Rex Stout: The Squirt and the Monkey

“That depends.” Parker sounded like a lawyer. “If it’s rushed all possible and there are no unforeseen obstacles and the defendant is accessible for service, it could be merely a matter of hours.”

“By noon tomorrow?”

“Quite possibly, yes.”

“Then proceed, please. Mr. Koven has destroyed, by slander, my means of livelihood. I wish to bring an action demanding payment by him of the sum of one million dollars.”

“M-m-m-m,” Parker said. He was frowning.

I addressed Wolfe. “I want to apologize,” I told him, “for jumping to a conclusion. I was supposing you had lost control for once and buried it too deep in Cramer. Whereas you did it purposely, getting set for this. I’ll be damned.”

Wolfe grunted.

“In this sort of thing,” Parker said, “it is usual, and desirable, to first send a written request for recompense, by your attorney if you prefer. It looks better.”

“I don’t care how it looks. I want immediate action.”

“Then we’ll act.” That was one of the reasons Wolfe stuck to Parker; he was no dilly-dallier. “But I must ask, isn’t the sum a little flamboyant? A full million?”

“It is not flamboyant. At a hundred thousand a year, a modest expectation, my income would be a million in ten years. A detective license once lost in this fashion is not easily regained.”

“All right. A million. I’ll need all the facts for drafting a complaint.”

“You have them. You’ve just heard Archie recount them. Must you stickle for more?”

“No. I’ll manage.” Parker got to his feet. “One thing, though, service of process may be a problem. Policemen may still be around, and even if they aren’t I doubt if strangers will be getting into that house tomorrow.”

“Archie will send Saul Panzer to you. Saul can get in anywhere and do anything.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “I want Mr. Koven to get that. I want to see him in this room. Five times this morning I tried to get him on the phone, without success. If that doesn’t get him I’ll devise something that will.”

“He’ll give it to his attorney.”

“Then the attorney will come, and if he’s not an imbecile I’ll give myself thirty minutes to make him send for his client or go and get him. Well?”

Parker turned and left, not loitering. I got at the typewriter to make out a bill for half a grand, which seemed like a waste of paper after what I had just heard.

At midnight that Tuesday the office was a sight. It has often been a mess, one way and another, including the time the strangled Cynthia Brown was lying on the floor with her tongue protruding, but this was something new. Dazzle Dan, both black-and-white and color, was all over the place. On account of our shortage in manpower, with me tied up on my typing job, Fritz and Theodore had been drafted for the chore of tearing out the pages and stacking them chronologically, ready for Wolfe to study. With Wolfe’s permission, I had bribed Lon Cohen of the Gazette to have three years of Dazzle Dan assembled and delivered to us, by offering him an exclusive. Naturally he demanded specifications.

“Nothing much,” I told him on the phone. “Only that Nero Wolfe is out of the detective business because Inspector Cramer is taking away his license.”

“Quite a gag,” Lon conceded.

“No gag. Straight.”

“You mean it?”

“We’re offering it for publication. Exclusive, unless Cramer’s office spills it, and I don’t think they will.”

“The Getz murder?”

“Yes. Only a couple of paragraphs, because details are not yet available, even to you. I’m out on bail.”

“I know you are. This is pie. We’ll raid the files and get it over there as soon as we can.”

He hung up without pressing for details. Of course that meant he would send Dazzle Dan COD, with a reporter. When the reporter arrived a couple of hours later, shortly after Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms at six o’clock, it wasn’t just a man with a notebook, it was Lon Cohen himself. He came to the office with me, dumped a big heavy carton on the floor by my desk, removed his coat and dropped it on the carton to show that Dazzle Dan was his property until paid for, and demanded, “I want the works. What Wolfe said and what Cramer said. A picture of Wolfe studying Dazzle Dan—”

I pushed him into a chair, courteously, and gave him all we were ready to turn loose of. Naturally that wasn’t enough; it never is. I let him fire questions up to a dozen or so, even answering one or two, and then made it clear that that was all for now and I had work to do. He admitted it was a bargain, stuck his notebook in his pocket, and got up and picked up his coat.

“If you’re not in a hurry, Mr. Cohen,” muttered Wolfe, who had left the interview to me.

Lon dropped the coat and sat down. “I have nineteen years, Mr. Wolfe. Before I retire.”

“I won’t detain you that long.” Wolfe sighed. “I am no longer a detective, but I’m a primate and therefore curious. The function of a newspaperman is to satisfy curiosity. Who killed Mr. Getz?”

Lon’s brows went up. “Archie Goodwin? It was his gun.”

“Nonsense. I’m quite serious. Also I’m discreet. I am excluded from the customary sources of information by the jackassery of Mr. Cramer. I—”

“May I print that?”

“No. None of this. Nor shall I quote you. This is a private conversation. I would like to know what your colleagues are saying but not printing. Who killed Mr. Getz? Miss Lowell? If so, why?”

Lon pulled his lower lip down and let it up again. “You mean we’re just talking.”

“Yes.”

“This might possibly lead to another talk that could be printed.”

“It might. I make no commitment.” Wolfe wasn’t eager.

“You wouldn’t. As for Miss Lowell, she has not been scratched. It is said that Getz learned she was chiseling on royalties from makers of Dazzle Dan products and intended to hang it on her. That could have been big money.”

“Any names or dates?”

“None that are repeatable. By me. Yet.”

“Any evidence?”

“I haven’t seen any.”

Wolfe grunted. “Mr. Hildebrand. If so, why?”

“That’s shorter and sadder. He has told friends about it. He has been with Koven for eight years and was told last week he could leave at the end of the month, and he blamed it on Getz. He might or might not get another job at his age.”

Wolfe nodded. “Mr. Jordan?”

Lon hesitated. “This I don’t like, but others are talking, so why not us? They say Jordan has painted some pictures, modern stuff, and twice he has tried to get a gallery to show them, two different galleries, and both times Getz has somehow kiboshed it. This has names and dates, but whether because Getz was born a louse or whether he wanted to keep Jordan—”

“I’ll do my own speculating, thank you. Mr. Getz may not have liked the pictures. Mr. Koven?”

Lon turned a hand over. “Well? What better could you ask? Getz had him buffaloed, no doubt about it. Getz ruled the roost, plenty of evidence on that, and nobody knows why, so the only question is what he had on Koven. It must have been good, but what was it? You say this is a private conversation?”

“Yes.”

“Then here’s something we got started on just this afternoon. It has to be checked before we print it. That house on Seventy-sixth Street is in Getz’s name.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe shut his eyes and opened them again. “And Mrs. Koven?”

Lon turned his other hand over. “Husband and wife are one, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Man and wife make one fool.”

Lon’s chin jerked up. “I want to print that. Why not?”

“It was printed more than three hundred years ago. Ben Jonson wrote it.” Wolfe sighed. “Confound it, what can I do with only a few scraps?” He pointed at the carton. “You want that stuff back, I suppose?”