Rex Stout: The Second Confession

“He sure did. His best.”

“Then why should I hire an army to stalk the same phantom, even with Mr. Sperling’s money? You know what that amounts to, trying to track a Communist down, granting that he is one — especially when what is wanted is not presumption, but proof. Bah. A will-o’-the-wisp. I defined the objective and Mr. Sperling agreed. See him and get details, yes. Get invited to his home, socially. Meet Mr. Rony and form an opinion of him. More important, form one of the daughter, as intimately and comprehensively as possible. Make appointments with her. Seize and hold her attention. You should be able to displace Mr. Rony in a week, a fortnight at the most — and that’s the objective.”

“I’ll be damned.” I shook my head reproachfully. “You mean make a pass at her.”

“Your terms are yours, and I prefer mine. Mr. Sperling said his daughter is excessively curious. Transfer her curiosity from Mr. Rony to you.”

“You mean break her heart.”

“You can stop this side of tragedy.”

“Yeah, and I can stop this side of starting.” I looked righteous and outraged. “You’ve gone a little too far. I like being a detective, and I like being a man, with all that implies, but I refuse to degrade whatever glamour I may—”

“Archie!” He snapped it.

“Yes, sir.”

“With how many young women whom you met originally through your association with my business have you established personal relationships?”

“Between five and six thousand. But that’s not—”

“I’m merely suggesting that you reverse the process and establish the personal relationship first. What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything.” I shrugged. “Okay. Maybe nothing. It depends. I’ll take a look at her.”

“Good. You’re going to be late.” He started for the supply shelves.

I raised my voice a little. “However, I’ve still got a question, or two, rather. Bascom’s boys had a picnic trying to tail Rony. The first time out, before anything could have happened to make him suspicious, he had his nose up and pulled a fade. From then on not only did they have to use only the best, but often even that wasn’t good enough. He knew the whole book and some extra chapters. He may or may not be a Communist, but he didn’t learn all that in Sunday school.”

“Pfui. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?” Wolfe said contemptuously. He took a can of Elgetrol from the shelf and began shaking it. “Confound it, let me alone.”

“I will in a minute. The other thing, three different times, times when they didn’t lose him, he went into Bischoff’s Pet Shop on Third Avenue and stayed over an hour, and he doesn’t keep any pets.”

Wolfe stopped shaking the can of Elgetrol. He looked at it as if he didn’t know what it was, hesitated, put the can back on the shelf, and looked at me.

“Oh,” he said, not curtly. “He did?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wolfe looked around, saw the oversized chair in its place, and went to it and sat down.

I wasn’t gratified at having impressed him. In fact, I would have preferred to pass the chance up, but I hadn’t dared. I remembered too well a voice — a hard, slow, precise voice, cold as last week’s corpse — which I had heard only three times altogether, on the telephone. The first time had been in January 1946, and the second and third had been more than two years later, while we were looking for the poisoner of Cyril Orchard. Furthermore, I remembered the tone of Wolfe’s voice when he said to me, when we had both hung up after the second phone call, “I should have signaled you off, Archie, as soon as I recognized his voice. I tell you nothing because it is better for you to know nothing. You are to forget that you know his name. If ever, in the course of my business, I find that I am committed against him and must destroy him, I shall leave this house, find a place where I can work — and sleep and eat if there is time for it — and stay there until I have finished.”

I have seen Wolfe tangle with some tough bozos in the years I’ve been with him, but none of them has ever had him talking like that.

Now he was sitting glaring at me as if I had put vinegar on his caviar.

“What do you know about Bischoff’s Pet Shop?” he demanded.

“Nothing to speak of. I only know that last November, when Bischoff came to ask you to take on a job, you told him you were too busy and you weren’t, and when he left and I started beefing you told me that you were no more eager to be committed for Arnold Zeck than against him. You didn’t explain how you knew that that pet shop is a branch of Zeck’s far-flung shenanigans, and I didn’t ask.”

“I told you once to forget that you know his name.”

“Then you shouldn’t have reminded me of it. Okay, I’ll forget again. So I’ll go down and phone Sperling that you’re too busy and call it off. He hasn’t—”

“No. Go and see him. You’re late.”

I was surprised. “But what the hell? What’s wrong with my deducting? If Rony went three times in a month to that pet shop, and probably more, and stayed over an hour, and doesn’t keep pets, and I deduce that he is presumably an employee or something of the man whose name I forget, what—”

“Your reasoning is quite sound. But this is different. I was aware of Mr. Bischoff’s blemish, no matter how, when he came to me, and refused him. I have engaged myself to Mr. Sperling, and how can I scuttle?” He looked up at the clock. “You’d better go.” He sighed. “If it could be managed to keep one’s self-esteem without paying for it...”

He went and got the can of Elgetrol and started shaking it, and I headed out.

That was two o’clock Thursday. At two o’clock Saturday, forty-eight hours later, I was standing in the warm sunshine on a slab of white marble as big as my bedroom, flicking a bright blue towel as big as my bathroom, to chase a fly off of one of Gwenn Sperling’s bare legs. Not bad for a rake’s progress, even though I was under an assumed name. I was now Andrew instead of Archie. When I had told Sperling of Wolfe’s suggestion that I should meet the family, not of course displaying Wolfe’s blueprint, and he had objected to disclosing me to Rony, I had explained that we would use hired help for tailing and similar routine, and that I would have a try at getting Rony to like me. He bought it without haggling and invited me to spend the weekend at Stony Acres, his country place up near Chappaqua, but said I’d have to use another name because he was pretty sure his wife and son and elder daughter, Madeline, knew about Archie Goodwin. I said modestly that I doubted it, and insisted on keeping the Goodwin because it was too much of a strain to keep remembering to answer to something else, and we settled for changing Archie to Andrew. That would fit the A. G. on the bag Wolfe had given me for my birthday, which I naturally wanted to have along because it was caribou hide and people should see it.

The items in Bascom’s reports about Louis Rony’s visits to Bischoff’s Pet Shop had cost Sperling some dough. If it hadn’t been for that Wolfe would certainly have let Rony slide until I reported on my weekend, since it was a piddling little job and had no interest for him except the fee, and since he had a sneaking idea that women came on a lope from every direction when I snapped my fingers, which was foolish because it often takes more than snapping your fingers. But when I got back from my call on Sperling Thursday afternoon Wolfe had already been busy on the phone, getting Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather, and when they came to the office Friday morning for briefing Saul was assigned to a survey of Rony’s past, after reading Bascom, and Fred and Orrie were given special instructions for fancy tailing. Obviously what Wolfe was doing was paying for his self-esteem — or letting Sperling pay for it. He had once told Arnold Zeck, during their third and last phone talk, that when he undertook an investigation he permitted prescription of limits only by requirements of the job, and now he was leaning backward. If Rony’s pet shop visits really meant that he was on one of Zeck’s payrolls, and if Zeck was still tacking up his KEEP OFF signs, Nero Wolfe had to make it plain that no one was roping him off. We’ve got our pride. So Saul and Fred and Orrie were at it.