Rex Stout - And be a Villian

So it was. West of Tenth Avenue they began looking at the numbers, and I began to close up. At our stoop they halted, took another look, and mounted the steps.

By the time they were pushing the button I was at the bottom of the stoop, but they had taken no notice of me. It would have been more triumphant if I could have done it another way, but the trouble was that Fritz wouldn't let them in until he had checked with Wolfe. So I took the steps two at a time, used my key and flung the door open, and invited them: “Mrs Shepherd? Go right in.”

She crossed the threshold. But Nancylee snapped at me: “You were on the train. There's something funny about this.”

“Mr Wolfe's expecting you,” I said, “if you want to call that funny. Anyway, come inside to laugh, so I can shut the door.”

She entered, not taking her eyes off me. I asked them if they wanted to leave their things in the hall, and they didn't, so I escorted them to the office.

Wolfe, in his chair behind his desk, looked undecided for an instant and then got to his feet. I really appreciated that. He never rises when men enter, and his customary routine when a woman enters is to explain, if he feels like taking the trouble, that he keeps his chair because getting out of it and back in again is a more serious undertaking for him than for most men. I knew why he was breaking his rule. It was a salute to me, not just for producing them, but for getting them there exactly at the first minute of the day that he would be ready for them.

“Mrs Shepherd,” I said, “this is Mr Nero Wolfe. Miss Nancylee Shepherd.”

Wolfe bowed. “How do you do, ladies.”

“My husband,” Mom said in a scared but determined voice. “Where's my husband?”

“He'll be here soon,” Wolfe assured her. “He was detained. Sit down, madam.”

I grinned at him and shook my head. “Much obliged for trying to help, but that's not the line.” I shifted the grin to the family. “I'll have to explain not only to you but to Mr Wolfe too. Have you got the telegram with you? Let me have it a minute?”

Mom would have opened her handbag, but Nancylee stopped her. “Don't give it to him!” She snapped at me, “You let us out of here right now!”

“No,” I said, “not right now, but I will in about five minutes if you still want to go. What are you afraid of? Didn't I see to it that you got some breakfast?

First I would like to explain to Mr Wolfe, and then I'll explain to you.” I turned to Wolfe. “The telegram Mrs Shepherd has in her bag reads as follows:

Take first train to New York and go to office of Nero Wolfe at 918 West Thirty-fifth Street. He is paying for this telegram. Bring Nan with you. Meet me there. Leave your things in your hotel room. Shake a leg. Al. Saul sent it from a telegraph office in the Bronx at six-thirty this morning. You will understand why I had to go up there again to see the janitor. The shake a leg made it absolutely authentic, along with other things.”

“Then Father didn't send it!” Nancylee was glaring at me. “I thought there was something funny about it!” She took her mother's arm. “Come on, we're going!”

“Where, Nan?”

“We're leaving here!”

“But where are we going?” Near-panic was in Mom's eyes and voice. “Home?”

“That's the point,” I said emphatically. “That's just it. Where? You have three choices. First, you can go home, and when the head of the family comes from work you can tell him how you were taken in by a fake telegram. Your faces show how much that appeals to you. Second, you can take the next train back to Atlantic City, but in that case I phone immediately, before you leave, to Mr Shepherd at the warehouse where he works, and tell him that you're here with a wild tale about a telegram, and of course he'll want to speak to you. So again you would have to tell him about being fooled by a fake telegram.”

Mom looked as if she needed some support, so I moved a chair up behind her and she sat.

“You're utterly awful,” Nancylee said. “Just utterly!”

I ignored her and continued to her mother. “Or, third, you can stay here and Mr Wolfe will discuss some matters with Nancylee, and ask her some questions. It may take two hours, or three, or four, so the sooner he gets started the better.

You'll get an extra good lunch. As soon as Mr Wolfe is through I'll take you to the station and put you on a train for Atlantic City. We'll pay your fare both ways and all expenses, such as taxi fare, and your breakfast, and dinner on the train going back. Mr Shepherd, whom I have met, will never know anything about it.” I screwed my lips. “Those are the only choices I can think of, those three.”

Nancylee sat down and-another indication of her intelligence - in the red leather chair.

“This is terrible,” Mom said hopelessly. “This is the worst thing…you don't look like a man that would do a thing like this. Are you absolutely sure my husband didn't send the telegram? Honestly?”

“Positively not,” I assured her. “He doesn't know a thing about it and never will. There's nothing terrible about it. Long before bedtime you'll be back in that wonderful hotel room.”

She shook her head as if all was lost.

“It's not so wonderful,” Nancylee asserted. “The shower squirts sideways and they won't fix it.” Suddenly she clapped a hand to her mouth, went pop-eyed, and sprang from the chair.

“Jumping cats!” she squealed. “Where's your radio? It's Friday! She's broadcasting!”

“No radio,” I said firmly. “It's out of order. Here, let me take your coat and hat.”

Chapter Ten

During the entire performance, except when we knocked off for lunch, Mrs Shepherd sat with sagging shoulders on one of the yellow chairs. Wolfe didn't like her there and at various points gave her suggestions, such as going up to the south room for a nap or up to the top to look at the orchids, but she wasn't moving. She was of course protecting her young, but I swear I think her main concern was that if she let us out of her sight we might pull another telegram on her signed Al.

I intend to be fair and just to Nancylee. It is quite true that this is on record, on a page of my notebook:

W: You have a high regard for Miss Eraser, haven't you, Miss Shepherd?

N: Oh, yes! She's simply utterly!

On another page:

W: Why did you leave high school without graduating, if you were doing so well?

N: I was offered a modelling job. Just small time, two dollars an hour not very often and mostly legs, but the cash was simply sweet!

W: You're looking forward to a life of that-modelling?

N: Oh, no! I'm really very serious-minded. Am I! I'm going into radio. I'm going to have a programme like Miss Fraser-you know, human and get the laughs, but worthwhile and good. How often have you been on the air, Mr Wolfe?

On still another page:

W: How have you been passing your time at Atlantic City?

N: Rotting away. That place is as dead as last week's date. Simply stagnating.

Utterly!

Those are verbatim, and there are plenty more where they came from, but there are other pages to balance them. She could talk to the point when she felt like it, as for instance when she explained that she would have been suspicious of the telegram, and would have insisted that her mother call her father at the warehouse by long distance, if she hadn't learned from the papers that Miss Fraser had engaged Nero Wolfe to work on the case. And when he got her going on the subject of Miss Fraser's staff, she not only showed that she had done a neat little job of sizing them up, but also conveyed it to us without including anything that she might be called upon either to prove or to eat.

It was easy to see how desperate Wolfe was from the way he confined himself, up to lunch time, to skating around the edges, getting her used to his voice and manner and to hearing him ask any and every kind of question. By the time Fritz summoned us to the dining-room I couldn't see that he had got the faintest flicker of light from any direction.

When we were back in the office and settled again, with Mom in her same chair and Nancylee dragging on a cigarette as if she had been at it for years, Wolfe resumed as before, but soon I noticed that he was circling in toward the scene of the crime. After getting himself up to date on the East Bronx Fraser Girls'

Club and how Nancylee had organized it and put it at the top, he went right on into the studio and began on the Fraser broadcasts. He learned that Nancylee was always there on Tuesday, and sometimes on Friday too. Miss Fraser had promised her that she could get on a live mike some day, at least for a line or two. On the network! Most of the time she sat with the audience, front row, but she was always ready to help with anything, and frequently she was allowed to, but only on account of Miss Fraser. The others thought she was a nuisance.

“Are you?” Wolfe asked.

“You bet I am! But Miss Fraser doesn't think so because she knows I think she's the very hottest thing on the air, simply super, and then there's my club, so you see how that is. The old ego mego.”

You can see why I'd like to be fair and just to her.

Wolfe nodded as man to man. “What sort of things do you help with?”

“Oh.” She waved a hand. “Somebody drops a page of script, I pick it up. One of the chairs squeaks, I hear it first and bring another one. The day it happened, I got the tray of glasses from the cabinet and took them to the table.”

“You did? The day Mr Orchard was a guest?”

“Sure, I often did that.”

“Do you have a key to the cabinet?”

“No, Miss Vance has. She opened it and got the tray of glasses out.” Nancylee smiled. “I broke one once, and did Miss Fraser throw a fit? No definitely. She just told me to bring a paper cup, that's how super she is.”

“Marvellous. When did that happen?”

“Oh, a long while ago, when they were using the plain glasses, before they changed to the dark blue ones.”

“How long ago was it?”

“Nearly a year, it must be.” Nancylee nodded. “Yes, because it was when they first started to drink Starlite on the programme, and the first few times they used plain clear glasses and then they had to change-”

She stopped short.

“Why did they have to change?”

“I don't know.”

I expected Wolfe to pounce, or at least to push. There was no doubt about it.

Nancylee had stopped herself because she was saying, or starting to say, something that she didn't intend to let out, and when she said she didn't know she was lying. But Wolfe whirled and skated off: “I suspect to get them so heavy they wouldn't break.” He chuckled as if that were utterly amusing. “Have you ever drunk Starlite, Miss Shepherd?”

“Me? Are you kidding? When my club got to the top they sent me ten cases.

Truckloads!”

“I don't like it much. Do you?”

“Oh…I guess so. I guess I adore it, but not too much at a time. When I get my programme and have Shepherd Clubs I'm going to work it a different way.” She frowned. “Do you think Nancylee Shepherd is a good radio name, or is Nan Shepherd better, or should I make one up? Miss Fraser's name was Oxhall, and she married a man named Koppel but he died, and when she got into radio she didn't want to use either of them and made one up.”

“Either of yours,” Wolfe said judiciously, “would be excellent. You must tell me some time how you're going to handle your clubs. Do you think Starlite has pepper in it?”