Рекс Стаут - A Family Affair

Orrie turned and walked out. Saul got up and followed, and I tagged along, and Fred was right behind me. My mind was on a point of etiquette — should you open the door for a departing guest in whose pocket you have just put a bomb that you hope he’ll use? Saul didn’t; he stayed behind. Orrie not only opened the door, he pulled it shut after him, with us standing there. The spring lock clicked in place, but Saul slid the bolt, which was sensible. Orrie was good with locks, and he just might have ideas. Apparently no one felt like talking; we stood there.

“No bets,” I said. “No bets either way.”

“Me neither,” Saul said. “Not a dime. If it takes a year, it will be a bad year for all of us. And you have a family, Fred.”

“Right here and now,” Fred said, “I’ve got me, and I’m empty. I could swallow some of that salami I turned down, if you can spare it.”

“ That’s a bet,” Saul said and headed for the kitchen.

At a quarter past eleven Thursday morning I pushed the button at the door of the old brownstone for Fritz to come and slide the bolt. Behind my elbows were Saul and Fred. Fred had gone home to his own bed and come back at nine o’clock, but I had slept on the couch in Saul’s living room. I hadn’t overslept, and neither had Saul; we had turned on the radio at six and seven and eight and nine and ten, so we were well informed on current events. A little after ten I had called the Gazette and left word for Lon Cohen that I could be reached at Saul’s place until eleven and then at the office. I hadn’t called Wolfe. I had told him we were going to decide what to do, and let him think we were spending the night at it. For breakfast Saul and I had had two thick slices of broiled ham, six poached eggs, and about a dozen thin slices of buttered toast sprinkled with chives. Saul grows chives in a sixteen-inch box in his kitchen window.

It wouldn’t be accurate reporting to say that Wolfe’s mouth dropped open when he saw us walk in, but it might have, though it never had, if he hadn’t heard our voices in the hall. What he did do, he put on an act. He finished a paragraph in a book he was reading, took his time inserting the thin strip of gold he used for a bookmark, put the book down, and said, “Good morning.”

Saul went to the red leather chair, Fred pulled up a yellow one, and I went to my desk, sat, and said, “I have asked Saul to report. He was the host.”

Saul said, “Fred came about an hour after Archie phoned you. I called Orrie and asked him to come at nine o’clock. We decided to try to make him kill himself. When he came we jumped him without warning. He had his gun as usual, and in a pocket of his jacket he had a Don Pedro cigar tube. We went in and sat down and talked for about half an hour. Mostly Archie talked. He told him we were going to make it impossible for him to live. Orrie said Bassett was going to ruin him and Pierre hit him for a thousand dollars. I sealed the cigar tube with adhesive tape and put it back in his pocket, but we kept his gun. He left a little before ten o’clock.”

Wolfe said, “Satisfactory,” but he said it only with his eyes. His mouth stayed shut tight. He leaned back and closed his eyes and breathed deep. Saul looked at me and was going to say something, but he didn’t get it out because he was interrupted by a noise. Two noises. First the ring of the doorbell, and a moment later a shattering crack and clatter, somewhere close. We jumped and ran to the hall, Fred in front because he was closest. But in the hall he stopped and I passed him. As I neared the front door I slowed because the floor was covered with pieces of glass. There was nothing left of the glass panel in the door, three feet by four feet, but some jagged edges. I slid the bolt and opened the door enough to get through and stepped out.

Down on the sidewalk at the foot of the steps was Orrie Cather’s topcoat. From up above that’s just what it was, his topcoat. I went down the seven steps, and then I could see his face. There was nothing much wrong with his face. He had liked his face too much to hold it the way Pierre had held it. Nine days and ten hours had passed, two hundred and twenty-six hours, since I had stood and looked down at what had been Pierre’s face.

I lifted my head, and Saul and Fred were there, one on each side. “Okay,” I said, “stand by. I’m going in and ring Lon Cohen. I owe him something.”

At half past nine that evening Wolfe and I were leaving the dining room, an hour later than usual, for after-dinner coffee in the office, when the doorbell rang. Wolfe shot a glance at the front door. He didn’t stop, but he had seen who it was, because I had stood my ground with Ralph Kerner of Town House Services and insisted that the temporary emergency job on the front door had to include some one-way glass. The bolt was a new one and wasn’t well fitted. I slid it and opened up, and Inspector Cramer entered.

He gave me a funny look, as if he wanted to ask me a question but couldn’t decide how to put it. Then he looked around at the marks on the wall and bench and rack, and the floor mat. I said, “The glass. You should have seen it.” He said, “Yeah, I bet,” and headed down the hall. I followed.

He always goes straight to the red leather chair, but not that time. Three steps in he stopped and sent his eyes around, left to right and then right to left. Then he went to the big globe and turned it, in no hurry, clear around, first to the right and then to the left, while I stood and stared. Then he took off his coat and dropped it on a yellow chair, crossed to the red leather chair, sat, and said, “I’ve been wanting to do that for years. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that it’s the biggest and finest globe I ever saw. Also I’ve never mentioned that this is the best working room I know. The best-looking. I mention it now because I may never see it again.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe’s brows were up. “Are you retiring? You’re not old enough.”

“No, I’m not retiring. Maybe I should. I’m not old enough, but I’m tired enough. But I’m not. But you are. You could call it retiring.”

“Apparently you have been misinformed. Or are you guessing?”

“No, I’m not guessing.” Cramer got a cigar from a pocket, not a Don Pedro, stuck it in his mouth and clamped his teeth on it, and took it out again. He hadn’t lit one for years. “It’s no go, Wolfe. This time you are done. Not only the DA, the Commissioner. I think he has even spoken to the Mayor. Is this being recorded?”

“Of course not. My word of honor if you need it.”

“I don’t.” Cramer put the cigar between his teeth, took it out, threw it at my wastebasket, and missed by two feet. “You know,” he said, “I don’t really know how dumb you think I am. I never have known.”

“Pfui. That’s flummery. My knowledge of you is not mere surmise. I know you. Certainly your mental processes have limits, so have mine, but you are not dumb — your word — at all. If you were dumb, you would have in fact concluded that I am done — again, your word — and you wouldn’t have come. You would have abandoned me to the vengeance of the District Attorney — perhaps with a touch of regret that you wouldn’t have another chance to come and whirl that globe around.”

“Goddam it, I didn’t whirl it!”

“Spin, rotate, twirl, circumvolute — your choice. So why did you come?”

“ You tell me .”

“I will. Because you suspected that I might not be done, there might be a hole I could wriggle out through, and you wanted to know where and how.”

“That would be a wriggle. You wriggle?”