Rex Stout: The Squirt and the Monkey

“For you, yes. Mr. Wolfe says satisfactory, which as you know is as far as he ever goes. I say you show promise. You’ll call Parker?”

“Yes. I have to go there to sign a paper.”

“Okay. Be seeing you.”

I hung up and told Wolfe. He lifted his eyes, said, “Ah!” and returned to the report.

After lunch there was an important chore, involving Wolfe, me, our memory of the talk Saturday evening with Koven, and the equipment that had been installed by Levay Recorders, Inc. We spent nearly an hour at it, with three separate tries, before we got it done to Wolfe’s satisfaction.

After that it dragged along, at least for me. The phone calls had fallen off. Wolfe, at his desk, finished with the report, put it in a drawer, leaned back, and closed his eyes. I would just as soon have opened a conversation, but pretty soon his lips started working — pushing out, drawing back, and pushing out again — and I knew his brain was busy so I went to the cabinet for a batch of the germination records and settled down to making entries. He didn’t need a license to go on growing orchids, though the question would soon arise of how to pay the bills. At four o’clock he left to go up to the plant rooms, and I went on with the records. During the next two hours there were a few phone calls, but none from Koven or his lawyer or Parker. At two minutes past six I was telling myself that Koven was probably drinking himself up to something, no telling what, when two things happened at once: the sound came from the hall of Wolfe’s elevator jerking to a stop, and the doorbell rang.

I went to the hall, switched on the stoop light, and took a look through the panel of one-way glass in the front door. It was a mink coat all right, but the hat was different. I went closer, passing Wolfe on his way to the office, got a view of the face, and saw that she was alone. I marched to the office door and announced, “Miss Patricia Lowell. Will she do?”

He made a face. He seldom welcomes a man crossing his threshold; he never welcomes a woman. “Let her in,” he muttered.

I stepped to the front, slid the bolt off, and opened up. “This is the kind of surprise I like,” I said heartily. She entered, and I shut the door and bolted it. “Couldn’t you find a coconut?”

“I want to see Nero Wolfe,” she said in a voice so hard that it was out of character, considering her pink cheeks.

“Sure. This way.” I ushered her down the hall and on in. Once in a while Wolfe rises when a woman enters his office, but this time he kept not only his chair but also his tongue. He inclined his head a quarter of an inch when I pronounced her name, but said nothing. I gave her the red leather chair, helped her throw her coat back, and went to my desk.

“So you’re Nero Wolfe,” she said.

That called for no comment and got none.

“I’m scared to death,” she said.

“You don’t look it,” Wolfe growled.

“I hope I don’t; I’m trying not to.” She started to put her bag on the little table at her elbow, changed her mind, and kept it in her lap. She took off a glove. “I was sent here by Mr. Koven.”

No comment. We were looking at her. She looked at me, then back at Wolfe, and protested, “My God, don’t you ever say anything?”

“Only on occasion.” Wolfe leaned back. “Give me one. You say something.”

She compressed her lips. She was sitting forward and erect in the big roomy chair, with no contact with the upholstered back. “Mr. Koven sent me,” she said, clipping it, “about the ridiculous suit for damages you have brought. He intends to enter a counterclaim for damage to his reputation through actions of your acknowledged agent, Archie Goodwin. Of course he denies that there is any basis for your suit.”

She stopped. Wolfe met her gaze and kept his trap shut.

“That’s the situation,” she said belligerently.

“Thank you for coming to tell me,” Wolfe murmured. “If you’ll show Miss Lowell the way out, please, Archie?”

I stood up. She looked at me as if I had offered her a deadly insult, and looked back at Wolfe. “I don’t think,” she said, “that your attitude is very sensible. I think you and Mr. Koven should come to an agreement on this. Why wouldn’t this be the way to do it — say the claims cancel each other, and you abandon yours and he abandons his?”

“Because,” Wolfe said dryly, “my claim is valid and his isn’t. If you’re a member of the bar, Miss Lowell, you should know that this is a little improper, or anyway unconventional. You should be talking with my attorney, not with me.”

“I’m not a lawyer, Mr. Wolfe. I’m Mr. Koven’s agent and business manager. He thinks lawyers would just make this more of a mess than it is, and I agree with him. He thinks you and he should settle it between you. Isn’t that possible?”

“I don’t know. We can try. There’s a phone. Get him down here.”

She shook her head. “He’s not — he’s too upset. I’m sure you’ll find it more practical to deal with me, and if we come to an understanding he’ll approve, I guarantee that. Why don’t we go into it — the two claims?”

“I doubt if it will get us anywhere.” Wolfe sounded perfectly willing to come halfway. “For one thing, a factor in both claims is the question who killed Adrian Getz and why? If it was Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Koven’s claim has a footing, and I freely concede it; if it was someone else I concede nothing. If I discussed it with you I would have to begin by considering that aspect; I would have to ask you some pointed questions; and I doubt if you would dare to risk answering them.”

“I can always button up. What kind of questions?”

“Well—” Wolfe pursed his lips. “For example, how’s the monkey?”

“I can risk answering that. It’s sick. It’s at the Speyer Hospital. They don’t expect it to live.”

“Exposure from the open window?”

“Yes. They’re very delicate, that kind.”

Wolfe nodded. “That table over there by the globe — that pile of stuff on it is Dazzle Dan for the past three years. I’ve been looking through it. Last August and September a monkey had a prominent role. It was drawn by two different persons, or at least with two different conceptions. In its first seventeen appearances it was depicted maliciously — on a conjecture, by someone with a distaste for monkeys. Thereafter it was drawn sympathetically and humorously. The change was abrupt and noticeable. Why? On instructions from Mr. Koven?”

Pat Lowell was frowning. Her lips parted and went together again.

“You have four choices,” Wolfe said bluntly. “The truth, a lie, evasion, or refusal to answer. Either of the last two would make me curious, and I would get my curiosity satisfied somehow. If you try a lie it may work, but I’m an expert on lies and liars.”

“There’s nothing to lie about. I was thinking back. Mr. Getz objected to the way the monkey was drawn, and Mr. Koven had Mr. Jordan do it instead of Mr. Hildebrand.”

“Mr. Jordan likes monkeys?”

“He likes animals. He said the monkey looked like Napoleon.”

“Mr. Hildebrand does not like monkeys?”

“He didn’t like that one. Rookaloo knew it, of course, and bit him once. Isn’t this pretty silly, Mr. Wolfe? Are you going on with this?”

“Unless you walk out, yes. I’m investigating Mr. Koven’s counterclaim, and this is how I do it. With any question you have your four choices — and a fifth too, of course: get up and go. How did you feel about the monkey?”

“I thought it was an awful nuisance, but it had its points as a diversion. It was my fault it was there, since I gave it to Mr. Getz.”

“Indeed. When?”

“About a year ago. A friend returning from South America gave it to me, and I couldn’t take care of it so I gave it to him.”