Rex Stout: The Squirt and the Monkey

I sat down. Obviously the only alternatives were to wrangle him into it or call it off.

“What else would you suggest?” I asked brightly.

He undertook to tell me. He went on and on, but I won’t report it verbatim because I doubt if it contained any helpful hints for you — I know it didn’t for me. I grunted from time to time to be polite. I listened to him for a while and then got a little relief by listening to the soap opera on the radio, which was muffled some by the closed door but by no means inaudible. Eventually, of course, he got around to his wife, first briefing me by explaining that she was his third and they had been married only two years. To my surprise he didn’t tear her apart. He said she was wonderful. His point was that even when you added to fame and fortune the companionship of a beloved and loving wife who was fourteen years younger than you, that still wasn’t all you needed for happiness.

There was one interruption — a knock on the door and the appearance of Byram Hildebrand. He had come to show the revise on the third frame of Number 728. They discussed art some, and Koven okayed the revise, and Hildebrand departed. I hoped that the intermission had sidetracked Koven, but no; he took up again where he had left off.

I can take a lot when I’m working on a case, even a kindergarten problem like that one, but finally, after the twentieth sidewise glance at my wrist, I called a halt.

“Look,” I said, “this has given me a new slant on life entirely, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but it’s a quarter past four and it’s getting dark. I would call it late afternoon. What do you say we go ahead with our act?”

He closed his trap and frowned at me. He started chewing his lip. After some of that he suddenly arose, went to a cabinet, and got out a bottle.

“Will you join me?” He produced two glasses. “I’m not supposed to drink until five o’clock, but I’ll make this an exception.” He came to me. “Bourbon all right? Say when.”

I would have liked to plug him. He had known from the beginning that he would have to drink himself up to it but had sucked me in with a noon appointment. Anything I felt like saying would have been justified, but I held in. I accepted mine and raised it with him, to encourage him, and took a swallow. He took a dainty sip, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and then emptied the glass at a gulp. He picked up the bottle and poured a refill.

“Why don’t we go in there with the refreshment,” I suggested, “and go over it a little?”

“Don’t rush me,” he said gloomily. He took a deep breath, swelling his chest, and suddenly grinned at me, showing the teeth. He lifted the glass and drained it, reached for the bottle and tilted it to pour, and changed his mind.

“Come on,” he said, heading for the door. I stepped around him to open the door, since both his hands were occupied, closed it behind us, and followed him down the hall. At the farther end we entered the room where we were to stage it. He went to the desk and sat, poured himself a drink, and put the bottle down. I went to the desk too, but not to sit. I had taken the precaution of removing the cartridges from my gun, but even so a glance at it wouldn’t hurt any. I pulled the drawer open and was relieved to see that it was still there. I shut the drawer.

“I’ll go get them,” I offered.

“I said don’t rush me,” Koven protested, but no longer gloomy.

“Thinking that two more drinks would surely do it, I moved to a chair. But I didn’t sit. Something wasn’t right, and it came to me what it was: I had placed the gun with the muzzle pointing to the right, and it wasn’t that way now. I returned to the desk, took the gun out, and gave it a look.

It was a Marley .32 all right, but not mine.

I put my eye on Koven. The gun was in my left hand, and my right hand was a fist. If I had hit him that first second, which I nearly did, mad as I was, I would have cracked some knuckles.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded.

My eyes were on him and through him. I kept them there for five pulse beats. It wasn’t possible, I decided, that he was that good. Nobody could be.

I backed up a pace. “We’ve found your gun.”

He gawked at me. “What?”

I broke it, saw that the cylinder was empty, and held it out. “Take a look.”

He took it. “It looks the same — no, it doesn’t.”

“Certainly it doesn’t. Mine was clean and bright. Is it yours?”

“I don’t know. It looks like it. But how in the name of God—”

I reached and took it from him. “How do you think?” I was so damn mad I nearly stuttered. “Someone with hands took mine out and put yours in. It could have been you. Was it?”

“No. Me?” Suddenly he got indignant. “How the hell could it have been me when I didn’t know where mine was?”

“You said you didn’t. I ought to stretch you out and tamp you down. Keeping me here the whole goddam day, and now this! If you ever talk straight and to the point, now is the time. Did you touch my gun?”

“No. But you’re—”

“Do you know who did?”

“No. But you’re—”

“Shut up!” I went around the desk to the phone, lifted it, and dialed. At that hour Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms for his afternoon shift with the orchids, where he was not to be disturbed except in emergency, but this was one. When Fritz answered I asked him to buzz the extension, and in a moment I had Wolfe.

“Yes, Archie?” Naturally he was peevish.

“Sorry to bother you, but. I’m at Koven’s. I put my gun in his desk, and we were all set for his stunt, but he kept putting it off until now. His will power sticks and has to be primed with alcohol. I roamed around. We just came in here where his desk is, and I opened the drawer for a look. Someone has taken my gun and substituted his — his that was stolen, you know? It’s back where it belongs, but mine is gone.”

“You shouldn’t have left it there.”

“Okay, you can have that, and you sure will, but I need instructions for now. Three choices: I can call a cop, or I can bring the whole bunch down there to you, don’t think I can’t the way I feel, or I can handle it myself. Which?”

“Confound it, not the police. They would enjoy it too much. And why bring them here? The gun’s there, not here.”

“Then that leaves me. I go ahead?”

“Certainly — with due discretion. It’s a prank.” He chuckled. “I would like to see your face. Try to get home for dinner.” He hung up.

“My God, don’t call a cop!” Koven protested.

“I don’t intend to,” I said grimly. I slipped his gun into my armpit holster. “Not if I can help it. It depends partly on you. You stay put, right here. I’m going down and get them. Your wife’s asleep in the bedroom. If I find when I get back that you’ve gone and started chatting with her I’ll either slap you down with your own gun or phone the police, I don’t know which, maybe both. Stay put.”

“This is my house, Goodwin, and—”

“Goddam it, don’t you know a raving maniac when you see one?” I tapped my chest with a forefinger. “Me. When I’m as sore as I am now the safest thing would be for you to call a cop. I want my gun.”

As I made for the door he was reaching for the bottle. By the time I got down to the ground floor I had myself well enough in hand to speak to them without betraying any special urgency, telling them that Koven was ready for them upstairs, for the conference. I found Pat Lowell still at the desk in the room in front and Hildebrand and Jordan still at their drawing tables in the workroom. I even replied appropriately when Pat Lowell asked how I had made out with the coconut. As Hildebrand and Jordan left their tables and turned off their radios I had a keener eye on them than before; someone here had swiped my gun. As we ascended the first flight of stairs, with me in the rear, I asked their backs where I would find Adrian Getz.