Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe and the Vanishing Clue

Wolfe grunted. “I phoned him this afternoon, and he was here at six o’clock. He says he knows nothing about it.”

“Then that’s the crop.” I sat and took a sip of coffee. Fritz’ coffee is the best on earth. I’ve done it exactly as he does, but it’s not the same. I took another sip. “So the gag didn’t work.”

“It is not a gag.”

“Then what is it?”

“It is a window for death. I think it is — or was. I’ll leave it at that for tonight. We’ll see tomorrow, Archie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t like the slant of your eye. If you’re thinking of badgering me, don’t. Go somewhere.”

“Glad to. I’ll go have another piece of pie.” I took my cup and saucer and headed for the kitchen.

I spent the rest of the evening there, chewing the rag with Fritz, until his bedtime came, eleven o’clock, and then went to the office to lock the safe and tell Wolfe good night, and mounted the two flights to my room. I have been known to feel fairly well satisfied with myself as I got ready for bed after a day’s work, but not that night. I had failed to learn the fate of the ice cream. I hadn’t the faintest notion where the ice cream came in. I didn’t know what a window for death was, though I knew what it had been on a winter night twenty years ago. One of the noblest functions of a man is to keep millionaires from copping pretty girls, and I hadn’t moved a finger to stop Arrow. And the case was no damn good anyhow, with a slim chance of getting any more out of it than the thousand bucks, and with the job limited to deciding whether to call the cops in or not. It was a bad setup all the way. Usually I’m asleep ten seconds after I hit the pillow, but that night I tossed and turned for a full minute before I went off.

The trouble with mornings is that they come when you’re not awake. It’s all a blur until I am washed and dressed and have somehow made my way down to the kitchen, and got orange juice in me, and I’m not really awake until the fourth griddle cake and the second cup of coffee. But that Thursday morning it was accelerated. As I picked up the glass of orange juice I became aware through the blur that Fritz was putting stuff on a tray, and glanced at my wrist.

“My God,” I said, “you’re late. It’s a quarter past eight.”

“Oh,” he said, “Mr. Wolfe already has his. This is for Saul. He’s up with Mr. Wolfe. He said he already had breakfast, but you know how he likes my summer sausage.”

“When did he come?”

“About eight o’clock. Mr. Wolfe wants you to go up when you’re through breakfast.” He picked up the tray and went.

That did it. I was awake. But that was no good either, because it kept me from enjoying my breakfast. I ate the sausage all right, but forgot to taste it, and I also forgot to put honey on the last cake until it was half gone. I had the Times propped on the rack in front of me, and pretended to read it, but didn’t. It was only 8:32 when I took the last gulp of coffee, shoved my chair back, went to the hall and up one flight to Wolfe’s room, found the door open, and entered.

Wolfe, in his yellow pajamas and barefooted, was seated at the table near a window, and Saul, chewing on griddle cake and sausage, was across from him. I approached.

“Good morning,” I said coldly. “Shoe shine?”

“Archie,” Wolfe said.

“Yes, sir. Suit pressed?”

“This is no time of day for you, I know, but I want to get on with this. Get all of them, including Doctor Buhl. Arrange for them to be here at eleven o’clock, or if that’s impossible, at noon. Tell them I have made my decision and wish to communicate it. If Doctor Buhl is obstinate, tell him that the decision, and my reasons for it, will be of considerable professional interest to him, and that I feel strongly he should be present. If you phone him immediately you may get him before he starts his day’s work. Get him first.”

“Is that all?”

“For the present, yes. I need a little more time with Saul.”

I left them.

It was twenty minutes to twelve when, after a buzz from me on the house phone to tell him they were all there, Wolfe entered, crossed to his desk, greeted them with a nod to the left and one to the right, and sat. On the phone Doctor Buhl and I, after a warm discussion, had settled for eleven-thirty, but he was ten minutes late.

I had given David, as the senior member of the family, the red leather chair. Doctor Buhl and Paul and the Tuttles were ranged in front of Wolfe’s desk, with Paul next to me. I wanted him handy in case Johnny Arrow got a notion to try another one-two on him. Arrow and Anne were in the rear, side by side, behind Doctor Buhl. Saul Panzer was over by the big globe, in one of the yellow chairs, with his feet, on their toes, pulled back. He always sits like that, even when we’re playing pinochle.

Wolfe focused on David. “I was hired,” he said, “to inquire into your brother’s death and decide whether the police should be asked to investigate. I have decided in the affirmative. It is indeed a case for the police.”

They made noises and exchanged glances. Paul turned his head to glare at Johnny Arrow. Louise Tuttle reached for her husband’s arm. Doctor Buhl said with authority, “I challenge that decision. As the attending physician, I demand your reasons for it.”

Wolfe nodded. “Of course, doctor. You are right to make that demand. Naturally the police will want my reasons too, as will the others here, and the simplest way to handle it is for me to dictate my memorandum to Inspector Cramer of the Homicide Squad in your presence.” His eyes moved. “It will go better if none of you interrupt. If there are questions after I finish I’ll answer them. Archie, your notebook, please. First a letter to Mr. Cramer.”

I swiveled to get the notebook and pen, swiveled back, crossed my legs, and rested the notebook on my knee. That way I was facing the audience. “Shoot,” I told him.

“Dear Mr. Cramer. I believe you should give your attention to the death of a man named Bertram Fyfe last Saturday night in his apartment at Churchill Towers. In support of that belief I enclose summaries of recent conversations with seven persons, with identifying data, and also a memorandum of the results of the inquiry I have made. Sincerely.”

He wiggled a finger at me. “You will prepare the summaries and data, and the memorandum will tell you what should be included and what may be omitted. Start the memorandum on my letterhead, in the usual form. Understood?”

“Right.”

He leaned back and took a breath. “The memorandum: Since three of the persons involved, including the deceased, are named Fyfe, I shall use first names. Paul’s conjecture regarding the morphine can, I think, be ignored. To suppose that one of those present brought with him lethal tablets of some sort, so similar in appearance to the morphine tablets that they could be substituted without arousing the suspicion of the nurse, would be extravagant indeed. One person, Tuttle, the pharmacist, might have had such tablets or been able to get them or make them, but even so it would have to be assumed that he anticipated an opportunity to substitute them unobserved, also an extravagant assumption.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Dr. Buhl declared. “Any lethal substance in the Pharmacopoeia would have left evidence that I would have detected.”

“I doubt that, doctor. It’s an overstatement, and I wouldn’t advise you to repeat it on the witness stand. I asked you not to interrupt. Archie?”

He wanted the last three words, and I obliged. “‘An extravagant assumption.’”

“Yes. Therefore, after routine inquiry by Mr. Goodwin, I dismissed jugglery with the morphine as a mere chimera of Paul’s spiteful fancy; and indeed I would have dismissed the whole matter on that basis but for one pesky thorn, the hot-water bags. Paragraph.