Archie Meets Nero Wolfe Read online

  On slow days, of which there were too many, he’d regale me with cases he’d had, some of them sounding like they came right off the pages of pulps like Black Mask or Dime Detective.

  “This Chapman business you did such a good job on, in a weird way it reminds me of something I worked on a few years back,” he said one rainy morning as we sat in his office drinking coffee brewed by Wilda. “This natty swell named Fletcher—he was some sort of middle-level bank officer—shows up at my door one day and says his wife has disappeared. My first thought is that she’s run off with some other guy, but I don’t say so, of course. I listen.

  “He tells me she’s a perfect wife, that they been married eight years, no kids, have a nice apartment on the Upper East Side. He makes it sound like an ideal marriage, of which there is no such thing. He goes on about how wonderful and beautiful she is, blah, blah.

  “I ask about her family, and he tells me she was an only child, came up from North Carolina, both parents dead. He’s willing to pay big dough for me to try finding her, so I figure, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. I ask a bunch of questions about her habits, her friends, and he says she’s pretty much a loner, reads a lot at home. Sounds fishy to me, especially when he gives me a snapshot of her. She’s a real doll, and he tells me that she has flaming red hair, which you can’t tell from a black-and-white shot.

  “This looks to me like a skirt who should be out and around town, having good friends, enjoying life,” Bascom says, then adds apologetically, “I guess I’m making this too long, huh?”

  “Not at all, take your time,” I said. “I like a good story.”

  “Anyway, I start by doing the usual, checking around the neighborhood where they live. I go into groceries, drugstores, dry cleaners, that sort of stuff. ‘Oh yeah, that’s Lucille,’ they say when I show the picture. ‘Nice lady, quiet, haven’t seen her around lately. Has something happened to her?’”

  “How do you answer that question?” I asked.

  Bascom took a puff of his cigar. “I get vague and say I don’t know her exact address and that I’m trying to locate her because a distant relative left her some money. Usually, somebody will give me her address then, which, of course, I already know, but at least it’s a cover for why I’m asking about her.

  “I get this hunch, don’t ask me why, that she’s left Manhattan. So I hang around the Staten Island Ferry docks, showing her picture to crewmen. No luck at all. Then I try the Hoboken Ferry, and one of the crew recognizes her, but only after I mention her red hair. ‘Yeah, I think she was on a westbound run a few weeks back. I remember the hair, and one other thing. It was a rainy day, but she was wearing dark glasses.’”

  “Now I think I might have a hunch,” I put in.

  “You just might at that,” Bascom said. “I start hanging around the business area of Hoboken close to the ferry terminal, asking questions in shops and restaurants. I show her picture to everybody and tell the same story that I had on the Upper East Side. Turns out several people know of her, and a waitress in a coffee shop says ‘Oh, that’s Lucille Jones, she comes in here often—a lovely woman, so refined, a real lady.’ Before I can even ask, the waitress gives me the address where she lives, a small apartment building about three blocks away.

  “Sure enough, there’s an ‘L. Jones’ listed on a mailbox in the foyer. She’s on the third floor, and I press the button. When she answers, I say into the speaker that I’m from the gas company investigating a leak, and she buzzes me in.

  “She’s waiting for me at the door to her place, and she looks great. Her husband hadn’t exaggerated the red hair. It’s spectacular. Once inside the apartment, I tell her who I really am and why I’m there.

  “Damned if she doesn’t collapse onto a sofa and start sobbing, her face in her hands. I sit across from her and wait for the crying to stop. When it does, she looks at me and says, ‘I don’t know what my husband is paying you, but I’ll pay you more to say you can’t find me.’

  “I tell her I don’t want her dough and ask why she doesn’t want to go back home. That’s when I find out that Fletcher was madly jealous of her, didn’t want her going out when he was at work. Even worse, she says he beat her at least once a week, sometimes more often, especially when he’d had a snoot full. No wonder she stayed home so much of the time.”

  “So those dark glasses on the Hoboken Ferry ride were to hide a shiner?” I posed.

  Bascom nodded. “And some other bruises; she even shows me one on her arm that hadn’t quite healed. Then she gets almost hysterical, taking out a checkbook—she has her own account—and asks me to name my price.

  “I tell her to forget it, that I’m already getting plenty from her husband. I also tell her I’ve already forgotten ever having found her. Then I leave.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it,” Bascom says. “Next I tell Fletcher that after an exhaustive search using several operatives, I am simply unable to locate his wife, although I keep every cent of his generous advance. And I don’t feel guilty about that, not for a second.”

  “Did he ever find her?”

  “Not that I know of. You have to remember that even though the Hudson—or the North River, as we old-timers call it—is only about a mile or so wide, it might just as well be fifty times that or more. How often do New Yorkers go to Jersey, other than those who work there? Sure, in addition to the ferries and the tubes, you got the brand-new Holland Tunnel for autos now, but still, it’s another world over on that side of our old Hudson, as far away as Mars. Chances are if Lucille stays put in Hoboken, nobody she knows from Manhattan will ever see her.”

  I tell that story because it says a lot about Del Bascom, and also because it’s been part of my continuing education as a detective. That education also included all manner of cases I worked on with Bascom, including the Morningside Piano Heist, the Rive Gauche Art Gallery Swindle, and the Sumner-Hayes Burglary, the last of which got both of us into hot water with the cops for a while.

  Among the most memorable of those early jobs, though, had to be the one involving a warehouse over in Long Island City, which lies just across the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan. Radios, phonographs, and bicycles had been disappearing from the building, and the security service guarding it—no surprise—was suspected. The agency got hired to investigate, and Bascom put me on the case with a freelance operative named Fred Durkin.

  I had never met the man until he came into the office the day we were to begin our surveillance at the warehouse. Bascom made the introductions. Durkin was my height at five eleven, thickset and thin haired, and had a face like the map of Ireland.

  “Nice to meet you, Goodwin,” he said, smiling and shaking hands with a firm grip.

  “Call me Archie.”

  “I will, and you call me Fred. Sounds like this warehouse thing is some sort of inside job,” he told Bascom.

  “Yeah, it sure does. I got the owner to send their guards home temporarily. He told the service he was going without any security, at least for a while, because of costs. You two will be on the premises for at least the next several nights, from nine o’clock until the sun comes up.”

  “Seems like the security outfit would be suspicious as to why they’ve been replaced,” Durkin said.

  “No doubt they are,” Bascom replied. “That’s not our problem; it’s theirs. Seems like either their own people are sticky fingered or they’re being paid off to let somebody else into the building. At least that’s how I read it.”

  Durkin carried his own pistol, while Bascom gave me a .32-caliber snub-nosed revolver. This was the first time working for him that I’d been armed, and I knew he still had a deep-seated fear that I had an itchy trigger finger.

  The first night on the job, nothing happened. The brick warehouse, all five stories, was quiet as a tomb. When we left around six in the morning, Durkin muttered about this being “a fool’s errand.” I was inclined to agree.

  Night number two seemed like more of
the same, until three a.m., when I heard noises coming from the direction of the loading dock. I was on the fourth floor at the time and made my way down three flights of stairs, avoiding the noise of the elevator. Durkin and I arrived on the ground floor together, each with flashlights on. He whispered that we should be on opposite sides of the loading dock doors about twenty feet away from them.

  “Let ’em come on in, and we’ll wait until they start trying to haul stuff out,” Durkin said in hushed tones. “That way, we’ll catch ’em red-handed.” I was glad it was so dark he couldn’t see me stifle a chuckle. I didn’t know anybody actually used “red-handed” other than in the pulps.

  We separated, shut off our flashlights, and crouched down. I drew my revolver as the big sliding door to the loading dock got rolled back with a subdued rattle. Light from an outside streetlamp silhouetted a figure in the now-open doorway who carried an electric torch. As its beam played around the vaulted room, I ducked for cover behind piled-high stacks of crates, but my foot kicked a loose wooden palette on the concrete floor, making a scraping sound that I felt could be heard all the way across the East River into Manhattan.

  The beam from the torch lit me up as I dropped onto the floor and pointed my revolver in its direction. The click of a hammer cut the sudden silence. Before I could squeeze the trigger, a single shot cracked off, followed by a cry of agony. Fred Durkin?

  “You son of a bitch!” That definitely was Durkin, but he hadn’t been the screamer. “There’s another one outside, Archie,” he rasped as I rushed to the open doorway to see a tall, lean man in the parking lot, hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot!” he pleaded. His own pistol, an automatic, lay on the ground at his feet, a sign of surrender. I jumped down from the loading dock and covered him as I picked up his gun and pocketed it.

  The scream I’d first heard now became an extended groaning. I marched the lean man back into the building, prodding him with my revolver. I found Durkin standing over a writhing little weasel who clutched a bleeding hand. “The miserable bastard had the drop on you, Archie,” he growled. “I had no choice. I hadda fire.”

  “You shot the revolver out of his hand?” I said, stunned. Durkin nodded.

  “That’s a great piece of shooting.”

  He shook his head. “Not so great, Archie. I was trying to kill him.”

  Several hours later, Bascom, Durkin, and I sat drinking coffee in Bascom’s office and reviewing the events of the early morning. Fred and I had spent a couple of hours with members of New York’s finest at the Tenth Precinct. Once again, I had the pleasure of a spirited conversation with Lieutenant George Rowcliff, although like the first time, he did most of the conversing.

  “You’re new to this town, Goodwin, and already I’ve s-seen more of you than I hope to see for the remainder of my life, which I hope is a g-good many years. Are you a trouble magnet?”

  “I’m just a guy trying to make an honest living, Lieutenant. Seems I keep running into citizens of your fair metropolis who have guns pointed at me with intent to do harm.”

  I could give you more of our one-sided dialogue, but suffice it to say Rowcliff’s stuttering increased as his ranting grew louder. Since I had not fired a shot, he didn’t have much to go on, although he spent plenty of time with Durkin.

  “What could the lieutenant do to me?” Fred posed. “After all, we nailed a couple of armed robbers for his department.”

  “True,” said Del Bascom. “But you have to remember that Rowcliff was born angry. He needs to blow off steam or he’ll explode. Did either of you see Cramer while you were at the Tenth?”

  Durkin shook his head. “Who’s Cramer?” I asked.

  “Inspector Lionel Cramer, he runs Homicide West,” Bascom said. “Tough but fair, and a damned sight smarter than Rowcliff. Of course, this wasn’t a homicide case, which is why he didn’t bother seeing either of you. For that matter, I don’t know why Rowcliff stuck his nose in. He’s a homicide man, too.”

  “All in all, I think it was a pretty good day’s work,” I said, “thanks to Fred here.”

  Durkin’s Irish face reddened with the praise. “I just did what either of you woulda done in the same spot,” he muttered.

  “Maybe,” I said. “All I know is, I was a bull’s-eye for that sawed-off mug. Another couple of seconds, and I would have ended up on tomorrow’s train home to Ohio packed in a pine box.”

  “Hell, he might have missed you altogether,” Bascom said in an attempt to lighten up the conversation.

  “Anything is possible,” I conceded, “but I am sure glad that Mr. Durkin here is fast on the draw, even if he claims his aim was off.”

  Fred colored again, and we finished our coffee in silence, contemplating what had happened and what might have been.

  “Well, I gotta get home,” the stocky detective said, rising. “The wife will wonder where I am. See you both later. Thanks for the business, Del; I don’t get enough jobs these days. It was good working with you, Archie. Maybe our paths will cross again sometime.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” I replied, meaning it.

  CHAPTER 6

  I worked on a lot more cases with Del Bascom after the Long Island City warehouse business, but they definitely weren’t the most memorable ones. After I’d been on his payroll for about a month, Bascom came in late one morning and asked me to join him in his office.

  “Close the door,” he said after I’d walked in and started for a chair. This had to be something out of the ordinary, because the gumshoe didn’t often shut his door.

  I sat as he looked down at his desk blotter, frowning. “Archie, what I’m going to tell you is confidential.”

  “As you know, I have been known to keep a secret or two.”

  “Of course, of course. Okay, here’s the deal: I’ve been invited to be part of a team investigating a kidnapping, and I want to bring you along on this.”

  I nodded. “Who’s been grabbed?”

  “Burke Williamson’s kid.”

  The name meant nothing to me, and my face must have registered the fact, because Bascom slapped his forehead with a palm.

  “Sorry, I keep forgetting how new you still are to this town. Burke Williamson has to be one of the ten richest men in New York, maybe even one of the five richest. He owns the Olympus Hotel Chain, the one with the slogan ‘Every Day, Olympus Houses a World of Travelers.’”

  “Now them I have heard of. That name is known even in the most off-the-beaten-track corners of Ohio.”

  “Their eight-year-old son, Tommie, got snatched from the big country place they have out on Long Island yesterday morning. There’s been nothing in the papers about it.”

  “If they’re as rich as you say, why wasn’t the kid better protected?”

  “Fair question,” Bascom said.

  “Also, given their piles of dough, why don’t they just pay the kidnappers off?”

  “Another good question, Archie. We’ll have to ask Nero Wolfe.”

  “Who?”

  “Nero Wolfe, the smartest private detective in town, and maybe in the world, for my money. It’s his case, but he’s asked me to be part of his team. He’s got three operatives he usually works with, and occasionally he brings me in on his cases. This is one of those times, and I want you along, too.”

  “Fine by me. Nero, huh? Where’d he get that moniker?”

  “I don’t know, but you’ll have the opportunity to ask him, if you don’t care what kind of reaction you get. We’re due at his place at eleven.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were in a Yellow Cab headed for Nero Wolfe’s residence, which I learned was on West Thirty-Fifth Street over near the Hudson. “Be prepared for an experience,” Bascom said. “This man is like nobody you’ve ever met, or will ever meet.” We pulled up in front of an ordinary-looking brownstone that was part of a solid row of similar residences between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues on what seemed like a typical New York City block, if there is such a thing.

  T
he door was opened by a short, white-haired man with a neatly trimmed mustache and wearing a waiter’s white apron. “Ah, Mr. Bascom, Mr. Wolfe is expecting you,” he said in what I took to be a French accent. “And you are Mr. Goodwin, I believe?” he added, turning toward me with the hint of a bow.

  “In the flesh. But you can call me Archie, everybody does.”

  He smiled, took our coats, and hung them on a rack in the foyer, then led us along a carpeted hall to the second door on the left. We stepped into a big room that seemed inviting. In order, I noticed a cherrywood desk with no one behind it, a wall of bookcases, an Oriental rug that was mostly yellow, and the largest globe I had ever laid eyes on, at least four times the size of the one in Mr. Mason’s history classroom back home in my high school.

  Only then did I realize three people were parked in the room, one of whom I recognized. “Hi, Arch,” Fred Durkin said from his spot on a sofa, giving me a salute and a grin. “Didn’t take all that long for us to meet again, huh?”

  The man next to Fred looked to be about four years older than me and was not bad-looking, if you could get past the smirk on his phiz. He looked like somebody who thought damned highly of himself and dared you to suggest otherwise. The third joe sat on a red leather chair at one end of the unoccupied desk. He had stooped shoulders, and his face seemed to be about two-thirds nose, but his dark eyes moved quickly, missing nothing.

  “Hi, Del,” he said to Bascom, then turned to me. “I’m Saul Panzer, and I see you already know Fred. That self-appointed God’s-gift-to-women next to him is Orrie Cather. And you are ...?”

  “Archie Goodwin.”

  “Welcome aboard, Goodwin,” Panzer said. “Mr. Wolfe should be down in about ... one minute,” he said after consulting his wristwatch.

  Bascom took one of the yellow chairs facing the big desk, and I dropped into a similar one next to him. My back was to the hall doorway, so I did not see our host arrive until he came into my line of sight. And quite a sight he was.