Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 01 - Fer-de-Lance

"Sure. Any other message?"

"Just 'go to hell' for you."

I grinned, and stood on the stoop watching him as he walked off, headed east. I had never heard of him before, but I didn’t know Westchester very well. The name on the card was H. R. Corbett. I went back to the front room and sat and smoked cigarettes.

After lunch, some time around four, I heard a newsy out in the street calling an extra. I went out and called him and bought one. There it was taking up half of the front page: BARSTOW POISONED-- DART FOUND IN BODY. I read it through. If ever I had a pain in the neck it was then. Of course Wolfe and I weren’t mentioned; I hadn’t expected that; but to think of what that piece might have meant to us! I kicked myself for bungling with Derwin, and again with Anderson, for I was sure it could have been handled somehow to let us in, though it was hard to see how. And I kicked Wolfe for his damn relapse. At least I wanted to. I read it again. It wasn’t a dart at all, it was a short steel needle, just as Wolfe had said, and it had been found below the stomach. Sore as I was at Wolfe, I handed it to him. There was his picture.

I went to the kitchen and laid the paper on the table in front of Wolfe without a word, and went out again. He called after me, "Archie! Get the car, here’s a list for you."

I pretended I didn’t hear. Later Fritz went.

Next day the Sunday papers were full of it. They had sent their packs running around sniffing all over Westchester County, but they hadn’t found a thing. I read all the articles through, and I learned a lot of details about the Green Meadow Club, the Barstow family, the Kimballs who had been in the foursome, the doctor who had pulled a boner, and a lot besides, but nobody really knew any more than Wolfe had known Wednesday evening when he had asked Anna Fiore if she had ever seen a golf club in Carlo Maffei’s room. Not as much, for there was no accepted theory as to how the needle got in Barstow’s belly. All the papers had pieces by experts on poisons and what they do to you.

Sunday evening I went to a movie, telling Fritz to open the door to no one. Not that I expected anything; it looked as if Anderson was playing his own hand. Possibly, through motive or discoveries he had made, he was really lining it up. I would have got drunk that evening if it hadn’t been Sunday. When I got back from the movie Wolfe had gone up to his room, but Fritz was still in the kitchen washing up. I fried a piece of ham to make myself a sandwich and poured a glass of milk, for I hadn’t had much dinner. I noticed that the Times I had put there in the morning for Wolfe was still on top of the refrigerator just as I had left it. It was ten-to-one he hadn’t looked at it.

I read in my room until after midnight and then had trouble going to sleep on account of my mind working. But apparently there was no trouble about it after I once got started, for when I pried my eyes open in the morning enough to glance at the clock on the stand it was after nine. I was sitting on the edge of the bed yawning when I heard a noise overhead that woke me up good. Either that was two pairs of footsteps and I knew both of them or I was still dreaming. I went out in the hail and listened a minute and then ran downstairs. Fritz was in the kitchen drinking coffee. "Is that Mr. Wolfe up with Horstmann?"

"And how." That was the only slang Fritz ever used and he always welcomed a chance to get it in. He smiled at me, glad to see me excited and happy. "Now I will just get a leg of lamb and rub garlic on it."

"Rub poison ivy on it if you want to." I went back up to dress.

The relapse was over! I was excited all right. I shaved extra clean and whistled in the bathtub. With Wolfe normal again anything might happen. When I got back down to the kitchen a dish of figs and a fat omelet were ready for me, and the newspaper was propped up against the coffeepot. I started on the headlines and the figs at the same time, but halfway through a fig I stopped chewing. I raced down the paragraphs, swallowing the mouthful whole to get it out of the way. It was plain, the paper stated it as a fact. Although no confirmation was needed, I turned the pages over, running my eyes up and down and across. It was on page eight toward the bottom, a neat little ad in a neat little box:

I read it through three times and then tossed the paper away and got calm. I finished the fruit and omelet, with three pieces of toast and three cups of coffee. Fifty grand, with the Wolfe bank balance sagging like a clothesline under a wet horse blanket; and not only that, but a chance of keeping our places on the platform in the biggest show of the season. I was calm and cool, but it was only twenty minutes after ten. I went to the office and opened the safe and dusted around and waited.

When Wolfe came down at eleven he looked fresh but not noticeably good-humored. He only nodded for good morning and didn’t seem to care much whether I was there or not as he got himself into his chair and started looking through the mail. I just waited, thinking I would show him that other people could be as hard-boiled as he was, but when he began checking off the monthly bill from Harvey’s I popped at him: "I hope you had a nice weekend, sir."

He didn’t look at me, but I saw his cheeks folding. "Thank you, Archie. It was delightful; but on awakening this morning I felt so completely water-logged that with only myself to consider I would have remained in bed to await disintegration. Names battered at me: Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner, Theodore Horstmann; responsibilities; and I arose to resume my burden. Not that I complain; the responsibilities are mutual; but my share can be done only by me."

"Excuse me, sir, but you’re a damn liar, what you did was look at the paper."

He checked off items on the bill. "You can’t rile me, Archie, not today. Paper? I have looked at nothing this morning except life, and that not through a newspaper."

"Then you don’t know that Mrs. Barstow has offered fifty thousand dollars for her husband’s murderer?"

The pencil stopped checking; he didn’t look at me, but the pencil was motionless in his fingers for seconds. Then he placed the bill under a paperweight, laid the pencil beside it, and lifted his head.

"Show it to me."

I exhibited first the ad and then the first page article. Of the ad he read each word; the article he glanced through.

"Indeed," he said. "Indeed. Mr. Anderson does not need the money, even granting the possibility of his earning it, and only a moment ago I was speaking of responsibilities. Archie, do you know what I thought in bed this morning? I thought how horrible and how amusing it would be to send Theodore away and let all those living and breathing plants, all that arrogant and pampered loveliness, thirst and gasp and wither away."

"Good God!"

"Yes. Just an early morning fantasy; I haven’t the will for such a gesture. I would be more likely to offer them at auction--should I decide to withdraw from responsibilities--and take passage for Egypt. You know of course that I own a house in Egypt which I have never seen. The man who gave it to me, a little more than ten years ago--yes, Fritz, what is it?"

Fritz was a little awry, having put on his jacket hurriedly to go to the door.

"A lady to see you, sir."

"Her name?"

"She had no card, sir."

Wolfe nodded, and Fritz went out. In a moment he was back on the threshold, bowing in a young woman.