Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

On the street, I put the carton in the rear and her in the front, went around and slid in behind the wheel, beside her, and got going. No conversation. Apparently there wasn’t going to be any. But as I waited for a light at Twenty-Third Street, suddenly she spoke.

“I wonder if you’d like to do me a little favor.”

“I doubt it. What? Want me to phone your sister in Washington?”

She made a little noise, between a chuckle and a gurgle. Three hours earlier I would have thought it very attractive. “No,” she said, “nothing as complicated as that. Just to stop a minute, anywhere there’s a place at the curb, so I can ask you something.”

The light changed and we rolled. A block farther on a roomy space came in view, and I steered into it and shut off the engine.

“Okay. Ask me something.”

“I hope your eye feels better.”

Her tone made it plain that it was not a sergeant speaking to a major. It abolished all consideration of worldly rank and superficial barriers. Not that it conveyed the impression that she intended to seduce me right there on Sixth Avenue in the midst of traffic, but it did indicate that a closer understanding between the two of us would be a natural and wholesome development.

I said, “It feels fine. That all?”

“No. I wish it was.” She was turned to me full face, and I was reciprocating. “I wish there was nothing, I mean with you and me, except silly little pleasant things like that. Don’t think I’m being obvious. I’m just clever enough, just barely, to know how clever you are. If I were a fool, I might think I could start your head whirling in no time, parked here on our way to Nero Wolfe, but I know better than to try idiotic tricks with you.”

I grinned at her. “You do know how to handle your lips and eyes, though. And especially your voice. Which you were going to use to ask me something.”

She nodded. “Tell me, does Nero Wolfe want that carton just to see if I took something that doesn’t belong to me?”

“No.” I couldn’t see that hedging was called for. “He doesn’t want it at all. What he wants is Colonel Ryder’s suitcase. Evidently you do too. I guess you’ll have to draw straws for it. That all?”

“Oh, my lord.” She was frowning. “This is an awful fix. But he doesn’t know that you’re bringing it-that you’ve got it.”

“Sure he does.”

“He can’t. You’ve had no chance to tell him you found it.”

“But he knows he sent me for it, therefore he knows it’s on the way or soon will be.”

She shook her head. “You never let up, do you?” Her tone implied that she would love to come out and play after she got her work done. “Of course he can’t be sure. He couldn’t have known I took it, and what if I had put it somewhere else? Which I would have done if I had used my brains, knowing you were around.” She put her hand on my arm, not as for any purpose, just sort of involuntarily, as though it belonged there. She smiled at me as at a comrade. “I suppose you’d be surprised if I offered to give you ten thousand dollars for that carton-and what’s in it-with the understanding that you forget all about it. Wouldn’t you?”

I batted an eye. “I’d be simply dumbfounded.”

“But you’d soon recover. And then what would you say?”

“Well, gosh.” I patted her hand, which was still on my arm. “That would depend. If it was just conversation, I’d think of something appropriate to keep my end going, and start up the car and proceed. If you actually confronted me with the engravings, I’d have to see how I reacted.”

She smiled. “It isn’t likely I’d carry around a wad like that.”

“Certainly not. So forget it.” I started my hand for the dash.

But her hand held my arm. “Wait. You’re too impulsive. It’s a bona fide offer. Ten thousand.”

“Cash?”

“Yes.”

“When and where?”

“I think-” she hesitated. “I can have it in twenty-four hours. A little sooner. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“And meanwhile, the carton?”

“The Day and Night Bank. In safekeeping for joint withdrawal only. We shake hands to pledge good faith.”

I admired her visibly. It showed in my tone too. “Didn’t I see you once walking the high wire at the circus? Maybe it was your sister. Looky. I suppose I could be had, but it isn’t practical. Nero Wolfe would be sure to find out-he finds out everything in the long run-and he’d be sure to tell my poor old mother. If it wasn’t for my mother I’d snap at it. I promised her once I’d never sell out for less than a million. The mortgage on the old farm happens to be a million even.”

I started the engine and eased away from the curb into the traffic. She made no attempt to dangle the bait or put on another worm, and if she had I probably wouldn’t have heard her. Several things had me guessing, and the one at the top of the list was the suitcase. Wolfe had said it was important, and here was this lovely innocent creature offering ten thousand bucks for it, when as far as I could see a reasonable OPA ceiling on it would have been twenty cents at the outside. It irritated me to be $9,999.80 out in my calculations, and since when I’m irritated I have a tendency to feed more gas, the remainder of the trip to Wolfe’s place on 35th Street was a mere step.

It was only half an hour to dinner time, and I expected to find Wolfe in the kitchen supervising experiments, but he was hard at work at his desk in the office, rearranging field commanders probably, on his battle map of Russia. When we entered he kept right on.

Bruce said, “So this is Nero Wolfe’s office,” and looked around, at the leather chairs, the big globe, the shelves of books, the old-fashioned two-ton safe, the little bracket where he always had one orchid in bloom. I removed the cord from the carton, opened the flaps, got a grip on a section of the frame of the suitcase, pulled gently but firmly, got it out, and put it on a chair because the map was covering his desk. There were other items in the carton-papers and miscellany-but I stowed it over by the wall without disturbing them.

“Ah, you got it.” Wolfe said, finally looking up. “Satisfactory. But evidently not unobserved. Did Miss Bruce come along to help you carry it?”

“No. She came because she can’t bear to have it out of her sight. I went for it and it wasn’t there. Gone. The corporal said nobody had taken anything. So since nobody had taken it, but it was gone, I figured that nobody couldn’t be anybody but Sergeant Bruce. I had seen her in the anteroom packing things in a carton, and with the suitcase there on the floor only two steps from the door to the anteroom, and the corporal’s back turned, it would have been a cinch for her and impossible for anyone else. Getting the address of her apartment and going there-two rooms, kitchenette and bath-I found the suitcase in the carton in the bedroom closet. Also in the closet was Lieutenant Lawson. Alive and well.”

“The deuce he was.” Wolfe leaned back and let his eyelids down a little. “Won’t you be seated, Miss Bruce? No, that chair, if you don’t mind.”

The lovely innocent creature sat.