Rex Stout: Before Midnight

As I finished my orange juice and started on griddle cakes, Wolfe expounded. He said the surprise was incidental; he had phoned them after I had gone to bed, when he had conceived a procedure.

“Fine,” I approved, spreading butter to melt, “we’ve got a procedure. For these gentlemen?”

“For all of us,” he said. “I have described the situation to them, as much as they’ll need. It is a procedure of desperation, with perhaps one chance in twenty of success. After hours on it, most of the night, this was the best I could do. As you know, I was assuming that one of four men — Hansen, Buff, O’Garro, Heery — had killed Dahlmann and taken the wallet, and that because Assa had learned of it or suspected it he had been killed too.”

“I know that’s what you told Cramer.”

“It’s also what I told myself.”

“Why would one of them kill Dahlmann?”

“I don’t know, but if he did he had a reason. That remains, along with his identity. To search into motives would take long and toilsome investigation, and even then motive alone is nothing. I preferred to focus on identity. Which of the four? I went over and over every word they have uttered, to you and to me; all their tones and glances and postures. There was no hint — at least, not for me. I considered all possible lines of inquiry, and found that all of them either had already been pursued by the police, or were now being pursued, or were hopelessly tenuous. All I had left, at five o’clock this morning, that gave the slightest promise of some result without a prolonged and laborious siege, was the possibility of a satisfactory answer to the question: where did he get the poison?”

Chewing griddle cake and ham, I looked at him. “Good lord, if that’s the best we can do. Cramer has an army on it right now. There are six of us and we have no badges, and if—” I stopped because I saw his eyes. “You’ve got something?”

“Yes. A straw to grab at. Can’t it be reasonably supposed that the decision to kill Mr. Assa was made only yesterday afternoon, resulting from the situation caused by the contestants’ receipt of the answers by mail? Various circumstances support such—”

“Don’t bother. I’ve gone over it too a little. I’ll buy that.”

“Then some time yesterday afternoon, not before, he decided that Mr. Assa would have to be killed, and he conceived the idea of using cyanide and putting it in his drink. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then where the devil did he get the cyanide?”

“I couldn’t — oh. That does make it a little special.”

“It does indeed. Did he choose cyanide as something he knew to be lightning-swift and go out and buy some? Hardly. He could of course have procured it easily — a photographic supply house, for one — but he was not an imbecile. No. He knew where some was, handy; he knew where he could get some without being observed. Where? There are a thousand possibilities, and it may have been any one of them, but I didn’t bother speculating about them because one of them was looking at me — or rather, at you. I hadn’t seen it, but you had.”

“Hold it.” I put my coffee cup down. “I’ve seen it?”

“Yes.”

“And told you about it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s interesting.” I closed my eyes, opened them, and slapped the table. “Oh, sure. The display cases at the LBA office. I might have thought of it myself if I had stayed up all night — but I don’t remember seeing any cyanide.”

“You weren’t looking for it. You said there are thousands of items from hundreds of firms. We’re going to look for it.”

“After it’s gone? If he took it, it’s not there.”

“All the better. If he took only what he needed of it we’ll find the residue. If he took it all yesterday or has removed the residue since, we’ll find where it was — or we won’t. There must be a list of the contents of those cases. There’s no point in our trying to intrude before office hours, so there’s plenty of time. Now for the details. I’ll be with you, but you should know what I have in mind for the various eventualities — all of you. Fritz! Coffee!”

He gave us details.

If anyone considers this incident an exception to Wolfe’s rule never to leave the house on business, I say no. It was not business. He was after the man who had abused his hospitality, which was unforgivable, and made him eat crow in front of Cramer, which was outrageous. I have evidence. On a later day, when he was going over the expense account I had prepared for LBA, he left in the fare for one taxi that morning, the one that Fred and Orrie and Bill took, but took out the other, the one that had carried him and Saul and me.

It lacked a minute of nine-thirty when the six of us entered an elevator in the modern midtown skyscraper, but when we got out at the twenty-second floor the aristocratic brunette with nice little ears was there on the job behind her eight-foot desk. The sudden appearance of a gang of half a dozen males startled her a little, but as I approached and she recognized me she recovered.

I told her good morning. “I’m afraid we’ll be making a little disturbance, but we’ve got a job to do. This is Mr. Nero Wolfe.”

Wolfe, at my elbow, nodded. “We have to inventory the contents of the cabinets. The death of Mr. Assa — of course you know of it.”

“Yes, I... I know.”

“That makes it necessary to proceed without delay.”

She looked beyond us, and I turned to do likewise. The squad was certainly proceeding without delay. Saul Panzer had slid open the glass front of the end cabinet at the left wall and had his notebook out. Fred Durkin was at the end cabinet at the right wall, and Bill and Orrie were at the far wall, which was solid with cabinets, a stretch of some fifty feet. It was a relief to see that they all had doors open. I had seen no locks on my former visit, but there could have been tricky ones. We had brought along an assortment of keys, but using them would have made it complicated.

“I know nothing about this,” the brunette said. “Who told you to do it?”

“It’s part of a job,” Wolfe told her, “that was given me by Messrs. Buff, O’Garro, and Assa last Wednesday. I refer you to them. — Come, Archie.”

We headed for the cabinets at the right wall, those nearest the elevators, and as we reached them Fred left and went to join Saul at the left wall. That was according to the plan of battle as outlined at headquarters. I didn’t bother to get out my notebook, wanting both hands free for moving things when necessary. For the first cabinet it wasn’t necessary. It held a picture of an ocean liner, some miniature bags of a line of fertilizers, cartons of cigarettes, a vacuum cleaner, and various other items. The bottom shelf of the second cabinet was no more promising, with an outboard motor, soaps and detergents, canned soup, and beer in both bottles and cans, but the second shelf had packaged goods and got more attention. It didn’t seem likely that cyanide would have fitted in with cereals and cake mixes and noodles, but the program said to look at each and every package. I was doing so, with Wolfe standing behind me, when an authoritative voice sounded.

“Are you Nero Wolfe? What’s going on?”

I straightened and turned. A six-foot executive with a jutting jaw was facing Wolfe and wanted no nonsense. Since he hadn’t emerged from an elevator, he must have been inside and the brunette had summoned him.

“I’ve explained,” Wolfe said, “to the woman at the desk.”

“I know what you told her and it sounds fishy. Get away from these cabinets and stay away until I can check.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr....”

“My name’s Falk.”

“I’m sorry we can’t oblige you, Mr. Falk. I was hired by Mr. Buff and Mr. O’Garro — and Mr. Assa, who is dead. We’ve started and we’re going to finish. You look truculent, but I advise you to consult Mr. Buff or Mr. O’Garro. Where are they?”