Rex Stout - Fer-De-Lance

After Wolfe got into his chair he asked me to get a pencil and a large piece of paper and make a rough map of the Kimball estate. With the guests there I asked no questions; I did as he said. I told him that I was acquainted with the ground only immediately around the house and the landing field, and he said that would do. While I made the map, sitting at my desk, Wolfe was telling Ornie how to get the sedan from the garage at six-thirty in the morning, and instructing the other two to meet him there at that hour.

I took the map to Wolfe at his desk. He looked it over a minute and said, "Good. Now tell me, if you were sending three men to that place to make sure that Manuel Kimball did not leave without being seen, and to follow him if seen, how would you dispose of them?"

I asked, "Under cover?"

"No. Exposed would do."

"How long?"

"Three hours."

I considered a minute. "Easy. Durkin on the highway, across from the entrance to the drive, with the sedan backed into a gate so it could start quick either way. Bill Gore in the bushes-about here-where he could cover all approaches to the house except the back. Orrie on top of a hill back here, about a third of a mile off, with field glasses, and a motorcycle down on the road. But they might as well stay home and play pinochle, since they can’t fly."

Wolfe’s cheeks folded. "Saul Panzer can. The clouds will have eyes. Thank you, Archie. That is all. We will not keep you longer from your entertainment."

I knew from his tone that I was to go, but I didn’t want to. If there had to be a charade I wanted to help make it up. I said, "The movies have all been closed. Raided by the Society for the Suppression of Vice."

Wolfe said, "Then try a harlot’s den. When gathering eggs you must look in every nest."

Bill Gore snickered. I gave Wolfe as dirty a look as I cold manage, and went to the hall for my hat.

CHAPTER 18

I was awake Wedneslay morning before seven o’clock, but I didn’t get up. I watched the sun slanting against the windows, and listened to the noises from the street and the boats and ferries on the river, and figured that since Bill and Fred and Orrie had been instructed to meet at the garage at six-thirty they must already be as far as the Grand Concourse. My part hadn’t been handed to me. When I had got home the night before Wolfe had gone up to bed, and there had been no note for me.

I finally tumbled out and shaved and dressed, taking my time, and went downstairs. Fritz was in the kitchen, buzzing around contented. I passed him some kind of a cutting remark, but realizing that it wasn’t fair to take it out on him I made up for it by eating an extra egg and reading aloud to him a piece from the morning paper about a vampire bat that had had a baby in the zoo. Fritz came from the part of Switzerland where they talk French. He had a paper of his own every morning, but it was in French and it never seemed very likely to me that there was much in it. I was always surprised when I saw a word in it that meant anything up-to-date; for instance, the word Barstow which had been prominent in the headlines for a week.

I was starting the second cup of coffee when the phone rang. I went to the office and got the receiver to my ear, but Wolfe had answered from his room. I listened. It was Orrie Cather reporting that they had arrived and that everything was set. That was all. I went back to my coffee in the kitchen.

After a third cup and a cigarette I moseyed into the office. Sooner or later, I thought, genius will impart its secrets; sooner or later, compose yourself; just straighten things around and dust off the desk and fill the fountain pen and make everything nice for teacher. Sooner or later, honey-you damn fool. I wasn’t getting the fidgets, I had them. A couple of times I took off the receiver and listened, but I didn’t catch Wolfe making any calls. I got the mail and put it on his desk, and opened the safe. I pulled out the drawer where the Maffei stuff was just to make sure it hadn’t walked off. The envelope into which I had put the photostats felt thin, and I took them out. One set was gone. I had had two sets made, and only one was there. That gave me my first hint about Wolfe’s charade, but I didn’t follow it up very far, because as I was sticking the envelope back into the drawer Fritz came in and said that Wolfe wanted to see me in his room.

I went up. His door was open. He was up and dressed all but his coat; the sleeves of his yellow shirt-he used two fresh shirts every day, always canary yellow-looked like enormous floating sheeps’ bladders as he stood at his mirror brushing his hair. I caught his eyes in the minor, and he winked at me! I was so astonished that I suppose my mouth fell open.

He put the brush down and turned to me. "Good morning, Archie. You have breakfast?-Good. It is pleasant to see the sun again, after yesterday’s gray unceasing trickle. Get the Maffei documents from the safe. By all means take a gun. Proceed to White Plains and get Mr. Anderson at his office-he will be awaiting you-and drive him to the Kimball estate. Show him Manuel Kimball; point, if necessary. When Manuel Kimball has been apprehended deliver the documents to Mr. Anderson. Return here, and you will find that Fritz will have prepared one of your favorite dishes for lunch."

I said, "Okay. But why all the mystery-"

"Comments later, Archie. Save them, please. I am due upstairs in ten minutes and I have yet to enjoy my chocolate."

I said, "I hope you choke on it," and turned and left him.

With the Carlo Maffei stuff and Anna’s statement on my breast and a thirty-eight, loaded this time, on my hip, I walked to the garage. It was warm and sunny, June twenty-first, the day for the sun to start back south. It was a good day for the finale of the fer-de-lance, I thought, the longest one of the year. I filled up with gas and oil and water, made it crosstown to Park Avenue, and turned north. As I passed the marble front of the Manhattan Trust Company I saluted; that was where I had had Anderson’s check certified. Going north on the Parkway at that hour of the morning there was plenty of room, but I kept my speedometer at forty or under; Wolfe had told Anderson this would be unostentatious, and besides, I wasn’t in the mood for repartee with a motor cop. I was pretty well on edge. I always am like that when I’m really on my way for a man; there never seems to be quite enough air for me; I breathe quicker and everything I touch-the steering wheel, for instance-seems to be alive with blood going in it. I don’t like the feeling much but I always have it.

Anderson was waiting for me. In his office the girl at the desk tossed me a nod and got busy on the phone. In a minute Anderson came out. There were two men with him, carrying their hats and looking powerful. One of them was H.R. Corbett; the other was new to me. Anderson stopped to say something to the girl at the desk, then came over to me.

"Well?" he said.

I grinned. "I’m ready if you are. Hello, Corbett. You going along?"

Anderson said, "I’m taking two men. You know what the job is. Is that enough?"

I nodded. "All we’ll need ‘em for is to hold my hat anyway. Let’s go." The third guy opened the door and we filed out.

Anderson came with me in the roadster; the other two followed us in a closed car, official, but I noticed it wasn’t Anderson’s limousine. Going down Main Street all the traffic cops saluted my passenger, and I grinned considering how surprised they would have been if they had known how much the District Attorney was paying for that little taxi ride. I opened her up as soon as I got onto the highway, and rolled over the hills, up and down, so fast that Anderson looked at me. He didn’t know but what the speed was part of the program, so I kept going, slowing down only at the points where I had to make a turn and needed to make sure that Corbett, trailing along behind, had caught it. It took just twenty-five minutes from the White Plains courthouse to the entrance to the Kimball drive; the clock on my dash said ten-forty as I slowed up to turn in.