Rex Stout - And be a Villian

“Plenty. The sheets were printed at different shops, and neither of them had a list of subscribers or anything else that helps. Neither Orchard nor the woman employed any help. Orchard left a widow and two children, but they don't seem to know a damn' thing about his business, let alone who his subscribers were. Beula Poole's nearest relatives live out West, in Colorado, and they don't know anything, apparently not even how she was earning a living. And so on. As for the routine, all covered and all useless. No one seen entering or leaving-it's only two flights up-no weapon, no fingerprints that help any, nobody heard the shot-”

Wolfe nodded impatiently. “You said you hadn't made any start, and naturally routine has been followed. Any discoverable association of Miss Poole with Mr Orchard?”

“If there was we can't discover it.”

“Where were Miss Fraser and the others at the time Miss Poole was shot?”

Cramer squinted at him. “You think it might even develop that way?”

“I would like to put the question. Wouldn't you?”

“Yeah. I have. You see, the two offices being cleaned out is a detail we've saved up.” Cramer looked at me. “And you'll kindly not peddle it to your pal Cohen of the Gazette.” He went on to Wolfe: “It's not so easy because there's a leeway of four or five hours on when she was shot. We've asked all that bunch about it, and no one can be checked off.”

“Mr Savarese? Miss Shepherd? Mr Shepherd?”

“What?” Cramer's eyes widened. “Where the hell does Shepherd come in?”

“I don't know. Archie doesn't like him, and I have learned that it is always quite possible that anyone he doesn't like may be a murderer.”

“Oh, comic relief. The Shepherd girl was in Atlantic City with her mother, and still is. On Savarese I'd have to look at the reports, but I know he's not checked off because nobody is. By the way, we've dug up two subscribers to Orchard's tip sheet, besides Savarese and the Fraser woman. With no result. They bet on the races and they subscribed, that's all, according to them.”

“I'd like to talk with them,” Wolfe declared.

“You can. At my office any time.”

“Pfui. As you know, I never leave this house on business. If you'll give Archie their names and addresses he'll attend to it.”

Cramer said he'd have Stebbins phone and give them to me. I never saw him more co-operative, which meant that he had never been more frustrated.

They kept at it a while longer, but Cramer had nothing more of any importance to give Wolfe, and Wolfe hadn't had anything to give Cramer to begin with. I listened with part of my brain, and with the other part tried to do a little offhand sorting and arranging. I had to admit that it would take quite a formula to have room for the two coincidences as such, and therefore they would probably have to be joined together somehow, but it was no part-brain job for me.

Whenever dough passes without visible value received the first thing you think of is blackmail, so I thought of it, but that didn't get me anywhere because there were too many other things in the way. It was obvious that the various aspects were not yet in a condition that called for the application of my particular kind of talent.

After Cramer had gone Wolfe sat and gazed at a distant corner of the ceiling with his eyes open about a thirty-second of an inch. I sat and waited, not wanting to disturb him, for when I saw his lips pushing out, and in again, and out and in, I knew he was exerting himself to the limit, and I was perfectly satisfied. There had been a good chance that he would figure that he had helped all he could for a while, and go back to his reading until Cramer made a progress report or somebody else got killed. But the editorial had stung him good. Finally he transferred the gaze to me and pronounced my name.

“Yes, sir,” I said brightly.

“Your notebook. Take this.”

I got ready.

“Former subscribers to the publication of Cyril Orchard, or to that of Beula Poole, should communicate with me immediately. Put it in three papers, the Gazette, the News, and the Herald-Tribune. A modest display, say two inches.

Reply to a box number. A good page if possible.”

“And I'll call for the replies. It saves time.”

“Then do so.”

I put paper in the typewriter. The phone rang. It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins, to give me the names and addresses of the two Orchard subscribers they had dug up.

Chapter Fifteen So beginning Monday morning we were again a going concern, instead of a sitting-and-waiting one, but I was not in my element, I like a case you can make a diagram of. I don't object to complications, that's all right, but if you're out for bear it seems silly to concentrate on hunting for moose tracks. Our fee depended on our finding out how and why Orchard got cyanided by drinking Madeline Fraser's sugared coffee, and here we were spending our time and energy on the shooting of a female named Beula Poole. Even granting it was one and the same guy who pinched the lead pencils and spilled ink on the rug, if you've been hired to nail him for pencil-stealing that's what you should work at.

I admit that isn't exactly fair, because most of our Monday activities had to do with Orchard. Wolfe seemed to think it was important for him to have a talk with those two subscribers, so instead of usin? the phone I went out after them. I had one of them in the office waiting for him at 11 a.m.-an assistant office manager for a big tile company. Wolfe spent less than a quarter of an hour on him, knowing, of course, that the cops had spent more and had checked him. He had bet on the races for years. In February a year ago he had learned that a Hialeah daily double featured in a sheet called Track Almanac had come through for a killing, and he had subscribed, though the ten bucks a week was a sixth of his salary. He had stayed with it for nine weeks and then quit. So much for him.

The other one was a little different. Her name was Marie Leconne, and she owned a snooty beauty parlour on Madison Avenue. She wouldn't have accepted my invitation if she hadn't been under the illusion that Wolfe was connected with the police, though I didn't precisely tell her so. That Monday evening she was with us a good two hours, but left nothing of any value behind. She had subscribed to Track Almanac in August, seven months ago, and had remained a subscriber up to the time of Orchard's death. Prior to subscribing she had done little or no betting on the races; she was hazy about whether it was little, or no. Since subscribing she had bet frequently, but she firmly refused to tell where, through whom, or in what amounts. Wolfe, knowing that I occasionally risk a five, passed me a hint to have some conversation with her about pertinent matters like horses and jockeys, but she declined to co-operate. All in all she kept herself nicely under control, and flew off the handle only once, when Wolfe pressed her hard for a plausible reason why she had subscribed to a tip sheet at such a price. That aggravated her terribly, and since the one thing that scares Wolfe out of his senses is a woman in a tantrum, he backed away fast.

He did keep on trying, from other angles, but when she finally left, all we knew for sure was that she had not subscribed to Track Almanac in order to get guesses on the ponies. She was slippery, and nobody's fool, and Wolfe had got no further than the cops in opening her up.

I suggested to Wolfe: “We might start Saul asking around in her circle.”

He snorted. “Mr Cramer is presumably attending to that, and, anyway, it would have to be dragged out of her inch by inch. The advertisement should be quicker.”

It was quicker, all right, in getting results, but not the results we were after. There had not been time to make the Monday papers, so the ad.’s first appearance was Tuesday morning. Appraising it, I thought it caught the eye effectively for so small a space. After breakfast, which I always eat in the kitchen with Fritz while Wolfe has his in his room on a tray, and after dealing with the morning mail and other chores in the office, I went out to. stretch my legs and thought I might as well head in the direction of the Herald-Tribune Building. Expecting nothing so soon but thinking it wouldn't hurt to drop in, I did so. There was a telegram. I tore it open and read: