Rex Stout - The Labor Union Murder

Flora Korby swiveled her head, with no hat hiding any of her dark brown hair, to face me with her dark brown eyes. She spoke.

“I guess I should have brought my car and led the way.”

“I’m doing fine,” I assured her. “I could shut one eye too.”

“Please don’t,” she begged. “I’m stupefied as it is. May I have your autograph — I mean when we stop?”

Since she was highly presentable I didn’t mind her assuming that I was driving with one hand because my right arm wanted to stretch across her shoulders, though she was wrong. I had left the cradle long ago. But there was no point in explaining to her that Nero Wolfe, who was in the back seat, had a deep distrust of moving vehicles and hated to ride in one unless I drove it, and therefore I was glad to have an excuse to drive with one hand because that would make it more thrilling for him.

Anyway, she might have guessed it. The only outside interest that Wolfe permits to interfere with his personal routine of comfort, not to mention luxury, is Rusterman’s restaurant. Its founder, Marko Vukcic, was Wolfe’s oldest and closest friend; and when Vukcic died, leaving the restaurant to members of the staff and making Wolfe executor of his estate, he also left a letter asking Wolfe to see to it that the restaurant’s standards and reputation were maintained; and Wolfe had done so, making unannounced visits there once or twice a week, and sometimes even oftener, without ever grumbling — well, hardly ever. But he sure did grumble when Felix, the maître d’hôtel, asked him to make a speech at the Independence Day picnic of the United Restaurant Workers of America. Hereafter I’ll make it URWA.

He not only grumbled, he refused. But Felix kept after him, and Wolfe finally gave in when Felix came to the office one day with reinforcements: Paul Rago, the sauce chef at the Churchill; James Korby, the president of URWA; H. L. Griffin, a food and wine importer who supplied hard-to-get items not only for Rusterman’s but also for Wolfe’s own table; and Philip Holt, URWA’s director of organization. They also were to be on the program at the picnic, and their main appeal was that they simply had to have the man who was responsible for keeping Rusterman’s the best restaurant in New York after the death of Marko Vukcic. Since Wolfe is only as vain as three peacocks, and since he had loved Marko if he ever loved anyone, that got him. There had been another inducement: Philip Holt had agreed to lay off of Fritz, Wolfe’s chef and housekeeper. For three years Fritz had been visiting the kitchen at Rusterman’s off and on as a consultant, and Holt had been pestering him, insisting that he had to join URWA. You can guess how Wolfe liked that.

Since I do everything that has to be done in connection with Wolfe’s business and his rare social activities, except that he thinks he does all the thinking, and we won’t go into that now, it would be up to me to get him to the scene of the picnic, Culp’s Meadows on Long Island, on the Fourth of July. Around the end of June James Korby phoned and introduced his daughter Flora. She told me that the directions to Culp’s Meadows were very complicated, and I said that all directions on Long Island were very complicated, and she said she had better drive us out in her car.

I liked her voice, that is true, but also I have a lot of foresight, and it occurred to me immediately that it would be a new and exciting experience for my employer to watch me drive with one hand, so I told her that, while it must be Wolfe’s car and I must drive, I would deeply appreciate it if she would come along and tell me the way. That was how it happened, and that was why, when we finally rolled through the gate at Culp’s Meadows, after some thirty miles of Long Island parkways and another ten of grade intersections and trick turns, Wolfe’s lips were pressed so tight he didn’t have any. He had spoken only once, around the fourth or fifth mile, when I had swept around a slowpoke.

“Archie. You know quite well.”

“Yes, sir.” Of course I kept my eyes straight ahead. “But it’s an impulse, having my arm like this, and I’m afraid to take it away because if I fight an impulse it makes me nervous, and driving when you’re nervous is bad.”

A glance in the mirror showed me his lips tightening, and they stayed tight.

Passing through the gate at Culp’s Meadows, and winding around as directed by Flora Korby, I used both hands. It was a quarter to three, so we were on time, since the speeches were scheduled for three o’clock. Flora was sure a space would have been saved for us back of the tent, and after threading through a few acres of parked cars I found she was right, and rolled to a stop with the radiator only a couple of yards from the canvas. She hopped out and opened the rear door on her side, and I did likewise on mine. Wolfe’s eyes went right to her, and then left to me. He was torn. He didn’t want to favor a woman, even a young and pretty one, but he absolutely had to show me what he thought of one-handed driving. His eyes went right again, the whole seventh of a ton of him moved, and he climbed out on her side.

The tent, on a wooden platform raised three feet above the ground, not much bigger than Wolfe’s office, was crowded with people, and I wormed through to the front entrance and on out, where the platform extended into the open air. There was plenty of air, with a breeze dancing in from the direction of the ocean, and plenty of sunshine. A fine day for the Fourth of July. The platform extension was crammed with chairs, most of them empty. I can’t report on the condition of the meadow’s grass because my view was obstructed by ten thousand restaurant workers and their guests, maybe more. A couple of thousand of them were in a solid mass facing the platform, presumably those who wanted to be up front for the speeches, and the rest were sprayed around all over, clear across to a fringe of trees and a row of sheds.

Flora’s voice came from behind my shoulder. “They’re coming out, so if there’s a chair you like, grab it. Except the six up front; they’re for the speakers.”

Naturally I started to tell her I wanted the one next to hers, but didn’t get it out because people came jostling out of the tent onto the extension. Thinking I had better warn Wolfe that the chair he was about to occupy for an hour or so was about half as wide as his fanny, to give him time to fight his impulses, I worked past to the edge of the entrance, and when the exodus had thinned out I entered the tent. Five men were standing grouped beside a cot which was touching the canvas of the far side, and a man was lying on the cot. To my left Nero Wolfe was bending over to peer at the contents of a metal box there on a table with its lid open. I stepped over for a look and saw a collection of bone-handled knives, eight of them, with blades varying in length from six inches up to twelve. They weren’t shiny, but they looked sharp, worn narrow by a lot of use for a lot of years. I asked Wolfe whose throat he was going to cut.

“They are Dubois,” he said. “Real old Dubois. The best. They belong to Mr. Korby. He brought them to use in a carving contest, and he won, as he should. I would gladly steal them.” He turned. “Why don’t they let that man alone?”

I turned too, and through a gap in the group saw that the man on the cot was Philip Holt, URWA’s director of organization. “What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“Something he ate. They think snails. Probably the wrong kind of snails. A doctor gave him something to help his bowels handle them. Why don’t they leave him alone with his bowels?”