Rex Stout - Fer-De-Lance

"Good for you. You see, Anna, what happens when you try to act decent with a bad man. If you had burned that money the other day when I wanted you to, and told us what you know about things, now you would have Mr. Wolfe’s money. Now you can’t burn the money because you haven’t got it, and the only way you could get it back would be if I could catch him. Remember, he’s the man who killed Carlo Maffei. And look what he did to you! Tore your dress and pulled off your stockings-did he hurt you?"

Anna shook her head. "He didn’t hurt me. Could you catch him?"

"I could try. I could if I knew where to look."

"Would you give it back to me?"

"Your money? I sure would."

Anna looked down at her bare leg, and her hand slid slowly under the hem of her skirt and rested on the spot where the twenties had been. Maria Maffei started to speak, but Wolfe wiggled her into silence. Anna was still looking at her leg when she said, "I’ve got to undress."

I was slow; Wolfe got it at once. He spoke: "Ah. Certainly. Archie: the lights in the front room. Miss Maffei, if you will accompany Miss Fiore?"

I went to the front room and turned the lights on, and closed the windows and the curtains. Anna and Miss Maffei had followed me in and stood there waiting for me to leave; as I went out I gave Anna a friendly grin; she looked pale but her eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them. In the office I closed the door behind me. Wolfe was sitting up in his chair, not leaning back; there was nothing to remark on the drowsy patient hemisphere of his face, but his forearms extended along the arms of the chair and the forefinger of his right hand was moving so that its tip described a little circle over and over on the polished wood. For Wolfe that was going pretty far in the way of agitation.

I sat down. Faint sounds of movements and voices came from the front room. They were taking long enough. I said, "This is a swell toga you gave me."

Wolfe looked at me, sighed, and let his eyes go half shut again.

When the door opened I sprang up. Anna came through in front, clutching a piece of paper in her hand; her torn sleeve had been pinned together and her hair fingered back. She came up to me and stuck the paper at me and mumbled, "Mr. Archie." I wanted to pat her on the shoulder but I saw she was sure to cry if I did, so I just nodded and she went back to her chair and Maria Maffei to hers. The paper was a fat little manila envelope. I turned to Wolfe’s desk to hand it to him, but he nodded to me to open it. It wasn’t sealed. I pulled out the contents and spread them on the desk.

There was quite a collection. Wolfe and I took our time inspecting it. Item, the Barstow death clipping that Carlo Maffei had cut from the Times on June fifth. Item, a series of drawings on separate little sheets, exact and fine, with two springs and a trigger and a lot of complications; the shape of one was the head of a golf driver. Item, a clipping from a Sunday Rotogravure, a photograph of Manuel Kimball standing by his airplane, and a caption with his name commenting on the popularity of aviation among the Westchester younger set. At the bottom was written in pencil, The man I made the golf club for. See drawings. May 26, 1933. Carlo Maffei. Item, a ten-dollar bill. It was a gold note, and there was pencil-writing on it too, the signatures of four people: Sarah Barstow, Peter Oliver Barstow, Lawrence Barstow, and Manuel Kimball. The signatures had been written with a broad-pointed soft pencil and covered half of one side of the bill.

I looked it all over a second time and then murmured at Wolfe, "Lovin’ babe."

He said, "I tolerate that from Saul Panzer, Archie, I will not from you. Not even as a tribute to this extraordinary display. Poor Carlo Maffei! To combine the foresight that assembled this with the foolhardiness that took him to his fatal rendezvous! We alone profit by the foresight, he pays for the foolhardiness himself-a contemptible bargain.

"Miss Maffei, you have lost your purse but gained the means of stilling the ferment of your blood; the murderer of your brother is known and the weapon for his punishment is at hand.

"Miss Fiore, you will get your money back. Mr. Archie will get it and return it, I promise you. He will do it soon, for I can guess how little promises mean to you; the fierce flame of reality is your only warmth and light; the reality of twenty-dollar bills. Soon, Miss Fiore. Please tell me: when did Mr. Maffei give you all this?"

Anna talked. Not what you could call voluble, but willingly enough to Wolfe’s questions. He got every detail and had me take it down. She had actually seen the driver. For many days Carlo Maffei had forbidden her to enter his room when he was there working, and had kept his closet locked; but one day during his absence the closet door had opened to her trial, only to disclose nothing to her curiosity more uncommon than a golf club evidently in process of construction. On Maffei’s return, finding that the driver was not placed as he had left it, he had been sufficiently disturbed to inform her that if she ever mentioned the golf club he would cut her tongue out. That was all she knew about it.

The envelope had been given to her on June fifth, the day Maffei disappeared. Around seven o’clock, just after he had answered the telephone call, she had gone upstairs for something and he had called her into his room and given her the envelope. He had told her that he would ask her to return it in the morning, but that if he did not come back that night and nothing was heard from him Anna was to deliver the envelope to his sister.

When Anna told that Maria Maffei got active. She jumped up and started toward the girl. I went after her, but Wolfe’s voice like a whip beat me to it:

"Miss Maffei!" He wiggled his finger. "To your chair. Be seated, I say!-Thank you. Your brother was already dead. Save your fury. After pulling Miss Fiore’s hair you would, I suppose, inquire why she did not give you the envelope. That appears to me obvious; perhaps I can save her the embarrassment of replying. I do not know whether your brother told her not to look into the envelope; in any any event, she looked. She saw the ten dollar bill; it was in her possession.

"Miss Fiore, before Carlo Maffei gave you that envelope, what was the largest sum you ever had?"

Anna said, "I don’t know."

I asked her, "Did you ever have ten dollars before?"

"No, Mr. Archie."

"Five dollars?"

She shook her head. "Mrs. Ricci gives me a dollar every week."

"Swell. And you buy your shoes and clothes?"

"Of course I do."

I threw up my hands. Wolfe said, "Miss Maffei, you or I might likewise be tempted by a kingdom, only its boundaries would not be so modest. She probably struggled, and by another sunrise might have won and delivered the envelope to you intact; but that morning’s mail brought her another envelope, and this time it was not merely a kingdom, it was a glorious world. She lost; or perhaps it is somewhere down as a victory; we cannot know. At any rate her struggle is over.

"And now, Miss Maffei, do this and make no mistake: take Miss Fiore home with you and keep her there. Your driver is waiting outside for you. You can explain to your employer that your niece has come for a visit. Explain as you please, but keep Miss Fiore safe until I tell you that the danger is past. Under no circumstances is she to go to the street.-Miss Fiore, you hear?"