Archie in the Crosshairs

Chapter 22

After breakfast the next morning, I welcomed a very attractive visitor — but don’t go getting any ideas. Doc Vollmer’s comely nurse, Carol Francis, had come to remove the last of my bandages, or so I hoped. My teres minor appeared to have healed, and now I could raise my left arm as high as ever — and most importantly, without pain.

We went up to my room, where I stripped to the waist. Carol — we were now on a first-name basis — began pulling off the tape I had been swathed in several times since the shooting.

“I wonder what my dear friend Lily would say if she could see us now?” I asked Carol.

“She would say you are one lucky fellow to have such a capable nurse looking after you, Archie,” she said as she unwrapped me. “And she would also congratulate you on having such good recuperative powers.”

“Does that mean no more bandaging?”

“Not quite, big guy. I am going to wrap you up once more, but with less tape this time. We want to make sure the healing is complete. Based on what I’ve seen, two more weeks should do it, maximum, and I’ll come back for one session. You will be glad to see the last of me.”

“That is where you are wrong. I’ll miss your visits.”

“Hah, so you say, you sweet-talker. I know better. I have seen how you grimace each time I pull off the tape and rewrap you,” Carol said.

“I guess I’m just a big sissy.”

“Sissy? I really don’t think so. Not from what I have heard about your exploits.”

“Just who have you been talking to? I’ll bet it was your boss, that rascal Doc Vollmer.”

“My lips are sealed. Now, you behave yourself and stay out of the line of fire in the future. It’s not healthy, do you hear?”

“Yes, Nurse. I hereby promise to be more careful.”

She rose to leave, and as she walked out of my room, she looked back over her shoulder and winked. I winked back, of course.

I got dressed and went down to the office to go through the morning mail. One thing was puzzling me that I had put out of my mind over the last couple of days. Ever since Saul Panzer had dinner with Wolfe when I was out breaking bread with Annie Hutchinson, I hadn’t heard anything from him. This was unusual, as we normally talked nearly every day, even when he wasn’t doing a job for us. Even more unusual was Fred Durkin’s call to tell me that our weekly poker game at Saul’s had been canceled.

“That is strange, given that he usually takes our money,” I told Fred. “Is our host ill?”

“I don’t know, Archie. He just phoned me and asked that I tell the rest of you the game was off for this week.”

As I mentioned earlier, Wolfe often gives Saul an assignment without bothering to inform me. Was this one of those times? I could ask, of course, but as has happened in the past, I likely would not get a straight answer from him.

When Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven and got settled in the reinforced chair behind his desk, I swiveled to face him. “I now have completed interviews with all of the principals in the Hutchinson case,” I told him.

“All but one,” he contradicted.

“Okay, who am I missing? I will get on it pronto.”

“That is not necessary, Archie. It is being taken care of.”

The little alarm bell that went off in my brain sent me the message that Saul Panzer was in some way involved, but I couldn’t figure out how, and I was damned if I was going to ask. Instead, I said to Wolfe, “Sounds like you have everything well in hand at the moment. If you don’t have need for me the rest of the day, as seems apparent, I thought I might go out to the Giants game at the Polo Grounds this afternoon. It is a beautiful day, and the Cardinals are in town with the great Stan Musial, who is currently batting almost .400. And it is fair to say I’m owed the time off, given all the evenings that I have been working lately. Unless, of course, you think otherwise.”

“Archie, fits of pique do not become you. I realize you are eager to disencumber yourself of the information you have amassed, and I am eager to hear it. But haste is the enemy of the judicious. Let us discuss the matter after dinner. Go, enjoy the baseball game.”

In fact, I did enjoy the game, even though the Giants got their ears boxed by a very good St. Louis team led by the superb Musial, who hit a home run and two doubles and drove in five runs, which was more than the entire New York team scored.

I got back home before Wolfe’s descent from the plant rooms, which gave me time to mentally review all of the meetings I’d had with members of the Hutchinson clan and Marlene Peters. Following a dinner of squabs with sausage and sauerkraut, during which Wolfe extolled the essays of Montaigne, particularly his “Of the Education of Children,” we moved into the office for coffee. Since he makes it clear that he runs the show, I waited for him to say he was ready to hear from me. He finished his second cup of coffee, rang for beer, and set down that day’s Times crossword puzzle, which he had, as usual, completed. “Report,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” I proceeded to give him my interviews in the order I had conducted them. As is my practice, I unloaded them to him verbatim, including hesitations, inflections, and pregnant pauses on the part of the interviewees. The business took more than an hour and a half, during which time Wolfe alternated between drinking beer and leaning back with hands interlaced over his middle mound. “That is the whole of it,” I told him when I had finished. “What do you think?”

I got no answer and looked over at Wolfe, seeing why. He was leaning back, but this time with eyes closed and with his lips pushing in and out, in and out. I knew he was in a place where I couldn’t reach him; nobody could. Being one who likes to keep statistics at baseball games and séances, I checked my watch and waited. Forty-three minutes later, Wolfe opened his eyes and blinked twice.

“Bah! I have been a consummate lackwit,” he said. “The answer was as plain as an elephant’s trunk, there before me, but I was too thickheaded to realize it. My private investigator’s license should be revoked by the state on the grounds of gross ineptitude.”

“If you are done flagellating yourself, would you deign to share your discovery with me?” I asked.

He did, slowly and thoroughly, and everything made perfect sense, complicated as it was. You may have figured out at least part of the puzzle by this time, but I had barely gotten beyond first base.

“What do we do now?”

Wolfe drew in his usual bushel of air and exhaled. “You will call them — every one — and have them here.”

“When, pray tell?”

“Day after tomorrow, nine in the evening.”

“Why not sooner?”

“I have reasons,” he said, “that need not trouble you at the moment.”

“Okay, I’ll let that one pass, since you love to have your little secrets. You will concede that I have been pretty successful over the years in rounding up people for your gatherings here. I’m not as confident this time in being able to rope in all the members of the Hutchinson clan.”

“I believe you can, Archie. You can tell them that we will lift the burden that Miss Hutchinson has been carrying, and that it is vital they all be here — and I include Miss Peters — to better understand the circumstances of Miss Hutchinson’s plight.”

“I assume no mention should be made of the gunplay in Central Park and the death of Alan Marx.”

“Your assumption is correct. However, when I call Inspector Cramer, my selling point to him will be the murders.”

“Should I invite Saul to join me in hosting the festivities?”

“That will not be necessary. I have made arrangements for Saul to be present,” he said.

“And, of course, the reason for his presence should not trouble me?”

Of course,” Wolfe replied.