Fer-De-Lance (8 page)

I read it through three times and then tossed the paper away and got calm. I finished the fruit and omelet, with three pieces of toast and three cups of coffee. Fifty grand, with the Wolfe bank balance sagging like a clothesline under a wet horse blanket; and not only that, but a chance of keeping our places on the platform in the biggest show of the season. I was calm and cool, but it was only twenty minutes after ten. I went to the office and opened the safe and dusted around and waited.

When Wolfe came down at eleven he looked fresh but not noticeably good-humored. He only nodded for good morning and didn’t seem to care much whether I was there or not as he got himself into his chair and started looking through the mail. I just waited, thinking I would show him that other people could be as hard-boiled as he was, but when he began checking off the monthly bill from Harvey’s I popped at him: "I hope you had a nice weekend, sir."

He didn’t look at me, but I saw his cheeks folding. "Thank you, Archie. It was delightful; but on awakening this morning I felt so completely water-logged that with only myself to consider I would have remained in bed to await disintegration. Names battered at me: Archie Goodwin, Fritz Brenner, Theodore Horstmann; responsibilities; and I arose to resume my burden. Not that I complain; the responsibilities are mutual; but my share can be done only by me."

"Excuse me, sir, but you’re a damn liar, what you did was look at the paper."

He checked off items on the bill. "You can’t rile me, Archie, not today. Paper? I have looked at nothing this morning except life, and that not through a newspaper."

"Then you don’t know that Mrs. Barstow has offered fifty thousand dollars for her husband’s murderer?"

The pencil stopped checking; he didn’t look at me, but the pencil was motionless in his fingers for seconds. Then he placed the bill under a paperweight, laid the pencil beside it, and lifted his head.

"Show it to me."

I exhibited first the ad and then the first page article. Of the ad he read each word; the article he glanced through.

"Indeed," he said. "Indeed. Mr. Anderson does not need the money, even granting the possibility of his earning it, and only a moment ago I was speaking of responsibilities. Archie, do you know what I thought in bed this morning? I thought how horrible and how amusing it would be to send Theodore away and let all those living and breathing plants, all that arrogant and pampered loveliness, thirst and gasp and wither away."

"Good God!"

"Yes. Just an early morning fantasy; I haven’t the will for such a gesture. I would be more likely to offer them at auction--should I decide to withdraw from responsibilities--and take passage for Egypt. You know of course that I own a house in Egypt which I have never seen. The man who gave it to me, a little more than ten years ago--yes, Fritz, what is it?"

Fritz was a little awry, having put on his jacket hurriedly to go to the door.

"A lady to see you, sir."

"Her name?"

"She had no card, sir."

Wolfe nodded, and Fritz went out. In a moment he was back on the threshold, bowing in a young woman.

I was on my feet. She started toward me, and I inclined my head in Wolfe’s direction. She looked at him, stopped, and said: "Mr. Nero Wolfe? My name is Sarah Barstow."

"Be seated," Wolfe said. "You must pardon me; for engineering reasons I arise only for emergencies.

"This is an emergency," she said.

She started to explain herself, but Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. "It is unnecessary, and possibly painful to you, Miss Barstow, I know. You are the only daughter of Peter Oliver Barstow. All you need tell is why you have come to me."

"Yes." She hesitated. "Of course you would know, Mr. Wolfe. It is a little difficult--perhaps I wanted a preamble." She had a try at a smile. "I am going to ask you a favor, I don’t know how much of a favor it will be."

"I can tell you that."

"Of course. First I must ask you, do you know that my mother had an advertisement in the paper this morning?"

Wolfe nodded. "I have read it."

"Well, Mr. Wolfe, I--that is, we, the family--must ask you to disregard that advertisement."

Wolfe breathed and let his chin down. "An extraordinary request, Miss Barstow. Am I supposed to be as extraordinary in granting it, or do I get reasons?"

"There are reasons of course." She hesitated. "It is not a family secret, it is known that my mother is--in some degree and on various occasions--irresponsible." Her eyes were earnest on him. "You must not think there is anything ugly about this or that it has anything to do with money. There is plenty of money and my brother and I are not niggardly. Nor must you think that my mother is not a competent person--certainly not in the legal sense. But for years there have been times when she needed our attention and love, and this-this terrible thing has come in the middle of one of them. She is not normally vengeful, but that advertisement--my brother calls it a demand for blood. Our close friends will of course understand, but there is the world, and my father--my father’s world was a wide one--we are glad if they help us mourn for him but we would not want them--Father would not want them--to watch us urging on the bloodhounds-"

She gave a little gasp and stopped, and glanced at me and back at Wolfe. He said, "Yes, Miss Barstow, you are calling me a bloodhound. I am not offended. Go on."

"I’m sorry. I’m a tactless fool. It would have been better if Dr. Bradford had come."

"Was Dr. Bradford considering the enterprise?"

"Yes. That is, he thought it should be done."

"And your brother?"

"Well--yes. My brother greatly regrets it, the advertisement I mean. He did not fully approve of my coming to see you. He thought it would be--fruitless."

"On the theory that it is difficult to call off a bloodhound. Probably he understands dogs. Have you finished, Miss Barstow? I mean, have you any further reasons to advance?"

She shook her head. "Surely, Mr. Wolfe, those are sufficient."

"Then as I understand it, your desire is that no effort be made to discover and punish the persons who murdered your father?"

She stared at him. "Why--no. I didn’t say that."

"The favor you ask of me is that I refrain from such an effort?"

Her lips closed. She opened them enough to say, "I see. You are putting it as badly as possible."

"Not at all. Clearly, not badly. Understandably, your mind is confused; mine is lucid. Your position as you have so far expressed it is simply not intelligent. You may make any one of several requests of me, but you may not ask them all at once, for they are mutually exclusive. You may, for instance, tell me that while you are willing that I should discover the murderer, you request me not to expect to be paid for it as your mother has offered. Is that your request?"

"It is not. You know it is not."

"Or you may tell me that I may find the murderer if I can, and collect the reward if I choose to take advantage of the legal obligation, but that the family disapproves of the offer of reward on moral grounds. Is that it?"

"Yes." Her lip trembled a little, but in a moment she pulled it up firm. Then suddenly she stood up and shot at him: "No! I’m sorry I came here. Professor Gottlieb was wrong; you may be clever--good day, Mr. Wolfe."

"Good day, Miss Barstow." Wolfe was motionless. "The engineering considerations keep me in my chair."

She was going. But halfway to the door she faltered, stood a moment, and turned. "You are a bloodhound. You are. You are heartless."

"Quite likely." Wolfe crooked a finger. "Come back to your chair. Come, do; your errand is too important to let a momentary resentment ruin it. That’s better; self-control is an admirable quality. Now, Miss Barstow, we can do one of two things: either I can flatly but gracefully refuse your original request as you made it and we can part on fairly bad terms; or you can answer a few questions I would like to ask and we can then decide what’s to be done. Which shall it be?"

She was groggy, but game. She was back in her chair and had a wary eye on him. She said, "I have answered many questions in the past two days."

"I don’t doubt it. I can imagine their tenor and their stupidity. I shall not waste your time or insult your intelligence. How did you learn that I knew anything of this business?"

She seemed surprised. "How did I learn it? Why, you are responsible for it. That is, you discovered it. Everyone knows it. It was in the paper--not New York, the White Plains paper."

I had a grin at that. Derwin would phone Ben Cook to come and assist me to the station, would he?

Wolfe nodded. "Have you asked the favor of Mr. Anderson that you have asked of me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

She hesitated. "Well--it didn’t seem necessary. It didn’t seem--I don’t know how to express it."

"Use your wits, Miss Barstow. Was it because it appeared unlikely that he would do any discovering worthy the name?"

She was holding herself tight. Her hands--damn good hands with strong fingers and honest knuckles-- were little fists in her lap. "No!" she said.

"Very well. But what made you think it likely, at least possible, that my discovering might be more to the point?"

She began, "I didn’t think--"

But he stopped her: "Come, control yourself. It is an honest plain question. You did think me more competent at discovery than Mr. Anderson, did you not? Was it because I had made the original discovery?"

"Yes."

"That is, because I had somehow known that your father was killed by a poisoned needle propelled from the handle of a golf club?"

"I--don’t--know. I don’t know, Mr. Wolfe."

"Courage. This will soon be over. Curiosity alone prompts the next question. What gave you the strange idea that I was so rare a person as to respond favorably to the idiotic request you meant to make of me?"

"I didn’t know. I didn’t have that idea really. But I was ready to try, and I had heard a professor at the university, Gottlieb, the psychologist, mention your name--he had written a book called Modern Crime Detection--"

"Yes. A book that an intelligent criminal should send as a gift to every detective he knows."

"Perhaps. His opinion of you is more complimentary. When I telephoned Professor Gottlieb he said that you were not susceptible of analysis because you had intuition from the devil, and that you were a sensitive artist as well as a man of probity. That sounded--well, I decided to come to see you. Mr. Wolfe, I beg you--I beg of you--"

I was sure she was going to cry and I didn’t want her to. But Wolfe brusquely brought her up: "That’s all, Miss Barstow. That is all I need to know. Now I shall ask a favor of you: will you permit Mr. Goodwin to take you upstairs and show you my plants?"

She stared; he went on, "No subterfuge is intended. I merely wish to be alone with the devil. Half an hour perhaps; and to make a telephone call. When you return I shall have a proposal for you." He turned to me. "Fritz will call you."

She got up and came with me without a word. I thought that was pretty good, for she was shaky and suspicious all over. Instead of asking her to walk up two flights of stairs I took her down the hall and used Wolfe’s elevator. As we got out on the top floor she stopped me by catching my arm.

"Mr. Goodwin. Why did Mr. Wolfe send me up here?"

I shook my head. "No good, Miss Barstow. Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you, and since I don’t know we might as well look at the flowers." As I opened the door to the passage Horstmann appeared from the potting room. "All right, Horstmann. May we look around a little?" He nodded and trotted back.

As many times as I had been there, I never went in the plant-rooms without catching my breath. It was like other things I’ve noticed, for instance no matter how often you may have seen Snyder leap in the air and one-handed spear a hot-liner like one streak of lightning stopping another one, when you see it again your heart stops. It was that way in the plant-rooms.

Wolfe used concrete benches and angle-iron staging, with a spraying system Horstmann had invented for humidity. There were three main rooms, one for Cattleyas Laelias and hybrids, one for Odontoglossums, Oncidiums and Miltonia hybrids, and the tropical room. Then there was the potting room, Horstmann’s den, and a little corner room for propagation. Supplies--pots, sand, sphaguum, leafmold, loam, osmundine, charcoal, and crocks--were kept in an unheated and unglazed room in the rear alongside the shaft where the outside elevator came up.

Since it was June the lath screens were on, and the slices of shade and sunshine made patterns everywhere--on the broad leaves, the blossoms, the narrow walks, the ten thousand pots. I liked it that way, it seemed gay.

It was a lesson to watch the flowers get Miss Barstow. Of course when she went in she felt about as much like looking at flowers as I did like disregarding her mother’s ad, and down the first rows of Cattleyas she tried to be polite enough to pretend there was something there to see. The first one that really brought her up was a small side-bunch, only twenty or so, of Laeliocattleya Lustre. I was pleased because it was one of my favorites. I stopped behind her.

"Astonishing," she said. "I’ve never seen one like that. The colors--amazing."

"Yes. It’s a bi-generic hybrid, they don’t come in nature like that."

She got interested. In the next walk were some Brassocattlaelias Truffautianas and I cut off a couple and handed them to her. I told her a little about hybridization and seedlings and so on, but maybe she didn’t hear me. Then, in the next room, I had a disappointment. She liked the Odontoglossums better than the Cattleyas and hybrids! I suspected it was because they were more expensive and difficult, but it turned out that she hadn’t known that. No accounting for tastes, I thought. And best of all, even after we had been through the tropical room, she liked a little thing I had never looked at twice, a Miltonia blue anaeximina. She talked about its delicacy and form. I nodded and began to lose interest, and anyway I was wondering what Wolfe was up to. Then at last Fritz appeared. He came down the walk clear up to us and bent himself at the middle and said that Mr. Wolfe expected us. I grinned and would have liked to dig him in the ribs as I went by, but I knew he’d never forgive me.

Wolfe was still in his chair, and there was no indication that he had been out of it. He nodded at Miss Barstow’s chair and at mine, and waited till we were arranged to say: "You liked the flowers?"

"They are wonderful." She had a new eye on him, I could see that. "They are too much beauty."

Wolfe nodded. "At first, yes. But a long intimacy frees you of that illusion, and it also acquaints you with their scantiness of character. The effect they have produced on you is only their bluff. There is not such a thing as too much beauty."

"Perhaps." She had lost interest in the orchids. "Yes, perhaps."

"Anyway they passed your time. And of course you would like to know how I passed mine. First I telephoned my bank and asked them to procure immediately a report on the financial standing of Ellen Barstow, your mother, and the details of the will of Peter Oliver Barstow, your father. I then telephoned Dr. Bradford and endeavored to persuade him to call on me this afternoon or evening, but he will be otherwise engaged. I then sat and waited. Five minutes ago my bank telephoned me the report I had requested. I sent Fritz for you. Those were my activities."

She was getting worked up again. Her lips were getting tight. Apparently she didn’t intend to open them.

He went on. "I said I would have a proposal for you. Here it is. Your notebook, Archie. Verbatim, please. I shall use my best efforts to find the murderer of Peter Oliver Barstow. I shall disclose the result of my efforts to you, Sarah Barstow, and if you interpose no objection I shall also disclose them to the proper public authorities, and at the proper time shall expect a check for the sum your mother has offered as a reward. But if my inquiries lead to the conclusion that the murderer is actually the person you fear it is, whom you are now endeavoring to shield from justice, there will be no further disclosure. Mr. Goodwin and I will know; no one else ever will. Just a moment! This is a speech, Miss Barstow; please hear all of it. Two more points. You must understand that I can make this proposal with propriety. I am not a public servant, I am not even a member of the bar, and I have sworn to uphold no law. The dangerous position of an accessory after the fact does not impress me. Then: if your fears prove to be justified, and I withhold disclosure, what of the reward? I find I am too sentimental and romantic to make it part of this proposal that under those circumstances the reward shall be paid. The word blackmail actually strikes me as unpleasant. But though I am handicapped by romance and sentiment, at least I have not pride further to hamper me, and if you should choose to present a gift it would be accepted.

"Read it aloud, Archie, to make sure it is understood."

Miss Barstow’s voice was first: "But this--it’s absurd! It-"

Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. "Don’t. Please. You would deny that you came here with that nonsense to shield someone? Miss Barstow! Really now. Let us keep this on a decent level of intelligence. Read it, Archie."

I read it through from my notes. When I had finished Wolfe said, "I advise you to take it, Miss Barstow. I shall proceed with my inquiry in any event, and if the result is what you fear it would be convenient for you to have the protection I offer. The offer, by the way, is purely selfish. With this agreement I shall expect your interest and co-operation, since it would be well for you, no matter what the outcome, to get it over with as speedily as possible; without it I shall expect considerable obstruction. I am no altruist or bon enfant, I am merely a man who would like to make some money. You said there was too much beauty upstairs; no, but there is too much expense. Have you any idea what it costs to grow orchids like that?"