Rex Stout (10 page)

“I don’t know. I don’t drive them.”

“Never? Not even Tuesday morning?”

“Not at all. You’re talking nonsense, Mr. Secretary.”

“To match yours, Lee, about your being in Washington. An employee of the government was present at your meeting in the cork-lined room in the Maryland Avenue Garage Monday night.”

“Probably. If he’s an American. I am willing to enroll all Americans, and shall.”

“Not probably for this one. He was there. Unfortunately he could not hear what was said at the table as you discussed the map. If he had known of its importance he might have managed.” Wardell leaned forward in his chair to pin Lincoln Lee with his eyes. “That’s what we’ve been leading up to. That’s what you’re going to tell me. Why the map?”

Lee did not seem impressed. He shook his head. “No. I prefer not to tell that. It was a private matter, private to my organization. No.”

“Oh yes. That, and this; where is the map now? I want it, and the papers that were with it.”

Lee shook his head again. “You’re wasting your time. I’m telling you, if you want to find your gutless President, you’re plowing the wrong field.”

“I’ll do the plowing. Maybe it will help if I give you the picture: at this moment, in two rooms in the basement of this building, there are two men, one named Grier and another named Fallon. You may remember that they were with you at the table. They are in separate rooms. Some detectives from New York are with them. I don’t know exactly what they are doing to them, and I would prefer to remain ignorant, but my understanding is that they are likely to answer any questions that are asked before they become incapable of speech.”

Wardell paused, but Lee was unmoved and silent.

“They had in mind offering you the same persuasion, but I paid you the compliment of assuming that with you it wouldn’t work. The idea is that they will get your lieutenants’ stories and I shall get yours, and we’ll compare them and draw conclusions. I know you would rather not, but you must. Make no mistake about it. I figured that with you a different method of compulsion would be required. You can believe that I mean business, and I have no more time to waste. If you refuse to tell me what I think you know, or if your story disagrees with Grier’s and Fallon’s, I shall at once lock you up in an insane asylum, where you belong—yes, an insane asylum, and you will be kept there—”

Wardell stopped, and involuntarily shrank back in his chair.
Lincoln Lee was up above him, quivering from head to foot, and a gleam sufficiently insane was gathering to points in his eyes. He spoke hoarsely: “You dirty lying bastard!” Wardell straightened up, hardening, forcing his voice: “Sit down! That’s where you’ll go if you don’t talk, an insane asylum—”

Neither of them had noticed the opening of the door to the room; certainly they had no leisure to remark the entrance of the person who had opened it, for Lincoln Lee, his teeth showing and the gleam in his eyes darting the lightning of mania, had leaped forward with his manacled hands upraised, and Wardell, helpless beneath him, unable to get to his feet, was bending his arms in futile defense of his face and trying to throw himself to one side. The newcomer was in on the jump, and he got there in time. He hit Lee just once, with his left because of the angle of his approach, but it was a solid left with all the shoulder in it. Lee went down. Wardell’s foot had got against a corner of the desk and he kicked himself back, chair and all, and stood up. The newcomer dangled his left hand around in the air, held it up to look at it, dangled it around again, and said:

“Jesus.”

Wardell stepped forward and looked down at Lincoln Lee on the floor, muttering, not very steady, “Confound it, it worked too well.”

The other nodded. “He’s cold. His head hit the corner of the chair on the way down. Shall I drag him out of the way?”

Wardell looked at him. “Who are you? I think I’ve seen you. Aren’t you from the White House squad?”

“Yeah. Moffat. I phoned you twenty minutes ago; found Kempner, the Callahan manager, and you said to bring him in. He’s out in the hall. When I heard your friend here raising his voice I opened the door so I could hear better.”

“I’m much obliged.” Wardell looked down at Lee, motionless on the floor, his legs stretched out and his manacled hands flung above his head. “How soon will he come out of that?”

“It’s hard to say.” Chick Moffat grinned. “He was in a good position to tip over and he rubbed that chair pretty hard. Shall I drag him out?”

“No.” Wardell had his breath normal again. He was not at all a coward, but the sight of Lincoln Lee above him, iron on his wrists ready to strike and points of fire in his eyes, had been a little unnerving. “Put him over in a corner. Over
there. Bring Kempner in. And have somebody bring me a gun to keep on my desk; I don’t suppose I could hit anything, but I’ll have one anyway. Have you asked Kempner anything?”

Chick Moffat had grasped Lee’s relaxed ankles and was hauling him, like a sack of bran, across the linoleum toward a far corner. When he got him there he let the ankles fall and stooped over to feel the pulse. Then he replied, “No, my orders were to deliver him.”

“Good. Bring him in.”

Moffat went out. In a minute he was back with a man, a short bald blue-eyed man on whose round amiable face astonishment, alarm, and sleepiness were plainly struggling for possession of the field. Moffat put him in the chair Lincoln Lee had recently vacated, and turned and went out again. Wardell, back in his own chair, took in the round face and the blue eyes and thought that if guile was concealed there it had never found a more unlikely hiding-place.

“Your name?”

“Adolph Kempner, K, E, M,—” The bald man’s voice was clear and careful, as it had been twenty years previously when he had called back figures looking for a trial balance. Wardell interrupted him:

“Yes. You are manager of Callahan’s store?”

“I am. Vice-President of the corporation. May I say—”

“No. Answer my questions briefly and correctly. How long have you been keeping your delivery trucks in the Maryland Avenue Garage?”

“Yes, sir. More than three years. Four years in August.”

“How many trucks have you?”

“Well … six Reos and the two little Fords.”

“Where have you been since eight o’clock tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Last night.”

“At the home of a friend of mine, Mr. L. A. Dippel.”

“Doing what?”

“We were playing pinochle.”

Wardell looked aside as the door opened. Chick Moffat entered, crossed to the desk and laid on its glass top a dark blue .38 revolver and a box of cartridges. He said, “It’s loaded.—What now?”

“Sit down. You’ve been pretty helpful.” Wardell turned back to Adolf Kempner. “Playing pinochle until three o’clock in the morning?”

“Yes, sir. When we get started … we’re quite fond of it. I got to my rooms—I’m not married—at half-past three, and found this gentleman waiting for me.”

Wardell turned to Chick Moffat. “Didn’t anyone know where he was?”

No, Chick said; another with him on the assignment had gone off to try to pick up the trail, and at ten o’clock, when news came that the truck had been found, and the other clerks and employees who had been unearthed had sworn to complete ignorance regarding it, a dozen men had joined in the hunt for Kempner. A dozen more were looking for the missing driver. Chick had remained at the rooms, and at three-thirty Kempner had walked up and stuck his key in the lock.

Wardell said to the manager: “A young man named Val Orcutt makes your deliveries to the White House. Why?”

“Why?” Sleepiness had resigned the field on the round face, and alarm was uppermost. “Why … because I tell him to.”

“Why did you pick on him? Because he’s a member of your organization?”

“Of course he’s a member of our organization, naturally …”

“I don’t mean Callahan’s. I mean, because he’s a Gray Shirt?”

Adolf Kempner blinked and his mouth opened. He shut it again, as the import of the questions seeped through, and his round face took on an unexpected quality of dignity and composed resentment. “That’s a lie,” he said quietly. “None of our boys are Gray Shirts. I am not. What are you driving at?”

“I’d like to know.” Wardell kept his eyes fastened. “Where is Val Orcutt now?”

“I don’t know. At home asleep, I suppose he is.”

“He isn’t. He hasn’t been there since he left this morning. When did you see him last?”

“Why, I saw him …” The manager was suddenly silent, then suddenly he exclaimed, “My God!” and stared at Wardell with horrified eyes.

Wardell said, “Well?” And with sharper impatience, “Well?”

“Wait a minute.” Kempner was pleading. “Just wait a minute.” He swallowed. “This is how it was. At twenty
minutes to nine Val left for the White House. I always check that order out myself to avoid any chance of error. We always make a special trip for it, we don’t want to run any risk of getting other orders mixed with it, but we send a big truck—you understand that, it wouldn’t look well, a little Ford delivering provisions to the White House. We appreciate the advantage of people seeing our fine big truck going there every day. At a quarter past nine, I was back in the office then with the mail, Val phoned me. He told me that he had jumped out of the truck onto something and turned his ankle, and would have to lay off for the day.”

Wardell nodded. “Your stenographer has told me of that call. So that’s what Val Orcutt said?”

“Yes. Yes, sir. My God, he must be at home …”

“He didn’t return to the store?”

“No. I offered to send for the truck, but he said he would take it to the garage since it wasn’t needed at the store.… I thought in the afternoon I should telephone his home to ask how he was but I didn’t get around to it …”

“You didn’t telephone the garage to ask about the truck?”

“No, why should I? Val is a trustworthy boy, it never occurred to me, I took it for granted …”

“How did his voice sound on the phone? Was he excited?”

“No.” The manager frowned, remembering. “He wasn’t excited. His voice sounded funny, I supposed it was his ankle hurting him. It didn’t sound like him, too high.”

“Why did you think it was him if it didn’t sound like him?”

“Oh, it was him.” Kempner stared. “Of course it was him, why should I think it wasn’t?”

“I don’t know. Did you know that the Maryland Avenue Garage is the Washington headquarters of the Gray Shirts?”

“No. I … I can’t believe it.”

“It is.”

Kempner said promptly, “Our trucks will be out of there tomorrow.”

“Oh, no.” Wardell was grim. “Your trucks will stay there. Your store won’t open tomorrow. Your employees are under detention. Yourself also.”

The manager went red. He held in for a moment, then sputtered. “The store won’t open? Under detention?” His voice rose and his face got redder. “Sir … sir … I am not a man of temper, but this is an outrage … by what right …” He tried to collect himself. “It is the most reputable establishment
in the city … for the store not to open is impossible … it would be a calamity …”

“Don’t whine,” Wardell snapped. “To hell with your store. Val Orcutt, your driver who had one of your trucks in the White House grounds at nine o’clock yesterday morning, has disappeared, and the truck was found at ten o’clock last night in front of an empty house on Fifteenth Street Northeast. It had been parked there all day. And lying on the floor inside of the truck, in a dark front corner back of the seat, was a penknife belonging to President Stanley—one he always carries in his left vest pocket.”

Kempner was staring. “My God,” he muttered. “In our truck … I can’t believe it … in our truck …”

“Just so. Now maybe you’ll tell me how many of your men are Gray Shirts, and which ones. Come, speak up.”

“How can I?” The manager’s hands were clenched tight together and his voice was shaky. “How can I, sir? There are no Gray Shirts at Callahan’s, I’m positive. It isn’t possible, in
our
truck—it’s a calamity. If any of the boys was a Gray Shirt I certainly would know it, I wouldn’t stand for it …”

“What about Val Orcutt? Where is he?”

“I don’t—don’t I tell you I don’t know? Val Orcutt is an absolutely fine boy, I know that.—And, sir, I want to tell you that it would be criminal not to let the store open. God knows I’m sorry about the President’s penknife, but not to let Callahan’s open would be—it would be unconstitutional! I can tell you—”

“Be quiet! I’ll tear your damned store to pieces if I’m inclined that way.” Wardell turned to his desk, poured from the thermos jug another cup of black steaming coffee, and sipped at it. After a minute he put the cup down, reached for the revolver and cartridges lying there, looked them over and put them in the drawer. Then he sipped some more coffee. Finally he spoke again, but not to Kempner.

“Moffat, are you a bright detective? Does this man know anything?”

Chick Moffat shook his head. “Only how to sell groceries. On a bet, no. I’m fairly bright.”

Wardell looked again at the round face and blue eyes of the bald-headed manager, then turned to the desk and pushed a button, and sipped some more coffee. In a moment the door opened and a man entered. Wardell glanced at him and indicated Kempner with a thumb.

“Lock this man up. Not in the building. I doubt if he’s any good.”

The man nodded and started for the manager, who had jumped to his feet with a mouthful of protests all trying to emerge at once. Wardell finished his cup of coffee. The man grabbed Kempner by the arm and marched him out of the room, ignoring his outbursts on the subjects of warrants, outrages, and the Constitution of the United States. Wardell spoke to Moffat:

“How’s the maniac?”

“He’s all right. He’s been awake for quite a while.”

“I haven’t seen him move.”

Chick grinned. “No. He’s cute. He’s just lying there planning how to do his good deed for today.”

The door opened again. Another man entered. Wardell looked at him. “Who are you?”

The man had sweat drying on his face and forehead, and he looked discouraged. He spoke from inside the threshold. “I’m from downstairs. Heath of the New York Homicide Squad. Those two babies we’re working on have got paralyzed tongues or something. We can’t screw a word out of them and they’ve passed out. We thought you ought to come down and see—”