Rex Stout - And Four to Go

“The look on his face. I’m an expert on cops’ faces. Also the way he walked.” I touched her arm to stop her. “Here’s my car.” I pulled the door open. “Climb in. You know who I am, and you know I want to say something, or what was I there for? I’ll say it on the way to one-sixteen Arbor Street.”

She gave me a look. In the dim street light her face was more like the one I had seen twelve hours earlier peering down at me from her perch on the box, not as shadowed and saggy as it had been in the corridor. Apparently I passed, for she turned and got in, and I went around to the other side, ducked in behind the wheel, started the engine, and rolled.

She spoke. “You wanted to say something.”

“Yeah. You may know I work for Nero Wolfe.”

“Of course.”

“Millard Bynoe and Henry Frimm came to see him this evening.”

Her head jerked around. “What for?”

“It was confidential. But do you happen to know that you were going to marry Frimm and now you’re out?”

“Oh my Lord, here we go again. Let me out. If I can’t find a taxi I’ll walk.”

“I merely ask if you know it.”

“Certainly I know it.”

“Then I can admit that that entered into the conversation.” I took time out to make a left turn. “I presume you also know that the cops think a poisoned needle was shot at Mrs. Bynoe by one of us there with cameras. Or have they saved that for tomorrow?”

“They have not. They have my camera. They showed me the needle.”

“Then you’re caught up and I can speak my piece. It is widely known that I am a sharp observer, and I have good eyes. If I go to the DA’s office to answer questions, say tomorrow morning, and if I say I got a good look at your camera at close range, and I am positive that it had no trick gadgets on it, that may not make them cross you off, but it will certainly cool them down. Especially if I add that I will swear to it on a witness stand. Of course at present it’s just an if. What I want to suggest is this, that we go and talk it over with Nero Wolfe. Now.”

Her face was turned to me, and, stopping for a red light, I turned mine to her.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“It’s simple enough. If they suspect that you shot that needle-”

“Oh, I get that. It’s you I don’t get, and Nero Wolfe.” She shut her eyes tight. “I’m too tired to think. It wasn’t Henry Frimm that got you-not Henry-and why would Millard Bynoe? Take me home.”

My eyes had left her because the light had changed and we were moving. “Mr. Wolfe will explain,” I assured her. “When you’ve had something to eat and drink you’ll feel better. He’ll tell you what-”

“No! I’m going home!” Her voice was up. “I’ll get out at the next light!”

She would have. It was no go. We would have a red light in twenty seconds, and that wasn’t time enough to talk her around, and if I pulled over and stopped she would hop out, and if I tried holding her she would yell. Her nerves had had all they could take. “Okay,” I told her, “skip it. Home it is. I’ll ring you in the morning.”

Arbor Street, in the Village, was only three minutes away, and at that time of night on Easter Sunday there was no competition. When I pulled up at the curb in front of 116 she had the door open and was out the instant I stopped, but then she stuck her head back in and was smiling at me, or thought she was. It wasn’t much of a smile, but she tried. “Thank you anyway,” she said. “I’ll sleep on it, if I can sleep.”

I waited until she was inside, then headed uptown, drove to the garage and left the car, walked around the corner to the brownstone, and mounted the stoop, but when I used my key on the door it opened only to a two-inch gap. The chain-bolt was on. I pushed the button, and when I had to wait a full minute I knew it would be not Fritz but Wolfe. The bolt clanked and the door swung open and I entered.

“No?” he said in a tone of relief. Of course that was to be expected. I will not say that he would rather be arrested for flower-stealing than tackle a woman, but he was relieved. Postpone the evil hour.

“I got her,” I said, taking off my coat, “and I had her in the car. But she balked, and even if I had got her here she would have cracked, so I took her home. I’ll try her in the morning. Anything new?”

“No.”

“Has Tabby stirred?”

“No. I wish I had never heard of orchids.”

I gawked. “You are in pain. The worst we can get is thirty days, and they might even let Fritz bring us things.” He was pushing the button to open his elevator door. “If they take away our licenses we can peddle orchids,” I said to cheer him up, and went to the office to lock the safe.

Chapter 6

MONDAY MORNING I WASN’T at home when the invitation came, by phone, for me to call the DA’s office. At eight-fifteen, after breakfasting in the kitchen as usual, and dialing Iris Innes’ number and getting no answer, and going up to Wolfe’s room, accompanied by Fritz with Wolfe’s breakfast tray, to get instructions, and mounting another flight to tell Tabby good morning and finding him still in bed, I went down to the office, got the roll of film from the drawer, and left the house for a morning walk. Finding it cloudy and windy and raw, I buttoned my topcoat.

Surequick Pix, on Fortieth Street near Lexington, was supposed to be open at nine o’clock, but the door was locked and I had to wait. When the guy came he apparently resented me for finding him late, so I apologized and he promised to have the transparencies ready by five o’clock. That was the best I could get. I left the film, went and found a phone booth, rang Iris Innes, again got no answer, and dialed the number I knew best.

In a moment Wolfe’s voice, grumpy as always when he is disturbed in the plant rooms, was in my ear. “Yes?”

“I can get the pictures at five o’clock. No answer at Iris Innes’s number. I told Fritz to keep an eye and an ear on Tabby. Do I proceed?”

“No. You are wanted at the District Attorney’s office and I suppose you’ll have to go.”

“I could have forgotten to phone in.”

“No. Go. You might learn something.” He hung up.

From there on that day was one long dismal fizzle. No working detective ever detected less in nine straight hours than I did that Monday. The first two were spent in going down to Leonard Street for an extended talk with a dick and an assistant DA, which satisfied nobody. When I refused to furnish any biographical details except those connected with the proceedings in front of Saint Thomas’s they thought they would charge me as a material witness, but since that would accomplish nothing beyond putting me to the trouble and expense of getting bail, and might possibly mean future trouble for them, they skipped it. The main ruckus was about the film. I admitted that I had removed it from the camera before surrendering the camera to Cramer. They claimed that the film was evidence and I was withholding it. I claimed that while the camera might conceivably be evidence, since they were assuming that the murder weapon had been shot from a camera, the film was absolutely out of it, and it was my property, and if they tried taking it with a writ I knew a lawyer. I conceded that if, when the film was developed, anything showed that might be evidence, as for instance a needle in flight, it would be my duty to produce it. Finally the assistant DA, fed up, told me to beat it but keep myself available, and when I said I would be moving around on errands he instructed me to ring him at least once an hour.