Rex Stout - And be a Villian

It was past eleven when I returned, and soon afterward Michaels arose to go. He was far from being pickled, but he was much more relaxed and rosy than he had been when I let him in. Wolfe was so mellow that he even stood up to say good-bye, and I didn't see his usual flicker of hesitation when Michaels extended a hand. He doesn't care about shaking hands indiscriminately.

Michaels said impulsively, “I want to ask you something.”

“Then do so.”

“I want to consult you professionally-your profession. I need help. I want to pay for it.”

“You will, sir, if it's worth anything.”

“It will be, I'm sure. I want to know, if you are being shadowed, if a man is following you, how many ways are there of eluding him, and what are they, and how are they executed?”

“Good heavens.” Wolfe shuddered. “How long has this been going on?”

“For months.”

“Well-Archie?”

“Sure,” I said. “Glad to.”

“I don't want to impose on you,” Michaels lied. He did. It's late.”

“That's okay. Sit down.”

I really didn't mind, having met his wife.

Chapter Nineteen That, I thought to myself as I was brushing my hair Thursday morning, covered some ground. That was a real step forward.

Then, as I dropped the brush into the drawer, I asked aloud: “Yeah? Toward what?”

In a murder case you expect to spend at least half your time barking up wrong trees. Sometimes that gets you irritated, but what the hell, if you belong in the detective business at all you just skip it and take another look. That wasn't the trouble with this one. We hadn't gone dashing around investigating a funny sound only to learn it was just a cat on a fence. Far from it. We had left all that to the cops. Every move we had made had been strictly pertinent. Our two chief discoveries-the tape on the bottle of coffee and the way the circulation department of What to Expect operated-were unquestionably essential parts of the picture of the death of Cyril Orchard, which was what we were working on.

So it was a step forward. Fine. When you have taken a step forward, the next thing on the programme is another step in the same direction. And that was the pebble in the griddle cake I broke a tooth on that morning. Bathing and dressing and eating breakfast, I went over the situation from every angle and viewpoint, and I had to admit this: if Wolfe had called me up to his room and asked me for a suggestion of how I should spend the day, I would have been tongue-tied.

What I'm doing, if you're following me, is to justify what I did do. When he did call me up to his room, and wished me a good morning, and asked how I had slept, and told me to phone Inspector Cramer and invite him to pay us a visit at eleven o'clock, all I said was: “Yes, sir.”

There was another phone call which I had decided to make on my own. Since it involved a violation of a law Wolfe had passed I didn't want to make it from the office, so when I went out for a stroll to the bank to deposit a cheque from a former client who was paying in instalments, I patronized a booth. When I got Lon Cohen I told him I wanted to ask him something that had no connection with the detective business, but was strictly private. I said I had been offered a job at a figure ten times what he was worth, and fully half what I was, and while I had no intention of leaving Wolfe, I was curious. Had he ever heard of a guy named Arnold Zeck, and what about him? “Nothing for you,” Lon said.

“What do you mean, nothing for me?”

“I mean you don't want a Sunday feature, you want the low-down, and I haven't got it. Zeck is a question mark. I've heard that he owns twenty Assemblymen and six district leaders, and I've also heard that he is merely a dried fish.

There's a rumour that if you.print something about him that he resents your body is washed ashore at Montauk Point, mangled by sharks, but you know how the boys talk. One little detail-this is between us?”

“Forever.”

“There's not a word on him in our morgue. I had occasion to look once, several years ago-when he gave his yacht to the Navy. Not a thing, which is peculiar for a guy that gives away yachts and owns the highest hill in Westchester. What's the job?”

“Skip it. I wouldn't consider it. I thought he still had his yacht.”

I decided to let it lay. If the time should come when Wolfe had to sneak outdoors and look for a place to hide, I didn't want it blamed on me.

Cramer arrived shortly after eleven. He wasn't jovial, and neither was I. When he came, as I had known him to, to tear Wolfe to pieces, or at least to threaten to haul him downtown or send a squad with a paper signed by a judge, he had fire in his eye and springs in his calves. This time he was so forlorn he even let me hang up his hat and coat for him. But as he entered the office, I saw him squaring his shoulders. He was so used to going into that room to be belligerent that it was automatic. He growled a greeting, sat, and demanded: “What have you got this time?”

Wolfe, lips compressed, regarded him a moment and then pointed a finger at him.

“You know, Mr Cramer, I begin to suspect I'm a jackass. Three weeks ago yesterday, when I read in the paper of Mr Orchard's death, I should have guessed immediately why people paid him ten dollars a week. I don't mean merely the general idea of blackmail; that was an obvious possibility; I mean the whole operation, the way it was done,”

“Why, have you guessed it now?”

“No. I've had it described to me.”

“By whom?”

“It doesn't matter. An innocent victim. Would you like to have me describe it to you?”

“Sure. Or the other way around.”

Wolfe nodded. “What? You know about it?”

“Yeah, I know about it. I do now.” Cramer wasn't doing any bragging. He stayed glum. TJnderstand I'm saying nothing against the New York Police Department.

It's the best on earth. But it's a large organization, and you can't expect everyone to know what everybody else did or is doing. My part of it is Homicide.

Well. In September nineteen forty-six, nineteen months ago, a citizen lodged a complaint with a precinct detective sergeant. People had received anonymous letters about him, and he had got a phone call from a man that if he subscribed to a thing called Track Almanac for one year there would be no more letters. He said the stuff in the letters was lies, and he wasn't going to be swindled, and he wanted justice. Because it looked as if it might be a real job the sergeant consulted his captain. They went together to the Track Almanac office, found Orchard there, and jumped him. He denied it, said it must have been someone trying to queer him. The citizen listened to Orchard's voice, both direct and on the phone, and said it hadn't been his voice on the phone, it must have been a confederate. But no lead to a confederate could be found. Nothing could be found. Orchard stood pat. He refused to let them see his subscription list, on the ground that he didn't want his customers pestered, which was within his rights in the absence of a charge. The citizen's lawyer wouldn't let him swear a warrant. There were no more anonymous letters.”

“Beautiful,” Wolfe murmured.

“What the hell is so beautiful?”

“Excuse me. And?”

“And nothing. The captain is now retired, living on a farm in Rhode Island. The sergeant is still a sergeant, as he should be, since apparently he doesn't read the papers. He's up in a Bronx precinct, specializing on kids that throw stones at trains. Just day before yesterday the name Orchard reminded him of something!

So I've got that. I've put men on to the other Orchard subscribers that we know about, except the one that was just a sucker-plenty of men to cover anybody at all close to them, to ask about anonymous letters. There have been no results on Savarese or Madeline Fraser, but we've uncovered it on the Leconne woman, the one that runs a beauty parlour. It was the same routine-the letters and the phone call, and she fell for it. She says the letters were lies, and it looks like they were, but she paid up to get them stopped, and she pushed us off, and you too, because she didn't want a stink.”

Cramer made a gesture. “Does that describe it?”

“Perfectly,”Wolfe granted.

“Okay. You called me, and I came because I swear to God I don't see what it gets me. It was you who got brilliant and made it that the poison was for the Fraser woman, not Orchard. Now that looks crazy, but what don't? If it was for Orchard after all, who and why in that bunch? And what about Beula Poole? Were she and Orchard teaming it? Or was she horning in on his list? By God, I never saw anything like it! Have you been giving me a runaround? I want to know!”

Cramer pulled a cigar from his pocket and got his teeth closed on it.

Wolfe shook his head. “Not I,” he declared. “I’m a little dizzy myself. Your description was sketchy, and it might help to fill it in. Are you in a hurry?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then look at this. It is important, if we are to see clearly the connection of the two events, to know exactly what the roles of Mr Orchard and Miss Poole were. Let us say that I am an ingenious and ruthless man, and I decide to make some money by blackmailing wholesale, with little or no risk to myself.”

“Orchard got poisoned,” Cramer growled, “and she got shot.”

“Yes,” Wolfe agreed, “but I didn't. I either know people I can use or I know how to find them. I am a patient and resourceful man. I supply Orchard with funds to begin publication of Track Almanac. I have lists prepared, with the greatest care, of persons with ample incomes from a business or profession or job that would make them sensitive to my attack. Then I start operating. The phone calls are made neither by Orchard nor by me. Of course Orchard, who is in an exposed position, has never met me, doesn't know who I am, and probably isn't even aware that I exist. Indeed, of those engaged in the operation, very few know that I exist, possibly only one.”

Wolfe rubbed his palms together. “All this is passably clever. I am taking from my victims only a small fraction of their income, and I am not threatening them with exposure of a fearful secret. Even if I knew their secrets, which I don't, I would prefer not to use them in the anonymous letters; that would not merely harass them, it would fill them with terror, and I don't want terror, I only want money. Therefore, while my lists are carefully compiled, no great amount of research is required, just enough to get only the kind of people who would be least likely to put up a fight, either by going to the police or by any other method. Even should one resort to the police, what will happen? You have already answered that, Mr Cramer, by telling what did happen.”

“That sergeant was dumb as hell,” Cramer grumbled.

“Oh, no. There was the captain too. Take an hour sometime to consider what you would have done and see where you come out. What if one or two more citizens had made the same complaint? Mr Orchard would have insisted that he was being persecuted by an enemy. In the extreme case of an avalanche of complaints, most improbable, or of an exposure by an exceptionally capable policeman, what then?

Mr Orchard would be done for, but I wouldn't. Even if he wanted to squeal, he couldn't, not on me, for he doesn't know me.”

“He has been getting money to you,” Cramer Objected.

“Not to me. He never gets within ten miles of me. The handling of the money is an important detail and you may be sure it has been well organized. Only one man ever gets close enough to me to bring me money. It shouldn't take me long to build up a fine list of subscribers to Track Almanac-certainly a hundred, possibly five hundred. Let us be moderate and say two hundred. That's two thousand dollars a week. If Mr Orchard keeps half, he can pay all expenses and have well over thirty thousand a year for his net. If he has any sense, and he has been carefully chosen and is under surveillance, that will satisfy him. For me, it's a question of my total volume. How many units do I have? New York is big enough for four or five, Chicago for two or three, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles for two each, at least a dozen cities for one. If I wanted to stretch it I could easily get twenty units working. But we'll be moderate again and stop at twelve. That would bring me in six hundred thousand dollars a year for my share. My operating costs shouldn't be more than half that; and when you consider that my net is really net, with no income tax to pay, I am doing very well indeed.”