Archie in the Crosshairs

Chapter 10

So, you claim we have no commission at the moment,” I said to Wolfe after Cramer had departed. “That news will come as something of a surprise to our Miss Hutchinson.”

“I did not lie to the inspector; we have yet to accept any payment from the young woman.”

“All right, split hairs if it pleases you. By the way, you said early on that we must remain vigilant. But shots were fired at our window — presumably, although not necessarily, in the night — and the police retrieved the shell casings from under said window without our knowledge that any of this was happening.”

Wolfe looked up from his book. “Would you prefer that I bring Saul and Fred in so the three of you can keep watch in eight-hour shifts around the clock?”

“Well, at least that is one plan of action, sort of. What else do we have at the moment?”

“Confound it, must I always—” Wolfe was interrupted by the telephone, which I answered.

“Archie, the call just came — the blackmailer!” It was a breathless Cordelia Hutchinson. “And he, and he...”

“Okay, slow down and tell me exactly what the man said,” I told her, signaling to Wolfe to pick up his instrument.

“He told me... what I have to do. He was most insistent and most specific. I’m still shaking from the conversation.”

“Go on.”

“He wants the money, in fifty-and one-hundred dollar bills, delivered to a spot in Central Park.”

“When?” I asked.

“He said tonight, but I told him I wasn’t sure I could get seventy-five thousand dollars that soon. He said he would call me again later today with more specifics. And he said that if I couldn’t get the money at all, the pictures would be sent to my family and the Mercers, and to the newspapers.”

“Do you believe you can get the money?”

“I... think so. I have a personal banker at our family’s bank, Amalgamated Trust, and he has always been extremely cooperative in the past.”

“Given the size of your account and those of others in your family, I am hardly surprised. But won’t this request throw him, particularly when you ask for used currency?”

“If he asks, which I doubt, I will tell him that I plan to purchase an expensive automobile, and that I don’t want to have to bother with a car loan that has monthly payments. I will also tell him that the car dealer prefers to receive the payment in this manner.”

“Interesting. With that kind of dough, you could be getting yourself a Rolls-Royce,” I said.

“That would not be so surprising, Archie. After all, my father has driven them for years.”

“Like father, like daughter. Okay, when will you know if you will be able to get the dough?”

“I have an appointment with Mr. Harkness — he’s the banker at Amalgamated — this afternoon. But Archie, I still haven’t paid you anything.” I looked at Wolfe, who shook his head.

“Never mind that for now. We can discuss the payment later. Just call us and let us know when you can get the money.”

“I will, Archie, and... thank you.”

“Well, do we have anything resembling a plan?” I asked Wolfe after we had cradled our instruments.

He leaned back and studied the ceiling. “We will apprehend the blackmailer,” he said.

“By ‘we’ you mean me, of course.”

“Along with Saul and Fred, assuming they agree.”

Earlier, I referred to Fred Durkin as one member of our poker group. As a private investigator, he isn’t in the same league with Saul Panzer, but then nobody is. Fred’s far from brilliant, but he is both brave and loyal, and he would jump off a cliff if Wolfe asked him to. Oh, and I should mention that he saved my life once during a stakeout that became a shootout in a darkened warehouse one night across the East River from Manhattan. Enough said.

“Do you want me to get the boys now?”

“No, we shall wait until we have heard from Miss Hutchinson. It is time for lunch.”

After a meal of sweetbreads in béchamel sauce with beet and watercress salad, followed by spiced brandied cherries, we were back in the office having coffee when the phone rang. We both picked up our receivers as I recited my usual, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“I will have the money tomorrow morning,” Cordelia said, sounding like she was out of breath.

“Have you been running?”

“No, I am just nervous, Archie. Very nervous.”

“Miss Hutchinson, can you recite to us precisely what instructions were given to you by the presumed blackmailer?” It was Wolfe talking.

“He told me to bring the money in a case to Central Park. He said that when he calls back, he will tell me the exact location.”

“Did he stipulate that you had to be the one bringing the money, or can you appoint an agent to execute it?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Wolfe. Do you want me to ask him?”

“Yes, and try to insist that someone else deliver the money.”

“What if he asks who that person is?”

“Just tell him that it is a very good friend, someone you place a great deal of trust in. Tell him you are simply too frightened to carry out the delivery yourself, that you are afraid you would make a hash of it.”

“That would be the truth,” she said.

“Please telephone us immediately upon hearing from the man,” Wolfe told her.

“I am, of course, that ‘very good friend’ of hers,” I said after we had hung up.

“Unless you would rather let the cup pass from you.”

“No, I am already the target of one person. What’s one more? In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“I am most impressed that you are conversant with that ancient English adage,” Wolfe said.

“Don’t be, I learned it from you. Besides, this little project of ours may just take my mind off whomever it is who wants to see me sent back to my relatives in Ohio in a pine box.”

Wolfe chose not to reply, ringing for beer and opening his latest book. I turned to my desk and began typing letters he had dictated that morning.

Cordelia’s call came at four-fifteen, which of course meant Wolfe was up in the plant rooms on the roof with Theodore Horstmann, communing with his orchids in his second session of the day.

“I have my instructions,” she said, her voice still shaky.

“Fire away, I’m taking notes.” This was one time I did not want to entrust the details to my memory.

“He wants the money delivered tomorrow night, at ten o’clock. ‘Precisely at ten,’ he insisted. He was very definite about that. In the park, about a hundred fifty yards east of the corner of Central Park West and Seventy-Seventh Street, there is a blue spruce, the tallest tree in a cluster, he told me. He said the money, in an attaché case or suitcase — he doesn’t care what type it is — should be placed at the base of that tree on its east side.”

“Did he say you had to be the one to put it there?”

“Oh — no, he said that it could be someone I trusted, he didn’t seem to care who. But he told me that if the money was not brought to that spot, and at the time he specified, the pictures would be sent immediately.”

“Did he — or you — say anything else?”

“Just that once he had received the money, a package of photographs would be sent to me, special delivery.”

“In an envelope either with no return address or a phony address, of course. Okay, Cordelia. I will talk to Mr. Wolfe and get back to you. I will call on that number you gave me.”

“Do you have any idea when that will be?”

“Just stay near the phone,” I told her. “We still have almost thirty hours before the delivery.”

After signing off with Cordelia, I climbed the three flights of stairs to the plant rooms on the roof. As often as I have stepped into these rooms over the years, I never get over the awesome experience of seeing ten thousand orchids in every color of the rainbow — and maybe some hues that have never even made it onto a rainbow.

Several years ago, the Gazette proposed running a special Sunday magazine section filled with color photos of the orchids, but Wolfe turned them down flat, and even Lon Cohen’s intercession on behalf of his employer couldn’t budge him.

Upon finishing the climb, one first encounters the cool room, with some twenty-five hundred plants, among them Odontoglossums on both sides of the aisle in yellow, rose, and white with spots. Next is the intermediate or moderate room, where the splashy Cattleyas, in purple, orange, lavender, and yellow, show off shamelessly. Then comes the tropical room, which is filled with Miltonia hybrids and Phalaenopsis in pinks, greens, and browns.

At the far end of the conservatory, one finds the pottery room, where on this day, Wolfe, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, was with Theodore Horstmann. They were studying a plant in a pot on the bench as intently as two highly trained surgeons about to conduct a delicate operation. As is usually the case when I dare to enter the hallowed plant rooms, Horstmann glared at me. We have never warmed to each other, and after all these years, it is clear that we never will.

“Yes?” Wolfe snapped at me. He hates to be interrupted during his orchid time, but I felt the day’s events warranted the intrusion. I gave him Cordelia’s report as he scowled. “Any instructions?” I asked after I had finished.

“Call Saul and Fred. Have them here at nine tonight.”

“What if either of them can’t make it?”

“Without going into any detail about the meeting, tell them they would be honoring me with their presence.”

I began to reply, but he turned back to the plant that was being nursed. I had been dismissed.