Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 (16 page)

He upturned a palm. “Of course. Zero! I had been a witless ass. The use of the dot as a symbol for ‘times’ is a strictly modern device. Since the rest of the message, the figures three and two, were in Hindu number script, surely the dot was too—provided that the Hindus had made any use of the dot. And what made my blunder so unforgivable was that the Hindus had indeed used a dot; they had used it, as is explained in Hogben’s book, for the most brilliant and imaginative invention in the whole history of the language of numbers. For when you have once decided how to write three and how to write two, how are you going to distinguish among thirty-two and three hundred and two and three thousand and two and thirty thousand and two?
That was the crucial problem in number language, and the Greeks and Romans, for all their intellectual eminence, never succeeded in solving it. Some Hindu genius did, twenty centuries ago. He saw that the secret was position. Today we use our zero exactly as he did, to show position, but instead of a zero he used a dot. That’s what the dot was in the early Hindu number language; it was used like our zero. So Heller’s message was not three times two, or six; it was three zero two, or three hundred and two.”

Susan Maturo started, jerking her head up, and made a noise. Wolfe rested his eyes on her. “Yes, Miss Maturo. Three hundred and two people died in the explosion and fire at the Montrose Hospital a month ago. You mentioned that figure when you were talking with me, but even if you hadn’t, it is so imbedded in the consciousness of everyone who reads newspapers or listens to radio, it wouldn’t have escaped me. The moment I realized that Heller’s message was the figure three hundred and two, I would certainly have connected it with that disaster, whether you had mentioned it or not.”

“But it’s—” She was staring. “You mean it is connected?”

“I’m proceeding on that obvious assumption. I am assuming that through the information one of you six people furnished Leo Heller as factors for a formula, he formed a suspicion that one of you had commited a serious crime, and that his message, the figure three hundred and two, indicates that the crime was planting in the Montrose Hospital that bomb that caused the deaths of three hundred and two people—or at least involvement in that crime.”

It seemed as if I could see or feel muscles tightening all over the room. Most of those dicks, maybe all of them, had of course been working on the Montrose thing. Cramer pulled his feet back and his hands were fists. Purley Stebbins took his gun from his holster and rested it on his knee and leaned forward, the better to have his eyes on all six of them.

“So,” Wolfe continued, “Heller’s message identified not the person who was about to kill him, not the criminal, but the crime. That was superbly ingenious, and, considering the situation he was in, he deserves our deepest admiration.
He has mine, and I retract any derogation of him. It would seem natural to concentrate on Miss Maturo, since she was certainly connected with that disaster, but first let’s clarify the matter. I’m going to ask the rest of you if you have at any time visited the Montrose Hospital, or been connected with it in any way, or had dealings with any of its personnel. Take the question just as I have stated it.” His eyes went to the end of the row, at the left. “Mrs. Tillotson? Answer, please. Have you?”

“No.” It was barely audible.

“Louder, please.”

“No!”

His eyes moved. “Mr. Ennis?”

“I have not. Never.”

“We’ll skip you, Miss Maturo. Mr. Busch?”

“I’ve never been in a hospital.”

“That answers only a third of the question. Answer all of it.”

“The answer is no, mister.”

“Miss Abbey?”

“I went there once about two years ago, to visit a patient, a friend. That was all.” The tip of her tongue came out and went in. “Except for that one visit I have never been connected with it in any way or dealt with any of its personnel.”

“That is explicit. Mr. Winslow?”

“No to the whole question. An unqualified no.”

“Well.” Wolfe did not look frustrated. “That would seem to isolate Miss Maturo, but it is not conclusive.” His head turned. “Mr. Cramer. If the person who not only killed Leo Heller but also bombed that hospital is among these six, I’m sure you won’t want to take the slightest risk of losing him. I have a suggestion.”

“I’m listening,” Cramer growled.

“Take them in as material witnesses, and hold them without bail if possible. Starting immediately, collect as many as you can of the former staff of that hospital. There were scores who survived, and other scores who were not on duty at the time. Get all of them if possible, spare no effort, and have them look at these people and say if they have ever seen any of them. Meanwhile, of course, you will be working on Miss Maturo, but you have heard the
denials of the other five, and if you get reliable evidence that one of them has lied I’m sure you will need no further suggestion from me. Indeed, if one of them has lied and leaves this room in custody with that lie undeclared, that alone will be half the battle. I’m sorry—”

“Wait a minute.”

All eyes went to one spot. It was Jack Ennis, the inventor. His thin colorless lips were twisted, with one end up, but not in an attempt to smile. The look in his eyes showed that he had no idea of smiling.

“I didn’t tell an exact lie,” he said.

Wolfe’s eyes were slits. “Then an inexact lie, Mr. Ennis?”

“I mean I didn’t visit that hospital as a hospital. And I didn’t have dealings with them, I was just trying to. I wanted them to give my X-ray machine a trial. One of them was willing to, but the other two talked him down.”

“When was this?”

“I was there three times, twice in December and once in January.”

“I thought your X-ray machine had a flaw.”

“It wasn’t perfect, but it would work, and it would have been better than anything they had. I was sure I was going to get it in, because he was for it—his name is Halsey—and I saw him first, and he wanted to try it. But the other two talked him out of it, and one of them was very—he—” He petered out.

Wolfe prodded him. “Very what, Mr. Ennis?”

“He didn’t understand me! He hated me!”

“There are people like that. There are all kinds of people. Have you ever invented a bomb?”

“A bomb?” Ennis’s lips worked, and this time I thought he actually was trying to smile. “Why would I invent a bomb?”

“I don’t know. Inventors invent many things. If you have never tried your hand at a bomb, of course you have never had occasion to get hold of the necessary materials—for instance, explosives. It’s only fair to tell you what I now regard as a reasonable hypothesis: that you placed the bomb in the hospital in revenge for an injury, real or fancied; that included in the data you gave Leo Heller was an item or items which led him to suspect you of that
crime; that something he said led you, in turn, to suspect that he suspected; that when you went to his place this morning you went armed, prepared for action if your suspicion was verified; that when you entered the building you recognized Mr. Goodwin as my assistant; that you went up to Heller’s office and asked him if Mr. Goodwin was there for an appointment with him, and his answer heightened or confirmed your suspicion, and you produced the gun; that—”

“Hold it,” Cramer snapped. “I’ll take it from here. Purley, get him out and—”

Purley was a little slow. He was up, but Ennis was up faster and off in a flying dive for Wolfe. I dived too, and got an arm and jerked. He tore loose, but by then a whole squad was there, swarming into him, and since I wasn’t needed I backed off. As I did so someone dived at me, and Susan Maturo was up against me, gripping my lapels.

“Tell me!” she demanded. “Tell me! Was it him?”

I told her promptly and positively, to keep her from ripping my lapels off. “Yes,” I said, in one word.

Two months later a jury of eight men and four women agreed with me.

At the end of the sixth inning the score was Boston 11, New York 1.

I would not have believed that the day would ever come when, seated in a lower box between home and first, at the seventh and deciding game of the World Series between the Giants and Red Sox, I would find myself glomming a girl, no matter who. I am by no means above glomming a girl if she is worthy, but not at the Polo Grounds, where my mind is otherwise occupied. That awful day, though, I did.

The situation was complex and will have to be explained. It was a mess even before the game started. Pierre Mondor, owner of the famous Mondor’s Restaurant in Paris, was visiting New York and was our house guest. He got the notion, God knows how or why, that Wolfe had to take him to a baseball game, and Wolfe’s conception of the obligations of a host wouldn’t let him use his power of veto. Tickets were no problem, since Emil Chisholm, oil millionaire and part-owner of the Giants, considered himself deeply in Wolfe’s debt on account of a case we had handled for him a few years back.

So that October afternoon, a Wednesday, I got the pair
of them, the noted private detective and the noted chef, up to the Polo Grounds in a taxi, steered them through the mob into the entrance, along the concrete ramps, and down the aisle to our box. It was twenty past one—only ten minutes to game time—and the stands were jammed. I motioned to Mondor, and he slid in and sat. Wolfe stood and glared down at the wooden slats and metal arms. Then he lifted his head and glared at me.

“Are you out of your senses?” he demanded.

“I warned you,” I said coldly. “It was designed for men, not mammoths. Let’s go home.”

He tightened his lips, moved his massivity, lowered it, and tried to squeeze between the arms. No. He grasped the rail in front with both hands, wriggled loose, and got what he could of his fanny hooked on the edge of the seat.

Mondor called to me across the great expanse of Wolfe’s back, “I depend with confidence on you, Arshee! You must make clear as it develops! What are the little white things?”

I love baseball and I love the Giants, and I had fifty bucks up on that game, but I would have got up and gone but for one thing. It was working hours, and Wolfe pays my salary, and there were too many people, some of them alive and loose, who felt strongly that he had already lived too long. He is seldom out in the open, easy to get at, and when he is I like to be nearby. So I gritted my teeth and stuck.

The ground crew finished smoothing off and hauled their drags away, the umpires did a huddle, the Giants trotted out on the field to their stations, the throng gave with a lusty excited roar, we all stood up for “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then sat again, with Wolfe perched on two slats and holding grimly to the rail. After southpaw Ed Romeike, 22–4 for the season, had burned a few over for the range, Lew Baker, the catcher, fired it to Tiny Garth at second. The Red Sox lead-off man came to the white line, the plate umpire said go, and Romeike looked around at the field, toed the rubber, went into his tricky windup, and shot a fast one over the outside corner for strike one. The crowd let out a short sharp yell.

My personal nightmare was bad enough. Mondor was our guest, and only eighteen hours ago I had taken three helpings of the quenelles bonne femme he had cooked in
our kitchen, and would have made it four if I had had room; but trying to tell a foreigner what a base on balls is during a World Series game, with two men on, two down, and Oaky Asmussen at bat, is hard on the nerves. As for Wolfe, it wasn’t so much the sight of him there in his concentrated misery; it was the certainty that by tomorrow he would have figured out a way to blame it on me, and that would start a feud.

Bad enough, but more was to come, and not for me alone. One fly had plopped into the soup even before the game started, when the line-up was announced and Tiny Garth was named for second base, with no explanation. A buzz of amazement had filled the stands. Why not Nick Ferrone? Ferrone, a lanky big-eared kid just up from the bush five months back, had fielded and batted himself so far to the front that it was taken for granted he would be voted rookie of the year. He had been spectacular in the first six games of the series, batting .427. Where was he today? Why Garth?

Then the game. This was no personal nightmare of mine, it was all too public. In the first inning Con Prentiss, the Giants’ shortstop, bobbled an easy grounder, and two minutes later Lew Baker, the catcher, trying to nab a runner at second, threw the ball six feet over Garth’s head into the outfield. With luck, the Red Sox scored only one run. In the second inning Nat Neill, center fielder, misjudged a fly he could have walked under, tried to run in three directions at once, and had to chase it to the fence; and soon after that Prentiss grabbed a hard-hit ball on the hop and hurled it into the dirt three paces to the left of third base. By the time they got three out, Boston had two more runs.

As the Giants came in for their turn at bat in the second, heading for the dugout, loud and bitter sarcasms from the stands greeted them. Then our section was distracted by an incident. A man in a hurry came plunging down the aisle, bumping my elbow as he passed, and pulled up alongside a front box occupied by six men, among them the Mayor of New York and oilman Emil Chisholm, who had provided our tickets. The man spoke into the ear of Chisholm, who looked anything but happy. Chisholm said something to the Mayor and to another of his boxmates,
arose and sidled out, and beat it up the aisle double quick, followed by the courier and also by cutting remarks from nearby fans who had recognized him. As my eyes went back to the arena, Con Prentiss, the Giant shortstop, swung at a floater and missed by a mile.