Rex Stout: The Zero Clue

Back downstairs in the office, I phoned Heller and told him nothing doing. “He’s extremely sensitive,” I explained, “and this is an insult. As you know, he’s the greatest detective that ever lived, and — do you know that?”

“I’m willing to postulate it,” Heller conceded in a thin voice that tended to squeak. “Why an insult?”

“Because you want to hire Nero Wolfe — meaning me, really — to collect facts on which you can base a decision whether your suspicion about your client is justified. You might as well try to hire Stan Musial as bat boy. Mr. Wolfe doesn’t sell the raw material for answers; he sells answers.”

“I’m quite willing to pay him for an answer, any amount short of exorbitance, and in cash. I’m gravely concerned about this client, this situation, and my data is insufficient. I shall be delighted if with the data I get an answer from Mr. Wolfe, and—”

“And,” I put in, “if his answer is that your client has committed a serious crime, as you suspect, he decides whether and when to call a cop, not you. Yes?”

“Certainly.” Heller was eager to oblige. “I do not intend or desire to shield a criminal — on the contrary.”

“Okay. Then it’s like this. It wouldn’t do any good for me to take it up with Mr. Wolfe again today because his feelings have been hurt. But tomorrow morning I have to go to our bank on Lexington Avenue not far from your place, to deposit a couple of checks, and I could drop in to see you and get the sketch. I suspect that I make this offer mostly because I’m curious to see what you look like and talk like, but I haven’t enough data to apply the laws of probability to it. Frankly, I doubt if Mr. Wolfe will take this on, but we can always use money, and I’ll try to sell him. Shall I come?”

“What time?”

“Say a quarter past ten.”

“Come ahead. My business day begins at eleven. Take the elevator to the fifth floor. An arrow points right, to the waiting room, but go left to the door at the end of the hall, and push the button, and I’ll let you in. If you’re on time we’ll have more than half an hour.”

“I’m always on time.”

That morning I was a little early. It was nine minutes past ten when I entered the lobby on Thirty-seventh Street and gave the watchdog my name.

I told the watchdog I would try to get Nero Wolfe’s autograph for him, and wrote his name in my notebook: Nils Lamm. Meanwhile the girl stood there facing us, frowning at us. She was twenty-three or — four, up to my chin, and without the deep frown her face would probably have deserved attention. Since she showed no trace of embarrassment, staring fixedly at a stranger, I saw no reason why I should, but something had to be said, so I asked her, “Do you want one?”

She cocked her head. “One what?”

“Autograph. Either Mr. Wolfe’s or mine, take your pick.”

“Oh. You are Archie Goodwin, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture too.”

“Then I’m it.”

“I—” She hesitated, then made up her mind. “I want to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

Someone trotted in from the street, a brisk female in mink, executive type, between twenty and sixty, and the girl and I moved aside to clear the lane to the elevator. The newcomer told Nils Lamm she was seeing Leo Heller and refused to give her name, but when Lamm insisted she coughed it up: Agatha Abbey, she said, and he let her take the elevator. The girl told me she had been working all night and was tired, and we went to a bench by the fireplace. Close up, I would still have said twenty-three or — four, but someone or something had certainly been harassing her. Naturally there was a question in my mind about the night work.

She answered it. “My name’s Susan Maturo, and I’m a registered nurse.”

“Thanks. You know mine, and I’m a registered detective.”

She nodded. “That’s why I want to ask you something. If I hired Nero Wolfe to investigate a — a matter, how much would it cost?”

I raised my shoulders half an inch and let them down. “It all depends. The kind of matter, the amount of time taken, the wear and tear on his brain, the state of your finances....”

I paused, letting it hang, to return a rude stare that was being aimed at us by another arrival, a thin tall bony specimen in a brown suit that badly needed pressing, with a bulging briefcase under his arm. When my gaze met his he called it off and turned and strode to the elevator, without any exchange with Nils Lamm.

I resumed to Susan Maturo. “Have you got a matter, or are you just researching?”

“Oh, I’ve got a matter.” She set her teeth on her lip — nice teeth, and not a bad lip — and kept them that way a while, regarding me. Then she went on, “It hit me hard, and it’s been getting worse in me instead of better. I began to be afraid I was going batty, and I decided to come to this Leo Heller and see what he could do, so I came this morning, but I was sitting up there in his waiting room — two people were already there, a man and a woman — and it went all through me that I was just being bitter and vindictive, and I don’t think I’m really like that — I’m pretty sure I never have been—”

Apparently she needed some cooperation, so I assured her, “You don’t look vindictive.”

She touched my sleeve with her fingertips to thank me. “So I got up and left, and then as I was leaving the elevator I heard that man saying your name and who you are, and it popped into my head to ask you. I asked how much it would cost to have Nero Wolfe investigate, but that was premature, because what I really want is to tell him about it and get his advice about investigating.”

She was dead serious and she was all worked up, so I arranged my face and voice to fit. “It’s like this,” I told her, “for that kind of approach to Mr. Wolfe, with no big fee in prospect, some expert preparation is required, and I’m the only expert in the field.” I glanced at my wrist and saw 10:19. “I’ve got a date, but I can spare five minutes if you want to brief me on the essentials, and then I’ll tell you how it strikes me. What was it that hit you?”

She looked at me, shot a glance at Nils Lamm, who couldn’t have moved out of earshot in that lobby if he had wanted to, and came back to me. Her jaw quivered, and she clamped it tight and held it for a moment, then released it and spoke. “When I start to talk about it, it sticks in my throat and chokes me, and five minutes wouldn’t be enough, and anyway I need someone old and wise like Nero Wolfe. Won’t you let me see him?”

I promised to try. I told her that it would be hard to find any man in the metropolitan area more willing to help an attractive girl in distress than I was, but it would be a waste of time and effort for me to take her in to Wolfe cold, and though I was neither old nor wise she would have to give me at least a full outline before I could furnish either an opinion or help. She agreed that that was reasonable and gave me her address and phone number, and we arranged to communicate later in the day. I went and opened the door for her, and she departed.

On the way up in the elevator my watch said 10:28, so I wasn’t on time after all, but we would still have half an hour before Heller’s business day began. On the fifth floor a plaque on the wall facing the elevator was lettered LEO HELLER, WAITING ROOM, with an arrow pointing right, and at that end of the narrow hall a door bore the invitation, WALK IN. I turned left, toward the other end, where I pushed a button beside a door, noticing as I did so that the door was ajar a scanty inch. When my ring brought no response, and a second one, more prolonged, didn’t either, I shoved the door open, crossed the sill, and called Heller’s name. No reply. There was no one in sight.