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

The coroner's office was in the same building as Anderson's, where I had been six days previously trying to get Wolfe's money covered, and as I passed the door with District Attorney painted on the glass panel I stuck out my tongue at it. The coroner wasn't in, but by luck there was a doctor there signing papers and he was the one who had done the Barstow autopsy. Before leaving home in the morning I had telephoned Sarah Barstow, and now this doctor told me that he had had a phone call from Lawrence Barstow and had been told that I would visit the coroner's office as a representative of the Barstow family. I thought to myself, I'll have that Barstow brat fixing my flat tires before I get through with this.

But I came away as good as empty. Everything that the doctor could tell me I had read three days earlier in the newspapers except for a bunch of medical terms which the papers hadn't tried to print for fear of a typesetters' strike. I don't high-hat technical words, because I know there are a lot of things that can't be said any other way, but the doctor's lengthy explanation simply boiled down to this, that nothing conclusive could be said regarding the poison that had killed Barstow, because no one had been able to analyze it. Additional tissues had been sent to a New York laboratory but no report had been received. The needle had been taken by the District Attorney and was presumably being tested elsewhere.

"Anyway," I said, "there's no chance he died of old age or something? He was actually poisoned? He died a violent death?"

The doctor nodded. "Absolutely. Something remarkably virulent. Haemolysis--"

"Sure. Just between you and me, what is your opinion of a doctor who would go up to a man who had just died like that and would say coronary thrombosis?"

He stiffened as if he had just got rigor mortis himself, only much quicker. "That is not a question for me to decide, Mr. Goodwin."

"I didn't ask you to decide anything, I just asked your opinion."

"I haven't got any."

"You mean you have, only you're going to keep it to remember me by. All right. Much obliged."

On my way out of the building I would have liked to stop in and ask Derwin for Ben Cook's telephone number or some such pleasantry, but I had too much on my mind. By the time I got back to the Green Meadow Club it was nearly noon and I had pretty well decided that life would be nothing but a dreary round until I had had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Bradford.

The two caddies were there. Their boss rounded them up for me, and I made a deal with them: I would get sandwiches, two apiece, bananas, ice cream, and root beer, and we would go over under a tree and eat, drink and be merry, provided they wouldn't expect me to pay for their lost time. They signed up and we collected the provisions from the lunch counter and found the tree.

One of them, a skinny pale kid with brown hair, had been Manuel Kimball's caddy and the other had been Peter Oliver Barstow's. This other was a chunky lad with snappy brown eyes and a lot of freckles; his name was Mike Allen. After we got arranged under the tree, before he took his first bite he said: "You know, mister, we don't get paid."

"What do you mean, you work for fun?"

"We don't get paid all the time, only when we're out on a round. We're not losing any time. We couldn't get another match till after lunch anyhow."

"Oh. You don't say so. You're too darned honest. If you don't watch out you'll get a job in a bank. Go on and eat your sandwich."

While we chewed I got them onto the Barstow foursome. The way they rattled it off it was easy to see they hadn't gone over it more than a thousand times, with Anderson and Corbett of course, the other caddies, families and friends at home. They were glib and ready with an answer on every little detail, and that made it pretty hopeless to try to get anything fresh out of them, for they had drawn the picture so many times that they were now doing it with their eyes shut. Not that I really expected a damn thing, but I had long since learned from Wolfe that the corner the light doesn't reach is the one the dime rolled to. There was no variation worth mentioning from the versions I had got from Larry Barstow and Manuel Kimball. By the time the sandwiches and stuff were down I saw that the pale skinny kid was milked dry, so I sent him back to his boss. Chunky Mike I kept a while, sitting with him under the tree. He had some sense in him and he might have noticed something: for instance, how Dr. Bradford had acted when he arrived at the scene on the fourth fairway. But I didn't get a bite there. He only remembered that the doctor had been out of breath when he had run up with everyone waiting for him, and when he stood up after examining Barstow he had been white and calm.

I checked up on the golf bag. There was no uncertainty in him about that; he had positively put it in the front of Barstow's car, leaning against the driver's seat.

I said, "Of course, Mike, you were pretty excited. At a time like that everybody is. Isn't there a chance you put it in some other car?"

"No, sir. I couldn't. There was no other car there."

"Maybe it was someone else's bag you put in."

"No, sir. I'm not a dummy. When you're a caddy you get so you glance at the heads to make sure all the clubs are in, and after I leaned the bag against the seat I did that, and I remember seeing all the new heads."

"New heads?"

"Sure, they were all new."

"What made them new? Do you mean Barstow had had new heads put on?"

"No, sir, they were new clubs. The new bag of clubs his wife gave him."

"What!"

"Sure."

I didn't want to startle him; I picked a blade of grass and chewed on it. "How do you know his wife gave them to him?"

"He told me."

"How did he happen to tell you?"

"Well, when I went up to him he shook hands and said he was glad to see me again, of course he was one of my babies last year-"

"For God's sake, Mike, wait a minute. What do you mean he was one of your babies?"

The kid grinned. "That's what us fellows call it. When a man likes us for a caddy and won't take another one he's our baby."

"I see. Go on."

"He said he was glad to see me again, and when I took his bag I saw they were all new Hendersons, genuine, and he said he was glad to see I admired the new clubs his wife had given him for his birthday."

There were a couple of bananas left and I handed him one and he began peeling it. I watched him. After a minute I said: "Do you know that Barstow was killed by a poison needle shot out of the handle of a golf driver?"

His mouth was full. He waited till most of it was down before he answered. "I know that's what they say."

"Why, don't you believe it?"

He shook his head. "They've got to show me."

"Why?"

"Well…" He took another bite and swallowed it. "I don't believe you could do it. I've handled a lot of golf clubs. I just don't believe it."

I grinned at him. "You're a skeptic, Mike. You know what my boss says? He says that skepticism is a good watchdog if you know when to take the leash off. I don't suppose you happen to know when Barstow had a birthday?"

He didn't know that. I started to fish around a little more, here and there, but there didn't seem to be any more nibbles in that pool. Besides, the lunch hour was over, afternoon players were beginning to stroll up, and I saw Mike had his eyes on the caddy benches and was beginning to lose interest in me. I was about ready to scramble up and tell him the picnic was over, but he beat me to it. He was on his feet with a sudden spring, the kind young legs can make, and he tossed at me, "Excuse me, mister, that guy's my baby," and was off.

I gathered up the papers and banana skins and went to the clubhouse. There were a good many more people around than when I had arrived in the morning, and finally I had to send an attendant for the chief steward because I couldn't find him. He was busy, but he took time to show me where the library was and tell me to help myself. I looked around the shelves and in a minute had it spotted, the fat red Who's Who in America. I turned to the entry I had already read in Wolfe's office: BARSTOW, Peter Oliver, author, educator, physicist; b. Chatham, Ill., Apr. 9, 1875.