Fer-De-Lance (23 page)

"Miss Fiore, before Carlo Maffei gave you that envelope, what was the largest sum you ever had?"

Anna said, "I don’t know."

I asked her, "Did you ever have ten dollars before?"

"No, Mr. Archie."

"Five dollars?"

She shook her head. "Mrs. Ricci gives me a dollar every week."

"Swell. And you buy your shoes and clothes?"

"Of course I do."

I threw up my hands. Wolfe said, "Miss Maffei, you or I might likewise be tempted by a kingdom, only its boundaries would not be so modest. She probably struggled, and by another sunrise might have won and delivered the envelope to you intact; but that morning’s mail brought her another envelope, and this time it was not merely a kingdom, it was a glorious world. She lost; or perhaps it is somewhere down as a victory; we cannot know. At any rate her struggle is over.

"And now, Miss Maffei, do this and make no mistake: take Miss Fiore home with you and keep her there. Your driver is waiting outside for you. You can explain to your employer that your niece has come for a visit. Explain as you please, but keep Miss Fiore safe until I tell you that the danger is past. Under no circumstances is she to go to the street.--Miss Fiore, you hear?"

"I will do what Mr. Archie says."

"Good. Archie, you will accompany them and explain the requirements. It will be only a day or so."

I nodded and went upstairs to put the dressing gown away for another year and get some clothes on.

When I got back after escorting Anna and Maria Maffei to the apartment on Park Avenue where Maria Maffei was housekeeper, the office was dark and Wolfe had gone upstairs. There was a note for me: Archie, learn from Miss Barstow her excuse for mutilating United States currency. N. W. I knew that would be it. I went on up to the hay, but out of respect to Manuel Kimball I stepped to the rear of the upper hall to look for a line of light under Wolfe’s door. There wasn’t any. I called out: "Are you all in one bed?"

Wolfe’s voice came, "Confound it, don’t badger me!"

"Yes, sir. Is the switch on?"

"It is."

I went to my own room and the bed I was ready for; it was after two o’clock.

In the morning there was a drizzle, but I didn’t mind. I took my time at breakfast, and told Fritz to keep the bolt on while I was gone, and then with a light raincoat and a rubber hat went whistling along on my way to the garage. One thing that gave me joy was an item in the morning paper which said that the White Plains authorities were on the verge of being satisfied that the death of Peter Oliver Barstow had resulted from an accidental snake bite and that various other details of the tragedy not connected with that theory could all be explained by coincidence. It would have been fun to call up Harry Foster at the Gazette and let him know how safe it would be to stick pins in Anderson’s chair for him to sit on, but I couldn’t risk it because I didn’t know what Wolfe’s plans were in that direction. Another source of joy was the completeness of the briefcase which Anna Fiore had been carrying around all the time pinned to whatever she wore underneath. When I considered that it must have been there that first day I had called at Sullivan Street with Maria Maffei and I hadn’t been keen enough to smell it, I felt like kicking myself. But maybe it was just as well. If the envelope had been delivered to Maria Maffei there was no telling what might have happened.

I telephoned the Barstow place from uptown, and when I got there around nine-thirty Sarah Barstow was expecting me. In the four days since I had last seen her she had made some changes in her color scheme; her cheeks would have made good pinching; her shoulders sat straight with all the sag gone. I got up from my seat in the sun-room, a drizzle-room that day, when she came in, and she came over and shook hands. She told me her mother was well again, and this time Dr. Bradford said more likely than not she was well for good. Then she asked if I wanted a glass of milk!

I grinned. "I guess not, thanks. As I told you on the phone, Miss Barstow, this time it’s a business call. Remember, the last time I said it was social? Today, business." I pulled an envelope from my pocket and got out the ten dollar bill and handed it to her. "Nero Wolfe put it this way: what excuse did you have for mutilating United States currency?"

She looked at it puzzled for a second, then smiled, and then a shadow went over her face, the shadow of her dead father. "Where did you ever--where did you get it?"

"Oh, a hoarder turned it in. But how did those names get on there? Did you write yours?"

She nodded. "Yes, we all did. I think I told you-- didn’t I?--That one day last summer Larry and Manuel Kimball played a match of tennis and my father and I acted as umpire and linesman. They had a bet on it, and Larry paid Mr. Kimball with a ten dollar bill and Mr. Kimball wanted us to write our names on it as a souvenir. We were sitting--on the side terrace-"

"And Manuel Kimball took the bill?"

"Of course. He won it."

"And this is it?"

"Certainly, there are our signatures. Mr. Goodwin, I suppose it’s just vulgar curiosity, but where did you ever get it?"

I took the bill and replaced it carefully in the envelope--not Carlo Maffei’s envelope, a patent one with a clip on it so the signatures wouldn’t rub any more than they had already--and put it in my pocket.

"I’m sorry, Miss Barstow. Since it’s just vulgar curiosity you can wait. Not long, I hope. And may I say without offense, you’re looking swell. I was thinking when you came in, I’d like to pinch your cheeks."

"What!" She stared, then she laughed. "That’s a compliment?"

"It sure is. If you know how many cheeks there are I wouldn’t bother to pinch. Good day, Miss Barstow."

We shook hands while she still laughed.

Headed south again through the drizzle, I considered that the ten-dollar bill clinched it. The other three items in Carlo Maffei’s envelope were good evidence, but this was something that no one but Manual Kimball could have had, and it had got to Carlo Maffei. How, I wondered. Well: Manuel Kimball had kept it in his wallet as a souvenir. His payments of money, one or more, to Maffei for making the driver, had been made not in a well-lighted room but in places dark enough to defeat the idle curiosity of observers; and in the darkness the souvenir had been included in a payment. Probably Manuel had later discovered his carelessness and demanded the souvenir back, and Maffei had claimed it had been spent unnoticed. That might have aroused Manuel’s early suspicions of Maffei, and certainly it accounted for Maffei’s recognition of the significance of the death, and its manner, of Peter Oliver Barstow; for that name, and two other Barstow names, had been signed on the ten-dollar bill he was preserving.

Yes, Manuel Kimball would live long enough to be sorry he had won that tennis match.

At White Plains, on a last-minute decision, I slowed down and turned off the Parkway. It looked to me as if it was all over and the only thing left was a brief call at the District Attorney’s office to explain the facts of life to him; and in that case there was no point in my driving through the rain all the way down to Thirty-fifth Street and clear back again. So I found a telephone booth and called Wolfe and told him what I had learned from Sarah Barstow, and asked him what next. He told me to come on home. I mentioned that I was right there in White Plains with plenty of time and inclination to do any errands he might have in r mind. He said, "Come home. Your errand will be here waiting for you."

I got back onto the Parkway.

It was a little after eleven when I arrived. I couldn’t park right in front of the house as usual, because another car was there, a big black limousine. After turning off my engine I sat for a minute staring at the limousine, particularly at the official plate hanging alongside the license plate. I allowed myself the pleasure of a beautiful grin, and I got out and just for fun went to the front of the limousine and spoke to the chauffeur.

"Mr. Anderson is in the house?"

He looked at me a couple of seconds before he could make up his mind to nod. I turned and ran up the steps with the grin still on.

Anderson was with Wolfe in the office. When I went in I pretended not to see him; I went across to Wolfe’s desk and took the envelope out of my pocket and handed it to him. "Okay," I said, "I’ve written the date of the match on the envelope." He nodded and told me to put it in the safe. I opened the heavy door and took my time about finding the drawer where the rest of Anna’s briefcase was stowed away. Then I turned, and let my eyes fall on the visitor and looked surprised.

"Oh," I said, "it’s you! Good morning, Mr. Anderson."

He mumbled back at me.

"If you ever get your notebook, Archie, we shall proceed." Wolfe was using his drawly voice, and when I heard it I knew that one lawyer was in for a lot of irritation. "No, not at your desk, pull a chair around and be one of us… Good. I have just been explaining to Mr. Anderson that the ingenious theory of the Barstow case which he is trying to embrace is an offense to truth and an outrage on justice, and since I cherish the one and am on speaking terms with the other, it is my duty to demonstrate to him its inadequacy. I shall be glad of your support. Mr. Anderson is a little put out at the urgency of my invitation to him to call, but as I was just remarking to him, I think we should be grateful that the telephone permits the arrangement on short notice of these little informal conferences. On reflection, Mr. Anderson, I’m sure you will agree."

Anderson’s neck was swelling. There was never anything very lovely about him, but now he was trying to keep his meanness down because he knew he had to, and it kept choking him trying to come up. His face was red and his neck bulged. He said to Wolfe, "You can tell your man to put his notebook away. You’re a bigger ass than I thought you were, Wolfe, if you imagine you can put over this sort of thing."

"Take it down, Archie." Wolfe’s drawl was swell. "It is irrelevant, being merely an opinion, but get it down.

"Mr. Anderson, I see that you misapprehend the situation; I had not supposed you were so obtuse. I gave you a free choice of alternatives on the telephone, and you chose to come here. Being here, in my house, you will permit me to direct the activity of its inmates; should you become annoyed beyond endurance, you may depart without ceremony or restraint. Should you depart, the procedure will be as I have indicated: within twenty-four hours Mr. Goodwin will drive in my car to your office in White Plains. Behind him, in another car, will be an assortment of newspaper reporters; beside him will be the murderer of Peter Oliver Barstow and Carlo Maffei; in his pocket will be the indubitable proof of the murderer’s guilt. I was minded to proceed-"

Anderson broke in, "Carlo Maffei? Who the devil is that?"

"Was, Mr. Anderson. Not is. Carlo Maffei was an Italian craftsman who was murdered in your county on Monday evening, June fifth--stabbed in the back. Surely the case is in your office."

"What if it is? What has that got to do with Barstow?"

"They were murdered by the same man."

Anderson stared. "By God, Wolfe, I think you’re crazy."

"I’m afraid not." Wolfe sighed. "There are times when I would welcome such a conclusion as an escape from life’s meaner responsibilities--what Mr. Goodwin would call an out--but the contrary evidence is overwhelming.--But to our business. Have you your checkbook with you?"

"Ah." Anderson’s lips twisted. "What if I have?"

"It will make it more convenient for you to draw a check to my order for ten thousand dollars."

Anderson said nothing. He put his eyes straight into Wolfe’s and kept them there, and Wolfe met him. Wolfe sighed. Finally Anderson said, smooth: "It might make it convenient, but not very reasonable. You are not a hijacker, are you?"

"Oh, no." Wolfe’s cheeks folded up. "I assure you, no. I have the romantic temperament, but physically I’m not built for it. You do not grasp the situation? Let me explain. In a way, it goes four years back, to the forgetfulness you displayed in the Goldsmith case. I regretted that at the time, and resolved that on some proper occasion you should be reminded of it. I now remind you. Two weeks ago I came in possession of information which presented an opportunity to extend you a favor. I wished to extend it; but with the Goldsmith case in my memory and doubtless, so I thought, in yours also, it seemed likely that delicacy of feeling would prevent you from accepting a favor from me. So I offered to sell you the information for a proper sum; that of course was what the prior offer of a wager amounted to; the proof that you understood it so was furnished by your counter-offer to Mr. Goodwin of a sum so paltry that I shall not mention it."

Anderson said, "I offered a substantial fee."

"Mr. Anderson! Please. Don’t drag us into absurdities." Wolfe leaned back and laced his fingers on his belly. "Mr. Goodwin and I have discovered the murderer and have acquired proof of his guilt; not plausible proof, jury proof. That brings us to the present. The murderer, of course, is not my property, he belongs to the sovereign State of New York. Even the information I possess is not my property; if I do not communicate it to the State I am liable to penalties. But I can choose my methol. First: you will now give me your personal check for ten thousand dollars, this afternoon Mr. Goodwin will go to your bank and have it certified, and tomorrow morning he will conduct you to the murderer, point him to you, and deliver the proof of his guilt--all in a properly diffident and unostentatious manner. Or, second: we shall proceed to organize the parade to your office as I have described it: the prisoner, the press, and the proof, with a complete absence of diffidence. Take your choice, sir. Though you may find it hard to believe, it is of little concern to me, for while it would give me pleasure to receive your check, I have a great fondness for parades."

Wolfe stopped. Anderson looked at him, silent and smooth, calculating. Wolfe pressed the button on his desk and, when Fritz appeared, ordered beer. Every chance I got to look up from my notebook, I stared at Anderson; I cold see it made him sore, and I stared all I could.

Anderson asked, "How do I know your proof is any good?"

"My word, sir. It is as good as my judgment. I pledge both."

"There is no possible doubt?"

"Anything is possible. There is no room for doubt in the minds of a jury."

Anderson twisted his lips around. Fritz brought the beer, and Wolfe opened a bottle and filled a glass.

Anderson said, "Ten thousand dollars is out of the question. Five thousand."

"Pfui! You would dicker? Contemptible. Let it be the parade." Wolfe picked up his glass of beer and gulped it.

"Give me the proof and tell me the murderer and you can have the check the minute I’ve got him."

Wolfe wiped his lips, and sighed. "Mr. Anderson, one of us has to trust the other. Do not compel me to advance reasons for the preference I have indicated."

Anderson began to put up an argument. He was tough, no doubt about that, he was no softy. Of course he didn’t have any real reasons or persuasions, but he had plenty of words. When he stopped Wolfe just shook his head. Anderson went on, and then again, but all he got was the same reply. I took it all down, and I had to admit there wasn’t any whine in it. He was fighting with damn poor ammunition, but he wasn’t whining.

He wrote the check in a fold he took from his pocket, holding it on his knee, with his fountain pen.

He wrote it like a good bookkeeper, precisely and carefully, without haste, and then with the same preciseness filled in the spaces on the stub before he tore the check off and laid it on Wolfe’s desk. Wolfe gave me a nod and I reached over and picked up the check and looked it over. I was relieved to see it was on a New York bank; that would save me a trip to White Plains before three o’clock.