Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (8 page)

“Yes, I saw the housekeeper first, Mr. Wolfe,” Bascom said. “As Saul has described, Emily Stratton is thin, almost painfully so, although she carries herself ramrod straight, and her demeanor matches her posture. It’s like pulling teeth to get answers to even the most harmless questions from her. She seems to think anything she says will somehow reflect badly on her employers—and herself.

“I hammered away at her, though, and the more we talked, the more it seemed like she doesn’t like any of the others on the staff. Oh, she didn’t come right out and attack them in so many words; it was more in what she didn’t say. I’d ask about one or another of them, and she would make a face or shrug. The closest she came to outright criticism was when I asked about Sylvia Moore. She said, ‘Well, I have never felt little Tommie was looked after carefully enough. So now we are seeing the results of that carelessness.’”

“Did Miss Stratton indicate there had been other occasions when the boy had been left without supervision?” Wolfe asked.

“No, but I did press her on that point,” Bascom replied, “and she just brushed it off. She added that there had never been another kidnapping attempt on the boy, at least as far as she knows.”

“Tell us about the chauffeur.”

“Charles Bell is very pleased with himself, to say the least. He’s been driving for the Williamsons for three years, and he acts like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the family. He loves to talk about the cars he drives and says Williamson always takes his advice when getting ready to purchase a new automobile.”

Bascom consulted his notes and continued. “Bell’s single, never been married, he says. He lives in a nicely furnished four-room apartment above the garages—with an outside phone line. He showed me around and is very proud of the setup. I would be, too. He insists he has never seen anybody suspicious hanging around the house and grounds and says he was up in his rooms shaving and getting ready to drive Tommie to school when the boy disappeared. Never heard a thing,” he said.

Wolfe shifted his bulk and frowned. “On his trips to and from the school with the boy, did Mr. Bell ever sense he was being followed?”

“No, sir,” Bascom said. “I posed that question to him, and he told me he’s always been on his guard when taking Tommie anywhere, whether to school or to a playmate’s house. He may be a snobbish fellow, but I was left with the strong impression that he is very protective of the boy. At one point, he said, ‘If I ever find the bastard that did this, I’ll ... His words trailed off, but he had a fierce expression and he pounded a fist into an open palm.”

“Did you sense he was overacting?”

Bascom paused before responding. “No, not really, sir. In fact, it was the only time during our talk that he stopped behaving like a pompous, puffed-up jackass. It seemed like I was seeing the real Charles Bell just then, without any of those airs he likes to put on.”

“Orrie,” Wolfe said, “your report, please.”

Cather tensed, leaning forward on the sofa as if he was about to leap to his feet. “I know how they took the kid away!” he blurted.

“Really?” Wolfe’s eyebrows went up, and he took his beer glass away from his lips without taking a swallow.

“Yeah, here’s how I figure—”

“Enough, Orrie,” Wolfe snapped, holding up a palm. “You should know by now that I like to receive my reports in a methodical fashion, and in the order in which the information has been learned.”

Cather looked chagrined, but only for a moment. “Well, I first talked to the cook, Mrs. Price, given name Hazel, and Saul is correct: the woman has never been married, despite the label. From the looks of her, she enjoys her own cooking a lot, and she rules like a queen over a kitchen that’s got to be more than twice the size of my flat. Even though it’s down in the basement, it’s got a high ceiling, and—”

“That’s enough description, Orrie.”

“Yes, sir. The first thing I asked her was whether anything unusual had happened yesterday, and that’s when I hit pay dirt.” He glanced around at the rest of us with a grin, as if savoring his moment in the spotlight. A look from Nero Wolfe got him back on track.

“She says it was pretty much like most days, although one thing puzzled her a little bit. Around 8:45 or so, she said there was a knocking at the outside door of the kitchen, the one that opens to a few steps that lead up to the driveway and the backyard. It’s the door where all the deliveries are received. Anyway, she opens the door and there’s a guy she’s never seen before carrying two crates of vegetables. He was tall and quite thin, she said, with dark hair parted in the center. ‘Your order from Mitchell & Sons Purveyors, Mrs. Price,’ he told her.

“‘I have never heard of this Mitchell & Sons company of yours,’ she said to him. ‘I always get my produce from Baxter & Hart, and have for years.’ At this point, the man pulled out a typewritten sheet with an order for vegetables—carrots, spinach, broccoli, and the like. She said it had her name on it and the Williamson address at the top.

“She told this guy—she never got his name—that there had been a mistake and asked him to take the food away. He argued, trying to get her to accept the vegetables, and she told me she finally had to practically push him out the door.”

“How much time did all this foofaraw take?” Wolfe asked.

“She said she didn’t know for sure, maybe two or three minutes, five at the most. I asked why she hadn’t mentioned anything about this before, and she told me she didn’t think it was important. Simply a mistake, or else one company trying to cut in on the business of another, she said.”

“So she had told no one before?” Wolfe asked, eyebrows still raised.

“Only me,” Cather said proudly.

“Did she get a look at the man’s vehicle?” I cut in, receiving a glare from Wolfe for my trouble.

“Yeah, she did,” Cather answered, looking at me as if he had forgotten I was in the room. “She followed him up the steps from the basement and watched as he got into a small enclosed white truck, the type food purveyors use. They’re as common as street-corner hot dog vendors. But, of course, she didn’t get his plate number, and she doesn’t know enough about automobiles and trucks to know what make it was.”

“And the truck had no lettering of any kind on it, right?” I put in.

“That’s exactly it!” Cather said. “What do you want to bet the Williamson kid was inside it?”

“Anything else from the cook, Orrie?” Wolfe asked.

“No, sir, not really, although she seemed puzzled that I was so interested in this mysterious purveyor. ‘That silly business can’t have had anything to do with Tommie’s ... with what has happened,’ she said. When I asked if she had any other ideas on who might have kidnapped him, she just shook her head and started muttering about all the evil in the world today. I thought she was going to launch into a sermon on sin.”

“And the others you interviewed?”

“Next I jawed with the butler, Waverly, in a small parlor just off the living room, and I did ninety percent of the talking. The guy’s a clam, I’ll tell ya. If I was to ask him if the sun came up today, he’d mull over his answer. He told me he was up in his room on the top floor of the house going over the household accounts at the time the boy disappeared. He says the first he knew about it was when the Stratton woman, the housekeeper, knocked on his door, yelling ‘something terrible has happened!’” Orrie took a sip of his highball and continued.

“I asked him if the family had been concerned over the years about the possibility of Tommie being kidnapped, and he said they always made sure there was an adult with him when he was out in the yard. But he added that most of the families of other kids in Tommie’s school also were very protective of their children, given how wealthy the area is.”

“Have there been other incidences of kidnapping in those environs?” Wolfe asked.

“I asked him that,” Cather said proudly, “and he said that to his knowledge, there had been none, at least in the twenty years he has worked for the Williamsons. Before that, he says he was in England. I also pumped him on what he thought of the other members of the staff, and here he got very tight-lipped. If he has bad feelings about any of them, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let on to me about them.”

Wolfe drained his second beer. “Anything further to add on Mr. Waverly?”

“No, that’s it. Next, I talked to the young housemaid, Mary Trent. Saul described her very accurately to you—she’s small and dark haired, looks even younger than her nineteen years, and is very shy, I would even say timid. Maybe that’s understandable, given that she is by far the youngest person on the staff and this is her first job.

“It was almost as hard to get her to talk as it was the butler. She did tell me how fond she is of Tommie and how she would spend time playing games with him when Sylvia Moore was out riding with Mrs. Williamson or otherwise occupied. I asked her if she recognized the voice of the person who telephoned for Miss Moore, and I thought she hesitated for just a second or so too long before saying no, as if maybe it really was someone she knew ... like perhaps somebody else in the house who had maybe disguised their voice.”

“That is speculation on your part, Orrie,” Wolfe said with a sniff, “although it very well may have some merit. Now if we can—” Wolfe got interrupted by the ringing of his telephone, and he scowled as he reached for the instrument.

“Yes? I see ... He picked up a pen and wrote on a pad for more than a minute. “Yes, yes, I have it. I understand, sir. Yes. I will be back to you shortly, and we will firm up the plan we discussed earlier,” he said, cradling the receiver and looking at each of us in turn.

“Gentlemen, that was Mr. Williamson. He has received instructions by telephone from the purported kidnapper.”

H
ere is the content of the message Mr. Williamson received over the telephone line at his home a few minutes ago,” Wolfe said, reading from his notepad. “‘Your son is safe. We mean him no harm whatever. But he will be returned to you only after we receive the money mentioned in the note, in unmarked, nonsequential bills. Tonight, you are to take the money in a briefcase or satchel to a telephone booth at the corner of the Grand Concourse and Bedford Park Boulevard in the Bronx. At precisely nine o’clock, the instrument in that booth will ring and you will receive further instructions. You are to be alone. No police. You will be watched.’”

“Where is Williamson going to get that kind of dough that fast?” Durkin asked.

“He already has it,” Wolfe replied. “Immediately after he received the threatening note, he withdrew a hundred thousand dollars in used currency, fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills. This money now fills a suitcase.”

“Must be nice to have that kind of mazuma,” Cather said.

“It would be a damn sight nicer to have your child back home with you,” Bascom observed.

Wolfe drew in air and exhaled. “Mr. Williamson naturally is prepared to part with this money, and even more, if necessary, as recompense for the return of his son. My sole commission is to reunite the boy with his parents. The eventual retrieval of the money is of secondary importance, if indeed it is of any importance whatever to the Williamson family. Saul, you know every corner and byway of New York City and its environs. Describe the locale where the money is to be delivered. The Grand Concourse, it is called?”

“Yes, sir,” Panzer replied. “The Concourse is a broad boulevard, with a grassy, tree-lined median strip separating the opposing lanes. During the building boom leading up to the crash, modernistic, streamlined-style apartment buildings with glass-block windows and curved corners, some of them fifteen stories or more, got put up all along the thoroughfare, which some people like to call the ‘Main Street of the Bronx.’”

“Meaning that activities occurring at street level could easily be monitored from windows in any one of numerous tall buildings that line this boulevard,” Wolfe remarked with a scowl, “which undoubtedly is why the location was selected. But to cite a comment I have heard Mr. Panzer make on more than one occasion, ‘sometimes we have no choice but to play the hand that we are dealt.’ This appears to be one of those times.”

“You mentioned to Williamson on the telephone just now a plan that you and he had discussed,” Panzer prompted.

“Yes. We decided jointly that when he received instructions as to the delivery of the ransom money, he would drive his automobile to the stipulated site, but that one of my operatives—one of you—would secrete himself in the vehicle in the event there was some unforeseen development. I would be willing to assume that role, but as you can readily see, I am hardly suited to such an operation. Nor are you Fred, nor you, Mr. Bascom, for similar although not as extreme reasons. That leaves you, Saul, and you, Orrie.”

“Don’t forget me!” I barked. “I may not be quite as skinny as Panzer, but I don’t have the beginnings of a gut on me like Cather. And I’m younger than both of them. I’m your man.”

Wolfe turned toward me, eyes wide, and started to speak, but Cather cut him off. “This is the trigger-happy hotspur talking, the guy who plugged two apes over on the North River docks a while back. Do you really want him involved in a delicate situation like we’ve got ourselves here?”

Wolfe threw a questioning look at Panzer. “Goodwin seems pretty solid to me,” the big-beaked operative said. “Based on what little I’ve seen, he asks smart questions, and he knows when to keep his mouth shut. Having said that, I am perfectly willing myself to be the one hiding in the car with Williamson.”

“From everything I’ve seen, Archie’s jake,” added Del Bascom. “He’s done some good jobs for me, and I like his judgment. Besides, those two he knocked off on the docks were nothing but slime. It was a case of him or them. And this old burg’s a damn sight better off with them dead and gone.”

Now it became Durkin’s turn. “I agree with Del. We were on that warehouse job in Long Island City that made the papers, and Archie held his fire when he could have started shooting. I’d trust him in a pinch any day.”

“Mr. Goodwin, you appear to have acquired a cadre of admirers in a very short time,” Wolfe observed.