Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 10 (11 page)

“We haven’t got anywhere, sir,” Ryder said. “We
haven’t started. Wolfe just got here. Your other questions—”

“Not for you,” Fife said curtly. He was looking, conspicuously, at John Bell Shattuck. “Public servant, and no public? No microphones? No newsreel cameras? How are the people to be informed?”

Shattuck didn’t even blink, let alone try to return the punch. “Now look here,” he said reproachfully, “we’re not as bad as that. We try to do our duty, and so do you. Sometimes I think it might be a good plan for us to take over the armed forces for a period, say a month—”

“Good God.”

“—and let the generals and admirals take over the Capitol for the same period. No doubt we would all learn something. I assure you I understand perfectly that this matter is confidential. I have not even mentioned it to the members of my committee. I thought it my duty to consult you, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Fife’s gaze at him showed no sign of melting into fondness. “You got a letter.”

Shattuck nodded. “I did. An anonymous unsigned type-written letter. It may be from a crackpot, it probably is, but I didn’t think it wise to ignore it.”

“May I see it?”

“I have it,” Colonel Ryder put in. He took a sheet of paper from under a weight on his desk and stepped across to pass it to his superior. But Fife was using his hands to pat the pockets of his jacket.

“Left my glasses upstairs. Read it.”

Ryder did so.

Silence. Dead silence.

Colonel Tinkham cleared his throat. “Well-written letter,” he observed, in the tone of a teacher commending a pupil for a good composition.

“May I look at it?” Nero Wolfe inquired.

Ryder handed it to him, and I got up and crossed the room to take a squint over Wolfe’s shoulder. Tinkham and Lawson got the same notion and did likewise. Wolfe considerately held it at an angle so we could all see. It was a plain sheet of ordinary bond paper, and the
text was single-spaced neatly in the center of the sheet with no errors or exings. From habit and experience I noted two mechanical peculiarities: the
c
hit below the line; and the
a
was off to the left—in
war
, for instance, it touched the top corner of the
w
. I was going on from there when Tinkham and Lawson finished and moved away, and Wolfe handed the sheet to me to return to Ryder.

“Hot stuff,” Lawson said, sitting down. “He could a tale unfold, but he doesn’t. Nothing but insinuations.”

Fife asked him sarcastically, “Does that close the matter, Lieutenant?”

“Sir?”

“I ask, is your verdict final, or are we to be permitted to proceed?”

“Oh.” Lawson showed color. “I beg your pardon, sir. I was merely observing—”

“There’s another way to observe. Look and listen.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I may be allowed—” Colonel Tinkham offered.

“Well?”

“Interesting points about that letter. It was written by a person who is incisive and highly literate and who also types expertly. Or it was dictated to a stenographer, which doesn’t seem likely. The margining at the right is remarkably even. And the double spaces after periods—”

Wolfe made a noise, and Fife glanced at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Wolfe said. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind if this chair were properly constructed and of a proper size. I suggest, if the discussion is to be at kindergarten level, that we all sit on the floor.”

“Not a bad idea. We may come to that.” Fife turned to Shattuck. “When did you get the letter?”

“In the mail Saturday morning,” Shattuck told him. “Plain envelope of course, address typed, marked personal. Postmarked New York, Station R, 7:30 p.m. Friday. My first impulse was to turn it over to the F.B.I., but I decided that wouldn’t be fair to you fellows, so I telephoned Harold—Colonel Ryder. I was coming to New York today anyway—speaking at a dinner tonight of the National Industrial Association—and we agreed this was the way to handle it.”

“You haven’t—you didn’t take it up with General Carpenter?”

“No.” Shattuck smiled. “After that performance when he appeared to testify before my committee a couple of months ago—I didn’t feel like crossing his path.”

“This is his path.”

“I know, but he’s not patrolling this sector of it at this moment—” Shattuck’s eyes widened—“or is he?”

Fife shook his head. “He’s stewing in Washington. Or sizzling. Or both. So you’re turning the letter over to us for investigation. Is that it?”

“I don’t know.” Shattuck hesitated. He was meeting the general’s eyes. “It came to me as chairman of a Congressional committee. I came here—to discuss the matter.”

“You know—” Fife also hesitated. He went on, choosing words: “You know, of course, I could merely say military security is involved and the question cannot be discussed.”

“I know,” Shattuck agreed. “You could say that.” He bore down a little on the “could.”

Fife regarded him without affection.

“This is unofficial and off the record. There is nothing in that letter to show that the writer has any useful information. Anyone with any sense would know that in
our war production, with thousands of men in positions of trust, and enormous interests and billions of dollars involved, things happen. Lots of them, probably including the sort of thing that letter hints at. One of the jobs of Military Intelligence is to help to prevent such things from happening, as far as we can.”

“Of course,” Shattuck put in, “I had no idea this would be a bolt from the blue for you.”

“Thank you.” Fife didn’t sound grateful. “It isn’t. Did you see that pink thing Ryder put in his desk drawer? You did. That’s a new kind of grenade—not only new in construction, but in its contents. Somebody wanted some samples, and got them. Not the enemy—at least we don’t think so. Captain Cross, who died last week, was working on it. Nobody on earth except the men in this room knew what Cross was doing. Cross found the trail, we don’t know how, because he hadn’t reported in since Monday, and now we may never know. Major Goodwin did a neat piece of work with an entry in Cross’s memo book which apparently didn’t mean anything, and found the grenades in a shipping carton in the checkroom at a bus terminal where Cross had left them. I tell you about this because Cross is mentioned in that letter, and also as an instance to show that if the writer of the letter wants to tell us anything we don’t know he’ll have to come again.”

Shattuck remonstrated. “Good heavens, General, I know very well you weren’t born yesterday. And ordinarily any anonymous letter I receive gets tossed in the wastebasket. But I thought you ought to know about it—and then the one specific thing in it—about Cross. Of course that was investigated?”

“It was. By the police.”

“And,” Shattuck insisted, “by you?” Then he added
hastily, “I think that’s a proper question. Unofficially. Since a police investigation would be somewhat ineffectual unless they were told exactly what Cross was doing and were given the names of those who were—well—aware of it. I don’t suppose you felt free to disclose that to the police?”

Fife said slowly, choosing his words again, “We co-operate with the police to the limit of discretion. As for your first question, proper or not, it is no military secret that Nero Wolfe has worked with us on various matters as a civilian consultant—since it has been published in newspapers. Do you regard Wolfe as a competent investigator?”

Shattuck smiled. “I’m a politician. You’re not apt to find me in a minority of one.”

“Well, he’s investigating Cross’s death. For us. If you find out who wrote you that letter, tell him that. That ought to satisfy him.”

“It satisfies me,” Shattuck declared. “I wonder if you’d mind—could I ask Mr. Wolfe a couple of questions?”

“Certainly. If he wants to answer them. I can’t order him to. He’s not in the Army.”

Wolfe grunted. He was displaying all the signs, long familiar to me, of impatience, annoyance, discomfort, and an intense desire to get back home where chairs had been built to specifications to fit the case, and the beer was cold. He snapped:

“Mr. Shattuck. Perhaps I can make your questions unnecessary. Whether they come from idle curiosity, or are in fact sparks from the flame of your burning patriotism, Captain Cross was murdered. Does that answer them?”

Silence. Nobody made a sound. The look that General Fife flashed at Colonel Ryder met one coming back
at him, and they both held. Colonel Tinkham’s finger tip made contact with his mustache. Lieutenant Lawson stared at Wolfe, frowning. Shattuck’s eyes, narrowed with a gleam in them, went from face to face.

Lieutenant Lawson said, “Oh, lord.”

W
olfe was pretending that nothing startling was happening. Not that any of the others could tell there was any pretense about it; nobody else knew him as I did. They probably were not even aware that his half-closed eyes were not missing the slightest twitch of a muscle among the group.

“I’m afraid,” he said dryly, “that there’s nothing in it for you, Mr. Shattuck. No votes, no acclaim, no applause from the multitude. I made the announcement in your presence because there’s no way of proving it and probably never will be. Not a scrap of evidence. Anyone could have taken the hotel elevator and gone to Captain Cross’s room on the twelfth floor, but no one was seen doing so. The mountain of the police machinery has labored—and no mouse. The window was wide open, and he was below on the pavement, squashed, dead. That’s all.”

“Then why the devil,” Lawson demanded, “do you say he was murdered?”

“Because he was. He was as likely to fall from that window by accident as I would be to run for Congress—by accident. He did not deliberately jump out or crawl out. He phoned Colonel Ryder at eight
o’clock that evening that he would come to the office in the morning to make a report; that he had had no sleep for two nights and had to rest. He sent a telegram to his fiancée in Boston that he would see her on Saturday. And then committed suicide? Pfui.”

“Oh,” Fife said, crossing his arms on the back of the chair again. “I thought—perhaps you had something.”

“I have that.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “The man was murdered. But no guiding thread can be fastened to the smashed body on the pavement or in the room it fell from. The police have done a thorough job, and there is nothing. Some other point of departure is needed. If the motive was personal, out of his past as a man, the police may find it. They’re trying to. If it was professional, out of his work as a soldier, we may find it in the course of our present activities. That is, if we are to continue? Along the line as it is being developed? With the same personnel?”

Fife studied the corner of Ryder’s desk.

Wolfe said brusquely, “I put a question, General.”

Fife’s head jerked to him. “By all means. Continue? Certainly.”

Shattuck said in a tone of satisfaction, “I don’t think I need to ask you any questions, Mr. Wolfe.”

“May I” Tinkham inquired, “offer a comment?”

“Go ahead,” Fife told him.

“About the—personnel, as Mr. Wolfe put it. This is a complicated and difficult business; we all know that, even if it’s all we know. And judging from what happened to Cross, if Mr. Wolfe is correct, somewhat dangerous. It’s not the sort of enterprise to be entrusted to a kindergarten, and if that’s Mr. Wolfe’s opinion of us—specifically of me—”

“Skin tender?” Fife demanded. “The orders come from me.”

“I was trying,” Wolfe declared, “to educate you, Colonel, not obliterate you.”

“I’m not worrying about my skin.” Tinkham’s voice had emotion in it, which for him was remarkable. “I would like to stay on this job. I merely want to be sure I understand the purpose of Mr. Wolfe’s question about personnel.”

“To get an answer.” Wolfe was eyeing him. “I got it.”

“All the same,” Lawson broke in, addressing General Fife, “Colonel Tinkham has a point. For example, sir, you said just now the orders come from you. But they don’t. At least they haven’t in the two weeks I’ve been in on this. They come either from Colonel Ryder or from Nero Wolfe, and that’s apt to be confusing, and besides, from the tone Wolfe takes he ought to have four stars on his shoulder, and he hasn’t.”

“My God,” Fife said in disgust. “You too. Feelings hurt by the tone Wolfe takes! He’s right. This damn Army is turning into a kindergarten. And if I ship you overseas or back to Washington I’ll only get somebody worse.” He turned to Wolfe. “What about you and Ryder? Has there been any conflict in orders?”

“None that I know of,” Wolfe said patiently.

Fife switched to Ryder. “Any that you know of?”

“No, sir.” Ryder’s answer was a brush-off, as if the matter were of no interest or significance. “Mr. Wolfe has been entirely co-operative and helpful. No one but a fool would resent his mannerisms. But I ought to say—The circumstances—You should know that there will be a change in the setup. I would like to make a request. I respectfully request permission to go to Washington to see General Carpenter. Today.”