Rex Stout - Trouble in Triplicate

It seemed like an odd moment to send out a general alarm for a sofa cushion, but since I had nothing else to do at the moment I obliged. Cramer and Purley went on solving a murder and Fritz and I went on hunting the cushion. Jensen watched both operations. Wolfe watched only one-Fritz’s and mine. Jane pretended there was no one in the room but her.

I finally told Wolfe, “It’s gone. It isn’t in here.”

He muttered at me, “I see it isn’t.”

I stared at him. There was an expression on his face that I knew well. It wasn’t exactly excitement, though it always stirred excitement in me. His neck was rigid, as if to prevent any movement of the head, so as not to disturb the brain, his eyes were half shut and not seeing anything, and his lips were moving, pushing out, then relaxing, then pushing out again. I knew it would take more than the loss of a velvet cushion to produce that effect on him. I stared at him.

Suddenly he turned and spoke. “Mr. Cramer! Please leave Mr. Stebbins in here with Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen. You can stay here too, or come with me, as you prefer. Fritz and Archie, come.” He headed for the office.

Cramer, knowing Wolfe’s tones of voice almost as well as I did, spoke to Stebbins and then followed. Fritz and I also followed. So did Jane’s voice.

“This is outrageous! I want-”

I shut the door.

Wolfe waited until he was in his chair before he spoke. “I want to know if that cushion is on the premises. Search the house from the cellar up-except the south room; Mr. Hackett is in there lying down. Start in here.”

Cramer barked, “What the hell is all this about?”

“I’ll give you an explanation,” Wolfe told him, “when I have one. I’m going to sit here and work and must not be disturbed. It may take ten minutes; it may take ten hours. Go in there; stay here; go anywhere, but let me alone.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips started moving. Cramer slid farther back in his chair, crossed his legs, got out a cigar and sank his teeth in it. Searching the office was quite different from searching the front room.

In the first place, it was a lot bigger. Also, there were a lot more places where you could hide a cushion-files, drawers, bookshelves, magazine and newspaper racks, cabinets, miscellaneous. It had a high ceiling, and the steps had to be used for all the upper shelves and file and cabinet compartments. None of them could be ruled out, because the shelves were deep, and it was no trivial job to pull out all those books and slide them back again. Fritz went at it with his usual deliberate thoroughness, and I couldn’t have been called a whirlwind either because I was using my brain along with my hands, trying to work out how and why the fact of a missing cushion crashed into the structure like a comet shattering a world. Now and then a glance at Wolfe showed me that he was still working, his lips moving and his eyes shut. Half an hour or so had passed, maybe a little more, when I heard him let out a grunt. I nearly toppled off the steps, turning to look at him. He was in motion. He picked up his wastebasket, which was kept at the far corner of his desk, held it so that the light shone directly into it, inspected it, shook his head, put it down again, and began opening the drawers of his desk, all the way out, and inspecting their interiors, starting with the top one on the right side. The first two, the one at the top and the one in the middle, apparently didn’t get him anything, but when he yanked out the double-depth one at the bottom as far as it would go, he looked in, bent over closer to see better, stuck a hand in and seemed to be poking around, closed the drawer, got himself erect, and announced: “I’ve found it.”

In those three little words there was at least two tons of self-satisfaction and smirk.

We all goggled at him.

He looked at me. “Archie. Get down off that thing and don’t fall. Look in your desk and see if one of my guns has been fired.”

I stepped down and went and opened the armament drawer. The first one I picked up was innocent. I tried the second with a sniff and a look and reported, “Yes, sir. There were six cartridges and now there are five. Same as the cushions. The shell is here.”

“Tchah! The confounded ass! Tell Miss Geer and Mr. Jensen that they may come in here if they care to hear what happened, or they may go home or anywhere else. We don’t need them. Take Mr. Stebbins upstairs with you and bring Mr. Hackett down here. Use caution and search him with great care. He is an extremely dangerous man and an unsurpassable idiot.”

IX

I had no hand in the phone call to General Fife-or rather, as I learned later, to Colonel Voss, who was on duty that evening at the downtown G-2 headquarters-because I was busy with the chores. First, with regard to Jane and Jensen. When I delivered Wolfe’s message to them, in a few well-chosen words, they blinked in bewilderment, which was understandable. Then they both opened the valves and here came the steam. I silenced them by mere force of personality. I told Jensen, “You came to see Wolfe to get him to help catch the murderer of your father. He has not only helped, he has done it single-handed, practically without getting out of bed. For God’s sake, what more do you want?”

I told Jane, “You wanted to avoid publicity as a suspect in a murder case so you can be a vice-president. Wolfe has done the avoiding for you. As my contribution, I have made you acquainted with this prominent major. You should beef?”

Naturally they voted for joining the throng in the office, and their pose during the balloting was significant. They stood facing each other, with Jensen’s right hand on Jane’s left shoulder, and Jane’s right hand, or perhaps just the fingers, on Jensen’s left forearm. I left it to them to find the way to the office alone, told Purley Stebbins what our job was, and took him upstairs with me to the south room.

It was approximately ten minutes later that we delivered our cargo in the office. Even though Mr. Hackett staged one of the most convincing demonstrations of unwillingness to cooperate that I have ever encountered, beginning the instant I put a hand on him to frisk him, only about six of the ten minutes were devoted to persuading him that there were worse things than going downstairs.

For the other four minutes I sat on him, examining my shin to see if his kicks had busted the skin and testing my wrist to decide if it was sprained, while Purley was in the bathroom washing blood off his cheek and neck and applying Band-Aids. Not that Hackett had confined himself to kicking and scratching; he hadn’t confined himself at all. Purley and I did the confining.

We got him to the office in one piece, nothing really wrong with him but a few bruises, and put him in a chair. Purley took an upright position right behind him, with the evident intention of standing by, so I went to my desk. Jane and Jensen were on a couple of chairs side by side, over near the big globe. Cramer was as before.

I said, “He was reluctant.”

I’ll say one thing for Wolfe, I’ve never seen him gloat over a guy about to get it. He was contemplating Hackett more as an extraordinary object that deserved study.

I said, “Purley thinks he knows him.”

Purley, as was proper, spoke to his superior. “I swear, Inspector, I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere, but I can’t remember.”