Trouble at the Brownstone

Chapter 32

The next morning when I was in the office after breakfast with coffee, the phone jangled. It was the inspector.

“I know that your boss is up with his precious, damned orchids right now, and heaven knows I am not about to disturb the man while he’s playing. But you can tell him that I’ve arranged a meeting at that Lower East Side precinct for nine tomorrow night.” He read the address.

“Now, about the people Mr. Wolfe wants in attendance. I can—”

“Never mind that, Goodwin. Remember, I got all the names from him and where to find them, and I will take care of the so-called ‘invitations.’ The less Wolfe has to do directly with this operation, the better. I’m the one who figures to take the fall for what may well be a fiasco, but what the hell — in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“It can’t be that bad, Inspector.”

“Oh yes, it can. I’ve got to be insane for agreeing to this, and my wife agrees. But she’s been after me to retire for years, so she didn’t try very hard to talk me out of this. You’ll be driving Wolfe to the precinct, I suppose?”

I told him, yes, that is the plan, and Cramer hung up before I could say goodbye. I contemplated calling Wolfe in the plant rooms but felt the news could wait until he came down at eleven. He made a face when I gave him the details, and I knew his reaction was not so much that he would have to exercise his brain, but that he would be forced to ride in an automobile all the way across Manhattan — and back again.

I had a vague idea what my boss was planning for the meeting tomorrow night, and I started to ask him about it when the telephone rang. “Hello, Archie,” Doc Vollmer said, and I signaled Wolfe to pick up his instrument, mouthing the doctor’s name.

“This is Nero Wolfe. Do you have news of Theodore?”

“I do. He has been showing slight signs of emerging from his coma, but I caution you to control your optimism. I have seen numerous cases where a patient appears to be recovering from a condition similar to Mr. Horstmann’s, only to relapse.”

“Has he spoken?”

“Oh no, nothing so startling as that, but he continues to indicate recognition when his sister appears — facial tics, a fluttering of the eyes, the beginnings of a smile.”

“Would it be beneficial were I to visit him?” Wolfe asked.

“How would you characterize your relationship with Mr. Horstmann?” the doctor replied.

“You know very well that we have worked together for many years.”

“You did not answer my question. Would you describe your association as convivial?”

“Our ‘association,’ to use your term, has been a professional one,” Wolfe said icily.

“My suggestion would be to have Mr. Horstmann’s sister continue as his sole visitor,” Vollmer replied in a tone as cold as Wolfe’s. The doctor had been familiar with life at the brownstone long enough to realize that Wolfe and his gardener had had their share of disagreements — some of them heated.

“Please inform me when there has been further improvement in Theodore’s condition,” Wolfe snapped, slamming his instrument into its cradle.

“You should be happy you don’t have to visit the hospital again,” I told my boss. “It’s tough enough that you will have to travel all the way to the Lower East Side with a madman at the wheel of our Heron sedan.”

Of course, my comment was ignored, and no words were spoken between us until dinner. Even then, the conversation was strained.

The next morning, I woke up feeling on edge, as I always do on the days when Wolfe is to stage one of his “here’s who did it” events. Don’t ask me why I get edgy at these times, because I can’t explain it. I know it makes no sense, as invariably my boss delivers a solution. Maybe I have a subconscious concern that this will be the time he fails.

I barely spoke a word in the kitchen as I ate breakfast at my small table and read the Times, in which I found nothing to interest me. Fritz frowned with concern but said nothing, knowing my moods as well as Wolfe does. After breakfast, I moved to the office with coffee and puttered around, dusting the top of my desk, filing the latest set of orchid germination records that Carl Willis had brought down, and cleaning my typewriter with the little brush that came with the machine.

I then went to my room and pulled two suits out of the closet, throwing them over an arm and walking down to the kitchen, where I announced to Fritz that I was taking a walk and would be back “at an unspecified time.” The dry cleaner we use is three blocks east on Thirty-Fifth Street, and being out in the summer air was refreshing and improved my mood to the degree that I almost whistled at a redhead in a green dress who smiled at me as we passed on the sidewalk. I controlled myself, though, keeping in mind a newspaper feature I had recently read warning that “women do not like men who whistle, shout, or otherwise make gestures to them on the streets that they might consider to be rude.”

“Nice to see you, Archie Goodwin,” said Anna Blazek, who had run the cleaners alone since her husband’s death. “You have not been in for a while.”

“I guess I haven’t been too hard on my suits lately. How’s business?”

“Good enough to keep me going, but not so good that I can retire to Florida, which, as I’ve told you, is my dream.”

“You don’t belong in Florida, you are a New Yorker through-and-through,” I told her. “Besides, I would miss seeing your welcoming face behind the counter here if you were off at some beach wearing sunglasses and gazing out on blue waters.”

“You say the nicest things to a girl,” Anna said, batting dark eyes and letting a dimpled smile crease her broad Slavic face.

I left the shop with my spirits lifted, and although I hadn’t consciously realized it when I set out, that was the real reason I took the suits in. They had not needed cleaning. That brief encounter was enough to see me through the rest of the day.