Might as Well Be Dead

Chapter 1

Most of the people who come to see Nero Wolfe by appointment, especially from as far away as Nebraska, show some sign of being in trouble, but that one didn’t. With his clear unwrinkled skin and alert brown eyes and thin straight mouth, he didn’t even look his age. I knew his age, sixty-one. When a telegram had come from James R. Herold, Omaha, Nebraska, asking for an appointment Monday afternoon, of course I had checked on him. He was sole owner of the Herold Hardware Company, wholesale, a highly respected citizen, and rated at over half a million — a perfect prospect for a worthy fee if he had real trouble. Seeing him had been a letdown. From his looks, he might merely be after a testimonial for a gadget to trim orchid plants. He had settled back comfortably in the red leather chair.

“I guess,” he said, “I’d better tell you why I picked you.”

“As you please,” Wolfe muttered from behind his desk. For half an hour after lunch he never gets above a mutter unless he has to.

Herold crossed his legs. “It’s about my son. I want to find my son. About a month ago I put ads in the New York papers, and I contacted the New York police, and— What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

It was not nothing. Wolfe had made a face. I, at my desk, could have told Herold that unless his problem smelled like real money he might as well quit right there. One man who had made “contact” a verb in that office had paid an extra thousand bucks for the privilege, though he hadn’t known it.

Herold looked doubtful; then his face cleared. “Oh. You don’t like poking in a police matter, but that’s all right. I’ve been keeping after the Missing Persons Bureau, a Lieutenant Murphy, and I’ve run some more newspaper ads in the Personals, but they’ve got no results at all, and my wife was getting impatient about it, so I phoned Lieutenant Murphy from Omaha and told him I wanted to hire a private detective agency and asked him to recommend one. He said he couldn’t do that, but I can be pretty determined when I want to, and he gave me your name. He said that on a job like finding a missing person you yourself wouldn’t be much because you were too fat and lazy, but that you had two men, one named Archie Goodwin and one named Saul Panzer, who were tops for that kind of work. So I wired you for an appointment.”

Wolfe made the noise he uses for a chuckle, and moved a finger to indicate me. “This is Mr. Goodwin. Tell him about it.”

“He’s in your employ, isn’t he?”

“Yes. My confidential assistant.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I like to deal with principals. My son Paul is my only son — I have two daughters. When he graduated from college, the University of Nebraska, I took him into my business, wholesale hardware. That was in nineteen forty-five, eleven years ago. He had been a little wild in college, but I thought he would settle into the harness, but he didn’t. He stole twenty-six thousand dollars of the firm’s money, and I kicked him out.” His straight thin mouth tightened a little. “Out of the business and out of the house. He left Omaha and I never saw him again. I didn’t want to see him, but now I do and my wife does. One month ago, on March eighth, I learned that he didn’t take that money. I learned who did, and it has been proven beyond all doubt. That’s being attended to, the thief is being taken care of, and now I want to find my son.” He got a large envelope from his pocket, took things from it, and left his chair. “That’s a picture of him, taken in June nineteen forty-five, the latest one I have.” He handed me one too. “Here are six copies of it, and of course I can get more.” He returned to the chair and sat. “He got a raw deal and I want to make it square with him. I have nothing to apologize for, because at the time there was good evidence that he had taken the money, but now I know he didn’t and I’ve got to find him. My wife is very impatient about it.”

The picture was of a round-cheeked kid in a mortarboard and gown, with a dimple in his chin. No visible resemblance to his father. As for the father, he certainly wasn’t being maudlin. You could say he was bearing up well in the circumstances, or you could say he was plain cold fish. I preferred the latter.

Wolfe dropped the picture on the desk top. “Evidently,” he muttered, “you think he’s in New York. Why?”

“Because every year my wife and daughters have been getting cards from him on their birthdays — you know, those birthday cards. I suspected all along that my wife was corresponding with him, but she says not. She admits she would have, but he never gave her an address. He never wrote her except the cards, and they were all postmarked New York.”

“When did the last one come?”

“November nineteenth, less than five months ago. My daughter Marjorie’s birthday. Postmarked New York like the others.”

“Anything else? Has anyone ever seen him here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Have the police made any progress?”

“No. None whatever. I’m not complaining; I guess they’ve tried; but of course in a great city like this they’ve got their hands full of problems and I’m only one. I’m pretty sure he came straight to New York from Omaha, by train, back eleven years ago, but I haven’t been able to verify it. The police had several men on it for a week, or they said they had, but now I think they’ve only got one, and I agree with my wife that I’ve got to do something. I’ve been neglecting my business.”

“That will never do,” Wolfe said dryly. Apparently he favored the cold-fish slant too. “And no results from the newspaper advertisements?”

“No. I got letters from five detective agencies offering to help me — of course the replies were to a box number — and quite a few, at least two dozen, from crackpots and impostors. The police investigated all of them, and they were all duds.”

“How were the advertisements worded?”

“I wrote them myself. They were all alike.” Herold got a big leather wallet from his breast pocket, fished in it, and extracted a clipping. He twisted in his chair to get better light from a window, and read:

“I ran that in five New York papers.” He returned the clipping to the wallet and the wallet to the pocket. “Thirty times altogether. Money wasted. I don’t mind spending money, but I hate to waste it.”

Wolfe grunted. “You might waste it on me — or on Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Panzer. Your son may have changed his name on arrival in New York — indeed, that seems likely, since neither the police nor the advertisements have found any trace of him. Do you know if he took luggage with him when he left Omaha?”

“Yes, he took all his clothes and some personal things. He had a trunk and a suitcase and a bag.”

“Were his initials on any of it?”

“His initials?” Herold frowned. “Why— Oh, yes. They were on the trunk and the suitcase, presents from his mother. My wife. Why?”

“Just PH, or a middle initial?”

“He has no middle name. Just PH. Why?”

“Because if he changed his name he probably found it convenient to keep the PH. Initials on luggage have dictated ten thousand aliases. Even so, Mr. Herold, assuming the PH, it is a knotty and toilsome job, for we must also assume that your son prefers not to be found, since the advertisements failed to flush him. I suggest that you let him be.”

“You mean quit looking for him?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t. My wife and my daughters — Anyway, I won’t. Right is right. I’ve got to find him.”

“And you want to hire me?”

“Yes. You and Goodwin and Panzer.”

“Then I must inform you that it may take months, the expenses will be considerable, the amount of my bill will not be contingent on success, and I charge big fees.”

“I know you do. Lieutenant Murphy told me.” Herold looked more like a man in trouble than when he came in. “But I can call you off at any time.”

“Certainly.”

“All right.” He took a breath. “You want a retainer.”

“As an advance for expenses. More important, I want all the information you can give me.” Wolfe’s head turned. “Archie, your notebook.”

I already had it out.

An hour later, after the client had left and Wolfe had gone up to the plant rooms for his afternoon session with Theodore and the orchids, I put the check for three thousand dollars in the safe and then got at the typewriter to transcribe my notes. When I was done I had five pages of assorted facts, one or two of which might possibly be useful. Paul Herold had a three-inch scar on his left leg, on the inside of the knee, from a boyhood accident. That might help if we found him with his pants down. It had made him 4F and kept him out of war. His mother had called him Poosie. He had liked girls, and had for a time concentrated on one at college named Arline Macy, but had not been hooked, and so far as was known had communicated with none after heading east. He had majored in Social Science, but on that his father had been a little vague. He had taken violin lessons for two years and then sold the violin for twenty bucks, and got hell for it. He had tried for football in spite of his bum knee, but didn’t make the team, and in baseball had played left field for two innings against Kansas in 1944. No other sports to speak of. Smoke and drink, not to excess. Gambling, not to the client’s knowledge. He had always pushed some on his allowance, but there had been nothing involving dishonesty or other moral turpitude before the blow-up.

And so on and so forth. It didn’t look very promising. Evidence of some sort of dedication, such as a love for animals that hop or a determination to be President of the United States, might have helped a little, but it wasn’t there. If his father had really known him, which I doubted, he had been just an ordinary kid who had had a rotten piece of luck, and now it was anybody’s guess what he had turned into. I decided that I didn’t appreciate the plug Lieutenant Murphy of the Missing Persons Bureau had given me, along with Saul Panzer. Any member of the NYPD, from Commissioner Skinner on down, would have given a day’s pay, after taxes, to see Nero Wolfe stub his toe, and it seemed likely that Murphy, after spending a month on it, had figured that this was a fine prospect. I went to the kitchen and told Fritz we had taken on a job that would last two years and would be a washout.

Fritz smiled and shook his head. “No washouts in this house,” he said positively. “Not with Mr. Wolfe and you both here.” He got a plastic container from the refrigerator, took it to the table, and removed the lid.

“Hey,” I protested, “we had shad roe for lunch! Again for dinner?”

“My dear Archie.” He was superior, to me, only about food. “They were merely sauté, with a simple little sauce, only chives and chervil. These will be en casserole, with anchovy butter made by me. The sheets of larding will be rubbed with five herbs. With the cream to cover will be an onion and three other herbs, to be removed before serving. The roe season is short, and Mr. Wolfe could enjoy it three times a day. You can go to Al’s place on Tenth Avenue and enjoy a ham on rye with coleslaw.” He shuddered.

It developed into an argument, but I avoided getting out on a limb, not wanting to have to drop off into Al’s place. We were still at it when, at six o’clock, I heard the elevator bringing Wolfe down from the plant rooms, and after winding it up with no hard feelings I left Fritz to his sheets of larding and went back to the office.

Wolfe was standing over by the bookshelves, looking at the globe, which was even bigger around than he was, checking to make sure that Omaha, Nebraska, was where it always had been. That done, he crossed over to his desk, and around it, and lowered his colossal corpus into his custom-made chair.

He cocked his head to survey the Feraghan, which covered all the central expanse, 14 x 26. “It’s April,” he said, “and that rug’s dirty. I must remind Fritz to send it to be cleaned and put the others down.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, looking down at him. “But for a topic for discussion that won’t last long. If you want to avoid discussing Paul Herold start something with some body to it, like the Middle East.”

He grunted. “I don’t have to avoid it. According to Lieutenant Murphy, that’s for you and Saul. Have you reached Saul?”

“Yes. We’re going to disguise ourselves as recruiting officers for the Salvation Army. He starts at the Battery and works north, and I start at Van Cortlandt Park and work south. We’ll meet at Grant’s Tomb on Christmas Eve and compare notes, and then start in on Brooklyn. Have you anything better to suggest?”

“I’m afraid not.” He sighed, deep. “It may be hopeless. Has that Lieutenant Murphy any special reason to bear me a grudge?”

“It doesn’t have to be special. He’s a cop, that’s enough.”

“I suppose so.” He shut his eyes, and in a moment opened them again. “I should have declined the job. Almost certainly he has never been known in New York as Paul Herold. That picture is eleven years old. What does he look like now? It’s highly probable that he doesn’t want to be found and, if so, he has been put on the alert by the advertisements. The police are well qualified for the task of locating a missing person, and if after a full month they — Get Lieutenant Murphy on the phone.”

I went to my desk and dialed CA 6-2000, finally persuaded a sergeant that only Murphy would do, and, when I had him, signaled to Wolfe. I stayed on.

“Lieutenant Murphy? This is Nero Wolfe. A man named James R. Herold, of Omaha, Nebraska, called on me this afternoon to engage me to find his son Paul. He said you had given him my name. He also said your bureau has been conducting a search for his son for about a month. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct. Did you take the job?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Good luck, Mr. Wolfe.”

“Thank you. May I ask, did you make any progress?”

“None whatever. All we got was dead ends.”

“Did your search go beyond your set routine?”

“That depends on what you call routine. It was a clear-cut case and the boy had had a rough deal, and you could say we made a special effort. I’ve still got a good man on it. If you want to send Goodwin down with a letter from Herold we’ll be glad to show him the reports.”

“Thank you. You have no suggestions?”

“I’m afraid not. Good luck.”

Wolfe didn’t thank him again. We hung up.

“Swell,” I said. “He thinks he’s handed you a gazookis. The hell of it is, he’s probably right. So where do we start?”

“Not at the Battery,” Wolfe growled.

“Okay, but where? It may even be worse than we think. What if Paul framed himself for the theft of the twenty-six grand so as to have an excuse to get away from father? Having met father, I would buy that. And seeing the ad asking him to communicate with father — not mentioning mother or sisters, just father — and saying a mistake was made, what does he do? He either beats it to Peru or the Middle East — there’s the Middle East again — or he goes and buys himself a set of whiskers. That’s an idea; we can check on all sales of whiskers in the last month, and if we find—”

“Shut up. It is an idea.”

I stared. “My God, it’s not that desperate. I was merely trying to stir your blood up and get your brain started, as usual, and if you—”

“I said shut up. Is it too late to get an advertisement into tomorrow’s papers?”

“The Gazette, no. The Times, maybe.”

“Your notebook.”

Even if he had suddenly gone batty, I was on his payroll. I went to my desk, got the notebook, turned to a fresh page, and took my pen.

“Not in the classified columns,” he said. “A display two columns wide and three inches high. Headed ‘To P.H.’ in large boldface, with periods after the P and H. Then this text, in smaller type: ‘Your innocence is known and the injustice done you is regretted.’” He paused. “Change the ‘regretted’ to ‘deplored.’ Resume: ‘Do not let bitterness prevent righting of a wrong.’” Pause again. “‘No unwelcome contact will be urged upon you, but your help is needed to expose the true culprit. I engage to honor your reluctance to resume any tie you have renounced.’”

He pursed his lips a moment, then nodded. “That will do. Followed by my name and address and phone number.”

“Why not mention mother?” I asked.

“We don’t know how he feels toward his mother.”

“He sent her birthday cards.”

“By what impulsion? Do you know?”

“No.”

“Then it would be risky. We can safely assume only two emotions for him: resentment of the wrong done him, and a desire to avenge it. If he lacks those he is less or more than human, and we’ll never find him. I am aware, of course, that this is a random shot at an invisible target and a hit would be a prodigy. Have you other suggestions?”

I said no and swiveled the typewriter to me.