The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1 (11 page)

“Fifth. When they question you, there will be three courses open to you. You may tell the truth, in which case your wild and extravagant tale will reinforce their suspicions and will be enough to convict you of almost anything, even murder. Or you may try to tone your tale down, tell only a little and improvise to fill in the gaps, whereupon they will catch you in lies and go after you harder than ever. Or you may assert your constitutional rights and refuse to talk at all; if you do that they will incarcerate you as material witnesses and hold you without bail. As you see, it is a dilemma with three horns and none of them attractive. As Miss Fox put it, you’re in a fix. And any of the three courses will render you
hors de combat
for any further molestation of the Marquis of Clivers.”

Hilda Lindquist’s chin was way up in the air. Mike Walsh was leaning forward with his eyes on Wolfe narrower than ever. Clara Fox had stopped squeezing her hand and had her lips pressed tight. She opened them to say:

“All right. We’re game. Which do we do?”

“None.” Wolfe sighed. “None of those. Confound it, I was born romantic and I shall never recover from it. But, as I have said, I expect to be paid. I hope I have made it clear that it will not do for the police to find you until we are ready for them to. Have I demonstrated that?”

The two women asked simultaneously, “Well?”

“Well … Archie, bring Saul.”

I jumped from habit and not from enthusiasm. I was half sore. I didn’t like it. I found Saul in the kitchen drinking port wine and telling Fred and Fritz stories, and led him to the office. He stood in front of Wolfe’s desk.

“Yes, sir.”

Wolfe spoke, not to him. “Miss Lindquist, this is Mr. Saul Panzer. I would trust him further than might be thought credible. He is himself a bachelor, but has acquaintances who are married and possibly even friends, with the usual living quarters—an apartment or a house. Have you anything to say to him?”

But the Lindquist mind was slow. She didn’t get it. Clara Fox asked Wolfe:

“May I?”

“Please do.”

She turned to Saul. “Miss Lindquist would like to be in seclusion for a while—a few days—she doesn’t know how long. She thought you might know of a place … one of your friends …”

Saul nodded. “Certainly, Miss Lindquist.” He turned to Wolfe:

“Is there a warrant out?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Shall I give the address to Archie?”

“By no means. If I need to communicate with Miss Lindquist I can do so through General Delivery. She can notify me on the telephone what branch.”

“Shall we go out the back way onto Thirty-fourth Street?”

“I was about to suggest it. When you are free again, return here. Tonight.” Wolfe moved his eyes. “Is there anything of value in your luggage at the hotel, Miss Lindquist?”

She was standing up. She shook her head. “Not much. No.”

“Have you any money?”

“I have thirty-eight dollars and my ticket home.”

“Good. Opulence. Goodnight, Miss Lindquist. Sleep well.”

Clara Fox was up too. She went to the other woman and
put her hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the mouth. “Goodnight, Hilda. It’s rotten, but … keep your chin up.”

Hilda Lindquist said in a loud voice, “Goodnight, everybody,” and turned and followed Saul Panzer out of the room. In a few seconds I could hear their footsteps on the stairs leading down to the basement, where a door opened onto the court in the rear. We were all looking at Wolfe, who was opening a bottle of beer. I was thinking, the old lummox certainly fancies he’s putting on a hot number, I suppose he’ll send Miss Fox to board with his mother in Buda Pesth. It looked to me like he was stepping off over his head.

He looked at Mike Walsh. “Now, sir, your turn. I note your symptoms of disapproval, but we are doing the best we can. In the kitchen is a man named Fred Durkin, whom you have seen. Within his capacity, he is worthy of your trust and mine. I would suggest—”

“I don’t want any Durkin.” Walsh was on his feet again. “I don’t want anything from you at all. I’ll just be going.”

“But Mr. Walsh.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Believe me, it will not pay to be headstrong. I am not by nature an alarmist, but there are certain features of this affair—”

“So I notice.” Walsh stepped up to the desk. “The features is what I don’t like about it.” He looked at Clara Fox, then at me, then at Wolfe, letting us know what the features were. “I may be past me prime, but I’m not in a box yet. What kind of a shenanigan would ye like to try on an old man, huh? I’m to go out and hide, am I? Do I get to ask a question or two?”

“That’s three.” Wolfe sighed. “Go ahead.”

Walsh whirled on me. “You, Goodwin’s your name? Was it you that answered the phone yesterday, the call that came for Harlan Scovil?”

“No.” I grinned at him. “I wasn’t here.”

“Where was you?”

“At the office of the Seaboard Products Corporation, where Miss Fox works.”

“Ha! Was you indeed. You wasn’t here. I suppose it couldn’t have been you that phoned here to Harlan.”

“Sure it could have, but it wasn’t. Listen, Mr. Walsh—”

“I’ve listened enough. I’ve been listening to this Clara Fox for a year and looking at her pretty face, and I had no reason to doubt her maybe, and this is what’s come out of it, I’ve helped lead my old friend Harlan Scovil into an ambush to his death. My old friend Harlan.” He stopped abruptly, and shut his lips tight, and looked around at us while a big fat tear suddenly popped out of each of his eyes and rolled on
down, leaving a mark across his wrinkles. He went on, “I ate a meal with you. A meal and three drinks. Maybe I’d like to puke it up some day. Or maybe you’re all square shooters, I don’t know, but I know somebody ain’t, and I’m going to find out who it is. What’s this about them being after Miss Fox for stealing money? I can find out about that too. And if I want anything collected from this English Marquis nobleman, I can collect it myself. Goodnight to ye all.” He turned and headed for the door.

Wolfe snapped, “Get him, Archie.”

Remembering the gun on his hip, I went and folded myself around him and locked him. He let out a snarl and tried some twisting and unloosed a couple of kicks at my shins, but in four seconds he had sense enough to see it was no go. He quivered a little and then stood quiet, but I kept him tight. He said:

“It’s me now, is it?”

Wolfe spoke across the room at him. “You called me an idiot, Mr. Walsh. I return the compliment. What is worse, you are hotheaded. But you are an old man, so there is humanity’s debt to you. You may go where you please, but I must warn you that every step you take may be a dangerous step. Furthermore, when you talk, every word may be dangerous not only to you but to Miss Fox and Miss Lindquist. I strongly advise you to adopt the precautions—”

“I’ll do me own precautions.”

“Mike!” Clara Fox came, her hand out. “Mike, you can’t be thinking … what Mr. Wolfe says is right. Don’t desert us now. Turn him loose, Mr. Goodwin. Shake hands, Mike.”

He shook his head. “Did you see him grab me, and all I was doing was walking out on me own feet? I hate the damn detectives and always have, and what was he doing at your office? And if you’re my enemy, Clara Fox, God help you, and if not then you can be my friend. Not now. When he turns me loose I’ll be going.”

Wolfe said, “Release him, Archie. Goodnight, Mr. Walsh.”

I let my muscles go and stepped back. Mike Walsh put a hand up to feel his ribs, turned to look at me, and then to Wolfe. He said:

“But I’m no idiot. Show me that back way.”

Clara Fox begged him, “Don’t go, Mike.”

He didn’t answer her. I started for the kitchen, and he followed me after stopping in the hall for his hat and coat. I told Fred to see him through the court and the fence and the passage
leading to 34th Street, and switched on the basement light for them. I stood and watched them go down. I hadn’t cared much for Wolfe’s hot number anyhow, and now it looked like worse than a flop, with that wild Irishman in his old age going out to do his own precautions. But I hadn’t argued about letting him go, because I knew that kind as well as Wolfe did and maybe better.

When I went back to the office Clara Fox was still standing up. She asked, “Did he really go?”

I nodded. “With bells on.”

“Do you think he meant what he said?” She turned to Wolfe. “I don’t think he meant it at all. He was just angry and frightened and sorry. I know how he felt. He felt that Harlan Scovil was killed because we started this business, and now he doesn’t want to go away and hide. I don’t either. I don’t want to run away.”

“Then it is lucky you won’t have to.” Wolfe emptied his glass, returned it to the tray, and slid the tray around to the other side of the pen block. That meant that he had decided he had had enough beer for the day, and therefore that he would probably open only one more bottle before going upstairs, provided he went fairly soon. He sighed. “You understand, Miss Fox, this is something unprecedented. It has been many years since any woman has slept under this roof. Not that I disapprove of them, except when they attempt to function as domestic animals. When they stick to the vocations for which they are best adapted, such as chicanery, sophistry, self-adornment, cajolery, mystification and incubation, they are sometimes splendid creatures. Anyhow … you will find our south room, directly above mine, quite comfortable. I may add that I am foolishly fond of good form, good color, and fine texture, and I have good taste in those matters. It is a pleasure to look at you. You have unusual beauty. I say that to inform you that while the idea of a woman sleeping in my house is theoretically insupportable, in this case I am willing to put up with it.”

“Thank you. Then I’m to hide here?”

“You are. You must keep to your room, with the curtains drawn. Elaborate circumspection will be necessary and will be explained to you. Mr. Goodwin will attend to that. Should your stay be prolonged, it may be that you can join us in the dining-room for meals; eating from a tray is an atrocious insult both to the food and the feeder; and in that case, luncheon is punctually at one and dinner at eight. But before we adjourn for
the night there are one or two things I need still to know; for instance, where were you and Miss Lindquist and Mr. Walsh from five to six o’clock this evening?”

Clara Fox nodded. “I know. That’s why you asked me if I had killed anybody, and I thought you were being eccentric. But of course you don’t believe that. I’ve told you we were looking for Harlan Scovil.”

“Let’s get a schedule. Put it down, Archie. Mr. Goodwin informed me that you left the Seaboard office at a quarter past five.”

She glanced at me. “Yes, about that. That was the time I was supposed to get Harlan Scovil at his hotel on Forty-fifth Street, and I didn’t get there until nearly half-past five. He wasn’t there. I looked around on the street and went a block to another hotel, thinking possibly he had misunderstood me, and then went back again and he still wasn’t there. They said he had been out all afternoon as far as they knew. Hilda was at a hotel on Thirtieth Street, and I had told Mike Walsh to be there in the lobby at a quarter to six, and I was to call there for them. Of course I was late, it was six o’clock when I got there, and we decided to try Harlan Scovil’s hotel once more, but he wasn’t there. We waited a few minutes and then came on without him, and got here at six-thirty.” She stopped, and chewed on her lip. “He was dead … then. While we were there waiting for him. And I was planning … I thought …”

“Easy, Miss Fox. We can’t resurrect. So you know nothing of Miss Lindquist’s and Mr. Walsh’s whereabouts between five and six. —Easy, I beg you. Don’t tell me again I’m an idiot or you’ll have me believing it. I am merely filling in a picture. Or rather, a rough sketch. I think perhaps you should leave us here with it and go to bed. Remember, you are to keep to your room, both for your own safety and to preserve me from serious annoyance. Mr. Goodwin—”

“I know.” She frowned at him and then at me. “I thought of that when you said I was to stay here. You mean what they call accessory after the fact—”

“Bosh.” Wolfe straightened in his chair and his hand went forward by automatism, but there was no beer there. He sent a sharp glance at me to see if I noticed it, and sat back again. “I can’t be an accessory after a fact that never existed. I am acting on the assumption that you are not criminally involved either in larceny or in murder. If you are, say so and get out. If you are not, go to bed. Fritz will show you your room.” He pushed the button. “Well?”

“I’ll go to bed.” She brushed her hair back. “I don’t think I’ll sleep.”

“I hope you will, even without appetite for it. At any rate, you won’t walk the floor, for I shall be directly under you.” The door opened, and Wolfe turned to it. “Fritz. Please show Miss Fox to the south room, and arrange towels and so on. In the morning, take her roses to her with breakfast, but have Theodore slice the stems first. —And by the way, Miss Fox, you have nothing with you. The niceties of your toilet you will have to forego, but I believe we can furnish a sleeping-garment. Mr. Goodwin owns some handsome silk pajamas which his sister sent him on his birthday, from Ohio. They are hideous, but handsome. I’m sure he won’t mind. I presume, Fritz, you’ll find them in the chest of drawers near the window. Unless … would you prefer to get them for Miss Fox yourself, Archie?”

I could have thrown my desk at him. He knew damn well what I thought of those pajamas. I was so sore I suppose it showed in my cheeks, because I saw Fritz pull in his lower lip with his teeth. I was slower on the come-back than usual, and I never did get to make one, for at that instant the doorbell rang, which was a piece of luck for Nero Wolfe. I got up and strode past them to the hall.

I was careless for two reasons. I was taking it for granted it was Saul Panzer, back from planting Hilda Lindquist in seclusion; and the cause of my taking something for granted when I shouldn’t, since that’s always a bad thing to do in our business, was that my mind was still engaged with Wolfe’s vulgar attempt to be funny. Anyhow, the fact remains that I was careless. I whirled the lock and took off the bolt and pulled the door open.