Plot It Yourself

Chapter 14

We were in conference, off and on, all the rest of the day, with time out for meals. The meals were dismal. Squab marinated in light cream, rolled in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, clove, thyme, and crushed juniper berries, sauteed in olive oil, and served on toast spread with red currant jelly, with Madeira cream sauce poured over it, is one of Wolfe’s favourite tidbits. He ordinarily consumes three of them, though I have known him to make it four. That day I wanted to eat in the kitchen, but no. I had to sit and down my two while he grimly pecked away at his green peas and salad and cheese. The Sunday-evening snack was just as bad. He usually has something like cheese and anchovy spread or pate de foie gras or herring in sour cream, but apparently the meat pledge included fish. He ate crackers and cheese and drank four cups of coffee. Later, in the office, he finished off a bowl of pecans, and then went to the kitchen for a brush and pan to collect the bits of shell on his desk and the rug. He sure was piling on the agony.

In the state he was in now, he would have been willing to try one or more of the routine lines, even one the cops had already covered or were covering, if it had offered any hope at all. We discussed all of them, and I made a list:

Combing Rennert’s apartment and Jane Ogilvy’s cloister.

Trying to pry something out of Mrs Jacobs and Mr and Mrs Ogilvy.

Getting names of everybody who had known of the plan to go after Jacobs, analyzing them, and seeing those who were at all possible.

Trying to trace Jacobs to his meeting with X Monday evening, 25th May.

Trying to find someone who had seen a car parked in the lane back of the cloister Wednesday evening, 27th May.

Trying to find someone who had seen X, any stranger, entering the 37th Street building Wednesday night, 27th May.

Seeing a few hundred of the friends and associates of Jacobs, Jane Ogilvy, and Rennert, to find out if all three of them had been acquainted with a certain person or persons.

Trying to learn how Jacobs and Jane Ogilvy had disposed of the loot they got from Richard Echols and the estate of Marjorie Lippin; and supposing they had transferred a big share of it to X, trying to trace the transfers. Also the loot Alice Porter had got from Ellen Sturdevant.

Trying on Alice Porter the approach we had meant to try on Jane Ogilvy. Or trying to throw a scare into her. Or trying to get from Ellen Sturdevant and her publishers, McMurray amp; Co., an agreement not to prosecute or demand repayment if Alice Porter would identify X.

Get a membership list of the NAAD and go over it, name by name, with Cora Bollard.

Have a couple of hundred copies made of “There Is Only Love,” “What’s Mine Is Yours,” and “On Earth but Not in Heaven,” and send them to editors and book reviewers, with a letter citing the internal evidence that they had all been written by the same person, and asking if they knew of any published material, or, with editors, submitted material, apparently by that person.

During the discussion of this last item Wolfe had before him the manuscripts of the first two, and the copy of the third, they having been returned by Cramer Friday afternoon as agreed.

There were other suggestions that I didn’t bother to put down. To each of the items listed I could have added the objections and difficulties, but they’re so obvious, especially to the routine ones, the first eight, that I didn’t think it was necessary.

The stymie was the motive. In ninety-nine murder investigations out of a hundred it gets narrowed down before long to just a few people who had motives, often only two or three, and you go on from there. This time the motive had been out in full view from the start; the trouble was, who had it? It could be anyone within reach who could read and write and drive a car-say five million in the metropolitan area, and except for Alice Porter there was absolutely no pointer. She was still alive at midnight Sunday. Orrie Cather, phoning from Carmel at twelve-twenty-three to report that Saul Panzer had relieved him on schedule, said that the light in the house had gone out at ten-fifty-two and all had been quiet since. Wolfe had gone up to bed, leaving it that we would decide in the morning how to tackle Alice Porter.

In the kitchen at a quarter to nine Monday morning, as I was pouring a third cup of coffee, Fritz asked me what I was nervous about. I said I wasn’t nervous. He said of course I was, I had been jerky for the last ten minutes, and I was taking a third cup of coffee. I said everybody in that house was too damned observant. He said, “See? You’re very nervous”-and I took the coffee to the office.

I was nervous. Fred Durkin had phoned at seven-thirty-nine to say that he was on his way to relieve Saul, and Dol Bonner was with him, and Saul should have phoned by eight-twenty to report, certainly not later than eight-thirty, and he hadn’t. He still hadn’t at eight-forty-five. If it had been Fred or Orrie I would have thought it was probably some little snag like a flat tire, but Saul has never had a flat tire and never will. At nine o’clock I was sure there was some kind of hell to pay. At nine-fifteen I was sure that Alice Porter was dead. At nine-twenty I was sure that Saul was dead too. When the phone rang at nine-twenty-five I grabbed it and barked at it, “Well?”-which is no way to answer a phone.

“Archie?”

“Yes.”

“Saul. We’ve got a circus up here.”

I was so relieved to hear that all he had was a circus that I grinned at him. “You don’t say. Did you get bit by a lion?”

“No. I got bit by a deputy sheriff and a state cop. Fred didn’t show, and at eight-fifteen I went to where my car was hid. He was there, refusing to answer questions being asked by a deputy sheriff of Putnam County. Standing by was an old friend of yours, Sergeant Purley Stebbins.”

“Oh. Ah.”

“Yeah. Stebbins told the DS that I was another one of Nero Wolfe’s operatives. That’s all Stebbins said the whole time. He was leaving it to the DS, who said plenty. Evidently Fred had shown his driving license and then clammed. I thought that was a little extreme, especially with Stebbins there, and I supplied some essential details, but that didn’t help any. The DS took both of us for trespassing and loitering, and then he added disturbing the peace. He used the radio in his car, and pretty soon a state cop came. On that dirt road it was a traffic jam. The state cop brought us to Carmel, and we are being held. This is my phone call to my lawyer. Apparently the DS is going to loiter near that house, and maybe Stebbins is too. On the way here we stopped for a couple of minutes on the blacktop where another state car was parked behind Dol Bonner’s car at the roadside. Where she had had it behind some trees I suppose she was trespassing. She and a state cop were standing there chatting. If they have brought her on to Carmel I haven’t seen her. I’m talking from a booth in the building where the sheriff’s office is. The number of the sheriff’s office is Carmel 53466.”

When Saul makes a report there is nothing left to ask about. I asked. “Have you had any breakfast?”

“Not yet. I wanted to get you first. I will now.”

“Eat plenty of meat. We’ll try to spring you by the Fourth of July. By the way, did you see Alice Porter before you left?”

“Sure. She was mowing the lawn.”

I said that was fine, hung up, sat for two minutes looking at it, went to the stairs and mounted three flights to the plant rooms, and entered. At that point there were ten thousand orchid plants between me and my goal, many of them in full bloom, and the dazzle was enough to stop anyone, even one who had seen it as often as I had, but I kept going-through the first room, the moderate, then the tropical, and then the cool-on into the potting room. Theodore was at the sink, washing pots. Wolfe was at the big bench, putting peat mixture into flasks. When he heard my step and turned, his lips tightened and his chin went up. He knew I wouldn’t mount three flights and burst in there for anything trivial.

“Relax,” I said. “She’s still alive, or was two hours ago. Mowing the lawn. But Saul and Fred are in the hoosegow, and Dol Bonner is having an affair with a state cop.”

He turned to put the flask he was holding on the bench, and turned back. “Go on.”

I did so, repeating verbatim what Saul and I had said. His chin went back to normal, but his lips stayed tight. When I finished he said, “So you regard my giving up meat as a subject for jest.”

“I do not. I was being bitter.”

“I know you. That deputy sheriff is probably an oaf. Have you phoned Mr Parker?”

“No.”

“Do so at once. Tell him to get those absurd charges dismissed if possible; if not, arrange for bail. And phone Mr Harvey or Miss Ballard or Mr Tabb that I shall be at that meeting at half past two.”

I started. “What?”

“Must I repeat it?”

“No. Do you want me along?”

“Certainly.”

I was thinking, as I returned down the aisles between the benches of orchirds and on down the stairs, that this thing was going to set a record for smashing rules before we were through with it-if we ever got through. At my desk I rang the office of Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer Wolfe always uses when only a lawyer will do, and found him in. He didn’t like the picture. He said rural communities resented having New York private detectives snooping around, especially when the snoopee was a property-owner and not a known criminal, and they weren’t fond of New York lawyers either. He thought it would be better for him to relay the job to an attorney in Carmel whom he knew, instead of going up there himself, and I told him to go ahead. Another five Cs down the drain, at least.

I started to dial Philip Harvey’s number but remembered in time that I had promised never to call him before noon except for an emergency, and dialed Jerome Tabb’s instead. A female voice told me that Mr Tabb was working and couldn’t be disturbed until one o’clock, and would I leave a message. She seemed surprised and a little indignant that there was anyone on earth who didn’t know that. I told her to tell him that Nero Wolfe would come to the council meeting at two-thirty, but, knowing that messages aren’t always delivered, I got Cora Ballard at the NAAD office. She was delighted to hear that Wolfe would be present. I made two more calls, to Orrie Cather at home and to Sally Corbett at Dol Bonner’s office, informing them about the circus and telling them the operation was off until further notice. Orrie, who was a free-lance, wanted to know if he was free to lance, and I told him no, to stand by. What the hell, another forty bucks was peanuts.

When I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz that lunch would be at one o’clock sharp because we were leaving at two for an appointment, he had a question. For Wolfe he was going to make a special omelet which he had just invented in his head, and would that do for me or should he broil some ham? I asked what would be in the omelet, and he said four eggs, salt, pepper, one tablespoon tarragon butter, two tablespoons cream, two tablespoons dry white wine, one-half teaspoon minced shallots, one-third cup whole almonds, and twenty fresh mushrooms. I thought that would do for two, but he said my God, no, that would be for Mr Wolfe, and did I want one like it? I did. He warned me that he might decide at the last minute to fold some apricot jam in, and I said I would risk it.