Rex Stout - Trouble in Triplicate

Fife reported back on Root in thirty minutes, to the effect that Root was in the clink on government property down in Maryland and would be transported to New York without delay for an interview with Wolfe, which appeared to contradict the saying that democracies are always ungrateful. Cornwall said he had turned the clipping and envelope Jensen had received over to Inspector Cramer, and Cramer verified it and said he had it. But Cramer seemed to be too busy for an extended phone conversation, and I understood why when, shortly after we had finished lunch, he arrived at our place in person, sat down in the red leather chair and narrowed his eyes at Wolfe, emitted a hoarse, grating chuckle and said offensively: “Interested, involved, and curious.”

Naturally Wolfe tossed it back at him, but after three minutes of fast and hot tongue work they patched it up and discussed matters. Cramer had the Jensen clipping with him, and they compared the two and found they were from copies of the same magazine, a piece of information which I would have considered no bargain at a nickel. We emptied the bag on the Captain Root episode, all but the Jane Geer item, and Cramer said he would do a survey of Root’s history and connections. As for the official investigation of the Jensen murder, they still had the entire population of the metropolitan area for suspects, which gave them plenty of room to move around in. When Cramer’s recital made it evident that the squad had got nowhere at all, Wolfe saw fit to make a couple of cracks and Cramer returned the compliment, so the conference ended on the same breezy note it had begun with.

On Jane Geer the luck was low. When before noon I phoned the advertising agency she worked for I was told that she was somewhere in Long Island admiring some client’s product for which she was to produce copy. When I finally did get her, after four o’clock, she went willful on me, presumably because she regarded my phoning five times in one day as evidence that my primal impulses had been aroused and I was beginning to pant. She would not come to Nero Wolfe’s place unless I went after her and bought her a cocktail first. So I met her a little after five at the Calico Room at the Churchill, and bought.

She had put in a full day’s work, but looking at her you might have thought she had come straight from an afternoon nap and a relaxing bath.

It was not my opinion, at that stage of affairs, that this special item of God’s second-thought bounty for man was guilty of premeditated and cold-blooded murder. Because of my interest in human nature I had found occasion, in the brief period since I had first met her, to discover that she was capable of strong feelings over a wide range of territory, and that she did not believe in limiting their expression to little hints like darting the eyes. I had never seen her scratch or pull hair, but I had known her only two months or so, and unquestionably she packed the potential. However, I felt that the Jensen-Doyle massacre, one of them a perfect stranger, did not belong in her repertory; and I knew she had acquired a different slant on the Captain Root incident since the day she called Wolfe a mongrel bloodhound.

She darted her brown eyes at me. I didn’t say she never darted, I said she didn’t stop there. “Let me,” she said, “see your right forefinger.”

I poked it at her. She rubbed its tip gently with the tip of her own. “I wondered if it had a callus. After [garbled] dialing my number five times in less than five hours. Are you trying to win some kind of a bet? Or did you dream about me?” She sipped her Tom Collins, bending her head to get her lips to the straw. A strand of her hair slipped forward over an eye and a cheek, and I reached across and used the same finger to put it back in place.

“I took that liberty,” I told her, “because I wish to have an unobstructed view of your lovely phiz. I want to see if you turn pale or your eyes get glassy.”

“Overwhelmed by you so near?”

“No, I know that reaction-I correct for it. Anyhow I doubt if I’m magnetic right now because I’m sore at you for making me miss a train.”

“I didn’t phone you this time. You phoned me.”

“Okay.” I drank. “You said on the phone that you still don’t like Nero Wolfe and you wouldn’t go to see him unless you knew what for and maybe not even then. So this is what for. He wants to ask you whether you intend to kill him yourself or hire the same gang that you got to kill Jensen and Doyle. So he’ll know what to expect.”

“Mercy.” She looked my face over. “You’d better put your humor on a diet. It’s taking on weight.”

I shook my head. “Ordinarily I would enjoy playing catch with you, as you are aware, but I can’t miss all the trains. I’m not even trying to be funny, let alone succeeding. I was instructed to tell you this if necessary. Because Wolfe’s life has been threatened in the same manner as Jensen’s was, the supposition is that Jensen was murdered for revenge, for what he did to Captain Root. Because of the cutting remarks you made when Root was trapped, and your general attitude, there is a tendency to want to know what you have been doing lately. Wolfe wants to ask you. If you wonder why I didn’t start with some grade A detecting by finding out where you were last night between eleven and twelve, that wouldn’t help any because what if you hired-”

“Stop.” She stopped me. “I’m dreaming.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s fantastic.”

“Sure. Lots of things are.”

“Nero Wolfe seriously thinks I-did that? Or had it done?”

“I didn’t say so. He wants to discuss it with you.”

Her eyes flashed. Her tone took on an edge. “It is also extremely corny. And the police? Have you kindly arranged that when Wolfe finishes with me I proceed to headquarters? Would you be good enough to phone my boss in the morning and let him know where I am? I can’t begin to tell you-”

“Listen, Tiger-eyes.” She let me cut her off, which was a pleasant surprise. “Have you noticed me sneaking up on you from behind? If so, draw it for me. I have explained a situation. Your name has not been mentioned to the police, though they have consulted us. You are, let us assume, as innocent as a cheeping chick, which you do not, however, resemble in visible physical aspects.”

“Thank you.” The edge was even sharper.

“You’re welcome. But since the police are onto the Root angle they are apt to get a steer in your direction without us, and it wouldn’t hurt if Wolfe had already satisfied himself that you wouldn’t kill a fly.”

“By what process?” She was scornful. “I suppose he asks me if I ever committed murder, and I smile and say no, and he apologizes and gives me an orchid.”

“Not quite. He’s a genius. He asks you questions like do you bait your own hook when you go fishing, and you reveal yourself without knowing it.”

“It sounds fascinating.” Her eyes suddenly changed, and the line of her lips. She had been struck with an idea. “I wonder,” she said.

“What is it, and we’ll both wonder.”

“Sure.” Her eyes had changed more. “This wouldn’t by any chance be a climax you’ve been working up to? You with a thousand girls and women so that you have to issue ration books so many minutes to a coupon, and yet finding so much time for me? Leading up, heaven knows why, and I don’t care to go to heaven to find out, to this idiotic frame-”