The Second Confession

Chapter 5

All day Sunday was a nightmare. It rained off and on all day. I dragged myself out of bed at ten o’clock with a head as big as a barrel stuffed with wet feathers, and five hours later it was still the size of a keg and the inside was still swampy. Gwenn was keeping after me to take interiors with flashbulbs, and I had to deliver. Strong black coffee didn’t seem to help, and food was my worst enemy. Sperling thought I had a hangover, and he certainly didn’t smile when I returned the master key and refused to report events if any. Madeline thought there was something funny about it, but the word funny has different meanings at different times. There was one thing, when I got roped in for bridge I seemed to be clairvoyant and there was no stopping me. Jimmy suspected I was a shark but tried to conceal it. About the worst was when Webster Kane decided I was in exactly the right condition to start a course in economics and devoted an hour to the first lesson.

I was certainly in no shape to make any headway in simple fractions, let alone economics or establishing a relationship with a girl like Gwenn. Or Madeline either. Sometime during the afternoon Madeline got me alone and started to open me up for a look at my intentions and plans — or rather, Wolfe’s — regarding her sister, and I did my best to keep from snarling under the strain. She was willing to reciprocate, and I collected a few items about the family and guests without really caring a damn. The only one who was dead set against Rony was Sperling himself. Mrs. Sperling and Jimmy, the brother, had liked him at first, then had switched more or less to Sperling’s viewpoint, and later, about a month ago, had switched again and taken the attitude that it was up to Gwenn. That was when Rony had been allowed to darken the door again. As for the guests, Connie Emerson had apparently decided to solve the problem by getting Rony’s mind off of Gwenn and onto someone else, namely her; Emerson seemed to be neither more nor less sour on Rony than on most of his other fellow creatures; and Webster Kane was judicious. Kane’s attitude, of some importance because of his position as a friend of the family, was that he didn’t care for Rony personally but that a mere suspicion didn’t condemn him. He had had a hot argument with Sperling about it.

Some of the stuff Madeline told me might have been useful in trying to figure who doped Rony’s drink if I had been in any condition to use it, but I wasn’t. I would have made myself scarce long before the day was done but for one thing. I intended to get even, or at least make a stab at it.

As for the doping, I had entered a plea of not guilty, held the trial, and acquitted myself. The possibility that I had taken my own dope was ruled out; I had made that switch clean. And Rony had not seen the switch or been told of it; I was standing pat on that. Therefore Rony’s drink had been doped by someone else, and he had either known it or suspected it. It would have been interesting to know who had done it, but there were too many nominations. Webster Kane had been mixing, helped by Connie and Madeline, and Jimmy had delivered Rony’s drink to him. Not only that, after Rony had put it down on the table I had by no means had my eyes fixed on it while I was making my way across. So while Rony might have a name for the supplier of the dose I had guzzled, to me he was just X.

That, however, was not what had me hanging on. To hell with X, at least for the present. What had me setting my jaw and bidding four spades, or trotting around after Gwenn with two cameras and my pockets bulging with flashbulbs, when I should have been home in bed, was a picture I would never forget: Louis Rony pouring into a bucket the drink I had doped for him, while I stood and gulped the last drop of the drink someone else had doped for him. He would pay for that or I would never look Nero Wolfe in the face again.

Circumstances seemed favorable. I collected the information cautiously and without jostling. Rony had come by train Friday evening and been met at the station by Gwenn, and had to return to town this evening, Sunday; and no one was driving in. Paul and Connie Emerson were house guests at Stony Acres for a week; Webster Kane was there for an indefinite period, preparing some economic something for the corporation; Mom and the girls were there for the summer; and Sperling Senior and Junior would certainly not go to town Sunday evening. But I would, waiting until late to miss the worst of the traffic, and surely Rony would prefer a comfortable roomy car to a crowded train.

I didn’t ask him. Instead, I made the suggestion, casually, to Gwenn. Later I made it pointedly to Madeline, and she agreed to drop a word in if the occasion offered. Then I got into the library alone with Sperling, suggested it to him even more pointedly, asked him which phone I could use for a New York call, and told him the call was not for him to hear. He was a little difficult about it, which I admit he had a right to be, but by that time I could make whole sentences again and I managed to sell him. He left and closed the door behind him, and I got Saul Panzer at his home in Brooklyn and talked to him all of twenty minutes. With my head still soggy, I had to go over it twice to be sure not to leave any gaps.

That was around six o’clock, which meant I had four more hours to suffer, since I had picked ten for the time of departure and was now committed to it, but it wasn’t so bad. A little later the clouds began to sail around and you could tell them apart, and the sun even took a look at us just before it dropped over the edge; and what was more important, I risked a couple of nibbles at a chicken sandwich and before I was through the sandwich was too, and also a piece of cherry pie and a glass of milk. Mrs. Sperling patted me on the back and Madeline said that now she would be able to get some sleep.

It was six minutes past ten when I slid behind the wheel of the convertible, asked Rony if he had remembered his toothbrush, and rolled along the plaza into the curve of the drive.

“What’s this,” he asked, “a forty-eight?”

“No,” I said, “forty-nine.”

He let his head go back to the cushion and shut his eyes.

There were enough openings among the clouds to show some stars but no moon. We wound along the drive, reached the stone pillars, and eased out onto the public road. It was narrow, with an asphalt surface that wouldn’t have been hurt by a little dressing, and for the first mile we had it to ourselves, which suited me fine. Just beyond a sharp turn the shoulder widened at a spot where there was an old shed at the edge of thick woods, and there at the roadside, headed the way we were going, a car was parked. I was going slow on account of the turn, and a woman darted out and blinked a flashlight, and I braked to a stop. As I did so the woman called, “Got a jack, mister?” and a man’s voice came, “My jack’s broke, you got one?”

I twisted in the seat to back off the road onto the grass. Rony muttered at me, “What the hell,” and I muttered back, “Brotherhood of man.” As the man and woman came toward us I got out and told Rony, “Sorry, but I guess you’ll have to move; the jack’s under the seat.” The woman, saying something about what nice people we were, was on his side and opened the door for him, and he climbed out. He went out backwards, facing me, and just as he was clear something slammed against the side of my head and I sank to the ground, but the grass was thick and soft. I stayed down and listened. It was only a few seconds before I heard my name.

“Okay, Archie.”

I got to my feet, reached in the car to turn off the engine and lights, and circled around the hood to the other side, away from the road. Louis Rony was stretched out flat on his back. I didn’t waste time checking on him, knowing that Ruth Brady could give lectures on the scientific use of a persuader, and anyhow she was kneeling at his head with her flashlight.

“Sorry to break into your Sunday evening, Ruth darling.”

“Nuts to you, Archie my pet. Don’t stand talking. I don’t like this, out here in the wilderness.”

“Neither do I. Don’t let him possum.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a blade of grass up his nose.”

“Good. If he wiggles tap him again.” I turned to Saul Panzer, who had his shirt sleeves rolled up. “How are the wife and children?”

“Wonderful.”

“Give ’em my love. You’d better be busy the other side of the car, in case of traffic.”

He moved as instructed and I went to my knees beside Ruth. I expected to find it on him, since it wouldn’t have been sensible for him to take such pains with it when he went swimming and then carelessly pack it in his bag, which had been brought down by one of the help. And I did find it on him. It was not in a waterproof container but in a cellophane envelope, in the innermost compartment of his alligator-skin wallet. I knew that must be it, because nothing else on him was out of the ordinary, and because its nature was such that I knelt there and goggled, with Ruth’s flashlight focused on it.

“The surprise is wasted on me,” she said scornfully. “I’m on. It’s yours and you had to get it back. Comrade!”

“Shut up.” I was a little annoyed. I removed it from the cellophane cover and inspected it some more, but there was nothing tricky about it. It was merely what it was, a membership card in the American Communist party, Number 128–394, and the name on it was William Reynolds. What annoyed me was that it was so darned pat. Our client had insisted that Rony was a Commie, and the minute I do a little personal research on him, here’s his membership card! Of course the name meant nothing. I didn’t like it. It’s an anti-climax to have to tell a client he was dead right in the first place.

“What do they call you, Bill or Willie?” Ruth asked.

“Hold this,” I told her, and gave her the card. I got the key and opened up the car trunk, hauled out the big suitcase, and got the big camera and some bulbs. Saul came to help. Ruth was making comments which we ignored. I took three pictures of that card, once held in Saul’s hand, once propped up on the suitcase, and once leaning against Rony’s ear. Then I slipped it back in the cellophane cover and replaced it in the wallet, and put the wallet where I found it, in Rony’s breast pocket.

One operation remained, but it took less time because I had more experience at taking wax impressions of keys than at photography. The wax was in the medicine case, and the keys, eight of them, were in Rony’s fold. There was no need to label the impressions, since I didn’t know which key was for what anyway. I took all eight, not wanting to skimp.

“He can’t last much longer,” Ruth announced.

“He don’t need to.” I shoved a roll of bills at Saul, who had put the suitcase back in the trunk. “This came out of his wallet. I don’t know how much it is and don’t care, but I don’t want it on me. Buy Ruth a string of pearls or give it to the Red Cross. You’d better get going, huh?”

They lost no time. Saul and I understand each other so well that all he said was, “Phone in?” and I said, “Yeah.” The next minute they were off. As soon as their car was around the next bend I circled to the other side of the convertible, next the road, stretched out on the grass, and started groaning. When nothing happened I quit after a while. Just as my weight was bringing the wet in the ground through the grass and on through my clothes, and I was about to shift, a noise came from Rony’s side and I let out a groan. I got onto my knees, muttered an expressive word or two, groaned again, reached for the handle of the door and pulled myself to my feet, reached inside and turned on the lights, and saw Rony sitting on the grass inspecting his wallet.

“Hell, you’re alive,” I muttered.

He said nothing.

“The bastards,” I muttered.

He said nothing. It took him two more minutes to decide to try to stand up.

I admit that an hour and fifty minutes later, when I drove away from the curb in front of his apartment on Thirty-seventh Street after letting him out, I was totally in the dark about his opinion of me. He hadn’t said more than fifty words all the way, leaving it to me to decide whether we should stop at a State Police barracks to report our misfortune, which I did, knowing that Saul and Ruth were safely out of the county; but I couldn’t expect the guy to be very talkative when he was busy recovering after an expert operation by Ruth Brady. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he had been sitting beside me in silent sympathy with a fellow sufferer or had merely decided that the time for dealing with me would have to come later, after his brain had got back to something like normal.

The clock on the dash said 1:12 as I turned into the garage on Eleventh Avenue. Taking the caribou bag, but leaving the other stuff in the trunk, I didn’t feel too bad as I rounded the corner into Thirty-fifth Street and headed for our stoop. I was a lot better prepared to face Wolfe than I had been all day, and my head was now clear and comfortable. The weekend hadn’t been a washout after all, except that I was coming home hungry, and as I mounted the stoop I was looking forward to a session in the kitchen, knowing what to expect in the refrigerator kept stocked by Wolfe and Fritz Brenner.

I inserted the key and turned the knob, but the door would open only two inches. That surprised me, since when I am out and expected home it is not customary for Fritz or Wolfe to put on the chain bolt except on special occasions. I pushed the button, and in a moment the stoop light went on and Fritz’s voice came through the crack.

“That you, Archie?”

That was odd too, since through the one-way glass panel he had a good view of me. But I humored him and told him it really was me, and he let me in. After I crossed the threshold he shut the door and replaced the bolt, and then I had a third surprise. It was past Wolfe’s bedtime, but there he was in the door to the office, glowering at me.

I told him good evening. “Quite a reception I get,” I added. “Why the barricade? Someone been trying to swipe an orchid?” I turned to Fritz. “I’m so damned hungry I could even eat your cooking.” I started for the kitchen, but Wolfe’s voice stopped me.

“Come in here,” he commanded. “Fritz, will you bring in a tray?”

Another oddity. I followed him into the office. As I was soon to learn, he had news that he would have waited up all night to tell me, but something I had said had pushed it aside for the moment. No concern at all, not even life or death, could be permitted to shove itself ahead of food. As he lowered himself into the chair behind his desk he demanded, “Why are you so hungry? Doesn’t Mr. Sperling feed his guests?”

“Sure.” I sat. “There’s nothing wrong with the grub, but they put something in the drinks that takes your appetite. It’s a long story. Want to hear it tonight?”

“No.” He looked at the clock. “But I must. Go ahead.”

I obliged. I was still getting the characters introduced when Fritz came with the tray, and I bit into a sturgeon sandwich and went on. I could tell from Wolfe’s expression that for some reason anything and everything would be welcome, and I let him have it all. By the time I finished it was after two o’clock, the tray had been cleaned up except for a little milk in the pitcher, and Wolfe knew all that I knew, leaving out a few little personal details.

I emptied the pitcher into the glass. “So I guess Sperling’s hunch was good and he really is a Commie. With a picture of the card and the assortment I got of Rony, I should think you could get that lined up by that character who has appeared as Mr. Jones on our expense list now and then. He may not actually be Uncle Joe’s nephew, but he seems to be at least a deputy in the Union Square Politburo. Can’t you get him to research it?”

Fritz had brought another tray, with beer, and Wolfe poured the last of the second bottle.

“I could, yes.” He drank and put the glass down. “But it would be a waste of Mr. Sperling’s money. Even if that is Mr. Rony’s card and he is a party member, as he well may be, I suspect that it is merely a masquerade.” He wiped his lips. “I have no complaint of your performance, Archie, which was in character, and I should know your character; and I can’t say you transgressed your instructions, since you had a free hand, but you might have phoned before assuming the risks of banditry.”

“Really.” I was sarcastic. “Excuse me, but since when have you invited constant contact on a little job like tripping up a would-be bridegroom?”

“I haven’t. But you were aware that another factor had entered, or at least been admitted as conjecture. It is no longer conjecture. You didn’t phone me, but someone else did. A man — a voice you are acquainted with. So am I.”

“You mean Arnold Zeck?”

“No name was pronounced. But it was that voice. As you know, it is unmistakable.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Neither was Mr. Rony’s name pronounced, nor Mr. Sperling’s. But he left no room for dubiety. In effect I was told to cease forthwith any inquiry into the activities or interests of Mr. Rony or suffer penalties.”

“What did you have to say?”

“I — demurred.” Wolfe tried to pour beer, found the bottle was empty, and set it down. “His tone was more peremptory than it was the last time I heard it, and I didn’t fully conceal my resentment. I stated my position in fairly strong terms. He ended with an ultimatum. He gave me twenty-four hours to recall you from your weekend.”

“He knew I was up there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be damned.” I let out a whistle. “This Rony boy is really something. A party member and one of Mr. Z.’s little helpers — which isn’t such a surprising combination, at that. And not only have I laid hands on him, but Saul and Ruth have too. Goddam it! I’ll have to — when did this phone call come?”

“Yesterday afternoon—” Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Saturday, at ten minutes past six.”

“Then his ultimatum expired eight hours ago and we’re still breathing. Even so, it wouldn’t have hurt to get time out for changing our signals. Why didn’t you phone me and I could—”

“Shut up!”

I lifted the brows. “Why?”

“Because even if we are poltroons cowering in a corner, we might have the grace not to talk like it! I reproach you for not phoning. You reproach me for not phoning. It is only common prudence to keep the door bolted, but there is no possible—”

That may not have been his last syllable, but if he got one more in I didn’t hear it. I have heard a lot of different noises here and there, and possibly one or two as loud as the one that interrupted Wolfe and made me jump out of my chair halfway across the room, but nothing much like it. To reproduce it you could take a hundred cops, scatter them along the block you live in, and have them start unanimously shooting windows with forty-fives.

Then complete silence.

Wolfe said something.

I grabbed a gun from a drawer, ran to the hall, flipped the switch for the stoop light, removed the chain bolt, opened the door, and stepped out. Across the street to the left two windows went up, and voices came and heads poked out, but the street was deserted. Then I saw that I wasn’t standing on the stone of the stoop but on a piece of glass, and if I didn’t like that piece there were plenty of others. They were all over the stoop, the steps, the areaway, and the sidewalk. I looked straight up, and another piece came flying down, missed me by a good inch, and crashed and tinkled at my feet. I backed across the sill, shut the door, and turned to face Wolfe, who was standing in the hall looking bewildered.

“He took it out on the orchids,” I stated. “You stay here. I’ll go up and look.”

As I went up the stairs three at a time I heard the sound of the elevator. He must have moved fast. Fritz was behind me but couldn’t keep up. The top landing, which was walled with concrete tile and plastered, was intact. I flipped the light switch and opened the door to the first plant room, the warm room, but I stopped after one step in because there was no light. I stood for five seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and by then Wolfe and Fritz were behind me.

“Let me get by,” Wolfe growled like a dog ready to spring.

“No.” I pushed back against him. “You’ll scalp yourself or cut your throat. Wait here till I get a light.”

He bellowed past my shoulder. “Theodore! Theodore!”

A voice came from the dim starlit ruins. “Yes, sir! What happened?”

“Are you all right?”

“No, sir! What—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, but what happened?”

I saw movement in the direction of the corner where Theodore’s room was, and a sound came of glass falling and breaking.

“You got a light?” I called.

“No, the doggone lights are all—”

“Then stay still, damn it, while I get a light.”

“Stand still!” Wolfe roared.

I beat it down to the office. By the time I got back up again there were noises from windows across the street, and also from down below. We ignored them. The sight disclosed by the flashlights was enough to make us ignore anything. Of a thousand panes of glass and ten thousand orchid plants some were in fact still whole, as we learned later, but it certainly didn’t look like it that first survey. Even with the lights, moving around through that jungle of jagged glass hanging down and protruding from plants and benches and underfoot wasn’t really fun, but Wolfe had to see and so did Theodore, who was okay physically but got so damn mad I thought he was going to choke.

Finally Wolfe got to where a dozen Odontoglossum harryanum, his current pride and joy, were kept. He moved the light back and forth over the gashed and fallen stems and leaves and clusters, with fragments of glass everywhere, turned, and said quietly, “We might as well go downstairs.”

“The sun will be up in two hours,” Theodore said through his teeth.

“I know. We need men.”

When we got to the office we phoned Lewis Hewitt and G. M. Hoag for help before we called the police. Anyway, by that time a prowl car had come.