Booby Trap

Chapter 4

I continued to inspect the desk, remarking to myself meanwhile, “Of all the blank blink blonk blunk luck.”

Since nothing more helpful than that occurred to me, I finally straightened up for a comprehensive survey. As far as I could see, everything was as before with the single exception of the suitcase. I went over to the corporal.

“Anyone been in here since Colonel Tinkham and Wolfe and I left?”

“No, sir. Oh yes, Colonel Tinkham came back shortly afterward. General Fife was with him.”

“Oh,” I said casually, “then I guess they took that chair.”

“Chair?”

“Yeah, one of the chairs Wolfe wanted me to examine — it seems to be gone — I’ll go and see—”

“There can’t be a chair gone, sir. Nobody took any chair or anything else.”

“You’re sure of that? Not even General Fife or Colonel Tinkham?”

“No, sir. Nobody.”

I grinned at him. “If I was Nero Wolfe, corporal, which I’m not, I would advise you to confine your assurances to the boundaries of your knowledge. That’s his way of putting it. You say positively that nobody took anything. But I notice you stand here in the doorway facing the hall, your back to the room. There’s no glass left in the windows. How do you know a paratrooper didn’t come in that way and take anything he wanted?”

For half a second he looked slightly startled, and for the next half a second the look in his eyes plainly indicated what he would have said, and probably done, if we had been just people instead of a corporal and a major. All he did say was “Yes, sir.”

“Okay,” I told him as man to man. “Probably I counted wrong. Skip it. I always get mixed up when I go above six.”

I went down the corridor to my room, sat on the edge of my desk, and applied logic. Of course it was obvious, if the corporal wasn’t either blind or a liar. Mental operations like figuring the cube root of minus two I leave to Nero Wolfe, but I can do simple addition and subtraction. So I pulled the phone over and got Captain Foster, in charge of personnel, and asked him for the home address of Sergeant Dorothy Bruce.

He was inclined to be flippant, but I told him the request was official and he loosened up. The Bronx or Brooklyn would have been a blow, since I was taking the trip not on information or a hunch, but only on logic, and I was relieved when he gave me a number on West Eleventh Street. That was right on the way home. Toting the receptacle which apparently I had brought along just for the ride, I evacuated via the elevator, went to the car, and started back uptown.

The Eleventh Street number was the only modern structure in a block of old brownstones. Leaving the receptacle in the car, I entered and brushed past the hallman in a military stride, columned left on a guess, spied the elevator, and said brusquely to the girl loitering outside, “Bruce.” Manifestly I was not a man to be questioned. She followed me in and started us up, stopped and opened the door at the seventh, and said musically, “Seven C.” I found it, the second on the right down the hall, pushed the button, and after a little wait the door opened. But it swung only to a gap of a few inches, so as a precaution I unobtrusively planted a foot beyond the line of the sill.

“Oh!” she said in a tone of surprise. I didn’t say pleased surprise. “Major Goodwin!”

“Right,” I said cheerfully. “You sure have a memory for faces. My eye’s bothering me again.”

“That’s too bad, sir.” She seemed perfectly affable, but the door showed no inclination to exercise its hinges. “As I told you, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Not in this bum light you can’t. Nice little place you’ve got here. Are these your own things, or do you rent it furnished? Some of them must be yours. It just looks like you.”

“Oh, thank you, sir. It’s the woman’s touch, of course.”

“Yeah. I never saw a more attractive door. I’ll tell you what. I could say, Sergeant Bruce, I wish to come in and have a little talk with you. Or I could simply push and enter. Let’s compromise. You propel the door and I’ll propel me.”

She nearly laughed, but it didn’t get beyond a sort of a chuckle. Anyhow the door swung open and she invited me nicely, “Come in, Major.” Also she closed it. The foyer was about the size of a suitcase. At a gesture I preceded her into a room which wasn’t like her at all because it wasn’t like anybody. Pure month-to-month-or-reduction-on-a-lease. Two windows. A couch and three chairs. Door to kitchenette and door to bedroom. A glance gave me that, and when I turned she was there and smiling at me. It was absolutely a female smile, and at any previous moment I would have considered it a big step forward, but something had come between us if logic was worth its salt. Still I kept it on a friendly basis.

I asked her, “Remember that carton you were packing your things in at the office? I need one exactly that size, and if you’re through with it I’d like to make an offer.”

She was good. She was very good. The way the smile went and her lips parted a little and her eyes widened — it was just what you would expect if I had said something fairly silly and unquestionably cuckoo.

Then she smiled again and said, “I can get one for you wholesale.”

I shook my head. “Your mistake. You didn’t say sir. The idea is this. I won’t be happy until I see that carton, and I’m hell-bent for happiness. Either you trot it out or I tour the place. You can save me trouble and both of us time.”

“Is that an official command, sir? Are you here as my superior officer or as — yourself?”

“Any way you like it. Whichever you prefer. Take it going and coming and call it both, but get the carton.”

She moved. To get to the door to the bedroom she had to detour around me, which she did, and disappeared through the opening. But I had decided that probably not much was beyond her up to sailing off on a broomstick, so I stepped across on my toes to the doorway to keep her in sight. But either I made some noise or she was suspicious by nature, because halfway across the bedroom she turned and saw me. She came back and took hold of the knob of the door, obviously intending to close it when the obstruction, namely me, was removed.

“You can wait out there,” she said, and meant it. “I’ll bring the carton.”

I was not particularly enjoying things, and it was getting too prolonged for me. Evidently she had been headed for a closed closet door at the far corner of the room. I stepped past her, rounded the foot of the bed and got to the door, and pulled it open. I admit I was surprised enough to back up two steps when a uniform, erect in the closet, moved toward me, and there was Lieutenant Kenneth Lawson. He came out and stood and looked at me. He didn’t salute.

“Indeed,” I said. That was Nero Wolfe’s word, and I never used it except in moments of stress, and it severely annoyed me when I caught myself using it, because when I look in a mirror I prefer to see me as is, with no skin grafted from anybody else’s hide, even Nero Wolfe’s.

Lawson, as I have said, was big and strong and handsome. The situation, as it stood, seemed to indicate that anything was possible, and I had no desire to join Cross and Ryder on the other side of the river, so I backed into the closet with the door opened as wide as it would go. It wasn’t necessary to do any searching. The carton was right there, bound with cord. I yanked it out, jerked off the cord, lifted the flaps, and was looking at shredded pigskin. For logic, one hit, one run, no errors. I closed the flaps and got the cord back on. Among other things I didn’t know, at that point, was whether Lawson was there on purely personal business or whether he was a partner in the enterprise of salvaging damaged luggage, so the position was delicate in more ways than one.

Lawson said, with no special sign of agitation, “I heard Bruce ask you — and it might clear things up a little — is this an official visit, Major?”

After all, he had me. Wolfe had told me to get the suitcase without the knowledge of Fife, and Fife was my commanding officer. My ignorance was stupendous. Was Lawson straight and would he report to Fife? Was Lawson a crook or a murderer, or both — and would he report to Fife anyway to cover up? Were Lawson and Sergeant Bruce— But there was no sense standing there all night asking myself questions I couldn’t answer, with them staring at me.

I spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen. I have been assigned, as you know, to assist Nero Wolfe in work he is doing for the Army. I’m now going to report to him, and take this carton with me. Up to there, as far as you’re concerned, since you’re only a non-com and a shavetail, we can put it that the only difference between General Eisenhower and me is that he’s not here. But beyond that we’re just folks. If on my way out Lawson tries to trip me or hit me with a chair I won’t appeal to authority, now or later. I’ll merely knock his block off.”

A corner of Lawson’s mouth was turned up. “I wasn’t going to be so crude,” he said coldly, “but now I don’t know.”

“Make up your mind, brother,” I told him, and focused on Sergeant Bruce. “So I offer a suggestion. Not an order from Major Goodwin, just a person-to-person call. How about accompanying the carton and me to Wolfe’s place? I’ve got a car down in front. The trip might do you good.”

If she had flashed a glance at Lawson that would have answered at least one of my questions, but all she did was cock her head at me.

“I think,” she said, “that I ought to tell you you’ll probably be sorry for this, Major.”

“I already am. I don’t like any part of it. Are you coming?”

“Certainly. That carton and its contents belong to me.” She moved, crossing to Lawson and putting her hand on his arm. “Ken darling, this is nothing. Really. But I’m afraid — I don’t know how long it will take. I’ll phone you later. And perhaps you had better phone my sister in Washington — right away.”

“I could,” he growled, “wring him out and hang him up to dry.”

“I’m sure you could.” She patted his arm. “But you behave yourself. There’s more than one way to — cure a cold. Phone me later, Ken?”

“I will.”

“Be sure the door’s locked when you leave. Are we going, Major?”

Lawson didn’t move a muscle as I passed him, with the carton in the hand nearest him, so the other hand would be free in case he decided to show her how big and brave he was. But either she was the boss and he was obeying orders, or he wanted to be alone to think. I signified that she, being a lady, should go first, and she did so, stopping in the other room only to get her peck-measure cap from the table, and letting me close the door after us and push the button for the elevator as if she enjoyed having a male escort attend to such details.

On the street, I put the carton in the rear and her in the front, went around and slid in behind the wheel, beside her, and got going. No conversation. Apparently there wasn’t going to be any. But as I waited for a light at Twenty-Third Street, suddenly she spoke.

“I wonder if you’d like to do me a little favor.”

“I doubt it. What? Want me to phone your sister in Washington?”

She made a little noise, between a chuckle and a gurgle. Three hours earlier I would have thought it very attractive. “No,” she said, “nothing as complicated as that. Just to stop a minute, anywhere there’s a place at the curb, so I can ask you something.”

The light changed and we rolled. A block farther on a roomy space came in view, and I steered into it and shut off the engine.

“Okay. Ask me something.”

“I hope your eye feels better.”

Her tone made it plain that it was not a sergeant speaking to a major. It abolished all consideration of worldly rank and superficial barriers. Not that it conveyed the impression that she intended to seduce me right there on Sixth Avenue in the midst of traffic, but it did indicate that a closer understanding between the two of us would be a natural and wholesome development.

I said, “It feels fine. That all?”

“No. I wish it was.” She was turned to me full face, and I was reciprocating. “I wish there was nothing, I mean with you and me, except silly little pleasant things like that. Don’t think I’m being obvious. I’m just clever enough, just barely, to know how clever you are. If I were a fool, I might think I could start your head whirling in no time, parked here on our way to Nero Wolfe, but I know better than to try idiotic tricks with you.”

I grinned at her. “You do know how to handle your lips and eyes, though. And especially your voice. Which you were going to use to ask me something.”

She nodded. “Tell me, does Nero Wolfe want that carton just to see if I took something that doesn’t belong to me?”

“No.” I couldn’t see that hedging was called for. “He doesn’t want it at all. What he wants is Colonel Ryder’s suitcase. Evidently you do too. I guess you’ll have to draw straws for it. That all?”

“Oh, my lord.” She was frowning. “This is an awful fix. But he doesn’t know that you’re bringing it — that you’ve got it.”

“Sure he does.”

“He can’t. You’ve had no chance to tell him you found it.”

“But he knows he sent me for it, therefore he knows it’s on the way or soon will be.”

She shook her head. “You never let up, do you?” Her tone implied that she would love to come out and play after she got her work done. “Of course he can’t be sure. He couldn’t have known I took it, and what if I had put it somewhere else? Which I would have done if I had used my brains, knowing you were around.” She put her hand on my arm, not as for any purpose, just sort of involuntarily, as though it belonged there. She smiled at me as at a comrade. “I suppose you’d be surprised if I offered to give you ten thousand dollars for that carton — and what’s in it — with the understanding that you forget all about it. Wouldn’t you?”

I batted an eye. “I’d be simply dumbfounded.”

“But you’d soon recover. And then what would you say?”

“Well, gosh.” I patted her hand, which was still on my arm. “That would depend. If it was just conversation, I’d think of something appropriate to keep my end going, and start up the car and proceed. If you actually confronted me with the engravings, I’d have to see how I reacted.”

She smiled. “It isn’t likely I’d carry around a wad like that.”

“Certainly not. So forget it.” I started my hand for the dash.

But her hand held my arm. “Wait. You’re too impulsive. It’s a bona fide offer. Ten thousand.”

“Cash?”

“Yes.”

“When and where?”

“I think—” she hesitated. “I can have it in twenty-four hours. A little sooner. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“And meanwhile, the carton?”

“The Day and Night Bank. In safekeeping for joint withdrawal only. We shake hands to pledge good faith.”

I admired her visibly. It showed in my tone too. “Didn’t I see you once walking the high wire at the circus? Maybe it was your sister. Looky. I suppose I could be had, but it isn’t practical. Nero Wolfe would be sure to find out — he finds out everything in the long run — and he’d be sure to tell my poor old mother. If it wasn’t for my mother I’d snap at it. I promised her once I’d never sell out for less than a million. The mortgage on the old farm happens to be a million even.”

I started the engine and eased away from the curb into the traffic. She made no attempt to dangle the bait or put on another worm, and if she had I probably wouldn’t have heard her. Several things had me guessing, and the one at the top of the list was the suitcase. Wolfe had said it was important, and here was this lovely innocent creature offering ten thousand bucks for it, when as far as I could see a reasonable OPA ceiling on it would have been twenty cents at the outside. It irritated me to be $9,999.80 out in my calculations, and since when I’m irritated I have a tendency to feed more gas, the remainder of the trip to Wolfe’s place on 35th Street was a mere step.

It was only half an hour to dinner time, and I expected to find Wolfe in the kitchen supervising experiments, but he was hard at work at his desk in the office, rearranging field commanders probably, on his battle map of Russia. When we entered he kept right on.

Bruce said, “So this is Nero Wolfe’s office,” and looked around, at the leather chairs, the big globe, the shelves of books, the old-fashioned two-ton safe, the little bracket where he always had one orchid in bloom. I removed the cord from the carton, opened the flaps, got a grip on a section of the frame of the suitcase, pulled gently but firmly, got it out, and put it on a chair because the map was covering his desk. There were other items in the carton — papers and miscellany — but I stowed it over by the wall without disturbing them.

“Ah, you got it.” Wolfe said, finally looking up. “Satisfactory. But evidently not unobserved. Did Miss Bruce come along to help you carry it?”

“No. She came because she can’t bear to have it out of her sight. I went for it and it wasn’t there. Gone. The corporal said nobody had taken anything. So since nobody had taken it, but it was gone, I figured that nobody couldn’t be anybody but Sergeant Bruce. I had seen her in the anteroom packing things in a carton, and with the suitcase there on the floor only two steps from the door to the anteroom, and the corporal’s back turned, it would have been a cinch for her and impossible for anyone else. Getting the address of her apartment and going there — two rooms, kitchenette and bath — I found the suitcase in the carton in the bedroom closet. Also in the closet was Lieutenant Lawson. Alive and well.”

“The deuce he was.” Wolfe leaned back and let his eyelids down a little. “Won’t you be seated, Miss Bruce? No, that chair, if you don’t mind.”

The lovely innocent creature sat.

I resumed. “I didn’t know whether Lawson was there as a cavalier or a porter or what. The conversation didn’t light that up, except that she called him ‘Ken darling.’ So I left him and brought her and it. On the way here she made me a cash offer for the carton and contents — ten thousand dollars by tomorrow afternoon — and me erasing it from my mind. I think she’ll pay more if you press her, but I didn’t want to haggle because she had her hand on my arm. If you don’t close with her, I’ll give you a dime for it.”

Wolfe grunted. “Her offer was for the carton and contents? What else is in it?”

“I haven’t looked.”

“Do so.”

I picked it up and fished out the papers and miscellany, piling them on my desk. It was a thin crop — tennis racket, empty handbag, pair of stockings, a copy of Is Germany Incurable?, a jar of cream, other similar items. There was nothing among the papers to quicken my pulse — a copy of Army Regulations, four issues of Yank, a dozen or so G.I. postcards. I flipped the pages of the Regulations, and when a folded sheet of paper fluttered out I picked it up and unfolded it. It had typewriting on one side:

There was more of it. “This may be something,” I told Wolfe. “Where’s Innisfree?”

He was scowling at me. “What?”

“She writes poetry.” I placed the sheet on the desk before him, stepping around so I could finish reading it. “She’s going to Innisfree and build a cabin and start a victory garden and keep bees. Maybe there’s more clues in it.” I read on:

“Defeatist,” I declare. “Peace propaganda. Stop the war. And you notice—”

Wolfe cut me off. “Pfui. It was written fifty years ago, by Yeats.” He wiggled a finger at the stack of junk on my desk. “Nothing in that?”

But I had perceived something which apparently he had missed. “Nevertheless,” I insisted, “it reminds me of something.” With my back to Sergeant Bruce, to obstruct her view I took from my pocket the piece of paper I had retrieved from the debris in Ryder’s office, the anonymous letter Shattuck had got, unfolded it, and placed it on the desk beside the poem.

“And this wasn’t written by Yeats, at least I don’t think it was.” As I talked I pointed to similarities of detail on the two sheets — the c below the line, the a off to the left, and others. “Of course it may be only an interesting coincidence, but it certainly stares you in the face.”

“It is interesting,” Wolfe conceded grudgingly. He was jealous because I had spotted it first. He got a magnifying glass from a drawer and examined the two sheets alternately. I shrugged and circled around to my chair and sat down. If he thought Bruce was too dumb to grasp the significance of a comparison of typescripts, time would teach him. But in a moment it became evident that he was doing it deliberately. He put the glass away and nodded at me approvingly.

“Your eye is still good, Archie. Unquestionably the same.”

“Much obliged.” I took the hint and fired another round. “If you’re going to sic the dogs on it, a good place to start might be a portable Underwood I saw in her apartment.”

He nodded again. “An excellent idea. This raises the point, regarding the generous offer she made you, what was she after, primarily? The suitcase, or this piece of typing, or both?”

“Or neither?” Sergeant Bruce suggested.

We both looked at her. She appeared, and sounded, totally unruffled and slightly amused.

“Neither?” Wolfe demanded.

She smiled at him. “Primarily, neither, Mr. Wolfe. Primarily, I was after you. The offer to Major Goodwin was just a little experiment, to test his loyalty to you. He mentioned a million as a joke, but you know quite well a million dollars is only a fraction of the total sum involved — or that will be involved. And certainly the services you are in a position to render will be well worth a fraction of the whole. Or, possibly, two fractions.”