Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 41 (10 page)

“One of them had to wait,” Quayle said. “He was in jail.”

Wolfe switched editors. “For what?”

“Fraud. A shady real-estate deal. Morris did a piece we called ‘The Realty Racket,’ and it started an investigation, and one of them got nailed. He was sent up for two years. That was two years ago, a little less, but with
time off for good behavior he must be out by now. But he’s no murderer, he wouldn’t have the guts. I saw him a couple of times when he was trying to get us to leave his name out. He’s just a small-time smoothie.”

“His name?”

“I don’t—Yes, I do. Does it matter? Odell. Something Odell. Frank, that’s it. Frank Odell.”

“I don’t understand—” Mrs. Althaus began, but it came out hoarse and she cleared her throat. She was looking at Wolfe. “I don’t understand all this. If it was the FBI, why are you asking all these questions? Why don’t you ask Mr. Yarmack what Morris had found out about the FBI? I have asked him, and he says he doesn’t know.”

“I don’t,” Yarmack said.

Wolfe nodded. “So I assumed. Otherwise you would be harassed not only by the police. Had he told you nothing of his discoveries and conjectures?”

“No. He never did. He waited until he had a first draft. That was how he always worked.”

Wolfe grunted. “Madam,” he told Mrs. Althaus, “as I said, I must be satisfied. I should ask a thousand questions—all night, all week. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is a formidable foe, entrenched in power and privilege. It is not rodomontade but merely a statement of fact to say that no individual or group in America would undertake the job I have assigned myself. If an agent of the FBI killed your son there is not the slightest chance that he will be brought to account unless I do it. Therefore the choice of procedure is exclusively mine. Is that overreaching, Mr. Fromm?”

“No,” the lawyer said. “It would be unrealistic not to agree with you about the FBI. When I learned that nothing about them was found in the apartment I made the obvious assumption, and I told Mr. Althaus that I
thought it very unlikely that the murderer would ever be caught. The FBI is untouchable. Goodwin told Mrs. Althaus that a man told you yesterday that he knows that an FBI agent killed her son, and that he supported it with information, and I came here intending to demand the man’s name and the information, but you’re right. The procedure is up to you. I think it’s hopeless, but I wish you luck, and I wish I could help.”

“So do I.” Wolfe pushed his chair back and rose. “It’s possible, if this conversation has been overheard, that one or more of you
will
be harassed. If so I would like to know. I would like to know of any development that comes to your knowledge, however trivial. Whether the conversation was overheard or not, this house is under surveillance, and the FBI now knows that I am concerning myself with the murder of Morris Althaus. The police do not, as far as I know, and I request you not to tell them; that would only make it more difficult. I apologize for not offering you refreshments; I was preoccupied. Mr. Althaus, you have not spoken. Do you wish to?”

“No,” David Althaus said—his one and only word.

“Then good evening.” Wolfe walked out.

As they left their chairs and moved toward the hall I stood. The gentlemen could help the ladies with their coats; I wasn’t needed. I must have been about as low as you can get, for it didn’t occur to me that it would be a pleasure to hold Miss Hinckley’s coat until I heard the front door open, and then it was too late. I stayed put until I heard it close and then went and bolted it. They were down on the sidewalk.

I hadn’t heard the elevator, so Wolfe must be in the kitchen, and I headed for it. But he wasn’t. Neither was Fritz. Had he actually climbed the stairs? Why? The only other way was down. I chose that, and as I descended
I heard his voice. It came from the open door to Fritz’s room, and I stepped to it and entered.

Fritz could have had a room upstairs, but he prefers the basement. His den is as big as the office and front room combined, but over the years it has got pretty cluttered—tables with stacks of magazines, busts of Escoffier and Brillat-Savarin on stands, framed menus on the walls, a king-size bed, five chairs, shelves of books (he has 289 cookbooks), a head of a wild boar he shot in the Vosges, a TV and stereo cabinet, two large cases of ancient cooking vessels, one of which he thinks was used by Julius Caesar’s chef, and so on.

Wolfe was in the biggest chair by a table, with a bottle of beer and a glass. Fritz, seated across from him, got up as I entered, but I moved another chair up.

“It’s too bad,” I said, “that the elevator doesn’t come down. Maybe we can have it done.”

Wolfe drank beer, put the glass down, and licked his lips. “I want to know,” he said, “about those electronic abominations. Could we be heard here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve read about a thing that is supposed to pick up voices half a mile off, but I don’t know about how much area it covers or about obstructions like walls and floors. There could be items I haven’t read about that can take a whole house. If there aren’t there soon will be. People will have to talk with their hands.”

He glared at me. Since I had done nothing to deserve it, I glared back. “You realize,” he said, “that absolute privacy has never been so imperative.”

“I do. God knows I do.”

“Could whispers be heard?”

“No. A billion to one. To nothing.”

“Then we’ll whisper.”

“That would cramp your style. If Fritz turns the
television on, fairly loud, and we sit close and don’t yell, that will do it.”

“We could do that in the office.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why the devil didn’t you suggest it?”

I nodded. “You’re in a stew. So am I. I’m surprised I thought of it now. Let’s try it here. In the office I’d have to lean across your desk.”

He turned. “If you please, Fritz. It doesn’t matter what.”

Fritz went to the cabinet and turned a knob, and soon a woman was telling a man she was sorry she had ever met him. He asked (not the man, Fritz) if it was loud enough, and I said a little louder and moved my chair nearer Wolfe. He leaned forward and growled, eighteen inches from my ear, “We’ll prepare for a contingency. Do you know if the Ten for Aristology is still in existence?”

My shoulders went up and down. It takes a moron or a genius to ask a question that has no bearing whatever. “No,” I said. “That was seven years ago. It probably is. I can ring Lewis Hewitt.”

“Not from here.”

“I’ll go to a booth. Now?”

“Yes. If he says that group still—No. Whatever he says about the Ten for Aristology, ask him if I may call on him tomorrow morning to consult him on an urgent private matter. If he invites me to lunch, as he will, accept.”

“He lives on Long Island the year around.”

“I know he does.”

“We’ll probably have to lose a tail.”

“We won’t need to. If I am seen going to him so much the better.”

“Then why not call him from here?”

“Because I’m willing, I even wish, to have my visit to him known, but not that I invited myself.”

“What if he can’t make it tomorrow?”

“Then as soon as possible.”

I went. As I mounted to the hall and got my coat and hat and let myself out and headed for Ninth Avenue, I was thinking, two rules down the drain in one day—the morning schedule and not leaving the house on business—and why? The Ten for Aristology was a bunch of ten well-heeled men who were, to quote, “pursuing the ideal of perfection in food and drink.” Seven years back, at the home of one of them, Benjamin Schriver, the shipping tycoon, they had met to pursue their ideal by eating and drinking, and Lewis Hewitt, a member, had arranged with Wolfe for Fritz to cook the dinner. Naturally Wolfe and I had been invited and had gone, and the guy between us at the table had been fed arsenic with the first course, caviar on blinis topped with sour cream, and had died. Quite a party. It had not affected Wolfe’s relations with Lewis Hewitt, who was still grateful for a special favor Wolfe had done him long ago, who had a hundred-foot-long orchid house at his Long Island estate, and who came to dinner at the old brownstone about twice a year.

It took a while to get him because the call had to be switched to the greenhouse or the stables or maybe the john, but it was a pleasure for him to hear my voice; he said so. When I told him Wolfe would like to pay him a call he said he would be delighted and that of course we would lunch with him, and added that he would like to ask Wolfe a question regarding the lunch.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to do,” I told him. “I’m calling from a booth in a drugstore. Excuse my glove, but is there any chance that someone is on an extension?”

“Why—why no. There would be no reason …”

“Okay. I’m calling from a booth because our wire is tapped and Mr. Wolfe doesn’t want it known that he suggested calling on you. So don’t ring our number. It’s conceivable that you might get a call tomorrow afternoon from someone who says he’s a reporter and wants to ask questions. I mention it now because I might forget to tomorrow. The idea is, this appointment, our coming to lunch tomorrow, was made last week. All right?”

“Yes, of course. But good heavens, if you know your phone is tapped—isn’t that illegal?”

“Sure, that’s why it’s fun. We’ll tell you about it tomorrow—I
guess
we will.”

He said he would save his curiosity for tomorrow and would expect us by noon.

There is a TV set and a radio in the office, and when I got back I was expecting to see Wolfe there in his favorite chair, probably with the radio going, but the office was empty, so I proceeded to the rear and down to the basement and found him where I had left him. The television was still on, and Fritz was sitting watching it, yawning. Wolfe was leaning back with his eyes shut, and his lips were going, pushing out and then in, out and in. So he was working, but on what? I stood and looked at him. That’s the one thing I never break in on, the lip operation, but that time I had to clamp my jaw to keep my mouth shut because I didn’t believe it. There was absolutely nothing he could be hatching. Two full minutes. Three. I decided he was only practicing, it was a dry run, went to a chair, sat, and coughed loud. In a moment he opened his eyes, blinked at me, and straightened up.

I moved my chair closer. “All set,” I said. “We’re expected by noon, so we should roll by ten-thirty.”

“You’re not going,” he growled. “I telephoned Saul. He’ll come at nine.”

“Oh. I see. You want me here in case Wragg sends them to confess.”

“I want you to find Frank Odell.”

“For God’s sake. Is
that
what your lips squeezed out?”

“No.” He turned his head. “A little louder, Fritz.” Back to me: “I said after lunch that you had made it clear that it would be futile to establish that the FBI committed that murder. I retract that. I will not bow to futility. We must arrange a situation in which none of the three alternatives would be futile. They are: one, establish that the FBI committed the murder; two, establish that they didn’t; and three, establish neither one, let the murder go. We prefer by far the second alternative, and that is why you are to find Frank Odell, but if we are forced to accept the first or the third we must manage circumstances so that we will nevertheless be in a position to fulfill our obligation to our client.”

“You have no obligation except to investigate and use your best efforts.”

“Your pronouns again.”

“All right, ‘we’ and ‘our.’”

“That’s better. Just so, our best efforts. The strongest obligation possible for a man with self-esteem, and we both have our full share of that. One point is vital. No matter which alternative circumstances compel us to accept, Mr. Wragg must believe, or at least suspect, that one of his men killed Morris Althaus. I can contrive no maneuver by us that would contribute to that; I was trying to when you returned. Can you?”

“No. He either believes it or he doesn’t. Ten to one he does.”

“At least we have the odds. Now. I need suggestions regarding the arrangement I intend to make with Mr. Hewitt tomorrow. It will take time, and I’m dry. Fritz?”

No response. I turned. He was sound asleep in the chair, probably snoring, but if so the TV covered it. I suggested moving to the office and trying some WQXR music for a change, and Wolfe agreed, so we woke Fritz and thanked him for his hospitality and told him good night. On the way to the office I stopped off for beer for Wolfe and milk for me, and when I joined him he had the radio going and was in back of his desk. Since it was going to take time I brought a yellow chair and put it near his. He poured beer, and I took a swallow of milk and said, “I forgot to say that I didn’t ask Hewitt about the Ten for Aristology. You wanted to see him anyway and you can ask him tomorrow. And the program?”

He spoke.

It was well after midnight when he went to the elevator and I went to get the sheets and blankets and pillow for my second night on the couch.

T
here were more than a hundred Odells in the phone books of the five boroughs, but no Frank. That established, I sat at my desk at half past nine Friday morning and considered recourses. It wasn’t the kind of problem to discuss with Wolfe, and anyway he wasn’t available. Saul Panzer had come at nine o’clock on the dot, and instead of going up to the plant rooms Wolfe had come down, put on his heavy overcoat and broad-brimmed beaver hat, and followed Saul out to the curb to climb into the Heron sedan. Of course he knew that the heater, if turned on full, could make the inside of the Heron like an oven, but he took the heavy coat because he distrusted all machines more complicated than a wheelbarrow. He would have been expecting to be stranded at some wild and lonely spot in the Long Island jungle even if I had been driving.

It took will power to fasten my mind on the Frank Odell caper, which was merely a stab in the dark blindfolded, ordered by Wolfe only because he preferred the second of the three alternatives. Where my mind wanted to be was on Long Island. In all my experience of Wolfe’s arrangements of circumstances I had never known him to concoct anything as tricky as the program
he was going to rope Lewis Hewitt in for, and I should have been there. Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn’t leak and no tire is flat. I would have insisted on going if it hadn’t been for Saul Panzer. Wolfe had said that Saul would sit in, and he is the one man I would turn any problem over to if I broke a leg.