Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 17 (10 page)

“Shut up and sit down,” his uncle told him.

Bernard wheeled again. Wolfe nodded at him. “Thank you, sir, for relieving us of that speculation. There are plenty left.” He looked at Jean. “For example, at that encounter with your disguised former partner, wherever it was and however it came about, did you two arrange to meet Tuesday evening at your place of business to discuss matters and reach an understanding? It must have been an interesting meeting, with him thinking you dead and you supposedly thinking him dead. Did you persuade him that you hadn’t killed your wife? And why didn’t you kill him somewhere else? Was it bravado, to leave him there, with his mutilated face, on the floor of his own office, or were you afraid to postpone it even for an hour, for fear he would disclose himself to Miss Nieder or Mr. Demarest, and so increase your risk? And why on earth did you jab that thing at him more than a dozen times? Were you hysterical? Surely you didn’t think it necessary to prevent his being identified, with everyone thinking him dead long ago.”

“It was a wolf tearing a carcass into pieces,” Polly Zarella declared emphatically.

“Perhaps.” Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again. “You can have him, Mr. Cramer. I’m through with him.”

Cramer was scowling. “I could use some more facts.”

“Bah.” Wolfe resented it. “What more do you want? You saw his face; you are seeing it now, with all the time he’s had to arrange it. I phoned you that he would be here for you, and there he is. I’ve done my part and you can do yours. He got into that building last night and out again, and was not invisible. That’s really all you need.”

Cramer arose. Purley Stebbins was already up.

“One thing I need,” said Cramer, stepping to the desk, “is that letter Nieder wrote.” He extended a hand. “There in your breast pocket.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I’ll keep that—or rather, I’ll destroy it. It’s mine.”

“Like hell it is!”

“Certainly it is. It’s in my handwriting. I wrote it while Archie was going for him—with Mr, Demarest’s help. You won’t need it. Just take him out of here and get to work.”

For my own satisfaction I have got to add that this was one time Wolfe outsmarted himself. Not far from the top of the list of the things he abhors is being a witness at a trial, and ordinarily he takes good care to handle things so that he won’t get a subpoena. But only last week I had the pleasure of sitting in the courtroom and watching him—and listening to him—in the witness chair. The District Attorney wasn’t any too sure of his case, and on this one Wolfe couldn’t shake him loose. It was a good thing for Cynthia that Wolfe didn’t know what would happen at the time we
sent her a bill, or she might have had to hock her half of the business to pay it. Wolfe got sore about it all over again just yesterday morning, when the paper informed him that the jury had stayed out only two hours and forty minutes before bringing in a first-degree verdict. That proved, he claimed, that his testimony hadn’t been needed.

The owners of Daumery and Nieder tell me that not only will I be welcome at any of their shows, front row seat, but also that any number I want to pick will be sent with their compliments to any name and address I choose. I thought Cynthia understood me better than that. Women just don’t give a damn. I suppose in a month or so she’ll be light-heartedly sending me an invitation to the wedding.

In my opinion it was one of Nero Wolfe’s neatest jobs, and he never got a nickel for it.

He might or might not have taken it on merely as a favor to his old friend Marko Vukcic, who was one of the only three people who called him by his first name, but there were other factors. Rusterman’s Restaurant was the one place besides home where Wolfe really enjoyed eating, and Marko owned it and ran it, and he put the bee on Wolfe in one of the small private rooms at Rusterman’s as the cheese cart was being wheeled in to us at the end of a specially designed dinner. Furthermore, the man in trouble had at one time been a cook.

“I admit,” Marko said, reaching to give me another hunk of Cremona Gorgonzola, “that he forfeited all claim to professional respect many years ago. But in my youth I worked under him at Mondor’s in Paris, and at the age of thirty he was the best sauce man in France. He had genius, and he had a generous heart. I owe him much. I would choke on this cheese if I sat on my hands while he gets convicted of a murder he did
not commit.” Marko gestured with the long thin knife. “But who am I? A Boniface. Whereas you are a great detective, and my friend. I appeal to you to save him.” Marko pointed the knife at me. “And, naturally, to Archie—also, I hope, my friend.”

I nodded with much feeling, having his food and wine all through me. “Absolutely,” I agreed, “but don’t waste any butter on me. All I do is carry things.”

“Ha,” Marko said skeptically. “I know how deep you go, my friend. As for the money that will be required, I shall of course furnish it.”

Wolfe grunted, drawing our eyes to him. His big face, which never looked big on account of the great expanse of the rest of him, was cheerful and a little flushed, as always after a good meal, but the annoyance that had brought forth the grunt showed in his eyes. They were on our host.

“Pfui.” He grunted again. “Is this right, Marko? No. If you want to hire me and pay me, I do business in my office, not at your table. If you want to draw on friendship, why mention money? Do you owe this man —what’s his name?”

“Pompa. Virgil Pompa.”

“Do you owe him enough to warrant a draft on my affection?”

“Yes.” Marko was slightly annoyed too. “Damn it, didn’t I say so?”

“Then I have no choice. Come to my office tomorrow at eleven and tell me about it.”

“That won’t do,” Marko declared. “He’s in jail, charged with murder. I had a devil of a time getting to him this afternoon, with a lawyer. Danger is breathing down his neck and he’s nearly dead of fear. He is sixty-eight years old.”

“Good heavens.” Wolfe sighed. “Confound it, there were things I wanted to talk about. And what if he killed that man? From the newspaper accounts it seems credible. Why are you so sure he didn’t?”

“Because I saw him and heard him this afternoon. Virgil Pompa could conceivably kill a man, of course. And having killed, he certainly would have sense enough to lie to policemen and lawyers. But he could not look me in the eye and say what he said the way he said it. I know him well.” Marko crossed his chest with the knife as if it had been a sword. “I swear to you, Nero, he did not kill. Is that enough?”

“Yes.” Wolfe pushed his plate. “Give me some more cheese and tell me about it.”

“Le Bondon?”

“All five, please. I haven’t decided yet which to favor.”

At half-past eight the following morning, Wednesday, Wolfe was so furious he got some coffee in his windpipe. This was up in his bedroom, where he always eats breakfast on a tray brought by Fritz. Who got him sore was a butler—at least, the male voice on the phone was a butler’s if I ever heard one. First the voice asked him to spell his name, and then, after keeping him waiting too long, told him that Mrs. Whitten did not care to speak with any newspapermen. After that double insult I was surprised he even remembered there was coffee left in his cup, and it was only natural he should swallow the wrong way.

Also we were up a stump, since if we were going to make a start at honoring Marko’s draft on Wolfe’s
affection we certainly would have to get in touch with Mrs. Whitten or some member of the family.

It was strictly a family affair, as we had got it from the newspapers and from Marko’s account of what Virgil Pompa had told him. Six months ago Mrs. Floyd Whitten had been not Mrs. Whitten but Mrs. H. R. Landy, a widow, and sole owner of
AMBROSIA.
You have certainly seen an
AMBROSIA
unless you’re a hermit, and have probably eaten in one or more. The only ones I have ever patronized are
AMBROSIA
19, on Grand Central Parkway near Forest Hills, Long Island;
AMBROSIA
26, on Route 7 south of Danbury; and
AMBROSIA
47, on Route 202 at Flemington, New Jersey. Altogether, in twelve states, either ninety-four thousand people or ninety-four million, I forget which, eat at an
AMBROSIA
every day.

H. R. Landy created it and built it up to
AMBROSIA
109, died of overwork, and left everything to his wife. He also left her two sons and two daughters. Jerome, thirty-three, was a partner in a New York real estate firm. Mortimer, thirty-one, sort of fiddled around with radio packages and show business. And only the Internal Revenue Bureau, if anyone, knew how he was making out. Eve, twenty-seven, was Mrs. Daniel Bahr, having married the newspaper columnist whose output appeared in three times as many states as
AMBROSIA
had got to. Phoebe, twenty-four, had graduated from Vassar and then pitched in to help mama run
AMBROSIA.

But most of the running of
AMBROSIA
had been up to Virgil Pompa, after Landes death. Years ago Landy had coaxed him away from high cuisine by talking money, thereby causing him, as Marko had put it, to forfeit all claim to professional respect. But he had gained other kinds of respect and had got to be
Landy’s trusted field captain and second in command. When Landy died Pompa had almost automatically taken over, but it had soon begun to get a little difficult. The widow had started to get ideas, one especially, that son Mortimer should take the wheel. However, that experiment had lasted only two months, coming to an abrupt end when Mortimer had bought eight carloads of black-market lamb which proved to have worms or something. Then for a while the widow had merely been irritating, and Pompa had decided to carry on until his seventieth birthday. It became even easier for him when Mrs. Landy married a man named Floyd Whitten, for she took her new husband on a three months’ trip in South America, and when they returned to New York she was so interested in him that she went to the
AMBROSIA
headquarters in the Empire State Building only one or two mornings a week. Phoebe, the youngest daughter, had been on the job, but had been inclined to listen to reason—that is, to Pompa.

Suddenly, a month ago, Mrs. Whitten had told Pompa that he was old enough to retire, and that they would start immediately to train her husband to take over the direction of the business.

This dope on Floyd Whitten is partly from the papers, but mostly from Pompa via Marko. For a year before Landy’s death Whitten had been in charge of public relations for
AMBROSIA
, and had kept on after Landy died, but when he married the boss, and came back from the long trip with his bride, he didn’t resume at the office. Either he wanted to spend his time with her, or she wanted to spend hers with him, or both. Whitten (this from Pompa) was a smoothie who knew how to work his tongue. He was too selfish and conceited to get married, though he had long enjoyed
intimate relations with a Miss Julie Alving, a woman about his age who earned her living by buying toys for Meadow’s department store. It appeared that the facts about Whitten which had outraged Pompa most were, first, he had married a woman a dozen years his senior, second, he had coolly and completely discarded Julie Alving when he married his boss, and third, he had kept extra shirts in his office at
AMBROSIA
so he could change every day after lunch. It was acknowledged and established that any draft by Whitten on Pompa’s affection would have been returned with the notation
Insufficient Funds.

So the situation had stood the evening of Monday, July fifth—twenty-four hours before Marko had appealed to Wolfe to save Pompa from a murder conviction. That Monday had of course been a holiday, but Mrs. Whitten, proceeding with characteristic slapdash energy to get her husband trained for top man in
AMBROSIA
, had arranged a meeting for eight-thirty that evening at her house in the East Seventies between Fifth and Madison. She and Whitten would drive in from their country place near Katonah, which had been named
AMBROSIA
1000 by the late Mr. Landy, though the public was neither admitted nor fed there, and Pompa would join them for a training session.

Pompa had done so, arriving at the Landy (then nominally Whitten) town house in a taxi precisely at half-past eight, and having with him a large leather case full of knives, forks, and spoons, but mostly knives. One of the tabloids had had a grand time with that prop, presenting the statistics that the case had contained a total of 126 knives, with blades all the way from 1½ inches in length to 28 inches, and speculating on the probability of any man being so thorough and comprehensive in providing himself with a murder
weapon. The reason for Pompa’s toting the leather case was silly but simple. Mrs. Whitten, having decided that her husband was to be It in
AMBROSIA
, had made a list of over a hundred items to be embraced in his training, and they had reached Item 43, which was Buying of Cutlery.

Pompa pushed the bell button several times without result. That didn’t surprise him, since he knew that the servants were at
AMBROSIA
1000 for the summer, and there was no telling how much the heavy holiday traffic might delay Mr. and Mrs. Whitten, driving in from the country. He had waited on the stoop only a few minutes when they drove up, in a long low special body job with Whitten at the wheel, parked at the curb, and joined him. Whitten used a key on the door and they entered.

The house, which Pompa knew well, had four stories. The first floor had a reception hall, a large living room to the right, and a dining room in the rear. The stairs were at the left of the reception hall. The trio had mounted directly to the second floor, where the front room had been used by H. R, Landy as an office-at-home and was now similarly used by Mrs. Whitten. They got down to business at once, and Pompa opened the leather case and took knives out. Whitten graciously pretended to be interested, though his real attitude was that it was foolish to waste time on Item 43, since cutlery buying was a minor detail which should be left to a subordinate. But Mrs. Whitten was quite serious about it, and therefore they stuck for nearly an hour to the contents of the leather case before Whitten managed to get onto the subject he was really hot about: unit managers.