Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 1

Let’s get something straight, right at the start: I am not a friend of Theodore Horstmann’s and never have been, from the first time we met in Nero Wolfe’s brownstone all those years ago. He is surly, smug, standoffish, and superior in his manner. Oh, and honesty compels me to mention that Theodore doesn’t like me, either, although you will have to ask him why. I’m not about to. And I don’t care.

All of that aside, the man is part of our “family” in the old brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth Street in Manhattan, which consists of Nero Wolfe, master detective and lord of all he surveys; Fritz Brenner, chef supreme, whose gourmet meals are part of the reason Wolfe weighs a seventh of a ton; Horstmann, the orchid nurse who works with Wolfe to coddle the 10,000 orchids in the greenhouse’s three climate-controlled rooms on the roof; and me, Archie Goodwin, gofer, errand boy, and cockle burr under Wolfe’s saddle whenever he shows signs of laziness while working on a case — which is often. Life in the brownstone had gone smoothly since the end of the war, and now, six years later and just past the midpoint of the twentieth century, that domestic peace had been disturbed.

Because Theodore is part of our aforementioned family, any animosity I have for him gets set aside when he encounters trouble, which he did just last night, and in spades. Wolfe and I were in the dining room that June evening, feasting on Fritz’s lamb cutlets and tomatoes, when the front bell began ringing with short, angry bursts, as if a telegrapher were exercising a finger. Fritz beat me to the hallway, but I was right behind him when — after peering through the one-way glass — he swung the front door open and a battered and bleeding Theodore Horstmann pitched forward into the hallway with a groan, falling down on the floor, writhing.

“There were... two of them...” he gasped, looking at Fritz and me through blackened eyes that were barely open. By now, Wolfe had joined us and peered down at Theodore, his eyebrows going halfway up his forehead. “Great hounds and Cerberus!” Wolfe barked. “Get Dr. Vollmer — now!”

Doc Vollmer, Edwin A., to be formal, is our local sawbones and lives just down the block. He has been both a friend to Wolfe and a confidant who has patched me up on occasion. Vollmer also has, when necessary, hidden one of our clients in his house and once signed a certificate that stated Wolfe was batty.

Less than five minutes after I called him, Vollmer, a short specimen with large eyes, a round face, and not much chin, barreled in with his bag and looked down at Theodore, to whom Fritz, on the floor, was ministering with a cup of water and a cool compress on his forehead.

“Get out of my way!” Vollmer said, his sharp tongue belying his stature, as he knelt beside Theodore and began checking his vital signs — pulse, carotid, blood pressure. He spoke to the wounded man but got no answer, as he had lapsed into labored breathing. “Archie, call an ambulance,” he spat over his shoulder. “We are going to Roosevelt Hospital — now!”

I followed orders, and within minutes, accompanied by the sound of a siren and screeching brakes, a pair of young, square-jawed men in white coats burst into the hall with a stretcher and eased Theodore onto it as Vollmer barked orders at them with all the authority of a drill sergeant. “I will call you when I know something,” the doctor said over his shoulder to Wolfe as he and the trio, one of them clearly unconscious, left the brownstone.

For one of the few times I have known him, Wolfe was both speechless and unmoored. It was enough that his dinner had been interrupted, an almost unthinkable occurrence, but his comfortable and insular world suddenly got turned upside down. Theodore had worked for Wolfe for decades, and while it’s true the two of them often sparred — sometimes noisily — over the proper care of one variety of orchid or another, Wolfe had come to rely upon this brusque and often surly man — probably more than he would admit.

A few months back, Theodore had vacated his small quarters on the roof that adjoined the rooms in which those pampered posies reside and flourish. He told Wolfe he felt the need to have a place of his own, that he felt closed-in by spending all of his waking and sleeping hours inside the brownstone. Wolfe couldn’t argue the point, nor did he try, despite his own reluctance to leave home except for the occasional foray to the barbershop or his annual visit to the Metropolitan Orchid Show, where he was always seen as something of a celebrity.

Theodore had moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a five-story building called the Elmont on Tenth Avenue, just north of Fifty-Eighth, a brisk walk from the brownstone. He still continued to eat both breakfast and lunch in the kitchen with Fritz, and also ate dinner with him on many occasions. And, of course, he still spent those inviolable four hours a day — nine-to-eleven in the morning and four-to-six in the evening — with Wolfe up in the plant rooms. With the exception of Theodore’s move to separate living quarters, life had seemed to continue apace on West Thirty-Fifth Street until that night he staggered up to the front door and collapsed.

Since then, he has remained in a coma, with Doc Vollmer telling us that “there is no telling when, or if, he will regain consciousness. Specialists agree with me on that assessment.” Vollmer had Theodore moved to intensive care at the hospital, and after a weekday lunch, Wolfe had me drive him there to see the patient. We walked along the facility’s halls with a white-jacketed resident who had the requisite stethoscope draped around his neck. He seemed impressed by meeting Nero Wolfe.

“I hope that you will not be shocked by Mr. Horstmann’s appearance,” the young doctor told us earnestly as we stopped at a room that had T. Horstmann typed on a card that fitted into a slot on the door. Grim-faced, Wolfe made no reply.

If he indeed was shocked at what he saw, he gave no indication as he stared down at the figure in the bed, who was surrounded by wires and tubes and with bandages covering much of his still-bruised face. After no more than a minute, Wolfe said, “Let us go.”

As I steered the Heron back to West Thirty-Fifth Street with my passenger in the back seat clutching the specially installed hand strap as if it were a lifeline, he said, “We will find whoever did this. Do you question that?”

“No, sir, not for a moment,” I replied, wondering how much of the plural pronoun would fall to me to accomplish. But that did not matter; this was in the family.

After we got home from the hospital, Wolfe settled into the reinforced chair at his desk, grimaced, and snapped, “Get Fritz.”

I took that as a command and went to the kitchen, where Brenner was preparing one of tomorrow’s meals. “Mr. Wolfe would like to see you,” I told him.

He looked confused. “Does he want beer?”

“No, he wants you — now.”

He put down his oven mitts and spatula and followed me into the office, his face lined with concern.

“Yes, sir,” he said to Wolfe, standing at attention.

“Sit down, Fritz. You have the advantage of me.”

“Sir?” He clearly was uncomfortable. To him, the office was not a place where he belonged, other than to bring beer when requested and to run the vacuum cleaner and do the dusting, but only when no one else was present.

Fritz looked at me in confusion and finally chose one of the yellow chairs that faced Wolfe’s desk. He was not about to park himself in the red leather chair that was reserved for clients or for Inspector Cramer of the Homicide Squad.

“You know more about Theodore and his private life than either Archie or I do,” Wolfe said. “I would—”

“How is he, Mr. Wolfe?” he interrupted.

“I should have started with that, Fritz; my apologies. Theodore is comatose, but his condition appears to be stable. As to when he may emerge from the coma, that remains uncertain. We would like to learn what you know about his life away from here. All of my conversations with him have invariably been about orchids. And as you are no doubt aware, Archie has not had any substantive conversations whatever with him.”

Fritz licked his lips and frowned. “I do not know what I can say to you.”

“Very well,” Wolfe said. “I will assume the role of interrogator. What can you tell us about Theodore’s place of residence?”

“I have not been there, but from what he has told me, he finds it to be comfortable. It has one bedroom, he says, and it is on the fourth floor of an apartment building on Tenth Avenue up in the Fifties. He can walk down here in less than a half hour.”

“We have the address, of course,” Wolfe said, “so any mail that comes to us is forwarded. Has he said anything to you about his activities away from the brownstone?”

Fritz nodded. “Oh yes, he tells me he has found a new hobby — bridge.”

“Indeed.”

“Actually, he told me he had learned to play years ago, but only since he moved had he started to take up the game again. He seems to enjoy it, and he said he plays two or three nights a week.”

“With whom does the play? And where?”

“Other men of about his age. He told me they are divorced or have never married. They have their games in a back room of a bar on Tenth Avenue, which is called McCready’s. It is just across the street from where he now lives.”

Wolfe threw a questioning look in my direction. “I know of the saloon,” I said. “It’s a fixture in that neighborhood, and it’s been there as long as I can remember. I stopped in once a while back because of a case we were working on, although the lead I was chasing turned out to be a dead end. Because it is not far from the North River piers on the Hudson, it’s a hangout for a lot of longshoremen.”

“That’s right,” Fritz put it. “Theodore told me that dockworkers like the place, both for drinking and for playing pocket billiards — or pool, as it is called. He also said that they seemed to be a pretty rough bunch. And they shoot pool in the same room where the bridge games are.”

“Longshoremen can be tough, all right,” I agreed. “Seems like an odd combination of customers that McCready’s draws — dockworkers and middle-aged card players.”

Fritz continued to look uncomfortable, which was not lost on Wolfe. “Is there anything else you can tell us about Theodore?”

“Only that he asked his bridge-playing friends, and he referred to them as friends, to call him ‘Ted.’”

“Did he tell you if any of those men knew what he does for a living?” I posed.

“I did ask him that, Archie, but he said he only told them he worked as a gardener.”

“Didn’t they think it strange that somebody living in the middle of Manhattan would be a gardener?”

“I guess they would,” Fritz said with a shrug, “although Theodore never mentioned their reactions to me.”

“Did he ever suggest anyone in that bar who might have had animus toward him?” Wolfe asked.

“No, sir. I got the impression Theodore thought the dockworkers were rather crude and that they felt the card players were not overly... I don’t know how to express it.”

“Manly?” Wolfe supplied.

“Yes, that is it, manly. But according to Theodore, he and his new friends ignored the others in the bar and those around the pocket billiard table in the back room.”

“Being ignored probably bothered the dockworkers,” I put in.

“No doubt,” Wolfe concurred. “Nothing riles the swaggerer more than to be disregarded. Thank you, Fritz; we will take no more of your time.”

What Wolfe really was saying was that it was necessary for Fritz to get back to his meal preparations. We were faced with an upsetting and potentially tragic situation, but that did not mean the meticulous schedule by which the brownstone operated was about to go out the window.