As far as Wolfe was concerned, the office being sealed made no difference in the morning up to eleven o’clock, since his schedule had him in the plant rooms from nine to eleven. With me it did. From breakfast on was the best time for my office chores, including the morning mail.
That Tuesday morning, however, it didn’t matter much, since I was kept busy from eight o’clock on by the phone and the doorbell. After nine Saul was there to help, but not with the phone because the orders were that I was to answer all calls. They were mostly from newspapers, but there were a couple from Homicide — once Rowcliff and once Purley Stebbins — and a few scattered ones, including one with comic relief from the president of the Manhattan Flower Club. I took them on the extension in the kitchen. Every time I lifted the thing and told the transmitter, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking,” my pulse went up a notch and then had to level off again. I had one argument, with a bozo in the District Attorney’s office who had the strange idea that he could order me to report for an interview at eleven-thirty sharp, which ended by my agreeing to call later to fix an hour.
A little before eleven I was in the kitchen with Saul, who at Wolfe’s direction had been briefed to date, trying to come to terms on a bet. I was offering him even money that the call would come by noon and he was holding out for five to three, having originally asked for two to one. I was suggesting sarcastically that we change sides when the phone rang and I got it and said distinctly, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
“Mr. Goodwin?”
“Right.”
“You sent me a note.”
My hand wanted to grip the phone the way Vedder had gripped the flowerpot, but I wouldn’t let it.
“Did I? What about?”
“You suggested that we make an appointment. Are you in a position to discuss it?”
“Sure. I’m alone and no extensions are on. But I don’t recognize your voice. Who is this?”
That was just putting a nickel’s worth of breath on a long shot. Saul, at a signal from me, had raced up to the extension in Wolfe’s room, and this bird might possibly be completely loony. But no.
“I have two voices. This is the other one. Have you made a decision yet?”
“No. I was waiting to hear from you.”
“That’s wise, I think. I’m willing to discuss the matter. Are you free for this evening?”
“I can wiggle free.”
“With a car to drive?”
“Yeah, I have a car.”
“Drive to a lunchroom at the northeast corner of Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue. Get there at eight o’clock. Park your car on Fifty-first Street, but not at the corner. Got that?”
“Yes.”
“You will be alone, of course. Go in the lunchroom and order something to eat. I won’t be there, but you will get a message. You’ll be there at eight o’clock?”
“Yes. I still don’t recognize your voice. I don’t think you’re the person I sent the note to.”
“I am. It’s good, isn’t it?”
The connection went.
I hung up, told Fritz he could answer calls now, and hot-footed it to the stairs and up a flight. Saul was there on the landing.
“Whose voice was that?” I demanded.
“Search me. You heard all I did.” His eyes had a gleam in them, and I suppose mine did too.
“Whoever it was,” I said, “I’ve got a date. Let’s go up and tell the genius. I’ve got to admit he saved a lot of postage.”
We mounted the other two flights and found Wolfe in the cool room, inspecting a bench of dendrobiums for damage from the invasion of the day before. When I told him about the call he merely nodded, not even taking the trouble to smirk, as if picking a murderer first crack out of ten dozen men was the sort of thing he did between yawns.
“That call,” he said, “validates our assumptions and verifies our calculation, but that’s all. If it had done more than that it wouldn’t have been made. Has anyone come to take those seals off?”
I told him no. “I asked Stebbins about it and he said he’d ask Cramer.”
“Don’t ask again,” he snapped. “We’ll go down to my room.”
If the strangler had been in Wolfe’s house the rest of that day he would have felt honored — or anyway he should. Even during Wolfe’s afternoon hours in the plant rooms, from four to six, his mind was on my appointment, as was proved by the crop of new slants and ideas that poured out of him when he came down to the kitchen. Except for a trip to Leonard Street to answer an hour’s worth of questions by an assistant district attorney, my day was devoted to it too. My most useful errand, though at the time it struck me as a waste of time and money, was one made to Doc Vollmer for a prescription and then to a drugstore under instructions from Wolfe.
When I got back from the D.A.’s office Saul and I got in the sedan and went for a reconnaissance. We didn’t stop at Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue, but drove past it four times. The main idea was to find a place for Saul. He and Wolfe both insisted that he had to be there with his eyes and ears open, and I insisted that he had to be covered enough not to scare off my date, who could spot his big nose a mile off. We finally settled for a filling station across the street from the lunchroom. Saul was to have a taxi drive in there at eight o’clock, and stay in the passenger’s seat while the driver tried to get his carburetor adjusted. There were so many contingencies to be agreed on that if it had been anyone but Saul I wouldn’t have expected him to remember more than half. For instance, in case I left the lunchroom and got in my car and drove off Saul was not to follow unless I cranked my window down.
Trying to provide for contingencies was okay in a way, but at seven o’clock, as the three of us sat in the dining room, finishing the roast duck, I had the feeling that we might as well have spent the day playing pool. Actually it was strictly up to me, since I had to let the other guy make the rules until and unless it got to where I felt I could take over and win. And with the other guy making the rules no one gets very far, not even Nero Wolfe, arranging for contingencies ahead of time; you meet them as they come, and if you meet one wrong it’s too bad.
Saul left before I did, to find a taxi driver that he liked the looks of. When I went to the hall for my hat and raincoat, Wolfe came along, and I was really touched, since he wasn’t through yet with his afterdinner coffee.
“I still don’t like the idea,” he insisted, “of your having that thing in your pocket. I think you should slip it inside your sock.”
“I don’t.” I was putting the raincoat on. “If I get frisked, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket.”
“You’re sure that gun is loaded?”
“For God’s sake. I never saw you so anxious. Next you’ll be telling me to put on my rubbers.”
He even opened the door for me.
It wasn’t actually raining, merely trying to make up its mind whether to or not, but after a couple of blocks I reached to switch on the windshield wiper. As I turned uptown on Tenth Avenue the dash clock said 7:47; as I turned left on Fifty-first Street it had only got to 7:51. At that time of day in that district there was plenty of space, and I rolled to the curb and stopped about twenty yards short of the corner, stopped the engine and turned off the lights, and cranked my window down for a good view of the filling station across the street. There was no taxi there. I glanced at my wrist watch and relaxed. At 7:59 a taxi pulled in and stopped by the pumps, and the driver got out and lifted the hood and started peering. I put my window up, locked three doors, pulled the key out, got myself out, locked the door, walked to the lunchroom, and entered.
There was one hash slinger behind the counter and five customers scattered along on the stools. I picked a stool that left me elbow room, sat, and ordered ice cream and coffee. That made me slightly conspicuous in those surroundings, but I refused to insult Fritz’s roast duck, which I could still taste. The counterman served me and I took my time. At 8:12 the ice cream was gone and my cup empty, and I ordered a refill. I had about got to the end of that too when a male entered, looked along the line, came straight to me, and asked me what my name was. I told him, and he handed me a folded piece of paper and turned to go.
He was barely old enough for high school, and I made no effort to hold him, thinking that the bird I had a date with was not likely to be an absolute sap. Unfolding the paper, I saw neatly printed in pencil:
Go to your car and get a note under the windshield wiper. Sit in the car to read it.
I paid what I owed, walked to my car and got the note as I was told, unlocked the car and got in, turned on the light, and read in the same print:
Make no signal of any kind. Follow instructions precisely. Turn right on 11th Ave. and go slowly to 56th St. Turn right on 56th and go to 9th Ave. Turn right on 9th Ave. Right again on 45th. Left on 11th Ave. Left on 38th. Right on 7th Ave. Right on 27th St. Park on 27th between 9th and 10th Aves. Go to No. 814 and tap five times on the door. Give the man who opens the door this note and the other one. He will tell you where to go.
I didn’t like it much, but I had to admit it was a handy arrangement for seeing to it that I went to the conference unattached or there wouldn’t be any conference. It had now decided to rain. Starting the engine, I could see dimly through the misty window that Saul’s taxi driver was still monkeying with his carburetor, but of course I had to resist the impulse to crank the window down to wave so long. Keeping the instructions in my left hand, I rolled to the corner, waited for the light to change, and turned right on Eleventh Avenue. Since I had not been forbidden to keep my eyes open I did so, and as I stopped at Fifty-second for the red light I saw a black or dark blue sedan pull away from the curb behind me and creep in my direction. I took it for granted that that was my chaperon, but even so I followed directions and kept to a crawl until I reached Fifty-sixth and turned right.
In spite of all the twistings and turnings and the lights we had to stop at, I didn’t get the license number of the black sedan for certain until the halt at Thirty-eighth Street and Seventh Avenue. Not that that raised my pulse any, license plates not being welded on, but what the hell, I was a detective, wasn’t I? It was at that same corner, seeing a flatfoot on the sidewalk, that I had half a notion to jump out, summon him, and tackle the driver of the sedan. If it was the strangler, I had the two printed notes in my possession, and I could at least have made it stick enough for an escorted trip to the Fourteenth Precinct Station for a chat. I voted it down, and was soon glad of it.
The guy in the sedan was not the strangler, as I soon learned. On Twenty-seventh Street there was space smack in front of Number 814 and I saw no reason why I shouldn’t use it. The sedan went to the curb right behind me. After locking my car I stood on the sidewalk a moment, but my chaperon just sat tight, so I kept to the instructions, mounted the steps to the stoop of the run-down old brownstone, entered the vestibule, and knocked five times on the door. Through the glass panel the dimly lit hall looked empty. As I peered in, thinking I would either have to knock a lot louder or ignore instructions and ring the bell, I heard footsteps behind and turned. It was my chaperon.
“Well, we got here,” I said cheerfully.
“You damn near lost me at one light,” he said accusingly. “Give me them notes.”
I handed them to him — all the evidence I had. As he unfolded them for a look I took him in. He was around my age and height, skinny but with muscles, with outstanding ears and a purple mole on his right jaw. If it was him I had a date with I sure had been diddled. “They look like it,” he said, and stuffed the notes in a pocket. From another pocket he produced a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “Follow me.”
I did so, to the stairs and up. As we ascended two flights, with him in front, it would have been a cinch for me to reach and take a gun off his hip if there had been one there, but there wasn’t. He may have preferred a shoulder holster like me. The stair steps were bare worn wood, the walls had needed plaster since at least Pearl Harbor, and the smell was a mixture I wouldn’t want to analyze. On the second landing he went down the hall to a door at the rear, opened it, and signaled me through with a jerk of his head.
There was another man there, but still it wasn’t my date — anyway I hoped not. It would be an overstatement to say the room was furnished, but I admit there was a table, a bed, and three chairs, one of them upholstered. The man, who was lying on the bed, pushed himself up as we entered, and as he swung around to sit, his feet barely reached the floor. He had shoulders and a torso like a heavyweight wrestler, and legs like an underweight jockey. His puffed eyes blinked in the light from the unshaded bulb as if he had been asleep.
“That him?” he demanded and yawned.
Skinny said it was. The wrestler-jockey, W-J for short, got up and went to the table, picked up a ball of thick cord, approached me and spoke. “Take off your hat and coat and sit there.” He pointed to one of the straight chairs.
“Hold it,” Skinny commanded him. “I haven’t explained yet.” He faced me. “The idea is simple. This man that’s coming to see you don’t want any trouble. He just wants to talk. So we tie you in that chair and leave you, and he comes and you have a talk, and after he leaves we come back and cut you loose and out you go. Is that plain enough?”
I grinned at him. “It sure is, brother. It’s too damn plain. What if I won’t sit down? What if I wiggle when you start to tie me?”
“Then he don’t come and you don’t have a talk.”
“What if I walk out now?”
“Go ahead. We get paid anyhow. If you want to see this guy, there’s only one way: we tie you in the chair.”
“We get more if we tie him,” W-J objected. “Let me persuade him.”
“Lay off,” Skinny commanded him.
“I don’t want any trouble either,” I stated. “How about this? I sit in the chair and you fix the cord to look right but so I’m free to move in case of fire. There’s a hundred bucks in the wallet in my breast pocket. Before you leave you help yourselves.”
“A lousy C?” W-J sneered. “For Chrissake shut up and sit down.”
“He has his choice,” Skinny said reprovingly.
I did indeed. It was a swell illustration of how much good it does to try to consider contingencies in advance. In all our discussions that day none of us had put the question, what to do if a pair of smooks offered me my pick of being tied in a chair or going home to bed. As far as I could see, standing there looking them over, that was all there was to it, and it was too early to go home to bed.
Thinking it would help to know whether they really were smooks or merely a couple of rummies on the payroll of some fly-specked agency, I decided to try something. Not letting my eyes know what my hand was about to do, I suddenly reached inside my coat to the holster, and then they had something more interesting than my face to look at: Saul’s clean shiny automatic.
The wrestler-jockey put his hands up high and froze. Skinny looked irritated.
“For why?” he demanded.
“I thought we might all go for a walk down to my car. Then to the Fourteenth Precinct, which is the closest.”
“What do we do then?”
There he had me.
“You either want to see this guy or you don’t,” Skinny explained patiently. “Seeing how you got that gun out, I guess he must know you. I don’t blame him wanting your hands arranged for.” He turned his palms up. “Make up your mind.”
I put the gun back in the holster, took off my hat and raincoat and hung them on a hook on the wall, moved one of the straight chairs so the light wouldn’t glare in my eyes, and sat.
“Okay,” I told them, “but by God don’t overdo it. I know my way around and I can find you if I care enough, don’t think I can’t.”
They unrolled the cord, cutting pieces off, and went to work. W-J tied my left wrist to the rear left leg of the chair while Skinny did the right. They were both thorough, but to my surprise Skinny was rougher. I insisted it was too tight, and he gave a stingy thirty-second of an inch. They wanted to do my ankles the same way, to the bottoms of the front legs of the chair, but I claimed I would get cramps sitting like that, and I was already fastened to the chair, and it would be just as good to tie my ankles together. They discussed it, and I had my way. Skinny made a final inspection of the knots and then went over me. He took the gun from my shoulder holster and tossed it on the bed, made sure I didn’t have another one, and left the room.
W-J picked up the gun and scowled at it. “These goddam things,” he muttered. “They make more trouble.” He went to the table and put the gun down on it, tenderly, as if it were something that might break. Then he crossed to the bed and stretched out on it.
“How long do we have to wait?” I asked.
“Not long. I wasn’t to bed last night.” He closed his eyes.
He got no nap. His barrel chest couldn’t have gone up and down more than a dozen times before the door opened and Skinny came in. With him was a man in a gray pin-stripe suit and a dark gray Homburg, with a gray topcoat over his arm. He had gloves on. W-J got off the bed and onto his toothpick legs. Skinny stood by the open door. The man put his hat and coat on the bed, came and took a look at my fastenings, and told Skinny, “All right, I’ll come for you.” The two rummies departed, shutting the door. The man stood facing me, looking down at me, and I looked back.
He smiled. “Would you have known me?”
“Not from Adam,” I said, both to humor him and because it was true.