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

I nodded at Wolfe. “You get it? Spheres of economic influence. The same thing that bothered Al Capone and Dutch Schultz. Look where economic friction landed them.”

Wolfe nodded back. “Thank you, Archie. Thank you very much for explaining it to me. Now if you—”

I hurried in: “Wait, it gets lots more interesting than that.” I glanced down the page. “In the picture he looks like a ruler of men—you know, like a master barber or a head waiter, you know the type. It goes on to tell how much he knows about spheres and influences, and his record in the war—he commanded a brigade and he got decorated four times—a noble lord and all prettied up with decorations like a store front—I say three cheers and let us drink to the King, gentlemen! You understand, sir, I’m just summarizing.”

“Yes, Archie. Thank you.”

Wolfe sounded grim. I took a breath. “Don’t mention it. But the really interesting part is where it tells about his character and his private life. He’s a great gardener. He prunes
his own roses! At least it says so, but it’s almost too much to swallow. Then it goes on, new paragraph:
While it would be an exaggeration to call the marquis an eccentric, in many ways he fails to conform to the conventional conception of a British peer, probably due in some measure to the fact that in his younger days—he is now 64—he spent many years, in various activities, in Australia, South America, and the western part of the United States. He is a nephew of the ninth marquis, and succeeded to the title in 1905, when his uncle and two cousins perished in the sinking of the
Rotania
off the African coast. But under any circumstances he would be an extraordinary person, and his idiosyncrasies, as he is pleased to call them, are definitely his own
.

“
He never shoots animals or birds, though he owns some of the best shooting in Scotland—yet he is a famous expert with a pistol and always carries one. Owning a fine stable, he has not been on a horse for fifteen years. He never eats anything between luncheon and dinner, which in England barely misses the aspect of treason. He has never seen a cricket match. Possessing more than a dozen automobiles, he does not know how to drive one. He is an excellent poker player and has popularized the game among a circle of his friends. He is passionately fond of croquet, derides golf as a ‘corrupter of social decency,’ and keeps an American cook at the manor of Pokendam for the purpose of making pumpkin pie. On his frequent trips to the Continent he never fails to take with him—”

There was no point in going on, so I stopped. I had lost my audience. As he stood facing me Wolfe’s eyes had gradually narrowed into slits; and of a sudden he opened his hand and turned it palm down to let the remaining darts fall to the floor, where they rolled in all directions; and Wolfe walked from the room without a word. I heard him in the hall, in the elevator, getting in and banging the door to. Of course he had the excuse that it was four o’clock, his regular time for going to the plant-rooms.

I could have left the darts for Fritz to pick up later, but there was no sense in me getting childish just because Wolfe did. So I tore off the sheet of the magazine section I had been reading from, with the picture of the Marquis of Clivers in the center, fastened it to the corkboard with a couple of thumbtacks, gathered up the darts, stood off 15 feet and let fly. One of the darts got the marquis in the nose, another in his left eye, two of them in his neck, and the last one missed him by an inch. He was well pinned. Pretty good shooting,
I thought, as I went for my hat to venture out to a movie, not knowing then that before he left our city the marquis would treat us to an exhibition of much better shooting with a quite different weapon, nor that on that sheet of newspaper which I had pinned to the corkboard was a bit of information that would prove to be fairly useful in Nero Wolfe’s professional consideration of a sudden and violent death.

For the next day, Monday, October 7th, my memo pad showed two appointments. Neither displayed any promise of being either lucrative or exciting. The first one, down for 3:30 in the afternoon, was with a guy named Anthony D. Perry. He was a tycoon, a director of the Metropolitan Trust Company, the bank we did business with, and president of the Seaboard Products Corporation—one of those vague firms occupying six floors of a big skyscraper and selling annually a billion dollars’ worth of something nobody ever actually saw, like soy beans or powdered cocoanut shells or dried llama’s hoofs. As I say, Perry was a tycoon; he presided at meetings and was appointed on Mayor’s Committees and that kind of hooey. Wolfe had handled a couple of investigations for him in previous years—nothing of any importance. We didn’t know what was on his mind this time; he had telephoned for an appointment.

The second appointment was for 6:00
P. M
. It was a funny one, but we often had funny ones. Saturday morning, October 5th, a female voice had phoned that she wanted to see Nero Wolfe. I said okay. She said, yes, but she wanted to bring someone with her who would not arrive in New York until Monday morning, and she would be busy all day, so could they come at 5:30. I said, no, but they could come at six, picking up a pencil to put down her name. But she wasn’t divulging it; she said she would bring her name along with her, and they would arrive at six sharp, and it was very important. It wasn’t much of a date, but I put it on the memo pad and hoped she would turn up, for she had the kind of voice that makes you want to observe it in the flesh.

Anthony D. Perry was there on the dot at three-thirty. Fritz answered the door and brought him to the office. Wolfe was
at his desk drinking beer. I sat in my corner and scowled at the probability that Perry was going to ask us to follow the scent of some competitor suspected of unfair trade practices, as he had before, and I did not regard that as a treat. But this time he had a different kind of difficulty, though it was nothing to make your blood run cold. He asked after our health, including me because he was democratic, inquired politely regarding the orchids, and then hitched his chair up and smiled at Wolfe as one man of affairs to another.

“I came to see you, Mr. Wolfe, instead of asking you to call on me, for two reasons. First, because I know you refuse to leave your home to call on anyone whatever, and, second, because the errand I want you to undertake is private and confidential.”

Wolfe nodded. “Either would have sufficed, sir. And the errand?”

“Is, as I say, confidential.” Perry cleared his throat, glancing at me as I opened up my notebook. “I suppose Mr.…”

“Goodwin.” Wolfe poured a glass of beer. “Mr. Goodwin’s discretion reaches to infinity. Anything too confidential for him would find me deaf.”

“Very well. I want to engage you for a delicate investigation, one that will require most careful handling. It is in connection with an unfortunate situation that has arisen in our executive offices.” Perry cleared his throat again. “I fear that a young woman, one of our employees, is going to suffer an injustice—a victim of circumstances—unless something is done about it.”

He paused. Wolfe said, “But, Mr. Perry. Surely, as the directing head of your corporation, you are its fount of justice—or its opposite?”

Perry smiled. “Not absolutely. At best, a constitutional monarch. Let me explain. Our executive offices are on the thirty-second floor of our building—the Seaboard Building. We have some thirty private offices on that floor, officers of the corporation, department heads and so on. Last Friday one of the officers had in his desk a sum of money in currency, a fairly large sum, which disappeared under circumstances which led him to suspect that it had been taken by—by the employee I spoke of. It was not reported to me until Saturday morning. The officer requested immediate action, but I could not bring myself to believe the employee guilty. She has been—that is, she has always seemed to merit the most complete confidence. In spite of appearances …”

He halted. Wolfe asked, “And you wish us to learn the truth of the matter?”

“Yes. Of course. That’s what I want.” Perry cleared his throat. “But I also want you to consider her record of probity and faithful service. And I would like to ask you, in discussing the affair with Mr. Muir, to give him to understand that you have been engaged to handle it as you would any investigation of a similar nature. In addition, I wish your reports to be made to me personally.”

“I see.” Wolfe’s eyes were half closed. “It seems a little complex. I would like to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding. Let us make it clear. You are not asking us to discover an arrangement of evidence that will demonstrate the employee’s guilt. Nor are you engaging us to devise satisfactory proof of her innocence. You merely want us to find the truth.”

“Yes,” Perry smiled. “But I hope and believe that the truth will be her innocence.”

“As it may be. And who is to be our client, you or the Seaboard Products Corporation?”

“Why … that hadn’t occurred to me. The corporation, I should think. That would be best.”

“Good.” Wolfe looked at me. “If you please, Archie.” He leaned back in his chair, twined his fingers at the peak of his middle mound, and closed his eyes.

I whirled on my swivel, with my notebook. “First the money, Mr. Perry. How much?”

“Thirty thousand dollars. In hundred-dollar bills.”

“Egad. Payroll?”

“No.” He hesitated. “Well, yes, call it payroll.”

“It would be better if we knew about it.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Not necessary. Just better. The more we know the less we have to find out.”

“Well … since it is understood this is strictly confidential … you know of course that in connection with our business we need certain privileges in certain foreign countries. In our dealings with the representatives of those countries we sometimes need to employ cash sums.”

“Okay. This Mr. Muir you mentioned, he’s the paymaster?”

“Mr. Ramsey Muir is the senior vice-president of the corporation. He usually handles such contacts. On this occasion, last Friday, he had a luncheon appointment with a gentleman from Washington. The gentleman missed his train and telephoned that he would come on a later one, arriving at
our office at five-thirty. He did so. When the moment arrived for Mr. Muir to open the drawer of his desk, the money was gone. He was of course greatly embarrassed.”

“Yeah. When had he put it there?”

An interruption came from Wolfe. He moved to get upright in his chair, then to arise from it. He looked down at Perry:

“You will excuse me, sir. It is the hour for my prescribed exercise and, following that, attention to my plants. If it would amuse you, when you have finished with Mr. Goodwin, to come to the roof and look at them, I would be pleased to have you.” He moved halfway to the door, and turned. “It would be advisable, I think, for Mr. Goodwin to make a preliminary investigation before we definitely undertake the commission you offer us. It appears to present complexities. Good day, sir.” He went on out. The poker-dart board had been moved to his bedroom that morning, it being a business day with appointments.

“A cautious man.” Perry smiled at me. “Of course his exceptional ability permits him to afford it.”

I saw Perry was sore by the color above his cheekbones. I said, “Yeah. When had he put it there?”

“What? Oh, to be sure. The money had been brought from the bank and placed in Mr. Muir’s desk that morning, but he had looked in the drawer when he returned from lunch, around three o’clock, and saw it intact. At five-thirty it was gone.”

“Was he there all the time?”

“Oh, no. He was in and out. He was with me in my office for twenty minutes or so. He went once to the toilet. For over half an hour, from four to until about four-forty, he was in the directors’ room, conferring with other officers and Mr. Savage, our public relations counsel.”

“Was the drawer locked?”

“No.”

“Then anyone might have lifted it.”

Perry shook his head. “The executive reception clerk is at a desk with a view of the entire corridor; that’s her job, to know where everyone is all the time, to facilitate interviews. She knows who went in Muir’s room, and when.”

“Who did?”

“Five people. An office boy with correspondence, another vice-president of the company, Muir’s stenographer, Clara Fox, and myself.”

“Let’s eliminate. I suppose you didn’t take it?”

“No. I almost wish I had. When the office boy was there,
Muir was there too. The vice-president, Mr. Arbuthnot, is out of the question. As for Muir’s stenographer, she was still there when the loss was discovered—most of the others had gone home—and she insisted that Muir search her belongings. She has a little room next to Muir’s, and had not been out of it except to enter his room. Besides, he has had her for eleven years, and trusts her.”

“Which leaves Clara Fox.”

“Yes.” Perry cleared his throat. “Clara Fox is our cable clerk—a most responsible position. She translates and decodes all cables and telegrams. She went to Muir’s office around a quarter after four, during his absence, with a decoded message, and waited there while Muir’s stenographer went to her own room to type a copy of it.”