Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 45 (11 page)

“Yes.”

“She said, quote, ‘I think words are fascinating. Take words like “pecker” and “prick.” In their vulgar sense, or maybe I should say their colloquial sense.’”

“Me: ‘You mean “prick” as a noun, not as a verb.’”

“She: ‘Yes, a noun. It means “a pointed instrument.” “Pecker” just means “an instrument for pecking,” and “peck” means “to strike repeatedly and often with a pointed instrument.” So the definition of “pecker” and “prick” is identical.’”

“Me: ‘Sure. I’ve never looked them up, but evidently-’”

His grunt stopped me. He growled, “I said omit trivia.”

“This is not trivia. She was leading up to a point, and she made it. The point was that men make women say ‘piss’ and ‘pee’—
p
-double-
e
—when they urinate because ‘penis’ begins with
p
, and what if
they
made
them
say ‘viss’ and ‘vee’? Vagina. And she said it’s male chauvinism. Doesn’t that exhibit her?”

And once again I got a completely different reaction from the one I expected. I suppose I will never know him as well as I think I do. I did know where he stood on the question of male chauvinism, but I should have considered how he felt about words.

He said, “Indeed.”

I said, “Yes indeed. Women’s Lib.”

He flipped a hand. “That’s merely the herd syndrome. Fad. The issue is the influence of male dominance on language. Has that woman made a contribution to the study of linguistics? If so, there should be some indication in the record of matriarchy, but there is no adequate …”

Letting it hang, he pushed his chair back, rose, went straight to a spot in the shelves, got a book, and returned. As he sat, my good eyes told me it was
History of Human Marriage
by Westermarck. I had given it a ten-minute try one empty day long ago and decided I could get along without it. As he opened it, I asked, “Shall I tell the squad not to come in the morning because the issue now is a matter of linguistics, or will you need them for research?”

He glared at me, transferred it to the book, tossed it on the desk, and said, “Very well, proceed, but only what is material. No flummery.”

So I no longer had a free hand. I reported. When I finished and he asked for comments, as usual, I said, “Nothing to raise my pay. One, I doubt if she is saving anything that would open a crack. Two, it would suit her fine if Browning dropped dead, but if she planted the bomb she wouldn’t have risked a whole afternoon with me. She’s not that kind. Three, at least we know that Meer had blood on his hands that other people could see, so maybe that helps to explain
him
.”

“Not enough to justify that outrageous meal,” he said, and reached for the book.

Fritz had left to spend a night and a day and another night as he saw fit, so before I went upstairs to dress properly for joining Lily Rowan’s party at the Flamingo, I brought a bottle of beer to help with the language problem.

11

s
ince Wolfe’s nine-to-eleven session in the plant rooms doesn’t apply on Sundays, he was in the office when the help came at ten o’clock. That was about the most useless two hours we ever spent with them. Wolfe’s idea was to have them talk about everyone they had seen, in the slim hope of our getting at least a glimmer of some kind of a hint.

No. Nothing.

If you are inclined to quit because I seem to be getting nowhere, no wonder. I’m sorry, but in these reports I don’t put in stunts to jazz it up, I just report. Of course I can leave things out, and I do. I’ll skip that two-hour Sunday conference, except for one little item. Orrie said that Dennis Copes didn’t have a secretary, and the girl in the stenographer pool who often took stuff for him was a stuck-up bitch, and he added, “Of course Archie would have had her holding hands.” He can’t quite ditch the idea that he should have my job. I admit there is one little detail of detective work that he can do better than I can, but he doesn’t know what it is so I won’t name it. They were told to go back in the morning and try some more. The theory was that somebody there must know
something
, which seemed reasonable.

The only thing that happened that day worth reporting was that Lily Rowan and I, at Shea Stadium, watched the Mets take the Cardinals, 7 to 3.

At ten o’clock Monday morning I sent a messenger to the CAN building with a white cardboard box addressed to Miss Helen Lugos. The box contained a cluster of Broughtonia sanguinea. They had been picked by Wolfe, who won’t let even me cut his orchids, but the card in the box had my name. At 11:30 I decided that she must have opened it, phoned, and got a female who said that Miss Lugos was engaged and did I wish to leave a message. When you get up to vice-president, especially one who will soon be president because the other candidate was murdered, even secretaries are often hard to get. I decided that she might not have seen the box yet and postponed it to after lunch.

It was after four o’clock and Wolfe was up in the plant rooms when I finally got her. She said right off, “Thank you for the beautiful flowers.” Neither warm nor cool, just polite.

“You’re welcome. I suggested them, Mr. Wolfe picked them, and we both packed them. It’s a bribe. Mr. Wolfe thinks I understand women better than he does and wants me to have a talk with you. I don’t think this office is the best place for it because that’s too much like telling you to come to a—oh, the District Attorney’s office. I can come to your place, or we can meet anywhere you say, or we can share a meal in the little pink room at Rusterman’s. Perhaps dinner this evening? Women are supposed to like pink rooms, as of course you know. I’m going on talking to give you time to consider it; I didn’t suppose you’d have a yes right at the tip of your tongue.”

“I haven’t got one anywhere. Thank you, but no.”

“Then the pink room is out. Have you a suggestion?”

“I have a question. Has Mrs. Odell asked
you
to talk with me?”

“Mrs. Odell hasn’t asked
me
anything. She has hired Nero Wolfe to do a job, and she has asked people at CAN to cooperate, from Mr. Abbott down, as you know. We would like to suit their convenience. In this case,
your
convenience.”

“Mrs. Odell didn’t hire you, she hired Nero Wolfe.”

“I work for him.”

“I know you do. And I work for Mr. Browning. When he wants to talk with someone, he doesn’t expect them to be willing to talk with me instead. If Mr. Wolfe wants to talk with me, all right, I suppose I’ll have to. At his office, of course. When does he want me to come?”

There was no point in prolonging it. I said distinctly, “At six o’clock today. An hour and a half from now.”

She said distinctly, “Very well, I’ll be there,” and hung up.

I went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of milk, and told Fritz, “I’m done. Washed up. I’ve lost my touch. I’m a has-been. You knew me when.”

He was at the big table doing something to a duckling. “Now, Archie,” he said. “He told me about that woman’s diet when I took his breakfast up this morning, but you ate a good lunch. What else has happened?”

“Another woman. She spit at me just now. Spat. On the phone.”

“Then
she
is washed up, not you. You are looking at the wrong side. Just turn it over, that’s all you ever have to do, just turn it over.”

“I’ll be damned.” I stared at him. “You sound like a guru.”

There was no telling what would happen if Wolfe came down at six o’clock and found an unexpected female sitting in the red leather chair—or rather, there
was
—so when the glass of milk was down I went up three flights, entered, walked down the aisles between the rainbow benches of the three rooms—cool, medium, and warm—and opened the door of the potting room. He and Theodore were at the long bench, making labels. I stopped halfway across and said, “I’m not breaking a rule. Emergency. We have wasted forty dollars’ worth of orchids.”

He waited until I stopped to turn his head. “She’s not available?”

“Oh, she’s available, but not for menials. When she dies—the sooner, the better—and ascends, she won’t waste her breath on Saint Peter, she’ll speak only to Him, with a capital H. She’ll be here at six o’clock to speak to You, with a capital Y. I apologize and will expect a pay cut.”

“Pfui. I agree that you have not broken a rule.” He made a face. “I’ll be prompt.”

On the way out I stopped to apologize to the two pots of Broughtonia sanguinea. On the way down, I decided that the milk needed help and went to the kitchen for a tall glass of gin and tonic with a sprig of mint and a dash of lime juice. Also for Fritz. I needed friendly companionship.

I was supposing she would be strictly punctual, maybe even a couple of minutes early, but no. She
was
female. She came at 6:18, in a peach-colored blouse with long sleeves and a brownish skirt, narrow, down to a couple of inches below her knees, and she talked to me. She said, “I’m sorry I’m a little late.” Not being in a mood to meet her halfway, I said, “So am I.”

Wolfe had not told me how he intended to proceed, though he had come down from the plant rooms on the dot at six o’clock, and though he often asks my advice on how to handle a woman and sometimes even follows it. He soon showed me, and her, that this time he needed no help with his game plan. As she got to the red leather chair, he said, “Good afternoon, Miss Lugos. Thank you for coming,” and when she was seated and had her ankles crossed and her skirt tugged, he rose, crossed almost to the door, turned, and said, “I have an errand to do in the kitchen. My agent, Mr. Goodwin, will ask you some questions on behalf of Mrs. Odell.”

He went.

“I’m as surprised as you are,” I told her, “but it’s just like him. No consideration for other people. I think I told you that he thinks I understand women better than he does. He actually believes that. So here we are, in a private detective’s office which could be bugged, instead of the pink room at Rusterman’s. If you like something wet after a day’s work, name it and we may have it.”

Her lips were twitching a little. “I ought to get up and go,” she said. “But I suppose—that would only—”

“Yes,” I agreed, “it would only. Anyway, you’ve flubbed it. On the phone you stiff-armed me. You put me in my place. But if you really meant it, you would have sent the orchids back, or even brought them. Unless you dropped them in the wastebasket?”

She flushed and her lips tightened. I believe I have mentioned that her face was different from any two angles, and it was different flushed. With most faces that you enjoy looking at, you know exactly why, but not with her kind. Flushed, it was again quite different, and I approved of that too. Then suddenly it became another face entirely. She laughed, with her mouth open and her head back, and I think I grinned with pleasure. I really did.

“All right, Mr. Goodwin,” she said, “you win. I
didn’t
drop them in the wastebasket. They’re in a vase. I almost wish we were at Rusterman’s. But as you said, here we are. So ask your questions.”

I had erased the grin. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then let’s see. First, I guess, that evening you heard what those people said, six of them, when Mr. Wolfe asked them where they were that weekend. Were they all telling the truth?”

“I don’t know. How could I?”

“You might. Maybe you have heard Browning say something that shows he wasn’t on a boat from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, or maybe Kenneth Meer has said something that shows he wasn’t hiking in Vermont. From your look I think you think I’m a damn fool to suppose you would tell me things like that. But I’m not. In an investigation like this only a damn fool would expect a full and honest answer to any question he asks anybody, but he asks them. For instance, the question I ask you now. This: Did Dennis Copes know that Kenneth Meer looked in that drawer every day to check on the whisky supply?”

“That’s a trick question. It assumes that Kenneth Meer did look in the drawer every day.”

“So it does. All right, did he?”

“No. As far as I know, he didn’t. Mr. Browning checked on the whisky supply himself.”

“Did he buy it himself?”

“He buys it by the case. It’s sent to his home and he brings it, two bottles at a time.”

“Does Kenneth Meer drink bourbon?”

“I don’t think so. He drinks vodka.”

“Do you drink bourbon?”

“Very seldom. I don’t drink much of anything.”

“Did
you
look in the drawer every day to check on the whisky supply?”

“No. Mr. Browning did the looking himself.”

“I thought secretaries checked everything.”

“Well—that’s what you thought.”

“You know Dennis Copes.”

“Certainly.”

“Two people think he might have planted the bomb to get Meer because he wants Meer’s job. If so, he might have thought Meer looked in the drawer every day. Have you any idea why he might think that?”

“No. I have no idea why he thinks anything.”

“One person thinks that Kenneth Meer planted the bomb to get Browning because you go to bed with him. Have you any idea about that?”

“Yes, I have. It’s absurd.”

“A newspaperman I know doesn’t think it’s absurd. Of course it’s really three ideas. One, that you are intimate with Browning, two, that Meer knows it and can’t stand it, and three, that he planted the bomb. Are they all absurd?”

She wasn’t visibly reacting. No flush on her skin, no flash in her eyes. She said, with no change in pitch, “The police have asked me about this. My relations with Mr. Browning are my business and his. Certainly not yours. Women do go to bed with men, so it may not be absurd for people to think I am intimate with Amory Browning, but the idea that Kenneth Meer tried to kill him,
that’s
absurd. Kenneth Meer has big ideas about his future. He thinks he’s headed for the top, and he’s counting on Amory Browning to help him along.”

“But you’re there. What if he wants you more than anything else? This
is
my business, Miss Lugos. The police think it’s theirs, too, you just said so. It’s not absurd to think a man’s desire for a woman can be so hot that no other desire counts. There have been cases.”