Rex Stout - And Four to Go

Wolfe was glaring at us. “Confound it,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “So you and Tabby have problems, not to mention me. You hired him, through me, to commit petty larceny, and that will make fine reading. He committed the larceny, but what’s worse, he has now got it in his head that we have framed him for something in a murder, and try to get it out. He’s too scared to listen to reason. You may think of something besides reason for him to listen to.”

“Is there any chance that he seized an opportunity? When he got in front of her as she crossed the sidewalk?”

“No. Cross it off. I saw it. And why? Skip it. Also, I know him and that’s not in him.”

“Who is he? What’s his name?”

“Just call him Tabby. He prefers it.”

“I want my money,” Tabby squeaked. “That’s all I want.”

Wolfe, eying him, took in air, clear down, and let it out again. “You understand, sir,” he said, “that this may be only a bugaboo. Mrs. Bynoe may have died of natural causes.”

“I want my money,” Tabby squeaked.

“No doubt. But she may not, and in that case the investigation will be thorough. We’ll soon know, and if it was murder I’m in a pickle. Putting it at a minimum, I would prefer not to have it published that I hired a man to steal a flower, especially if he tore it from her breast as she lay dying. You want your money. If I give it to you, and you leave, what will happen? Either you will spend it in an effort to keep yourself out of the hands of the police, not an attractive prospect for you; or you will go to the police at once and unburden yourself, not an attractive prospect for me.”

Wolfe sighed again. “So I’m not going to pay you, not-Let me finish, please. I shall not pay you now. There is a comfortable room on the third floor of this house, and my cook is unsurpassed if not unequaled. If you will occupy that room, communicate with no one, and not leave the house until I give the word, I will then pay you the hundred dollars and also ten dollars for each day you have been here.”

During the next minute Tabby opened his mouth three times to speak and each time closed it again. It was a hard chew for him, and when he finally got to the point of words they were not for Wolfe. He turned to me and demanded, “What about this guy?”

I grinned at him. “He could lie rings around you, Tabby. But he’s too damn conceited to double-cross a man, let alone a peanut. Also, if I count, I’ll sign it.”

He left me to squint at Wolfe, and after another chew he nodded. “Okay, but no lousy ten bucks a day. Twenty.”

As I mentioned, the offer of two Cs had been a mistake. Delusions of grandeur. Wolfe, being in a pickle, would probably have stood for it, but I put in. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “Ten a day and found, and wait till you taste the found.” I touched his elbow. “Come on and I’ll show you your room.”

Chapter 3

FIVE HOURS LATER, at seven-eighteen that evening, I went to answer the doorbell and found Inspector Cramer on the stoop. Since Lon Cohen had phoned around four o’clock to say that Mrs. Bynoe had been murdered, and to ask for copy, which he didn’t get, I had expected company sooner, but of course it had taken a little time for them to get a line on the photographers who had had box seats, or stands, in front of the church.

Tabby had chosen to lunch in his room from a tray instead of joining us in the dining room, but afterward he had relaxed enough to go with me to the basement to shoot some pool, and I spent the rest of the afternoon there with him, with time out for answering three phone calls and for performing a chore I thought advisable, namely, taking the roll of film from the Centrex and locking it in a desk drawer. We were in the basement when the doorbell rang, and I took Tabby up with me and sent him on upstairs before I opened up. Also, seeing Inspector Cramer through the one-way glass panel, I stepped into the office to see that the spray of Vanda wasn’t on view and to tell Wolfe who the caller was. He put down the book he was reading and growled.

After letting me take his hat and coat in the hall, which showed that he didn’t intend merely to fire a couple of shots and go, Cramer tramped ahead into the office, and when I entered he was seated in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk and was declining an invitation to have some beer; and as I crossed to my desk he spoke to my back.

“You, Goodwin. I want information, and I want it straight and fast. What were you doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today?”

I sat and raised my brows. “Why start there? Take the whole day. I woke up at eight o’clock, realized it was not only Sunday but also Easter Sunday, and decided to enjoy-”

“Stop clowning and answer my question!”

“Pfui,” Wolfe muttered.

I shook my head at Cramer. “You know better than that. Even when you’re worked up, as I can see you are, you still know better. What’s the ground?”

His keen blue-gray eyes, looking smaller than they were on account of his big round face, were hard at me. “Damn you,” he said, “I’m in a hurry, but I ought to know you by this time. A woman named Mrs. Millard Bynoe left that church today while you were there at the curb taking pictures. Her husband and a man named Frimm were with her. They crossed the avenue and walked east on Fifty-fourth Street, and in the middle of the block she suddenly collapsed and had convulsions, and she died there on the sidewalk. The body was taken to the morgue, and the preliminary report says there are signs of strychnine, and a needle was found in her abdomen. Details of the needle are being withheld, except that it is hollow and it had contained strychnine, and from its size and shape it could have been shot at her by a spring mechanism from a range up to twenty feet, maybe more, depending on the mechanism.”

Cramer’s eyes darted to Wolfe and back to me. “You want ground. It was approximately twelve minutes-say ten to fifteen-after she left the church that she collapsed on the sidewalk. As she was leaving the church there were at least five cameras aimed at her, five that I know about, and you were aiming one of them. What for?”

I was meeting his eyes. “You’ve got ground, all right,” I conceded. “You asked what I was doing in front of Saint Thomas’s today, and you sure have a right to know, so I’ll tell you.”

I did so, with all details of my words and actions, except that I didn’t mention Tabby or Mrs. Bynoe or orchids, and I didn’t include the fact that I had been present when Mrs. Bynoe collapsed. My finale was merely that I had strolled away from the church, to Madison Avenue, and taken a taxi home.

I leaned back. “That’s it,” I said. “I understand now why you came instead of inviting me down. Naturally you want the camera, and under the circumstances I don’t blame you.” I swiveled and got the Centrex, in its leather case with the strap, from the desk, and swiveled back. “Here it is. If you want to take it along I’d like a receipt.”

He said he certainly wanted to take it along, and I got at the typewriter and wrote a receipt, and he signed it. As I dropped it in a drawer he said that my signed statement should include a declaration that the camera I had given him was the one I had used in front of the church, and I said it would. When I turned back his eyes were leveled at me again.