The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1 (15 page)

I finished my second cup of coffee and got up and stretched and from then on I was as busy as a pickpocket on New Year’s Eve. When Fred and Orrie came I let them in, and after they had got their instructions from Wolfe I distributed expense money to all four of them and let them out again. The siege was still on. There were two dicks out there now, one of them about the size of Charles Laughton before he heard beauty calling, and every time anyone passed in or out he got the kind of scrutiny you read about. I got the long distance call through to London, and Wolfe talked from his room to Ethelbert Hitchcock, which I consider the all-time low for a name for a snoop, even in England. I phoned Murger’s for the copies of
Metropolitan Biographies
, and they delivered them within a quarter of an hour and I took them up to the plant rooms, as Wolfe had said he would glance at them after nine o’clock. As I was going out I stopped where Theodore Horstmann was turning out some old
Cattleyas trianae
and growled at him:

“You’re going to get shot in the gizzard.”

I swear to God he looked pale.

I phoned Henry H. Barber, the lawyer that we could. count on for almost anything except fee-splitting, to make sure he would be available on a minute’s notice all day, and to tell him that he was to consider himself retained, through us, by Miss Clara Fox, in two actions: a suit to collect a debt from the Marquis of Clivers, and a suit for damages through false arrest against Ramsey Muir. Likewise, in the first case, Miss Hilda Lindquist.

It looked as if I had a minute loose, so I mounted the two flights to the south room and knocked on the door, and called out my name. She said come in, and I entered.

She was in the armchair, with books and magazines on the table, but none of them was opened. Maybe she had slept
like a log, but her eyes looked tired. She frowned at me. I said:

“You shouldn’t sit so close to the window. If they wanted to bad enough they could see in here from that 34th Street roof.”

She glanced around. “I shouldn’t think so, with those curtains.”

“They’re pretty thin. Let me move you back a little, anyhow.” She got up, and I shoved the chair and table toward the bed. “I’m not usually nervous, but this is a stunt we’re pulling.”

She sat down again and looked up at me. “You don’t like it, do you, Mr. Goodwin? I could see last night you didn’t approve of it. Neither do I.”

I grinned at her. “Bless your dear little heart, what difference does that make? Nero Wolfe is putting on a show and we’re in the cast. Stick to the script, don’t forget that.”

“I don’t call it a show.” She was frowning again. “A man has been murdered and it was my fault. I don’t like to hide, and I don’t want to. I’d rather—”

I showed her both palms. “Forget it. You came to get Wolfe to help you, didn’t you? All right, let him. He may be a nut, but you’re lucky that he spotted the gleam of honesty in your eye or you’d be in one sweet mess this minute. You behave yourself. For instance, if that phone there on the stand is in any way a temptation …”

She shook her head. “If it is, I’ll resist it.”

“Well, there’s no use leaving it here anyhow.” I went and pulled the connection out of the plug and gathered the cord and instrument under my arm. “I learned about feminine impulses in school. —There goes the office phone. Don’t open the door and don’t go close to the windows.”

I beat it and went down two steps at a time. It was Dick Morley on the phone, with a tale. I offered to connect him with Wolfe in the plant rooms, but he said not to disturb him, he could give it to me. He had had a little trouble. The Clara Fox larceny charge was being handled by an Assistant District Attorney named Frisbie whom Morley knew only fairly well, and Frisbie hadn’t seemed especially inclined to open up, but Morley had got some facts. A warrant for Clara Fox’s arrest, and a search warrant for her apartment, had been issued late Monday afternoon. The apartment had not been searched because detectives under Frisbie’s direction had gone first to the garage where she kept her car, and had found in it, wrapped in a newspaper under the back seat, a package
of hundred dollar bills amounting to $30,000. The case was considered airtight. Frisbie’s men no longer had the warrant for arrest because it had been turned over to Inspector Cramer at the request of the Police Commissioner.

I thanked Morley and hung up and went upstairs to the plant rooms and told Wolfe the sad story. He was in the tropical room trimming wilts. When I finished he said:

“We were wrong, Archie. Not hyenas. Hyenas wait for a carcass. Get Mr. Perry on the phone, connect it here, and take it down.”

I went back to the office. It wasn’t so easy to get Perry. His secretary was reluctant, or he was, or they both were, but I finally managed to get him on and put him through to Wolfe. Then I began a fresh page of the notebook.

Perry said he was quite busy, he hoped Wolfe could make it brief. Wolfe said he hoped so too, that first he wished to learn if he had misunderstood Perry Monday afternoon. He had gathered that Perry had believed Miss Fox to be innocent, had been opposed to any precipitate action, and had desired a careful and complete investigation. Perry said that was correct.

Wolfe’s tone got sharp. “But you did not know until after seven o’clock last evening that I was not going to investigate for you, and the warrant for Miss Fox’s arrest was issued an hour earlier than that. You would not call that precipitate?”

Perry sounded flustered. “Well … precipitate … yes, it was. It was, yes. You see … you asked me yesterday if I am not the fount of justice in this organization. To a certain extent, yes. But there is always … well … the human element. I am not a czar, neither in fact nor by temperament. When you phoned me last evening you may have thought me irritable—as a matter of fact, I thought of calling you back to apologize. The truth is I was chagrined and deeply annoyed. I knew then that a warrant had been issued for the arrest at the instance of Mr. Muir. Surely you can appreciate my position. Mr. Muir is a high official of my corporation. When I learned later in the evening that the money had been found in Miss Fox’s car, I was astounded … I couldn’t believe it … but what could I do? I was amazed …”

“Indeed.” Wolfe still snapped. “You’ve got your money back. Do you intend to proceed with the prosecution?”

“You don’t need to take that tone, Wolfe.” Perry sharpened a little. “I told you there is the human element. I’m not a czar. Muir makes an issue of it. I’m being frank with you. I can’t talk him off. Granted that I could kick the first vice-president
out of the company if I wanted to, which is a good deal to grant, do you think I should? After all, he has the law—”

“Then you’re with him on it?”

A pause. “No. No, I’m not. I … I have the strongest … sympathy for Clara—Miss Fox. I would like to see her get something … much more human than justice. For instance, if there is any difficulty about bail for her I would be glad to furnish it.”

“Thank you. We’ll manage bail. You asked me to be brief, Mr. Perry. First, I suggest that you arrange to have the charge against Miss Fox quashed immediately. Second, I wish to inform you of our intentions if that is not done. At ten o’clock tomorrow morning I shall have Miss Fox submit herself to arrest and shall have her at once released on bail. She will then start an action against Ramsey Muir and the Seaboard Products Corporation to recover one million dollars in damages for false arrest. We deal in millions here now. I think there is no question but that we shall have sufficient evidence to uphold our action. If they try her first, so much the better. She’ll be acquitted.”

“But how can … that’s absurd … if you have evidence …”

“That’s all, Mr. Perry. That’s my brevity. Goodbye.”

I heard the click of Wolfe hanging up. Perry was sputtering, but I hung up too. I tossed the notebook away and got up and stuck my hands in my pockets and walked around. Perhaps I was muttering. I was thinking to myself, if Wolfe takes that pot with nothing but a dirty deuce he’s a better man than he thinks he is, if that was possible. On the face of it, it certainly looked as if his crazy conceit had invaded the higher centers of his brain and stopped his mental processes completely; but there was one thing that made such a supposition unlikely, namely, that he was spending money. He had four expensive men riding around in taxis and he had got London on the phone as if it had been a delicatessen shop. It was a thousand to one he was going to get it back.

Still another expenditure was imminent, as I learned when the phone rang again. I sat down to get it, half hoping it was Perry calling back to offer a truce. But what I heard was Fred Durkin’s low growl, and he sounded peeved.

“That you, Archie?”

“Right. What have you got?”

“Nothing. Less than that. Look here. I’m talking from the Forty-seventh Street Station.”

“The … what? What for?”

“What the hell do you suppose for? I got arrested a little.”

I made a face and took a breath. “Good for you,” I said grimly. “That’s a big help. Men like you are the backbone of the country. Go on.”

His growl went plaintive. “Could I help it? They hopped me at the garage when I went there to ask questions. They say I committed something when I took that car last night. I think they’re getting ready to send me somewhere, I suppose Centre Street. What the hell could I do, run and let him tag me? I wouldn’t be phoning now if it hadn’t happened that a friend of mine is on the desk here.”

“Okay. If they take you to the D.A.’s office keep your ears open and stick to the little you know. We’ll get after it.”

“You’d better. If I—hey! Will you phone the missis?”

I assured him he would see the missis as soon as she was expecting him, and hung up. I sat and scratched my nose a minute and then made for the stairs. It was looking as if being confined to the house wasn’t going to deprive me of my exercise.

Wolfe was still in the tropical room. He kept on snipping stems and listened without looking around. I reported the development. He said, “These interruptions are abominable.”

I said, “All right, let him rot in a dungeon.”

Wolfe sighed. “Phone Mr. Barber. Can you pick Keems up? No, you can’t. When you hear from him let me talk to him.”

I went back down and got Barber’s office and asked him to send someone out to make arrangements for Fred to sleep with his missis that night, and gave him the dope.

I had no idea when I might hear from Johnny Keems. They had all got their instructions direct from Wolfe, and as usual he was keeping my head clear of unnecessary obstructions. As I had let Orrie Cather out he had made some kind of a crack about being the only electrician in New York who understood directors’ rooms, and of course I knew Saul Panzer had a contact on with Hilda Lindquist, but beyond that their programs were outside my circle. I guessed Fred had gone back to the garage to see if he could get a line on a plant, which made it appear that Wolfe didn’t even have a dirty deuce, but of course he had talked with Clara Fox nearly an hour that morning, so that was all vague. But it did seem that Frisbie or someone around the District Attorney’s office was busting with ardor over an ordinary larceny on which they already had the evidence, leaving a dick at the garage; but that was probably part of the net they were holding for Clara Fox. It might even have been one of Cramer’s men.

I went on being a switchboard girl. A little before ten Saul Panzer called, and from upstairs Wolfe listened to him while I put down the details he had collected from Hilda Lindquist regarding her father in Nebraska. She thought that if riding in an airplane didn’t kill him it would scare him to death. Apparently Saul had further instructions, for Wolfe told him to proceed. A little later Orrie phoned in, and what he reported to Wolfe gave me my first view of a new slant that hadn’t occurred to me at all. Introducing himself to Sourface Vawter as an electrician, he had been admitted to the directors’ room of the Seaboard Products Corporation, and had learned that besides the double door at the end of the corridor it had another door leading into the public hall. It had been locked but could be opened from the inside, and Orrie had himself gone out that way and around the hall to the elevators. Wolfe told Orrie to wait and talked to me:

“Don’t type a note on that, Archie. Any that you do type, put them in the safe at once. Leave Orrie on with me and be sure the other line is open. A call I am expecting hasn’t come. When Keems calls I’ll talk to him, but I’ll give Orrie Fred’s assignment.”

Taking the hint that he didn’t want to burden my ears with Orrie’s schedule, I hung up. I filed some notes in the safe and loaded Wolfe’s pen and tested it, a chore that I hadn’t been able to get around to before—absentmindedly, because I was off on a new track. I had no idea what had started Wolfe in that direction. It had beautiful possibilities, no doubt of that, but a 100 to 1 shot in a big handicap is a beautiful possibility too, and how often would you collect on it? After taxing the brain a few minutes, this looked more like a million to one. I would probably have gone on to add more ciphers to that if I hadn’t been interrupted by the doorbell. Of course I was still on that job too. I went to the hall and pulled the curtain to see through the glass panel, and got a surprise. It was the first time Wolfe’s house had ever been taken for a church, but there wasn’t any other explanation, for either that specimen on the stoop was scheduled for best man at a wedding or Emily Post had been fooling me for years.

The two dicks were down on the sidewalk, looking up at the best man as if it was too much of a problem for them. They had nothing on me. I opened the door and let it come three inches, leaving the chain on, and said in a well bred tone:

“Good morning.”

He peered through at me. “I say, that crack is scarcely adequate.
Really.” He had a well trained voice but a little squawky.

“I’m sorry. This is a bad neighborhood and we have to be careful. What can I do for you?”

He went on peering. “Is this the house of Mr. Nero Wolfe?”

“It is.”

He hesitated, and turned to look down at the snoops on the sidewalk, who were staring up at him in the worst possible taste. Then he came closer and pushed his face up against the crack and said in a tone nearly down to a whisper: