Archie Goes Home

Chapter 26

Back downstairs, I found Saul Panzer in the living room with what he told me was scotch and water over ice. “I didn’t even know Mom had scotch around,” I remarked.

“All I had to do was ask. She told me she keeps all sorts of libations for guests. And by the way, this happens to be a fine label,” he said, raising his glass in a salute.

“Well, after the day you have had, you’re entitled to a drink, or maybe more than one.”

As we were talking, my mother came in and asked me, “When do you have dinner in the brownstone?”

“Usually seven fifteen, sometimes seven thirty. Why?”

“I want to make Mr. Wolfe feel at home, and because we are in the same time zone as New York, he will be able to eat at the usual hour.”

“Really, Mom, don’t you think you’re overindulging him?”

“I believe you told me once that your boss has said, if I remember the quote, ‘a guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality.’ And after all, Mr. Wolfe is a guest in my house, as are you, Mr. Panzer.”

“Well, I for one have never been called a jewel before, but, hey, I kind of like the sound of it,” Saul said.

“Oh brother, now see what you’ve started, Mom? You’re going to spoil these two guys rotten.”

“And why shouldn’t I? They are here to help, are they not?”

“Yes, but just don’t go overboard, or they’ll take advantage of your cushion of hospitality.”

“Seems like a pretty comfortable cushion to me,” Saul said.

“See, Mom, the smugness has already set in. And if you think Mr. Panzer here is fussy, just wait till Nero Wolfe begins to demand things.”

“Oh, pshaw,” she said, waving my concern away with a hand. “I am sure that they will prove to be perfect guests.”

“Of course, we will,” Saul piped up.

“Okay, just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I told my mother.

The meal was a great success, and if Wolfe was surprised at the quality of my mother’s cooking, he didn’t show it. He had two full helpings of the pork, as did Saul. And as he always does in the brownstone, Wolfe set the conversation topic, which this night was the history of Ohio.

“Mrs. Goodwin, I am sure I do not have to tell you that this very community we are in was an early capital of the territory before Ohio became a state,” Wolfe said.

“No, I was well aware of that,” my mother said. “Most of the early growth was in the southern part of the state because of all the traffic on the Ohio River before there were decent roads.”

Well, that set the two of them off, and they spent the rest of the meal, including Mom’s strawberries Romanoff (which I know she also learned about from Fritz Brenner), swapping facts about Ohio’s history, including many I never learned in school or else had long forgotten.

After dinner, she surprised me yet again by giving Wolfe, Saul, and me cognac, in snifters no less, and then poured some for herself. The brandy was not Remisier, that nectar Wolfe serves at home to special guests. But to my semitrained palate, what we were sipping seemed more than adequate, and apparently Wolfe thought so, too.

“Mrs. Goodwin, this has been an elegant dinner,” he said. “I would like to reciprocate tomorrow, although it will necessitate a visit to one or more groceries. I will prepare a list and of course pay for the ingredients.”

“You will not pay a single penny,” my mother replied. “I will welcome your presence in my kitchen and I will be happy to learn from you, as I have learned from Mr. Brenner on my visits to New York.”

“We will talk tomorrow,” Wolfe said. “At present, I need to spend some time with Archie. We have a great deal to discuss.”

“Mrs. Goodwin, do you know how to play gin rummy?” Saul asked. “I would be happy to teach you.”

“I played it for years with my late husband, Mr. Panzer, and I think I can remember everything I need to.”

“Just remember not to play him for money, Mom,” I said as Wolfe and I went up to his room.

“Sorry there’s no elevator here,” I said as he settled into the easy chair my mother had hauled in from one of the other bedrooms. “But I think you can handle a single flight of stairs.”

He drew in a bushel of air and let it out slowly, ignoring my comment. “It sounds as if you are flummoxed, am I correct?”

“That is as good a word as any,” I conceded.

“Very well. Report.”

What he said in that single word was that he wanted me to recite every conversation I had taken part in relating to Logan Mulgrew’s death since my arrival in Ohio. If that sounds like a tall order, it is. But Nero Wolfe was well aware that I possessed what one of my high school teachers had referred to as “total recall” — that is, the ability to repeat, verbatim, long stretches of dialogue. It was possibly the only quality I possessed that Wolfe envied.

“This is going to take a while,” I told him. “I’ll get you some beer.”

Once Wolfe had started in on the first of the two bottles of Remmers I had brought up, he nodded for me to begin. As I was downstairs getting his beer, I quickly calculated that I had talked to nine people about Mulgrew, some of them more than once.

I began with Aunt Edna, who had been the trigger, more or less, of the whole damned business. What ensued over the next ninety minutes was the longest recitation of this kind I had ever done. Wolfe interrupted me no more than a half-dozen times, and then only with brief questions.

“Well, that is it,” I told him, spreading my arms, palms up. “I am now an empty vessel.” He did not respond, and for a moment I thought he was going to start in on that exercise of his where he closes his eyes, and pulls his lips in and pushes them out, again and again.

When that happens, and it has taken anywhere from less than a minute to more than a half hour, Wolfe ends by opening his eyes as if he had been asleep and he invariably has come up with a solution to whatever mystery we had been working on. Such was not to be the case now, however.

“I am going to bed,” he stated. It was then I realized how tired I was, and how dry my mouth was from all the yapping I had done. I wished him a good night, closed the door behind me, and went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk.