Rex Stout - The Father Hunt

"I would like some beer," Wolfe said.

"You're already two bottles ahead and it's going on two o'clock."

"Satisfactory," he said, leaving it open whether he meant the beer or the nibble. He gripped the edge of the desk to push his chair back, rose, and headed for the hall. For a second I thought he was walking out, to go to bed with the nibble, but he turned left in the hall. He was going for beer. When he returned he had a bottle and a glass in one hand and a snifter in the other. He put the bottle and glass on his desk, got the cognac bottle from the stand and poured a couple of ounces in the snifter,

"You might easily have missed it," he said, and went around to his chair, opened the bottle, and poured.

I whirled the brandy around in the snifter and said, "I almost did. If it's only a coincidence I'm through with the detective business for good. We'll soon know, one way or another. The quickest and most obvious would be to have Salvatore Manzoni take a look at the public-relations Floyd Vance, but twenty-three years is a long time and it might not prove anything. Of course the receptionist at Thome's could settle it that it was the public-relations Floyd Vance that she shooed out that May day, but that would only prove that it's a real nibble."

I put the snifter to my lips and tilted my head back enough to get a good gulp. Wolfe, having waited until the bead was down to precisely the right level, raised bis glass.

"Fingerprints," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"We get his and give them to Cramer and they match or they don't."

"No." He licked foam from his lips. "If they matched we'd be in a fix. Mr. Cramer would have a murderer, but we would still need a father, and he would be locked up and inaccessible. You said he wanted to meet me."

"Yeah. If he's it, what he really wanted was to find out if we had got anywhere and if so how far. How he knew we were on it is a question, but we don't have to answer it. Sure, I could get him here, and then what? Do you think you could ask him anything that would help without giving him a guess that we're on him? I don't. There would be the same risk in seeing the receptionist at Thome's. She might tell him."

He poured beer, leaned back and closed his eyes, and pushed his lips out. He pulled them in and pushed them out again. That was a new one; it had never happened before. The lip act, leaning back and closing his eyes and working his lips out and in, was routine; that meant he was working, working hard, and interruptions were not allowed. But that was the first time he had ever started it with beer just poured, and how would he handle it? How would he know when the bead was down to the right level with his eyes shut? By God, he did. When it was down to where it would just cover his lips as he drank, he opened his eyes, reached for the glass, drank, put the glass down, leaned back, closed his eyes, licked the foam off, and sent Ms lips out and in. I decided he must have practiced it when I wasn't around.

I usually time the lip act, since there's nothing else to do except try to guess what he'll come up with. That time it was three minutes and ten seconds. He opened his eyes, straightened up, and asked, "They're coming at nine o'clock?"

I said yes.

"I suppose a public-relations person has an address? An office?"

I got the Manhattan book and found the page. "Four-. ninety Lexington Avenue. Not the best. It should be Madison."

"Tell them to trace him back and cover nineteen forty-four thoroughly, but not to risk prompting him. That will

be no problem with Saul and Fred, but with Orrie make it emphatic as usual."

"Right." I had emptied the snifter during the lip act, and as he pushed his chair back I went to pour another swallow. It might put me to sleep a few seconds quicker.

12

Not a fly. Flies don't buzz. Mosquito. No. Too loud. What the… Oh. House phone, for God's sake. I opened an eye, stretched an arm and got it, said, "Well?"

Fritz's voice said, "Good morning, Archie. He wants you."

I glared at the clock on the bedstand, realized that it actually said twenty-five minutes past eight, and swung my feet around. Figuring out whether I had failed to turn the alarm on, or it had tried to stir me and it had failed, would have to wait. I called for will power, gave it time to deliver, made it to my feet, concentrated on locating the door, and stepped.

The door of Wolfe's room, which is above the kitchen, at the rear of the house where he gets the sun in winter, stood open. When I entered, with my bare feet making no sound, he was seated at the table, with the Times propped on the rack, dropping a bit of toast into the sauce of eggs au beurre noir. When I cleared my throat he got the toast to and into his mouth before he turned his head.

"The time is out of joint," I said.

He frowned. "I don't talk in quotations, even Shakespeare, and neither do you."

"Miss Rowan does sometimes and she likes that one. As you see, I am no longer on daylight saving. Apparently you are." He was fully dressed: a nice clean yellow shirt with narrow maroon stripes, a maroon tie, and a brown summerweight self-striped suit. Up in the plant rooms he would shed the jacket and put on a smock.

He swallowed a bite of egg and said, "It's nearly nine o'clock."

"By daylight saving, yes, sir. I'll brief them while I'm eating breakfast."

"Only Saul. We won't risk it with Fred and Orrie. Tell them to be on call. You and Saul will decide on your approach and you may need them later. First, is he involved? If yes, merely as the murderer, with a motive that doesn't concern us, or also as the father? We can't waste our time and the client's money just on finding a culprit for Mr. Cramer." He dropped toast in the sauce.

"I'm waking up," I said. "Or I got ideas in my sleep. Last night I said we don't have to answer the question how he knew we were on it, but if he's the father it may be important. If he's the father there's some connection between him and Cyrus Jarrett, or why did Jarrett send the checks? And if Jarrett told him that Nero Wolfe is out to find the father, and if he is also the murderer, what about Miss Denovo? We might lose a client. I doubt if you want another casualty like Simon Jacobs on the record, and I certainly don't. I suggest that we'd better get her out of circulation."

He made a face. "Fritz."

That was what he calls flummery. It was true that when, for security reasons, it had been necessary to have a female guest sleeping and eating in the South Room, which is above Wolfe's, Fritz hadn't been able to hide how he felt about it, but Wolfe hadn't even tried to hide how he felt.

"I'm aware," I said, "that if we did it again Fritz might leave and you might too. I don't mean here. She spends most of her days at Miss Rowan's, and she could spend her nights there too until we get him or drop him. Miss Rowan has two spare rooms. I'll suggest it. Anything else?"

He said no and I went back up a flight to do in ten minutes what usually takes me thirty. By the time I got down to the kitchen, having stopped in the office to tell Fred and Orrie that Saul and I were going to pick up a trail and might need them later, my fog was starting to clear.