went to my desk and sat.

“We have no vacancies at the moment,” I said, “but you can leave your number. Don’t call us, we’ll call—”

“That’s pretty corny,” she said. She had thrown her coat open to drape it over the back of the chair, revealing other personal details that went fine with the face and legs.

“Okay,” I conceded. “It’s your turn.”

“My name is Tammy Baxter. Short for Tamiris. I haven’t decided yet which one to use on a theater program when the time comes. What do you think, Tammy or Tamiris?”

“It would depend on the part. If it’s the lead in a musical, Tammy. If it packs some weight, O’Neill for instance, Tamiris.”

“It’s more apt to be a girl at one of the tables in the night-club scene. The one who jumps up and says, ‘Come on, Bill, let’s get out of here.’ That’s her big line.” She fluttered a gloved hand. “Oh, well. What do you care? Why don’t you ask me what I want?”

“I’m putting it off because I may not have it.”

“That’s nice. I like that. That’s a good line, only you threw it away. There should be a pause after ‘off.’ ‘I’m putting it off... because I may not have it.’ Try it again.”