Rex Stout - Fer-De-Lance

"Then you'll have to do it, I'm afraid." He raised his voice a little to reach the door: "Good night, Miss Fiore."

She didn't reply. I followed her to the hall and took her out to the roadster. When we got to Sullivan Street Mrs. Ricci was waiting in front with a glare in her eye that made me decide not to stop for any amenities.

CHAPTER 3

By the time I had garaged the car and walked the two blocks back to Thirty-fifth Street the office was dark and when I went up a flight I saw a ribbon of light under the door of Wolfe's bedroom. I often wondered how he ever got his clothes off, but I know Fritz never helped him. Fritz slept up above, across the hall from the plant-rooms; my room was on the second floor, the same floor as Wolfe's, a fair-sized room in front with its own bath and a pair of windows. I had lived there seven years, and it certainly was home; and seemed likely to remain so for another seven, or even twenty-seven, for the only girl I had ever been really soft on had found another bargain she liked better. That was how I happened to meet Wolfe-but that story isn't for me to tell, at least not yet. There are one or two little points about it that will need clearing up some day. But that room was certainly home. The bed was big and good, there was a desk with plenty of drawer-space and three chairs all roomy and comfortable, and a real carpet all over, no damn little rugs to slide you around like a piece of butter on a hotcake. The pictures on the walls were my own, and I think they were a good selection; one of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, a colored one of a lion's head, another colored one of woods with grass and flowers, and a big framed photograph of my mother and father, who both died when I was just a kid. Also there was a colored one called September Morn, of a young woman apparently with no clothes on and her hair hanging down in front, but that was in the bathroom. There was nothing unusual about the room, it was just a good room to live in, except the big gong on the wall under the bed, and that was out of sight. It was connected up so that when Wolfe turned on a switch in his room, which he did every night, the gong would sound if anyone stepped in the hall within five feet of his door or if any of his windows was disturbed, and also it was connected with all entrances to the plant-rooms. Wolfe told me once, not as if it mattered much, that he really had no cowardice in him, he only had an intense distaste for being touched by anyone or for being compelled without warning to make any quick movements; and when I considered the quantity he had to move I was willing to believe him. For some reason questions like that of cowardice have never interested me as regards Wolfe, though ordinarily if I have cause to suspect that a man is yellow as far as I'm concerned he can eat at another table.

I took one of the newspapers from the office upstairs with me, and after I had undressed and got into pajamas and slippers, I made myself comfortable in a chair with cigarettes and ashtray handy and read that university president article three times. It was headed like this:

PETER OLIVER BARSTOW DEAD

FROM STROKE

PRESIDENT OF HOLLAND SUCCUMBS

ON LINKS

FRIENDS REACH HIS SIDE WITH

HIS LAST BREATH

It was quite a piece, with a full column on the front page, another column and a half on the inside, and in another article a long obituary with comments from a lot of prominent people. The story itself didn't amount to much and there was really nothing to it except another man gone. I read the paper every day and this one was only two days old, but I couldn't remember noticing this. Barstow, 58-year-old president of Holland University, had been playing golf Sunday afternoon on the links of the Green Meadow Club near Pleasantville, thirty miles north of New York, a foursome, with his son Lawrence and two friends named E.D. Kimball and Manuel Kimball. On the fairway of the fourth hole he had suddenly pitched forward and landed on his face, flopped around on the ground a few seconds, and then lay still. His caddy had jumped to him and grabbed his arm, but by the time the others got to him he was dead. Among the crowd that collected from the clubhouse and other players was a doctor who was an old friend of Barstow's, and he and the son had taken the body in Barstow's own car to the Barstow home six miles away. The doctor had pronounced it heart disease.

The rest was trimmings, all about Barstow's career and achievements and a picture of him and this and that, and how his wife had collapsed when they brought him home and his son and daughter bore up well. After the third reading I just yawned and threw up the sponge. The only connection that I could see between Barstow's death and Carlo Maffei was the fact that Wolfe had asked Anna Fiore if she had seen a golf club, so I tossed the paper away and got up saying to myself aloud, "Mr. Goodwin, I guess you haven't got this case ready for the closed business file." Then I took a drink of water and went to bed.

It was nearly ten o'clock when I got downstairs the next morning, for I need eight hours' sleep when I can get it, and of course Wolfe wouldn't be down till eleven. He arose always at eight, no matter what time he went to bed, had breakfast in his room with a couple of newspapers, and spent the two hours from nine to eleven in the plant-rooms. Sometimes I could hear old Horstmann, who tended the plants, yelling at him, while I was dressing or taking a bath. Wolfe seemed to have the same effect on Horstmann that an umpire had on John J. McGraw. Not that the old man really disliked Wolfe, I'm sure he didn't; I wouldn't wonder if he was worried for fear Wolfe's poundage, having at least reached the limit of equilibrium, would topple over and make hash of the orchids. Horstmann didn't think any more of those plants than I do of my right eye. He slept in a little room partitioned off of a corner, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had walked the floor with them at night.

After I got through in the kitchen with a dish of kidneys and waffles and a couple of glasses of milk-for I absolutely refused to let Fritz dress up the dining-table for my breakfast, which I always had alone-I went out for ten minutes' worth of air, hoofing it down around the piers and back again, and then settled down at my corner desk in the office with the books, after dusting around a little and opening the safe and filling Wolfe's fountain pen. His mail I left on his desk unopened, that was the custom; there wasnt any for me. I made out two or three checks and balanced my expense book, not much to that, things had been so quiet, and then began going over the plant records to be sure Horstmann had his reports up to date. I was in the middle of that when I heard the buzzer in the kitchen, and a minute later Fritz came to the door and said a man named O'Grady wanted to see Mr. Wolfe. I took the card and looked at it and saw it was a new one on me; I knew a lot of the dicks on the Homicide Squad, but I had never seen this O'Grady. I told Fritz to usher him in.

O'Grady was young, and very athletic judging from his make-up and the way he walked. He had a bad eye, conscientious and truculent; from the way he looked at me you might have thought I had the Lindbergh baby in my pocket.

He said, "Mr. Nero Wolfe?"

I waved at a chair. "Have a seat." I glanced at my wrist. "Mr. Wolfe will be down in nineteen minutes."

He scowled. "This is important. Couldn't you call him? I sent in my card, I'm from the Homicide Squad."