Archie Meets Nero Wolfe Page 4

  Large does not do Nero Wolfe justice. I was not prepared for someone of his ... volume, which at a glance I put at 250 pounds, minimum. He moved in behind his desk with surprising grace and placed a small bouquet of delicate, magenta-colored flowers in a vase on his blotter. They looked nothing like any of the blooms in my Aunt Verna’s prizewinning garden back home in Chillicothe.

  Our host got seated, adjusted himself in an oversized chair, and surveyed the room without expression. “Saul, Fred, Orrie, Mr. Bascom.” He spoke crisply, dipping his head an inch to each. And to me, a look of mild curiosity. “You are the Archie Goodwin Mr. Bascom told me about on the telephone.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I nodded.

  “Just so. He speaks highly of your capabilities, and he is not a man to dispense praise rashly.”

  I had encountered more than a few fat people back home, but they all seemed somewhat unkempt—not necessarily slovenly, just careless in their dress and overall appearance. Nero Wolfe was neither. He wore a pin-striped brown suit with vest, a starched yellow shirt, and a brown-and-yellow-striped silk tie. His large, square face was crowned with well-barbered dark brown hair, and his eyes had an intensity that made you feel he could see right through you.

  “Gentlemen, we have a great deal to cover this morning,” he said. “First, however, I would be a poor host indeed if I did not proffer refreshments. I am having beer. Will anyone join me? Or, given the hour, perhaps coffee? Fritz just brewed a pot.” Fred Durkin chose beer, the rest of us, coffee.

  I don’t know how Wolfe did it, but within forty-five seconds, our greeter at the front door, whom I now knew to be named Fritz, wheeled a serving cart into the office. On it were three bottles of a Canadian beer, two frosted pilsner glasses, a pot of coffee, and three cups with saucers.

  Fritz placed two bottles and a glass in front of Wolfe and opened the third beer, giving it and the other glass to Durkin. He then poured each of us coffee and placed the steaming cups on small tables next to our seats. All was done with swift but unhurried efficiency.

  I watched as Wolfe popped the cap off one of the bottles with an opener he had pulled from his center desk drawer. He looked at me as he poured the beer.

  “Mr. Goodwin,” he said, “by your expression, you wonder how I come to possess what the United States government considers contraband. A man in Toronto feels he is in my debt because of a service I performed for him several years ago, and I have drawn freely and unashamedly upon his debt. He sends me shipments of beer regularly, using a channel I choose not to specify.

  “If my possession and consumption of this beverage constitutes a criminal act, so be it. In my defense, which I concede no court would recognize, I point out that the Volstead Act is an egregious decree passed by misguided legislative bodies that feel the need to legislate morality. The disastrous results of this constitutional amendment are obvious to even the most casual reader of newspapers in New York, Chicago, or any number of major cities in the grip of organized crime syndicates that profit from the government prohibition of alcohol.” With that, he drained half the beer from his glass and set it down.

  “Now,” he said, dabbing his lips with a handkerchief, “we come to the reason for this gathering. Yesterday morning shortly before he was to leave for school, Tommie Williamson, age eight and the son of hotelier Burke Williamson, disappeared from the grounds of the family’s country estate in the environs of Garden City, Long Island. Within hours, the family received a ransom note asking for one hundred thousand dollars in exchange for the boy’s return.”

  “Did Williamson call the police?” Orrie Cather asked.

  “He did not. He feared his local constabulary would somehow endanger Tommie with what he called a ‘ham-handed attempt’ to free his son. He called upon me because I was recommended by a close friend of his, a man whom I once extricated from a difficult situation involving a blackmailer who now resides in one of this state’s penal institutions.”

  Saul Panzer nodded. “You’ll show them the note?”

  “I will pass it around. Fritz has dusted it for fingerprints, and the only ones found on it were those of Burke Williamson. We took his prints when he was here yesterday afternoon.”

  The single sheet made the rounds. It had been torn from a pad of inexpensive paper, the kind available in any drugstore or five-and-dime. “The note came in a plain white envelope that also bore no prints other than those of Mr. Williamson,” Wolfe continued. “It was delivered to the front door of their Long Island residence by a boy of about twelve, according to the butler, who had never seen the youngster before.”

  “And I suppose the kid turned tail and hasn’t been seen since,” Cather put in.

  “You suppose correctly, Orrie. He dashed off after handing the note over,” Wolfe said as I read the message, which was neatly printed in ink, all capitals:

  MR. WILLIAMSON

  YOUR SON IS SAFE. AND HE WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU SAFELY, TOO, BUT ONLY AFTER $100,000 IS RECEIVED. HE IS IN NO DANGER OF BEING HARMED. YOU WILL SOON GET INSTRUCTIONS AS TO HOW THE MONEY IS TO BE DELIVERED. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU TO CONTACT THE POLICE.

  “Isn’t the boy watched when he’s out in the yard?” Del Bascom posed.

  “He is supposed to be,” Wolfe grunted. “He has a nursemaid, named ... he turned to Saul Panzer.

  “Sylvia Moore,” Panzer said. “I drove out to the estate first thing this morning. As you can guess, the place is in turmoil. I talked to this young woman, whose job it is to keep an eye on Tommie, help him with his schoolwork, that sort of thing. She’s distraught, blames herself for what happened.”

  “What did happen?” Cather barked.

  Panzer held up a palm. “I’m getting to that. Tommie goes to a pricey private school not far away, the MeadesGate Academy. The family chauffeur takes him and picks him up every day. Yesterday morning around eight, almost an hour before he was to leave for school, Tommie was out on the grounds, gathering different types of leaves from the grass and off trees as part of a school project. Sylvia Moore was with him. Then one of the other members of the household staff hollered from the house that Miss Moore had an urgent telephone call.”

  “Let me guess,” I cut in, tired of being just a listener. “When she picked up the instrument, there was no one on the other end. And when she went back outside, the boy was gone.”

  “Bingo on both counts. He had disappeared just like that,” Panzer said, snapping his fingers. “Williamson was at his office in Manhattan, but his wife, Lillian, and everybody on the staff combed the grounds—eight acres in all, and not a sign of him. And there’s a six-foot wrought-iron fence encircling the property. The only break is the gates at the entrance off the main road.”

  “Did anybody check to find out where the call came from?” Cather asked.

  “I did,” Panzer answered. “No luck. The local telephone company out there doesn’t have that capability.”

  Wolfe finished his first beer and opened the second bottle. “Saul, you were able to meet the entire staff of the Williamson estate this morning, however briefly. Please give everyone your impressions of them, as well as of the estate itself.”

  Panzer flipped open his notebook. “Okay, first off, the house is a real mansion, brick and stone, English style, three stories, slate roof, with a built-in five-car garage, tennis court, and a swimming pool. It’s got outbuildings, too, a greenhouse and stables. Mrs. Williamson is quite an equestrian. That’s a horseback rider to you,” Panzer said with a grin, turning to Orrie.

  “I know what it means,” Cather shot back.

  “As to the staff, there are eight in all,” Panzer said. “The top dog is the butler, Waverly—just goes by one name, although his given handle is Earl. He’s around fifty-five, stuffy, tall, almost bald, speaks with a British accent that I’m guessing might be affected. He’s been with the family for twenty years, and according to Williamson, their trust in him is absolute.

  “Emily Stratton is the housekeeper,
a spinster, been on board about fifteen years. She’s thin as a telephone pole and prim as a schoolmarm. I’d put her in her mid-to-late forties. Getting five words out of her is a challenge. Even you, Orrie, with your myriad charms, wouldn’t be able to sweet-talk her.”

  Cather scowled. “Based on your description, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to.”

  “The cook is Mrs. Price, although it’s unclear as to whether she’s ever been married. Short, white haired, sixtyish, and carrying at least twenty-five pounds she could easily do without. Like the butler and the housekeeper, she oozes with self-importance and acts like the entire operation would go to wrack and ruin without her. She is susceptible to flattery, though. When I suggested that she must be good to prepare meals for this family, her face turned as red as a Fifth Avenue stoplight and she got tongue-tied.

  “The housemaid, Mary Trent, figures to be all of nineteen at most. She’s slender, dark haired, and shy in a fetching sort of way. She comes from a blue-collar family in Yonkers, where her father runs a service station and auto garage. She has only been with the Williamsons for a year, since just after she graduated from high school. She does most of the housecleaning and waits on the table at meals along with Emily Stratton.

  “Charles Bell handles the chauffeuring duties. He has been with the Williamsons for three-plus years and cuts quite a figure, strutting around in his uniform, cap, and polished boots. He doesn’t seem to be particularly well liked by others on the staff, apparently because of his arrogance. The young man—he’s probably around thirty—seems very pleased with himself. Maybe it’s because of the cars he gets to drive. The Williamson fleet currently includes a Packard sedan, a Pierce-Arrow phaeton, and an Auburn roadster, which Burke Williamson likes to take out for weekend spins.”

  “Probably to impress his neighbors,” Durkin mused.

  “I don’t think so, Fred,” Panzer answered. “Most of his neighbors are probably almost as rich as he is, and besides, he seems like an all right egg, far more modest and self-effacing than several of his household staff.”

  “Well, look at who he is, though. He doesn’t have to impress anyone,” Bascom pointed out.

  “True. To continue, there’s Sylvia Moore, the previously mentioned nanny. And Orrie, this one you would like. She is twenty-six, slender, blond, and smart. Went to one of those classy girls’ finishing schools up in New England. She got hired five years ago to look after little Tommie and tutor him before he started school, and she still works with him on his lessons, as well as helping Mrs. Williamson with her charitable work. I didn’t have much of a conversation with her, though, because she’s so devastated.

  “There are two other members of the staff,” Panzer continued. “Lloyd Carstens oversees the greenhouse and the grounds, including the flower gardens, which have won some local prizes. He’s a crusty character, probably around fifty. He doesn’t waste words and apparently keeps pretty much to himself.

  “Then you’ve got the stable master, Mark Simons—I’d put his age as forty-five—who has worked with horses all his life. He looks after the three animals Mrs. Williamson owns, and I got the distinct impression he and Carstens don’t get along. It has to do at least partly with who has the say over the maintenance of the half-mile bridle path that loops around the property. Each one thinks it’s his responsibility.”

  “Do all these people live in the mansion?” Bascom asked.

  “Everybody but Carstens and Simons,” Panzer said. “They eat breakfast and lunch with the rest of the staff in a servants’ basement dining room but go home every night. They each live only a few miles away.”

  “Anything else to report?” Wolfe asked.

  “No, sir, that’s pretty much it.”

  Wolfe glowered at his empty beer glass, then looked up, taking in a bushel of air and exhaling it slowly. “You all will go out to the Williamson house; the family expects you. Saul will direct the operation. He and Mr. Goodwin will talk to the Williamsons and Miss Moore, the—what did you call her, Saul?”

  “The nanny.”

  Wolfe made a face. “Disgusting term. Orrie, you are to interview the cook, the butler, and the maid. Fred, your assignment is the gardener and the stable master, and Mr. Bascom, see the chauffeur and the housekeeper.

  “All these conversations should be one-on-one, with no one else present. You are to find out where each of them was between seven thirty and nine o’clock yesterday morning. I assume this house is run on a series of well-defined routines. Determine whether there were departures from any of those routines yesterday morning. Check out the work areas of all the employees and determine which of those areas has a telephone, either an extension or a separate line to the outside. Mr. Williamson seemed uninterested concerning this detail when he was here, but then, he was under a great deal of stress. Any questions?”

  “We all will fit in your automobile, Mr. Wolfe,” Panzer said. “May I assume we will be taking it?”

  “You may,” he said, rising and walking out of the room.

  “So Wolfe isn’t going out there himself to have a look-see?” I asked Bascom under my breath as we rose to leave.

  “Who are you kidding? He almost never leaves this place, kid. He just sits behind that big desk of his and noodles things out. And damned if he doesn’t get it right every time. At least that’s been true whenever I’ve been around.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Saul Panzer wheeled Wolfe’s big Heron sedan out to Long Island. Cather reached the car first after we left the brownstone, so he grabbed the front passenger seat, leaving Bascom, Durkin, and me to wedge into the back, there being no jump seat. The conversation on the way out naturally centered on the kidnapping.

  “I can’t figure out how somebody hustled the kid off the property so fast,” Durkin said. “The nanny wasn’t inside for much more than about three or four minutes at most, at least according to what we’re being told.”

  “Yeah, and they had to somehow get the boy up and over the iron fence that rings the whole place,” Del Bascom added.

  “What I can’t get is why Wolfe seems so casual about the whole business,” Cather said. “If it was my kid, I would want faster action than this, and I’d probably call in the cops, too.”

  “As you should be aware by now, Mr. Wolfe always knows what he’s doing, Orrie,” Panzer snapped. “Other than my having a fairly brief conversation with the man, Wolfe is the only one of us so far who’s talked to Williamson, and he has the best sense of the degree of urgency.” I tended to side with Cather in this instance, but I was by far the low man in the pecking order, so I contented myself with watching the scenery as we headed east on the big island, leaving the city behind.

  Saul Panzer did not exaggerate in describing the Williamson estate. We passed through an entrance of opened iron gates hinged to brick pillars that were capped by frosted electric globes the size of basketballs. The paved road passed over a small stone bridge, beneath which ran what I assumed to be the bridle path.

  After we had driven about a quarter mile along a lane lined with flower beds, the house came into view—brick and stone, its width the length of a football field, three full stories, with gables on the top floor and a porte-cochere entrance under which arriving guests in their swank automobiles could disembark without rain or snow falling upon their wealthy and well-tended noggins.

  We tumbled out, and before Saul could rap on its polished brass knocker, the elaborate dark wood front door swung inward, revealing a lean, bald uniformed man, obviously Waverly, the butler.

  “Ah yes, sir, Mr. Panzer, greetings once again. Mr. Williamson is expecting all you gentlemen. Please come in,” he said in a British accent or a reasonable facsimile thereof. We followed him through a vaulted, chandeliered entry hall big enough to hold a first-class dance band and into a paneled, windowless room with indirect lighting that turned out to be Burke Williamson’s study. “He will be with you shortly,” Waverly said, executing a crisp about-face and walking out.

  “
Quite the joint,” Fred Durkin observed, eyeballing the rosewood paneling, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the fireplace, and the chromium bar built into the far wall. “I could get used to this.”

  “As if you’d ever get the chance,” Orrie Cather snorted. “This is hardly your kind of a place to—”

  He got interrupted by the entry of our host. Burke Williamson, who I put at somewhere between forty and forty-five, had the look of wealth about him, from his well-barbered brown hair with a tinge of gray to his herringbone suit and his polished wing-tip shoes. His face, however, bore the lines of strain.

  “Gentlemen, thank you all for coming,” he said in a deep voice like that of a radio announcer. “Please sit down. May I get anyone a drink?”

  We all declined, taking chairs while Williamson remained on his feet. “I met Mr. Panzer earlier today, of course, and as you all know, I visited Mr. Wolfe yesterday. I understand you want to interview everyone on the staff, although I can’t for the life of me imagine why. No one who works here is capable of this ... thing.”

  “Very likely you are correct,” Panzer said with a nod, “but one of them may have seen or heard something that could help us find your son, something they’re not even aware is a clue. Have you gotten a call from the kidnapper yet?”

  Williamson swallowed hard, working to keep his composure. “No, and this waiting ... this damned waiting, has been hard on me, even harder on my wife. I keep expecting the phone to ring.” He lit a cigarette with a shaky hand.

  Panzer, whose diplomacy impressed me, said a few words of commiseration to Williamson, then he introduced all of us.

  The hotel magnate nodded grimly. “I’ve told all the staff they would be interviewed—that is precisely the word I used, interviewed—because I did not want them to feel they were being interrogated. I hope each of you understands and appreciates that distinction.”

  It became Panzer’s turn to nod. “We do, sir, and all of us will try our very best to make the conversations with your staff cordial and without confrontation. However, I know you want us to do everything we can to find your son, and that, not the possibility of offending a member of your household staff, should be our top priority—and yours as well.”