Rex Stout

This Won’t Kill You

1

At the end of the sixth inning the score was Boston 11, New York 1.

I would not have believed that the day would ever come when, seated in a lower box between home and first, at the seventh and deciding game of the World Series between the Giants and Red Sox, I would find myself glomming a girl, no matter who. I am by no means above glomming a girl if she is worthy, but not at the Polo Grounds, where my mind is otherwise occupied. That awful day, though, I did.

The situation was complex and will have to be explained. It was a mess even before the game started. Pierre Mondor, owner of the famous Mondor’s Restaurant in Paris, was visiting New York and was our house guest. He got the notion, God knows how or why, that Wolfe had to take him to a baseball game, and Wolfe’s conception of the obligations of a host wouldn’t let him use his power of veto. Tickets were no problem, since Emil Chisholm, oil millionaire and part-owner of the Giants, considered himself deeply in Wolfe’s debt on account of a case we had handled for him a few years back.

So that October afternoon, a Wednesday, I got the pair of them, the noted private detective and the noted chef, up to the Polo Grounds in a taxi, steered them through the mob into the entrance, along the concrete ramps, and down the aisle to our box. It was twenty past one — only ten minutes to game time — and the stands were jammed. I motioned to Mondor, and he slid in and sat. Wolfe stood and glared down at the wooden slats and metal arms. Then he lifted his head and glared at me.

“Are you out of your senses?” he demanded.

“I warned you,” I said coldly. “It was designed for men, not mammoths. Let’s go home.”

He tightened his lips, moved his massivity, lowered it, and tried to squeeze between the arms. No. He grasped the rail in front with both hands, wriggled loose, and got what he could of his fanny hooked on the edge of the seat.

Mondor called to me across the great expanse of Wolfe’s back, “I depend with confidence on you, Arshee! You must make clear as it develops! What are the little white things?”

I love baseball and I love the Giants, and I had fifty bucks up on that game, but I would have got up and gone but for one thing. It was working hours, and Wolfe pays my salary, and there were too many people, some of them alive and loose, who felt strongly that he had already lived too long. He is seldom out in the open, easy to get at, and when he is I like to be nearby. So I gritted my teeth and stuck.

The ground crew finished smoothing off and hauled their drags away, the umpires did a huddle, the Giants trotted out on the field to their stations, the throng gave with a lusty excited roar, we all stood up for “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then sat again, with Wolfe perched on two slats and holding grimly to the rail. After southpaw Ed Romeike, 22–4 for the season, had burned a few over for the range, Lew Baker, the catcher, fired it to Tiny Garth at second. The Red Sox lead-off man came to the white line, the plate umpire said go, and Romeike looked around at the field, toed the rubber, went into his tricky windup, and shot a fast one over the outside corner for strike one. The crowd let out a short sharp yell.

My personal nightmare was bad enough. Mondor was our guest, and only eighteen hours ago I had taken three helpings of the quenelles bonne femme he had cooked in our kitchen, and would have made it four if I had had room; but trying to tell a foreigner what a base on balls is during a World Series game, with two men on, two down, and Oaky Asmussen at bat, is hard on the nerves. As for Wolfe, it wasn’t so much the sight of him there in his concentrated misery; it was the certainty that by tomorrow he would have figured out a way to blame it on me, and that would start a feud.

Bad enough, but more was to come, and not for me alone. One fly had plopped into the soup even before the game started, when the line-up was announced and Tiny Garth was named for second base, with no explanation. A buzz of amazement had filled the stands. Why not Nick Ferrone? Ferrone, a lanky big-eared kid just up from the bush five months back, had fielded and batted himself so far to the front that it was taken for granted he would be voted rookie of the year. He had been spectacular in the first six games of the series, batting .427. Where was he today? Why Garth?

Then the game. This was no personal nightmare of mine, it was all too public. In the first inning Con Prentiss, the Giants’ shortstop, bobbled an easy grounder, and two minutes later Lew Baker, the catcher, trying to nab a runner at second, threw the ball six feet over Garth’s head into the outfield. With luck, the Red Sox scored only one run. In the second inning Nat Neill, center fielder, misjudged a fly he could have walked under, tried to run in three directions at once, and had to chase it to the fence; and soon after that Prentiss grabbed a hard-hit ball on the hop and hurled it into the dirt three paces to the left of third base. By the time they got three out, Boston had two more runs.

As the Giants came in for their turn at bat in the second, heading for the dugout, loud and bitter sarcasms from the stands greeted them. Then our section was distracted by an incident. A man in a hurry came plunging down the aisle, bumping my elbow as he passed, and pulled up alongside a front box occupied by six men, among them the Mayor of New York and oilman Emil Chisholm, who had provided our tickets. The man spoke into the ear of Chisholm, who looked anything but happy. Chisholm said something to the Mayor and to another of his boxmates, arose and sidled out, and beat it up the aisle double quick, followed by the courier and also by cutting remarks from nearby fans who had recognized him. As my eyes went back to the arena, Con Prentiss, the Giant shortstop, swung at a floater and missed by a mile.

There is no point in my retailing the agony. As I said, at the end of the sixth the score was 11 to 1. Romeike was doing all right, and Boston had collected only three hits, but his support would have been pitiful on a sandlot. Joe Eston and Nat Neill had each made two errors, and Con Prentiss and Lew Baker three apiece. As they came to the dugout in the sixth, one wit yelled, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” at Eston, and the crowd, recognizing that classic moan to Shoeless Joe Jackson, let out a howl. They were getting really rough. As for me, I had had plenty of the tragedy out on the diamond and looked around for something less painful, and caught sight of the girl, in a box off to my right.

I glommed her, not offensively. There were two of them. One was a redhead who would start to get plump in a couple of years, almost worthy, but not quite. The other one, the glommee, had light brown hair and dark brown eyes, and was fully qualified. I had the feeling that she was not a complete stranger, that I had seen her somewhere before, but couldn’t place her. The pleasure it gave me to look at her was not pure, because it was adulterated with resentment. She looked happy. Her eyes sparkled. Apparently she liked the way things were going. There is no law barring Boston fans from the Polo Grounds, but I resented it. Nevertheless, I continued the glommation. She was the only object I had seen there that day, on or off the field, that didn’t make me want to shut my eyes and keep them shut, and I sure needed it.

Something came between her and me. A man stopped at my elbow, leaned down, and asked my ear, “Are you Archie Goodwin?”

I told him yes.

“Is that Nero Wolfe?”

I nodded.

“Mr. Chisholm wants him in the clubhouse, quick.”

I reflected for two seconds, decided that this was straight from heaven, and slid forward to tell Wolfe, “Mr. Chisholm invites us to the clubhouse. We’ll avoid the crush. There’s a chair there. He want to see you.”

He didn’t even growl, “What about?” He didn’t even growl. Turning to mutter something to Mondor, he pulled himself erect and sidestepped past me to the aisle. Mondor came after him. The courier led the way, and I brought up the rear.

As we went up the concrete steps, single file, a shout came from somewhere on the left. “Go get ’em, Nero! Sick ’em!”

Such is fame.

2

“This is urgent!” Emil Chisholm squeaked. “It’s urgent!”

There was no chair in the clubroom of the size Wolfe likes and needs, but there was a big leather couch, and he was on it, breathing hard and scowling. Mondor was seated over against the wall, out of it. Chisholm, a hefty broad-shouldered guy not as tall as me, with a wide thick mouth and a long straight nose, was too upset to stand or sit, so he was boiling around. I was standing near an open window. Through it came a sudden swelling roar from the crowd out in the stands.

“Shut that goddam window!” Chisholm barked.

I did so.

“I’m going home,” Wolfe stated in his most conclusive tone. “But not until they have left. Perhaps, if you will tell me briefly—”

“We’ve lost the series!” Chisholm shouted.

Wolfe closed his eyes and opened them again. “If you’ll keep your voice down?” he suggested. “I’ve had enough noise today. If losing the series is your problem, I’m afraid I can’t help.”

“No. Nobody can.” Chisholm stood facing him. “I blew up, damn it, and I’ve got to get hold of myself. This is what happened. Out there before the game Art got a suspicion—”

“Art?”

“Art Kinney, our manager. Naturally he was watching the boys like a hawk, and he got a suspicion something was wrong. That first—”

“Why was he watching them like a hawk?”

“That’s his job! He’s manager!” Chisholm realized he was shouting again, stopped, clamped his jaw and clenched his fists, and after a second went on. “Also Nick Ferrone had disappeared. He was here with them in the clubhouse, he had got into uniform, and after they went out and were in the dugout he just wasn’t there. Art sent Doc Soffer back here to get him, but he couldn’t find him. He was simply gone. Art had to put Garth at second base. Naturally he was on edge, and he noticed things, the way some of the boys looked and acted, that made him suspicious. Then—”

A door opened and a guy came running in, yelling, “Fitch hit one and Neill let it get by and Asmussen scored! Fitch went on to third!”

I recognized him, chiefly by his crooked nose, which had got in the way of a line drive back in the twenties when he was a Cardinal infielder. He was Beaky Durkin, now a Giant scout, with a recent new lease on life because he had dug up Nick Ferrone out in Arkansas.

Chisholm jerked his arms up and pushed palms at Durkin. “Get out! Get the hell out!” He took a threatening step. “Send Doc — hey, Doc! Come in here!”

Durkin, backing out, collided with another in the doorway. The other was Doc Soffer, the Giants’ veteran medico, bald, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a long torso and short legs. Entering, he looked as if his ten best-paying patients had just died on him.

“I can’t sweat it, Doc,” Chisholm told him. “I’m nuts. This is Nero Wolfe. You tell him.”

“Who are you?” Wolfe demanded.

Soffer stood before him. “I’m Doctor Horton Soffer,” he said, clipping it. “Four of my men, possible five, have been drugged. They’re out there now, trying to play ball, and they can’t.” He stopped, looking as if he were about to break down and cry, gulped twice, and went on. “They didn’t seem right, there in the dugout. I noticed it, and so did Kinney. That first inning there was no doubt about it, something was wrong. The second inning it was even worse — the same four men, Baker, Prentiss, Neill, and Eston — and I got an idea. I told Kinney, and he sent me here to investigate. You see that cooler?”

He pointed to a big white-enameled electric refrigerator standing against a wall. Mondor, seated near it, was staring at us.

Wolfe nodded. “Well?”

“It contains mostly an assortment of drinks in bottles. I know my men’s habits — every little habit they’ve got, and big one too. I knew that after they get into uniform before a game those four men — the four I named — have the habit of getting a bottle of Beebright out of the cooler and—”

“What is Beebright?”

“It’s a carbonated drink that is supposed to have honey in it instead of sugar. Each of those four drinks a bottle of it, or part of one, before he goes out to the field, practically without exception. And it was those four that were off — terrible; I never saw anything like it. That’s why I got my idea. Kinney was desperate and told me to come and see, and I did. Usually the clubhouse boy cleans up here after the men leave for the field, but this being the deciding game of the World Series, today he didn’t. Stuff was scattered around — as you see, it still is — and there was a Beebright bottle there on that table with a little left in it. It didn’t smell wrong, and I didn’t want to waste any tasting it. I had sent for Mr. Chisholm, and when he came we decided what to do. He sent for Beaky Durkin, who had a seat in the grandstand, because he knew Ferrone better than anyone else and might have some idea that would help. I took the Beebright down the street to a drugstore, and made two tests. The first one, Ranwez’s, didn’t prove anything, but that was probably because it is limited—”

“Negatives may be skipped,” Wolfe muttered.

“I’m telling you what I did,” Soffer snapped. He was trying to keep calm. “Ranwez’s test took over half an hour. The second, Ekkert’s, took less. I did it twice, to check. It was conclusive. The Beebright contained sodium pheno-barbital. I couldn’t get the quantity, in a hurry like that, but on a guess it was two grains, possibly a little more, in the full bottle. Anyone can get hold if it. Certainly that would be no problem for a bigtime gambler who wanted to clean up on a World Series game. And—”

“The sonofabitch,” Chisholm said.

Doc Soffer nodded. “And another sonofabitch put it in the bottles, knowing those four men would drink it just before the game. All he had to do was remove the caps, drop the tablets in, replace the caps, and shake the bottles a little — not much, because it’s very soluble. It must have been done today after twelve o’clock, because otherwise someone else might have drunk it, and anyway, if it were done much in advance the drinks would have gone stale, and those men would have noticed it. So it must have been someone—”

Chisholm had marched to the window. He whirled and yelled, “Ferrone did it, damn him! He did it and lammed!”

Beaky Durkin appeared. He came through the door and halted, facing Chisholm. He was trembling, and his face was white, all but the crooked nose.

“Not Nick,” he said hoarsely. “Not that boy. Nick didn’t do it, Mr. Chisholm!”

“Oh, no?” Chisholm was bitter. “Did I ask you? A fine rookie of the year you brought in from Arkansas! Where is he? Get him and bring him in again and let me get my hands on him! Go find him! Will you go find him?”

“Go where?”

“How the hell do I know? Have you any idea where he is?”

“No.”

“Will you go find him?”

Durkin lifted helpless hands and dropped them.

“He’s your pet, not mine,” Chisholm said savagely. “Get him and bring him in, and I’ll offer him a new contract. That will be a contract. Beat it!”

Durkin left through the door he had entered by.

Wolfe grunted. “Sit down, please,” he told Chisholm. “When I address you I look at you, and my neck is not elastic. Thank you, sir. You want to hire me for a job?”

“Yes. I want—”

“Please. Is this correct? Four of your best players, drugged as described by Doctor Soffer, could not perform properly, and as a result a game is lost, and a World Series?”

“We’re losing it.” Chisholm’s head swung toward the window and back again. “Of course it’s lost.”

“And you assume a gambler or a group of gamblers is responsible. How much could he or they win on a game?”

“On today’s game, any amount. Fifty thousand or double that, easy.”

“I see. Then you need the police. At once.”

Chisholm shook his head. “Damn it, I don’t want to. Baseball is a wonderful game, a clean game, the best and cleanest game on earth. This is the dirtiest thing that’s happened in baseball in thirty years, and it’s got to be handled right and handled fast. You’re the best detective in the business, and you’re right here. With a swarm of cops trooping in, God knows what will happen. If we have to have them later, all right, but now here you are. Go to it!”

Wolfe was frowning. “You think this Nick Ferrone did it.”

“I don’t know!” Chisholm was yelling again. “How do I know what I think? He’s a harebrained kid just out of the sticks, and he’s disappeared. Where’d he go and why? What does that look like?”

Wolfe nodded. “Very well.” He drew a deep sigh. “I can at least make some gestures and see.” He aimed a finger at the door Beaky Durkin and Doc Soffer had used. “Is that an office?”

“It leads to Kinney’s office — the manager.”

“Then it has a phone. You will call police headquarters and report the disappearance of Nick Ferrone, and ask them to find him. Such a job, when urgent, is beyond my resources. Tell them nothing more for the present if you want it that way. Where do the players change clothing?”

“Through there.” Chisholm indicated another door. “The locker room. The shower room is beyond.”

Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie. You will look around. All contiguous premises except this room, which you can leave to me.”

“Anything in particular?” I asked.

“No. You have good eyes and a head of sorts. Use them.”

“I could wait to phone the police,” Chisholm suggested, “until you—”

“No,” Wolfe snapped. “In ten minutes you can have ten thousand men looking for Mr. Ferrone, and it will cost you ten cents. Spend it. I charge more for less.”

Chisholm went, through the door at the left, with Doc Soffer at his heels. Since Wolfe had said “all contiguous premises,” I thought I might as well start in that direction, and followed them, across a hall and into another room. It was good-sized, furnished with desks, chairs, and accessories. Beaky Durkin was on a chair in a corner with his ear to a radio turned low, and Doc Soffer was heading for him. Chisholm barked, “Shut that damn thing off!” and crossed to a desk with a phone. Under other circumstances I would have enjoyed having a look at the office of Art Kinney, the Giants’ manager, but I was on a mission and there was too big an audience. I about-faced and back-tracked. As I crossed the clubroom to the door in the far wall, Wolfe was standing by the open door of the refrigerator with a bottle of Beebright in his hand, holding it at arm’s length, sneering at it, and Mondor was beside him. I passed through, and was in a room both long and wide, with two rows of lockers, benches and stools, and a couple of chairs. The locker doors were marked with numbers and names too. I tried three; they were locked. After going through a doorway to the left, I was in the shower room. The air in there was a little damp, but not warm. I went to the far end, glancing in at each of the shower stalls, was disappointed to see no pillbox that might have contained sodium phenobarbital, and returned to the locker room.

In the middle of the row on the right was the locker marked “Ferrone.” Its door was locked. With my portable key collection I could have operated, but I don’t take it along to ball games, and nothing on my personal ring was usable. It seemed to me that the inside of that locker was the one place that needed attention, certainly the first on the list, so I returned to the clubroom, made a face at Wolfe as I went by, and entered Kinney’s office. Chisholm had finished phoning and was seated at a desk, staring at the floor. Beaky Durkin and Doc Soffer had their ears glued to the radio, which was barely audible.

I asked Chisholm, “Have you got a key to Ferrone’s locker?”

His head jerked up, and he said aggressively, “What?”

“I want a key to Ferrone’s locker.”

“I haven’t got one. I think Kinney has a master key. I don’t know where he keeps it.”

“Fifteen to two,” Durkin informed us, or maybe just talking to himself. “Giants batting in the ninth, two down. Garth got a home run, bases empty. It’s all—”

“Shut up!” Chisholm yelled at him.

Since Kinney would soon be with us, and since Ferrone’s locker had first call, I thought I might as well wait there for him. However, with our client sitting there glaring at me, it would be well to display some interest and energy, so I moved. I took in the room. I went to filing cabinets and looked them over. I opened a door, saw a hall leading to stairs down, backed up, and shut the door. I took in the room again, crossed to another door in the opposite wall, and opened that.

Since I hadn’t the faintest expectation of finding anything pertinent beyond that door, let alone a corpse, I must have made some sound or movement in my surprise, but if so it wasn’t noticed. I stood for three seconds, then slipped inside and squatted long enough to get an answer to the main question.

I arose, backed out, and addressed Soffer. “Take a look here, Doc. I think he’s dead. If so, watch it.”

He made a noise, stared, and moved. I marched out, into the clubroom, crossed to Wolfe, and spoke. “Found something. I opened a door to a closet and found Nick Ferrone, in uniform, on the floor, with a baseball bat alongside him and his head smashed in. He’s dead, according to me, but Doc Soffer is checking, if you want an expert opinion. Found on contiguous premises.”

Wolfe grunted. He was seated on the leather couch. “Mr. Ferrone?” he asked peevishly.

“Yes, sir.”

“You found him?”

“Yes, sir.”

His shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again. “Call the police.”

“Yes, sir. A question. Any minute the ballplayers will be coming in here. The cops won’t like it if they mess around. The cops will think we should have prevented it. Do we care? It probably won’t be Cramer. Do we—”

A bellow, Chisholm’s, came through. “Wolfe! Come in here! Come here!”

He got up, growling. “We owe the police nothing, certainly not deference. But we have a client — I think we have. I’ll see. Meanwhile you stay here. Everyone entering this room remains, under surveillance.” He headed for Kinney’s office, whence more bellows were coming.

Another door opened, the one in the west wall, and Nat Neill, the Giants’ center fielder, entered, his jaw set and his eyes blazing. Following him came Lew Baker, the catcher. Behind them, on the stairs, was a clatter of footsteps.

The game was over. The Giants had lost.

3

Another thing I don’t take along to ball games is a gun, but that day there was a moment when I wished I had. After any ordinary game, even a lost one, I suppose the Giants might have been merely irritated if, on getting to the clubhouse, they found a stranger there, backed up against the door to the locker room, who told them firmly that on account of a state of emergency they could not pass. But that day they were ready to plug one another, so why not a stranger?

The first dozen were ganging me, about to start using hands, when Art Kinney, the manager, appeared, strode across, and wanted to know what. I told him to go to his office and ask Chisholm. The gang let up then, to consider — all but Bill Moyse, the second-string catcher, six feet two, and over two hundred pounds. He had come late, after Kinney. He breasted up to me, making fists, and announced that his wife was waiting for him and he was going in to change, and either I would move or he would move me. One of his teammates called from the rear, “Show him her picture, Bill! That’ll move him!”

Moyse whirled and leaped. Hands grabbed for him, but he kept going. Whether he reached his target and actually landed or not I can’t say, because, first, I was staying put and it was quite a mixup, and second, I was seeing something that wasn’t present. The mention of Moyse’s wife and her picture had done it. What I was seeing was a picture of a girl that had appeared in the Gazette a couple of months back, with a caption tagging her as the showgirl bride of William Moyse, the ballplayer; and it was the girl I had been glomming in a nearby box when the summons had come from Chisholm. No question about it. That was interesting, and possibly even relevant.

Meanwhile Moyse was doing me a service by making a diversion. Three or four had hold of him, and others were gathered around his target, Con Prentiss, the shortstop. They were all jabbering. Prentiss, who was wiry and tough, was showing his teeth in a grin — not an attractive one. Moyse suddenly whirled again and was back at me, and this time, obviously, he was coming through. It was useless to start slugging that mountain of muscle, and I was set to try locking him, hoping the others would admire the performance, when a loud voice came from the doorway to the manager’s office.

“Here! Attention, all of you!”

It was Art Kinney. His face was absolutely white, and his neck cords were twitching, as they all turned and were silent.

“I’m full up,” he said, half hysterical. “This is Nero Wolfe, the detective. He’ll tell you something.”

Muttering went around as Kinney stepped aside and Wolfe took his place in the doorway. Wolfe’s eyes darted from left to right, and he spoke.

“You deserve an explanation, gentlemen, but the police are coming and there’s not much time. You have just lost a ball game by knavery. Four of you were drugged, in a drink called Beebright, and could not perform properly. You will learn—”

They drowned him out. It was an explosion of astonished rage.

“Gentlemen!” Wolfe thundered. “Will you listen?” He glowered. “You will learn more of that later, but there is something more urgent. The dead body of one of your colleagues, Mr. Nick Ferrone, has been discovered on these premises. He was murdered. It is supposed, naturally, that the two events, the drugging and the murder, are connected. In any case, if you do not know what a murder investigation means to everyone within reach, innocent or not, you are about to learn. For the moment you will not leave this room. When the police arrive they will tell you—”

Heavy feet were clomping in the hall. A door swung open, and a uniformed cop stepped in, followed by three others. The one in front, a sergeant, halted and demanded indignantly, “What is all this? Where is it?”

The Giants looked at the cops and hadn’t a word to say.

4

Inspector Hennessy of uptown Homicide was tall and straight, silver-haired, with a bony face and quick-moving gray eyes. Some two years ago he had told Nero Wolfe that if he ever again tried poking into a murder in his territory he would be escorted to the Harlem River and dunked. But when, at nine o’clock that evening, Hennessy breezed through the clubroom, passing in front of the leather couch where Wolfe was seated with a ham sandwich in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other, he didn’t even toss a glance. He was much too busy.

The police commissioner was in Manager Kinney’s office with Chisholm and others. The district attorney and an assistant were in the locker room, along with an assortment of Homicide men, giving various athletes their third or fourth quiz. There were still a couple of dozen city employees in the clubhouse, though the scientists — the photographers and fingerprint hounds — had all finished and gone.

I had standing as the finder of the corpse, but also I was a part of Wolfe. Technically Wolfe was not poking into a murder; he had been hired by Chisholm, before the corpse had been found, to find out who had doped the ballplayers. However, in gathering facts for relay to Wolfe, I had not discriminated. I saw Nick Ferrone’s locker opened and the contents examined, with nothing startling disclosed. While I was in Kinney’s office watching a basket squad load the corpse and carry it out, I heard a lieutenant on the phone giving instructions for a roundup of gamblers throughout the metropolitan area. A little later I picked up a bunch of signed statements from a table and sat down and read them through, without anyone’s noticing. By that time the commissioner and the DA had arrived, and they had eight or nine quiz posts going in the various rooms, and Hennessy was doing his damnedest to keep it organized.

I collected all I could for Wolfe. The bat that had been used to crack Ferrone’s skull was no stock item, but a valued trophy. With it, years back, a famous Giant had belted a grand slam home run that had won a pennant, and the bat had been displayed on a wall rack in the manager’s office. The murderer could have simply grabbed it from the rack. It had no usable fingerprints. Of eight bottles of Beebright left in the cooler, the two in front had been doped, and the other six had not. No other drinks had been tampered with. Everyone had known of the liking of those four — Baker, Prentiss, Neill, and Eston — for Beebright, and their habit of drinking a bottle of it before a game. No good prints. No sign anywhere of any container of tablets of sodium phenobarbital. And a thousand other negatives — for instance, the clubhouse boy, Jimmie Burr. The custom was that, when he wasn’t around, the players would put chits in a little box for what they took, and he hadn’t been around. For that game someone had got him a box seat, and he had beat it to the grandstand while most of the players were in the locker room changing. A sergeant jumped on it: who had got him out of the way by providing a ticket for a box seat? But it had been Art Kinney himself, the manager.

Around eight o’clock they turned a big batch loose. Twenty Giants, including coaches and the bat boy, were allowed to go to the locker room to change, under surveillance, and then let out, with instructions to keep available. They were not in the picture as it then looked. It was established that Ferrone had arrived at the clubhouse shortly after twelve o’clock and had got into uniform; a dozen of them had been in the locker room when he had. He had been present during a pre-game session with Kinney in the clubroom, and no one remembered seeing him leave afterward. After they had trooped out and down the stairs, emerged onto the field, and crossed it, Ferrone’s absence was not noticed until they had been in the dugout some minutes. As the cops figured it, he couldn’t have been slammed with a baseball bat in Kinney’s office, only a few yards away, while the team was in the clubroom, and therefore all who had unquestionably left for the field with the gang, and had stayed there, were in the clear until further notice. With them went Pierre Mondor, who had wanted to see a ball game and had picked a beaut.

As I said, when Inspector Hennessy breezed through the clubroom at nine o’clock, coming from the locker room and headed for Kinney’s office, he didn’t even toss a glance at the leather couch where Wolfe and I were seated. He disappeared. But soon he was back again, speaking from the doorway.

“Come in here, will you, Wolfe?”

“No,” Wolfe said flatly. “I’m eating.”

“The commissioner wants you.”

“Is he eating?” Waiting for no reply, Wolfe turned his head and bellowed, “Mr. Skinner! I’m dining!”

It wasn’t very polite, I thought, to be sarcastic about the sandwiches and beer. Chisholm had provided. Hennessy started a remark which indicated that he agreed with me, but it was interrupted by the appearance of Commissioner Skinner at his elbow. Hennessy stepped in and aside, and Skinner entered, followed by Chisholm, and approached the couch. He spoke. “Dining?”

“Yes, sir.” Wolfe reached for another sandwich. “As you see.”

“Not your accustomed style.”

Wolfe grunted and bit into the sandwich.

Skinner kept it friendly. “I’ve just learned that four men who were told they could go are still here — Baker, Prentiss, Neill, and Eston. When Inspector Hennessy asked them why, they told him that Mr. Chisholm asked them to stay. Mr. Chisholm says that he did so at your suggestion. He understood that you want to speak with them after our men have all left. Is that correct?”

Wolfe nodded. “I made it quite plain, I thought.”

“M-m-m-m.” The commissioner regarded him. “You see, I know you fairly well. You wouldn’t dream of hanging on here half the night to speak with those men merely as a routine step in an investigation. And besides, at Mr. Chisholm’s request you have already been permitted to speak with them, and with several others. You’re cooking something. Those are the four men who were drugged, but they left the clubhouse for the field with the rest of the team, so, the way we figure it, none of them killed Ferrone. How do you figure it?”

Wolfe swallowed the last of a well-chewed bite. “I don’t.”

Hennessy growled and set his jaw. Skinner said, “I don’t believe it,” with his tone friendlier than his words. “You’re cooking something,” he insisted. “What’s the play with those four men?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No, sir.”

Hennessy took a step forward. “Look,” he said, “this is my territory. My name’s Hennessy. You don’t turn this murder into a parlor game.”

Wolfe raised brows at him. “Murder? I am not concerned with murder. Mr. Chisholm hired me to investigate the drugging of his employees. The two events may of course be connected, but the murder is your job. And they were not necessarily connected. I understand that a man named Moyse is in there now with the district attorney” — Wolfe aimed a thumb at the door to the locker room — “because it has been learned that he has twice within a month assaulted Mr. Ferrone physically, through resentment at Ferrone’s interest in his wife, injudiciously displayed. And that Moyse did not leave the clubhouse with the others, and arrived at the dugout three or four minutes later, just before Ferrone’s absence was noticed. For your murder, Mr. Hennessy, that should be a help; but it doesn’t get me on with my job, disclosure of the culprit who drugged the drinks. Have you charged Mr. Moyse?”

“No.” Hennessy was curt. “So you’re not interested in the murder?”

“Not as a job, since it’s not mine. But if you want a comment from a specialist, you’re closing your lines too soon.”

“We haven’t closed any lines.”

“You let twenty men walk out of here. You are keeping Moyse for the reasons given. You are keeping Doctor Soffer, I suppose, because when Ferrone was missed in the dugout Soffer came here to look for him, and he could have found him here alive and killed him. You are keeping Mr. Durkin, I suppose again, because he too could have been here alone with Ferrone. He says he left the clubhouse shortly before the team did and went to his seat in the grandstand, and stayed there. Has he been either contradicted or corroborated?”

“No.”

“Then you regard him as vulnerable on opportunity?”

“Yes.”

“Are you holding Mr. Chisholm for the same reason?”

Chisholm made a noise. Skinner and Hennessy stared. Skinner said, “We’re not holding Mr. Chisholm.”

“You should be, for consistency,” Wolfe declared. “This afternoon, when I reached my seat in the stands — of which only the front edge was accessible to me — at twenty minutes past one, the Mayor and others were there in a nearby box, but Mr. Chisholm was not. He arrived a few minutes later. He has told me that when he arrived with his party, including the Mayor, about one o’clock, he had the others escorted to the stands and the box, that he started for the clubhouse for a word with his employees, that he was delayed by the crowd and decided it was too late, that he went on a private errand to a men’s room and then proceeded to the box. If the others are vulnerable on opportunity, so is he.”

They made remarks, all three of them, not appreciative. Wolfe put the bottle to his lips, tilted it and his head, and swallowed beer. Paper cups had been supplied, but he hates them.

He put the bottle down empty. “I was merely,” he said mildly, “commenting on the murder as a specialist. As for my job, learning who drugged the drinks, I haven’t even made a start. How could I in this confounded hubbub? Trampled by an army. I have been permitted to sit here and talk to people, yes, with a succession of your subordinates standing behind me, breathing down my neck. One of them was chewing gum! Pfui. Working on a murder and chewing gum!”

“We’ll bounce him,” Hennessy said dryly. “The commissioner has asked you, what’s the play with those four men?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Not only those four. I included others in my request to Mr. Chisholm — Doctor Soffer, Mr. Kinney, Mr. Durkin, and of course Mr. Chisholm himself. I am not arranging a parlor game. I make a living as a professional detective, and I need their help on this job I’ve undertaken. I think I know why, engrossed as you are with the most sensational case you’ve had in years, you’re spending all this time chatting with me; you suspect I’m contriving a finesse. Don’t you?”

“You’re damn right we do.”

Wolfe nodded. “So I am.”

“You are?”

“Yes.” Wolfe suddenly was peevish. “Haven’t I sat here for five hours, submerged in your pandemonium? Haven’t you all the facts that I have, and many more besides? Haven’t you a thousand men to command — indeed, twenty thousand — and I one? One little fact strikes me as apparently it has not struck you, and in my forlorn desperation I decided to test my interpretation of it. For that test I need help, and I ask Mr. Chisholm to provide it, and—”

“We’ll be glad to help,” Skinner cut in. “Which fact, and how do you interpret it?”

“No, sir.” Wolfe was positive. “It is my one slender chance to earn a fee. I intend—”

“We may not know this fact.”

“Certainly you do. I have stated it explicitly during this conversation, but I won’t point at it for you. If I did you’d spoil it for me, and, slender as it is, I intend to test it. I am not beset with the urgency of murder, as you are, but I’m in a fix. I don’t need a motive strong enough to incite a man to murder, merely one to persuade him to drug some bottled drinks — mildly, far from lethally. A thousand dollars? Twenty thousand? That would be only a fraction of the possible winnings on a World Series game — and no tax to pay. The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime. As for opportunity, anyone at all could have slipped in here late this morning, before others had arrived, with drugged bottles of that drink and put them in the cooler — and earned a fortune. Those twenty men you let go, Mr. Hennessy — of how many of them can you say positively that they did not drug the drinks?”

The inspector was scowling at him. “I can say that I don’t think any of them killed Ferrone.”

“Ah, but I’m not after the murderer; that’s your job.” Wolfe upturned a palm. “You see why I am driven to a forlorn finesse. It is my only hope of avoiding a laborious and possibly fruitless—”

What interrupted him was the entry of a man through the door to the locker room. District Attorney Megalech was as masterful as they come, although bald as a door-knob. He strode across and told Skinner and Hennessy he wanted to speak with them, took an elbow of each, and steered them to and through the door to Kinney’s office. Chisholm, uninvited, wheeled and followed them.

Wolfe reached for a sandwich and took a healthy bite. I arose, brushed off crumbs, shook my pants legs down, and stood looking down at him. I asked, “How good is this fact you’re saving up?”

“Not very.” He chewed and swallowed. “Good enough to try if we got nothing better. Evidently they have nothing at all. If they had — but you heard them.”

“Yeah. You told them they have all the facts you have, but they haven’t. The one I gave you about Mrs. Moyse? That’s not the one you’re interpreting privately?”

“No.”

“She might be still around, waiting. I might possibly get something better than the one you’re saving. Shall I go try?”

He grunted. I took it for a yes, and moved. Outside the door to the hall and stairs stood one in uniform with whom I had already had a few little words. I addressed him. “I’m going down to buy Mr. Wolfe a pickle. Do I need to be passed out or in?”

“You?” He used only the right half of his mouth for talking. “Shoot your way through. Huh?”

“Right. Many thanks.” I went.

5

It was dumb to be so surprised, but I was. I might have known that the news that the Giants had been doped out of the game and the series, and that Nick Ferrone, the probable rookie of the year, had been murdered, would draw a record mob. Downstairs inside the entrance there were sentries, and outside a regiment was stretched into a cordon. I was explaining to a sergeant who I was and telling him I would be returning, when three desperate men, one of whom I recognized, came springing at me. All they wanted was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had to get really rude. I have been clawed at by newspapermen more than once, but I had never seen them quite as hungry as they were outside the Polo Grounds that October night. Finding they wouldn’t shake loose, I dived through the cordon and into the mob.

It looked hopeless. The only parked cars in sight on the west side of Eighth Avenue were police cars. I pushed through to the fringe of the throng and made my way two blocks south. Having made inquiries of two Giants hours previously, I knew what I was looking for, a light blue Curtis sedan. Of course there was a thin chance that it was still around, but if it was I wanted it. I crossed the avenue and headed for the parking plaza. Two cops at the end of the cordon gave me a look, but it wasn’t the plaza they were guarding, and I marched on through. In the dim light I could see three cars over at the north end. Closer up, one was a Curtis sedan. Still closer, it was light blue. I went up to it. Two females on the front seat were gazing at me through the window, and one of them was my glommee. The radio was on. I opened the door, swung it wide, and said hello.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“My name’s Archie Goodwin. I’ll show credentials if you are Mrs. William Moyse.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing if you’re not Mrs. Moyse.”

“What if I am?”

She was rapidly erasing the pleasant memory I had of her. Not that she had turned homely in a few hours, but her expression was not only unfriendly but sour, and her voice was not agreeable. I got out my wallet and extracted my license card. “If you are,” I said, “this will identify me,” and proffered it.

“Okay, your name’s Goodman.” She ignored the card. “So what?”

“Not Goodman.” I pronounced it again. “Archie Goodwin. I work for Nero Wolfe, who is up in the clubhouse. I just came from there. Why not turn off the radio?”

“I’d rather turn you off,” she said bitterly.

Her companion, the redhead who had been with her in the box, reached for the knob, and the radio died. “Look, Lila,” she said earnestly, “you’re acting like a sap. Invite him in. He may be human. Maybe Bill sent him.”

“What did Walt tell us?” Lila snapped at her. “Nero Wolfe is there working with the cops.” She came back at me. “Did my husband send you? Prove it.”

I bent a knee to put a foot on the edge of the frame, not aggressively. “That’s one reason,” I said, “why Mr. Wolfe can’t stand women. The way they flop around intellectually. I didn’t say your husband sent me. He didn’t. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because for the past hour he has been kept in the locker room, conversing with a gathering of Homicide hounds, and still is. Mr. Wolfe sent me, but in a way it’s a personal problem I’ve got, and no one but you can help me.”

“You’ve got a personal problem. You have. Take it away.”

“I will if you say so, but wait till I tell you. Up to now they have only one reason for picking on your husband. The players left the clubhouse for the field in a bunch, all but one of them. One of them left later and got to the dugout five or six minutes after the others, and it was Bill Moyse. They all agreed on that, and Bill admits it. The cops figure that he had seen or heard something that made him suspect Nick Ferrone of doping the drinks — you know about that? That the Beebright was doped?”

“Yes. Walt Goidell told me.”

“And that he stayed behind with Ferrone to put it to him, and Nick got tough and he got tougher, with a baseball bat. That’s how the cops figure it, and that’s why they’re after Bill, as it stands now. But I have a private reason, which I have kept private except for Nero Wolfe, to think that the cops have got it twisted. Mr. Wolfe is inclined to agree with me, but he hasn’t told the cops because he has been hired by Chisholm and wants to earn a fat fee. My private slant is that if Bill did kill Ferrone — please note the ‘if’ — it wasn’t because he caught Ferrone doping the drinks, but the other way around. Ferrone caught Bill doping the drinks, and was going to spill it, and Bill killed him.”

She was goggling at me. “You have the nerve—” She didn’t have the words. “Why, you dirty—”

“Hold it. I’m telling you. This afternoon at the game I was in a box. By the sixth inning I had had plenty of the game and looked around for something to take my mind off it, and I saw an extremely attractive girl. I looked at her some more. I had a feeling that I had seen her before but couldn’t place her. The score was eleven to one, and the Giants were flat on their faces, and that lovely specimen was exactly what my eyes needed, except for one flaw. She was having a swell time. Her eyes showed it, her whole face and manner showed it absolutely. She liked what was happening out on the field. There was that against her, but I looked at her anyhow.”

She was trying to say something, but I raised my voice a little. “Wait till I tell you. Later, after the game, in the clubhouse, Bill Moyse said his wife was waiting for him, and someone made a crack about showing me her picture. Then it clicked. I remembered seeing a picture of his bride in the Gazette, and it was the girl I had seen in the stands. Again later, I had a chance to ask some of the players some questions, and I learned that she usually drove to games in Bill’s light blue Curtis sedan and waited for him after the game. It seemed to me interesting that it made the wife of a Giant happy to see the Giants getting walloped in the deciding game of a World Series, and Mr. Wolfe agreed, but he needed me there in the clubhouse. Finally he sent me to see if she was still around, and here I am. You see our problem. Why were you tickled stiff to see them losing?”

“I wasn’t.”

“It’s perfectly ridiculous,” the redhead snorted.

I shook my head. “Rejected. That won’t do. Mr. Wolfe accepts my judgment on girls. A pretty girl or a homely girl, a smart girl or a dumb girl, a sad girl or a happy girl — he knows I know. I have told him you were happy. If I go back and report that you flatly deny it, I don’t see how he can do anything but tell the cops, and that will be bad. They’ll figure that you wanted the Giants to lose because you knew Bill did, and why. Then of course they’ll refigure the murder and get a new answer — that Ferrone found out that Bill had doped the drinks, and Bill killed him. They’ll start on Bill all over again, and if they—”

“Stop it!” She was hoarse. “For God’s sake!”

“I was only saying, if they—”

The redhead put in, leaning to the steering wheel and sticking out her chin. “How dumb can you get?” she demanded.

“It’s not a ques—”

“Phooey! You say you know girls! Do you know baseball girls? I’m one! I’m Helen Goidell, Walt’s wife. I would have liked to slap Lila this afternoon, sitting there gloating, much as I love her, but I’m not a sap like you! She’s not married to the Giants, she’s married to Bill! Lew Baker had batted two-thirty-two in the first six games of the series, and he had made two errors and had three bases stolen on him, and still they wouldn’t give Bill a chance! Lila had sat through those six games praying to see Bill walk out, and not once! What did she care about the series or the difference between winner’s and loser’s take? She wanted to see Bill in it! And look at Baker this afternoon! If he had been doped, all right, but Lila didn’t know it then! What you know about girls, you nitwit!”

She was blazing. I did not blaze back.

“I’m still willing to learn,” I said, not belligerently. “Is she right, Mrs. Moyse?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am too, on the main point? You were pleased to see the Giants losing?”

“I said she was right.”

“Yeah. Then I’ve still got a problem. If I accept your version and go and report to Wolfe accordingly, he’ll accept it too. Whether you think I know girls or not, he does. So that’s some responsibility for me. What if you’re a lot smoother and trickier than I think you are? Your husband is suspected of murder, and they’re still working on him. What if he’s guilty and they could squeeze out of you what they need to hook him? Of course eventually they’ll get to you and either squeeze it out or not, but how will I look if they do? That’s my problem. Have you any suggestions?”

Lila had none. She wasn’t looking at me. She sat with her head lowered, apparently gazing at her hands, which were clasped together.

“You sound almost human,” Helen Goidell said.

“That’s deceptive,” I told her. “I turn it on and off. If I thought she had something Mr. Wolfe could use I’d stop at nothing, even hair-pulling. But at the moment I really don’t think she has. I think she’s pure and innocent and wholesome. Her husband is another matter. For her sake, I hope he wiggles out of it somehow, but I’m not taking any bets. The cops seem to like him, and I know cops as well as I do girls.” I removed my foot from the car frame. “So long, and so forth.” I turned to go.

“Wait a minute.” It was Lila. I turned back. Her head was up.

“Is this straight?” she asked.

“Is what straight?”

“You’re going to tell Mr. Wolfe you’re satisfied about me?”

“Well. Satisfied is quite a word. I’m going to tell him I have bought your explanation of your happiness at the game — or rather, Mrs. Goidell’s.”

“You could be a liar.”

“Not only could be, I often am, but not at the moment.”

She regarded me. “Shake hands with me.”

I raised a paw. Her hand was cold, but her grip was firm, and in four seconds our temperatures had equalized. She let go.

“Maybe you can tell me about Bill,” she said. “They don’t really think he killed Nick Ferrone, do they?”

“They think maybe he did.”

“I know he didn’t.”

“Good for you. But you weren’t there, so you don’t have a vote.”

She nodded. She was being hard and practical. “Are they going to arrest him? Will they really charge him with murder?”

“I can’t say. They may have decided while we’ve been talking. They know the whole town will be rooting for someone to be locked up, and Bill is the leading candidate.”

“Then I’ve got to do something. I wish I knew what he’s telling them. Do you know?”

“Only that he’s denying he knows anything about it. He says he left the clubhouse after the others had gone because he went back to the locker room to change to other shoes.”

She shook her head. “I don’t mean that. I mean whether he told them—” She stopped. “No. I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He knows something, and I know it too, about a man trying to fix that game. Only he wouldn’t tell, on account of me. I have to go and see someone. Will you come along?”

“To see who?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Will you come?”

“Where to?”

“In the Fifties. Eighth Avenue.”

Helen Goidell blurted, “For God’s sake, Lila, do you know what you’re saying?”

If Lila replied I missed it, for I was on my way around the car. It had taken me no part of a second to decide. This sounded like something. It was a little headstrong to dash off with a damsel, leaving Wolfe up there with mass-production sandwiches, warm beer, and his one measly little fact he was saving up, but this might be really hot.

By the time I got around to the other door Helen had it open and was getting out. Her feet on the ground, she turned to speak.

“I don’t want any part of this, Lila. I do not! I wish to God I’d gone with Walt instead of staying with you!”

Lila was trying to get a word in, but Helen wasn’t interested. She turned and trotted off toward the gate and the street. I climbed in and pulled the door shut.

“She’ll tell Walt,” Lila said.

I nodded. “Yeah. But does she know where we’re going?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go.”

She started the engine, levered to reverse, and backed the car. “To hell with friends,” she said, apparently to herself.

6

Under ordinary circumstances she was probably a pretty good driver, but that night wasn’t ordinary for her. As we swung right into 155th Street, there was a little click at my side was we grazed the fender of a stopped car. Rolling up the grade of Coogan’s Bluff, we slipped between two taxis, clearing by an inch, and both hackmen yelled at her.

Stopping for a light at the crest, she turned her head and spoke. “It’s my Uncle Dan. His name is Gale. He came last night and asked me—”

She fed gas and we shot forward, but a car heading uptown and squeezing the light was suddenly there smack in our path. With a lightning reflex her foot hit the brake, the other car zipped by with at least a foot to spare, she fed gas again, and the Curtis jerked forward.

I asked her, “Taking the West Side Highway?”

“Yes, it’s quicker.”

“It will be if you make it. Just concentrate on that and let the details wait.”

She got to the highway without any actual contact with other vehicles, darted across to the left lane, and stepped on it. The speedometer said fifty-five when she spoke again.

“If I go ahead and tell you, I can’t change my mind. He wanted me to persuade Bill to fix the game. He said he’d give us ten thousand dollars. I didn’t even want to tell Bill, but he insisted, so I did. I knew what Bill would say—”

She broke off to do some expert weaving, swerving to the middle lane, then on to the right, then a sprint, then swinging to the middle again just ahead of a tan convertible, and so back to the left again in front of a couple of cars that had slowed her down to under fifty.

“Look,” I told her, “you could gain up to two minutes this way with luck, but getting stopped and getting a ticket would take at least ten. You’re driving — okay, but don’t try to talk too. You’re not that good. Hold it till we’re parked.”

She didn’t argue, but she held the pace. I twisted around to keep an eye on the rear through the window, and stayed that way clear to Fifty-seventh Street. We rolled down the cobbled ramp and a block south turned left on Fifty-sixth Street, had a green light at Eleventh Avenue, and went through. A little short of Tenth Avenue we turned in to the curb and stopped. Lila reached for the handbrake and gave it a yank.

“Let’s hear it,” I said. “Enough to go on. Is Uncle Dan a gambler?”

“No.” Her face turned to me. “I’m trembling. Look, my hand’s trembling. I’m afraid of him.”

“Then what is he?”

“He runs a drugstore. He owns it. That’s where we’re going to see him. I know what Helen thinks — she thinks I should have told, but I couldn’t. My father and mother died when I was just a kid, and Uncle Dan has been good to me — as good as he could. If it hadn’t been for him I’d have been brought up in an orphans’ home. Of course Bill wanted to tell Art Kinney last night, but he didn’t on account of me, and that’s why he’s not telling the cops.”

“Maybe he is telling them, or soon will.”

She shook her head. “I know Bill. We decided we wouldn’t tell, and that settled it. Uncle Dan made me promise we wouldn’t tell before he said what he wanted.”

I grunted. “Even so he was crowding his luck, telling you two about the program before signing you up. If he explained the idea of doping the Beebright, why—”

“But he didn’t! He didn’t say how it was to be done, he just said there was an easy way of doing it. He didn’t tell us what it was; he didn’t get that far, because Bill said nothing doing, as I knew he would.”

I eyed her. “You sure of that? He might have told Bill and not you.”

“He couldn’t. I was there with them all the time. Certainly I’m sure.”

“This was last night?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“Around eight o’clock. We had dinner early with Helen and Walt Goidell, and when we got home Uncle Dan was there waiting for us.”

“Where’s home?”

“Our apartment on Seventy-ninth Street. He spoke to me alone first, and then insisted I had to ask Bill.”

“And Bill turned him down flat?”

“Of course he did!”

“Bill didn’t see him alone later?”

“Of course not!”

“All right, don’t bite. I need to know. Now what?”

“We’re going to see him. We’re going to tell him that we have to tell the cops, and we’re going to try to get him to come along. That’s why I wanted you with me, because I’m afraid of him — I mean I’m afraid he’ll talk me out of it. But they’ve got to know that Bill was asked to fix the game and he wouldn’t. If it’s hard on Uncle Dan that’s too bad, but I can’t help it; I’m for Bill. I’m for Bill all the way.”

I was making myself look at her, for discipline. I was having the normal male impulses at the sight and sound of a good-looking girl in trouble, and they were worse than normal because I was partly responsible. I had given her the impression that the cops were about set to take her Bill on the big one, which was an exaggeration. I hadn’t mentioned that one reason they were keeping him was his recent reactions to the interest Nick Ferrone had shown in her, which of course had no bearing on anyone’s attempt to fix a ball game. True, she had been in a mess before I had got to her, but I had shoved her in deeper. What she needed now was understanding and sympathy and comforting, and since her friend Helen had deserted her I was all she had. Which was I, a man or a detective?

Looking at her, I spoke. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go see Uncle Dan.”

The engine was running. She released the handbrake, fed gas, and we rolled. Three minutes got us to Eighth Avenue, where we turned downtown. The dash clock said five past eleven, and my wristwatch agreed. The traffic was heavy in both directions, and she got in the right lane and crawled along. Two blocks down she pulled in at the curb, where there was plenty of space, set the brake, turned off the lights, killed the engine, and removed the key and put it in her bag.

“There it is.” She pointed. “Gale’s Pharmacy.”

It was ten paces down. There were neons in the window, but otherwise it looked drab.

“We’ll probably get a ticket for parking,” I told her.

She said she didn’t care. I got out and held the door, and she joined me on the sidewalk. She put a hand on my arm.

“You’re staying right with me,” she stated.

“Absolutely,” I assured her. “I’m good with uncles.”

As we crossed to the entrance and went inside I was feeling not fully dressed. I have a routine habit of wearing a gun when I’m on a case involving people who may go to extremes, but, as I said, I do not go armed to ball games. However, at first sight of Daniel Gale I did not put him in that category. His drugstore was so narrow that a fat man would have had to squeeze to make the passage between the soda fountain stools and the central showcases, and that made it look long, but it wasn’t. Five or six customers were on the stools, and the jerk was busy. A chorus boy was inspecting himself in the mirror of the weight machine. At the cosmetics counter on the other side, the left, a woman was being waited on by a little guy with a pale tight-skinned face and rimless specs who needed a shave.

“That’s him,” Lila whispered to me.

We stood. Uncle Dan, concentrating on the customer, hadn’t seen us. Finally she made her choice and, as he tore off paper to wrap the purchase, his eyes lifted and got Lila. Also he got me, beside her. He froze. He held it, rigid, for four seconds, then came to, went on with the little wrapping job, and was handed a bill by the customer. While he was at the cash register Lila and I crossed to the counter. As he handed the woman her change Lila spoke.

“Uncle Dan, I’ve got to tell you—”

She stopped because he was gone. Without speaking, he turned and made for the rear and disappeared behind a partition, and a door closed. I didn’t like it, but didn’t want to start a commotion by hurdling the counter, so I stepped to the end and circled, and on to the door that had closed, and turned the knob. It was locked. There I was, out at first, unless I was prepared to smash the door in.

The soda jerk called, “Hey, Mac, come out of that!”

“It’s all right,” Lila told him. “I’m his niece. He’s my Uncle Dan — I mean Mr. Gale is.”

“I never saw you before, lady.”

“I never saw you either. How long have you been here?”

“I been here two months, and long enough. Leave me be your uncle, huh? You, Mac, come out here where you belong! Whose uncle are you?”

A couple of the fountain customers gave him his laugh. A man coming in from the street in a hurry approached and called to me, “Gimme some aspirin!” The door I was standing by popped open, and Uncle Dan was there, against me in the close quarters.

“Aspirin!” the man demanded.

“Henry!” Gale called.

“Right here!” the soda jerk called back.

“Wait on the gentleman. Take over for a while; I’ll be busy. Come here, Lila, will you?”

Lila moved, circled the end of the counter into the narrow aisle, and approached us. There wasn’t room enough to be gallant and let her pass, and I followed Gale through the door into the back room ahead of her. It was small, and the stacks of shipping cartons and other objects took most of what space there was. The rows of shelves were crammed with packaged merchandise, except those along the right wall, which held labeled bottles. Gale stopped near the door, and I went on by, and so did Lila.

“We don’t want to be disturbed,” Gale said, and bolted the door.

“Why not?” I inquired.

He faced me, and from a distance of five arms’ length, with Lila between us, I had my first good view of the eyes behind the specs. I had never seen a pair like them. They not only had no pupils, they had no irises. For a second I thought they were glassies, but obviously he could see, so evidently he had merely been short-changed. Whoever had assembled him had forgotten to color his irises. It didn’t make him look any handsomer.

“Because,” he was telling me, “this is a private matter. You see, I recognized you, Mr. Goodwin. Your face is not as well known as your employer’s, but it has been in the papers on several occasions, and you were in my mind on account of the news. The radio bulletins have included the detail that Nero Wolfe and his assistant were present and engaged by Mr. Chisholm. So when I saw you with my niece I recognized you and realized we should talk privately. But you’re an impulsive young man, and for fear you may not like what I say, I make conditions. I shall stay here near the door. You will move to that packing case back of you and sit on it, with your hands in sight and making no unnecessary movements. My niece will put the chair here in front of me and sit on it, facing you, between you and me. That way I will feel free to talk.”

I thought he was batty. As a setup against one of my impulses, including a gun if I had had one, it made no sense at all. I backed up to the packing case and lowered myself, resting my hands on my knees to humor him. When Lila saw me complying she moved the chair, the only one there, as directed, and sat with her back to him. He, it appeared, was going to make a phone call. He did touch the phone, which was on a narrow counter at his right under the shelves of bottles, but only to push it aside. Then he picked up a large bottle of colorless liquid, removed the glass stopper, held it to his nose, and sniffed.

“I do not have fainting spells,” he said apologetically, “but at the moment I am a little unstrung. Seeing my niece here with you was a real shock for me. I came back here to consider what it might mean, but reached no conclusion. Perhaps you’ll explain?”

“Your niece will. Tell him, Lila.”

She started to twist around in the chair, but he commanded her, “No, my dear, stay as you were. Face Mr. Goodwin.” He took another sniff at the bottle, keeping it in his hand.

She obeyed. “It’s Bill,” she said. “They’re going to arrest him for murder, and they mustn’t. They won’t, if we tell them how you offered to pay him for fixing the game and he wouldn’t do it. He won’t tell them on account of me, so we have to. I know I promised you I wouldn’t, but now I’ve got to. You see how it is, Uncle Dan, I’ve got to. I told Mr. Goodwin, to get him to come along. The best way—”

“You haven’t told the police, Lila dear?”

“No. I thought the best way was to come and get you to go with me, and I was afraid to come alone, because I know how bad it will be for you — but it will be worse for Bill if we don’t. Don’t you see, Uncle—”

“Keep your back turned, Lila. I insist on it. That’s right, stay that way.” He had been talking in an even low tone, but now it became thin and strained, as though his throat had tightened. “I’ll tell why I want your back to me, so I can’t see your face. Remember, Goodwin, don’t move. This is a bottle of pure sulphuric acid. I was smelling it just to explain why I had it; of course it has no smell. I suppose you know what it will do. This bottle is nearly full, and I’m holding it carefully, because one drop on your skin will scar you for life. That’s why I want your back to me, Lila. I’m very fond of you — sit still! And I don’t want to see your face if I have to use this acid. If you move, Lila dear, I’ll use it. Or you, Goodwin — especially you. I hope you both understand?”

Lila was stiff, white, pop-eyed, gazing at me. I may have been stiff too; anyhow, I didn’t move. His hand holding the bottle was raised, hovering six inches above her head. She looked as if she might keel over, and I urged her, “Sit tight, Lila, and for God’s sake don’t scream.”

“Yes,” Uncle Dan said approvingly, “I should have mentioned that. Screaming would be as bad as moving. I had to tell you about the acid before I discussed matters. I’m not surprised at your fantastic suggestion, Lila, because I know how foolish you can be, but I’m surprised at you, Goodwin. How would you expect me to take a suggestion that I consent to my complete ruin? When I saw her and recognized you I knew she must have told you. Of course you couldn’t know what kind of man you had to deal with, but you know now. Did Lila persuade you that I am an utter fool, a jellyfish?”

“I guess she must have,” I admitted. “What kind of a man are you?”

He proceeded to tell me, and I proceeded to pretend I was listening. I also tried to keep my eyes on his pale tight-skinned face, but that wasn’t easy because they were fascinated by the damn bottle he was holding. Meanwhile my brain was buzzing. Unless he was plain loony the only practical purpose of the bottle must be to gain time, and for what?

“... and I will,” he was saying. “This won’t kill you, Lila dear, but it will be horrible, and I don’t want to do it unless I have to. Only you mustn’t think I won’t. You don’t really know me very well, because to you I’m just Uncle Dan. You didn’t know that I once had a million dollars and I was an important man and a dangerous man. There were people who knew me and feared me, but I was unlucky. I have gambled and made fortunes, and lost them. That affects a man’s nerves. It changes a man’s outlook on life. I borrowed enough money to buy this place, and for years I worked hard and did well — well enough to pay it all back, but that was my ruin. I owed nothing and had a little cash and decided to celebrate by losing a hundred dollars to some old friends — just a hundred dollars — but I didn’t lose, I won several thousand. So I went on and lost what I had won, and I lost this place. I don’t own this place, my friends do. They are very old friends, and they gave me a chance to get this place back. I’m telling you about this, Lila dear, because I want you to understand. I came to you and Bill with that offer because I had to, and you promised me, you swore you would tell no one. I have been an unlucky man, and sometimes a weak one, but I am never going to be weak again — don’t move!”

Lila, who had lifted her head a little, stiffened. I sat gazing at Gale. Obviously he was stalling for time, but what could he expect to happen? It could be only one thing: he expected somebody to come. He expected help. Then he had asked for it, and it was no trick to guess when. As soon as he had seen us he had scooted back here to phone somebody. Help was on the way, and it had to be the kind of help that would deal with Lila and me efficiently and finally; and bigtime gamblers who can provide ten grand to fix a game are just the babies to be ready with that kind of help. In helping with Lila and me they would probably also settle Uncle Dan, since they like to do things right, but that was his lookout, not mine.

Either he was loony or that was it. Doping that was a cinch, but then what? They might come any second; he couldn’t be expected to stand and dangle the damn bottle all night; they might be entering the drugstore right now. At a knock on the door he would reach behind him and push the bolt — and here they are. Any second...

He was talking. “... I didn’t think you would, Lila, after all I’ve done for you. You promised me you wouldn’t. Now, of course, you’ve told Goodwin and it can’t be helped. If I just tip this bottle a little, not much—”

“Nuts,” I said emphatically, but not raising my voice. “You haven’t got it staged right.” I had my eyes straight at his specs. “Maybe you don’t want to see her face, but the way you’ve got her, with her back to you, it’s no good. What if she suddenly ducked and dived forward? You might get some on her clothes or her feet, but the chair would be in your way. Have you considered that? Better still, what if she suddenly darted sideways in between those cartons? The instant she moved I would be moving too, and that would take her out of my path, and before you could get at her with that stuff I’d be there. She’d be taking a chance, but what the hell, that would be better than sitting there waiting for the next act. Unquestionably it would be better for her to go sideways, with her head down and her arms out. You see how bum your arrangement is? But if you make her turn around facing you—”

She moved. She went sideways, to her left, her head down and her arms out, diving for the cartons.

I lost a tenth of a second because I hadn’t dared to pull my feet back ready for the spring, but that was all I lost. I didn’t leap, I just went, with all the force my leg muscles could give it. My target was the bottom of the left front leg of the chair, and I went in flat, face down, and had the leg before he could get under way. The impact of the chair knocked him back against the door, and I kept going and grabbed his ankle and jerked. Of course the bottle could have landed right on me, but I had to get him off his feet. As I yanked his ankle I kept my face down, and as he tumbled I felt nothing hit me. The next thing I knew I was on top of him, pinning him, with a grip on his throat, looking around for the bottle. It had never reached the floor. It had landed on a carton six feet to my right and was there on its side, the stuff gurgling out. The floor slanted toward the wall, and no flood threatened me.

“Okay, Lila,” I said. “I need help.”

She was scrambling to her feet. “Did he — did it—” She giggled.

“No. If you have hysterics I’ll tell Bill. Slap yourself, I can’t. It’s there on a carton, and don’t go near it.”

“But he — my God, he—”

“Shut up. Company’s coming, and we’ve got to get out of here. I want some adhesive tape, quick. Find some.” She moved and started looking on shelves and in drawers. I kept talking, thinking it would help. “A drugstore is a handy place — sulphuric acid, adhesive tape, everything you might need. Watch your step; it’s spreading on the floor. When I said I was good with uncles I didn’t mean uncles like him. He’s a lulu. He may have been—”

“Here it is.”

“Good girl. Tear off a piece six inches long — that’s it. No, you’ll have to do it; if I turn loose of his throat he’ll squawk. Across his mouth, good and tight — not that way, diagonal. That’s right. Now one the other way. That ought to do it, thank you, nurse. Now find some nice sterile bandage...”

She found that too and held his arms while I sat on his knees and tied his ankles. Then I fastened his wrists behind him and anchored the strip of bandage to the handle of a locked drawer. I squatted for a look at the tape on his mouth, gave it a rub, stood up, went to the door and pushed the bolt, and told her, “Come on.”

“But we ought to make—”

“Come on, damn it! If company is on its way, and I think it is, it won’t be bottle-danglers. If you like this place you can stay, but I’m going. Well?”

I opened the door, and she passed through. I followed and pulled the door to. There were customers on the fountain stools, though not the same ones, and Henry was selling a man a pack of cigarettes. I paused on my way to the street door to tell him that Mr. Gale would be out soon, then opened the door for Lila. On the sidewalk I told Lila to go wait in the car while I made a phone call. Then I saw she was trembling all over, so I escorted her and got her safely on the front seat.

Up twenty paces was a bar and grill, and I walked to it, entered, found a phone booth, dialed WA 9–8241, asked for Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and got him. He wanted to know if I was up at the Polo Grounds.

I told him no. “Where I am,” I said, “is top secret. I’m giving you a hot one. Put this down; Gale’s Pharmacy, nine-two-three-two Eighth Avenue. Get a prowl car there fast, and plenty of reinforcements. Gale, the owner, on information received, was the go-between for the gamblers who fixed the ball game. He is in the back room of his store, gagged and tied. The reason—”

“Is this a gag?”

“No. The reas—”

“Where are you?”

“Quit interrupting or I’ll ring off. The reason for the hurry is that I think Gale sent for a rescue squad to deal with certain parties who are no longer there, and it would be nice to get there in time to welcome them. So PD cars should not park in front. Be sure to tell them not to step in the stuff on the floor that looks like water, because it’s sulphuric acid. That’s all. Got the address?”

“Yes, and I want—”

“Sorry, I’ve got a date. This could make you a lieutenant. Step on it.”

I went out and back to the car. Lila was on the driver’s side, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. As I opened the door her head turned to me.

“Move over,” I said. “I’ll do the driving this time.”

She slid across, and I got in and pulled the door to. I sat. Half a minute went by.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Her voice was so low and weak I barely got it.

“Polo Grounds. Where Bill is.” Maybe he was.

“Why don’t we start?”

“I phoned for cops. If others come before the cops do I want to get a look at them. In case I forget it later, I want to mention that that was a beautiful dive you made, and the timing couldn’t have been better. I’m for you — only spiritual, of course, since you’re happily married.”

“I want to get away from here. I want to see Bill.”

“You will. Relax.”

We sat, but not for long. It couldn’t have been more than four minutes before a pair of cops swung around the corner, headed for the entrance to Gale’s Pharmacy, and entered. Glancing at Lila and seeing that her eyes were closed, I pushed the starter button.

7

It was only half an hour short of midnight when I stopped the Curtis at the curb across the street from the main entrance to the Polo Grounds. The mob had dwindled to a few small knots, and of the long line of police cars only three were left. Two cops were having a těte-à-těte in front of the entrance, and another one was leaning against a wall.

Lila was a quick mover. She had got out and circled the car to my side by the time I hit the pavement and shut the door. I gave her the ignition key, and we were crossing the street when suddenly she let out a squawk and gripped my arm, and then let go and started to run. I took another step and stopped. Bill Moyse was there, emerging from the entrance, with a dick on either side of him and one behind. Lila ended her run in a flying leap and was on him. The startled dicks were on her, or anyway at her. They were vocalizing, and so were Bill and Lila. The two uniformed cops started toward them.

I would have liked to deliver Lila to Wolfe, or at least to Hennessy, but there was a fat chance of tearing her loose from her second-string catcher. Also I did not care to get hung up explaining to a bunch of underlings how I happened to be chauffeuring for Mrs. Moyse, so I detoured around the cluster, made it inside the entrance, and headed for the stairs to the clubhouse. Hearing heavy footsteps above, starting down, and voices, one of them Hennessy’s, I slipped quietly to the rear and got behind a pillar. Surely Stebbins had informed the uptown contingent of my phone call about the situation at Gale’s Pharmacy, and if so, surely Hennessy would be inquisitive enough to want to take me along wherever he was going. I didn’t risk peeking around the pillar, but, judging from the footsteps, there were four or five of them. As soon as they had faded out I returned to the stairs and mounted. I was not chipper. I did not have Lila. I had been gone more than two hours. Wolfe might have gone home. They might all be gone.

But they weren’t. Wolfe was in the clubroom, still — or possibly again — on the leather couch, and Chisholm was standing there. As I entered, their heads turned to me.

As I crossed to them Wolfe spoke. “The police are looking for you,” he said coldly.

“Uh-huh.” I was indifferent. “I just dodged a squad.”

“What did you go to that drugstore for?”

I raised the brows. “Oh, you’ve heard about it?”

“Yes. Mr. Hennessy did, and he was kind enough to tell me.” He was dripping sarcasm. “It is a novel experience, learning of your movements through the courtesy of a policeman.”

“I was too busy to phone.” I glanced at Chisholm. “Maybe I should report privately.”

“This is getting to be a goddam farce,” Chisholm growled. His tie was crooked, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had a smear of mustard at the side of his mouth.

“No,” Wolfe said — to me, not to Chisholm. “Go ahead. But be brief.”

I obeyed. With the training and experience I have had, I can report a day of dialogue practically verbatim; but he had said to be brief, so I condensed it, but included all the essentials. When I finished he was scowling at me.

“Then you don’t know whether Gale was actually involved or not. When he failed with Mr. and Mrs. Moyse he may have quit trying.”

“I doubt it.”

“You could have resolved the doubt. You were sitting on him. Or you could have brought him here.”

I might have made three or four cutting remarks if an outsider hadn’t been present. I stayed calm. “Maybe I didn’t make it clear,” I conceded generously. “It was ten to one he had phoned for help — the kind of help that would leave no doubts to resolve — and it might come any second. Not that I was scared, I was too busy, but I wanted to see you once more so I could resign. I resign.”

“Bosh.” Wolfe put his hands on the leather seat for leverage and raised himself to his feet. “Very well. I’ll have to try it.” He moved.

Chisholm put in, “Inspector Hennessy said to notify him immediately if Goodwin showed up.”

Wolfe wheeled on him, snarling. “Am I working for you? Yes! By heaven, I am! Notify Mr. Hennessy? Hah!” He turned and strode through the door that led to Art Kinney’s office.

“It’s a farce,” Chisholm muttered and followed him.

I fell in behind.

They were all in there. The four who were famous athletes, first-string Giants, didn’t look very athletic. Their sap had started draining with the first inning of that awful ball game, and it hadn’t stopped for more than ten hours. Lew Baker, catcher, and Con Prentiss, shortstop, were perched on a desk. Joe Eston, third baseman, and Nat Neill, center fielder, were on chairs.

Art Kinney, manager, was standing over by a window. Doc Soffer was seated at Kinney’s desk, bent over, with his elbows on his knees and his face covered by his hands. Beaky Durkin was propped against a table, saggy and bleary-eyed.

“It had better be good,” someone said — I didn’t know who, because I was placing a chair for Wolfe where he could see them all without spraining his neck. When he was in it, with nothing to spare between the arms, I crossed to a vacant seat over by the radio. Chisholm was there, at my right.

Wolfe’s head moved from side to side and back again. “I hope,” he said grumpily, “you’re not expecting too much.”

“I’m through expecting,” Kinney muttered.

Wolfe nodded. “I know how you feel, Mr. Kinney. All of you. You are weary and low in spirit. You have been personally and professionally humiliated. You have all been talked at too much. I’m sorry I have to prolong it, but I had to wait until the police were gone. Also, since I have no evidence, I had to let them complete their elaborate and skilled routine in search of some. They got none. Actually they have nothing but a druggist that Mr. Goodwin got for them.”

“They’ve got Bill Moyse,” Con Prentiss rumbled.

“Yes, but on suspicion, not on evidence. Of course I admit, because I must, that I am in the same fix. I too have a suspicion but no evidence, only mine is better grounded. I suspect one of you eight men of drugging the drinks and killing Ferrone. What I—”

They made enough noise to stop him. He showed them a palm.

“If you please, gentlemen. I have a question to put. I suspect one of you, but I have no evidence and no way of getting any speedily. That is why I asked Mr. Chisholm to keep you here for consultation with me after the departure of the police. I wanted to ask you: do you want to help? I would like to tell you the reason for my suspicion and ask you to help me get evidence to support it. I think you can if you will. Well?”

“One of us?” Joe Eston demanded.

It was interesting to see them. Naturally they all had an impulse — anyhow, all but one — to look around at faces, but no two of them handled it exactly alike. Chisholm looked straight and full at each in turn. Beaky Durkin sent quick little glances here and there. Doc Soffer, frowning and pursing his lips, turned his head slowly left to right.

“Go ahead, damn it!” Kinney blurted. “Have you got something or not?”

“Yes, I have something,” Wolfe assured him, “but I don’t know how good it is. Without your help it is no good at all.”

“We’ll help if we can. Let’s hear it.”

“Well. First the background. Were the two events — the drugging of the drinks and the murder — connected? The reasonable supposition is yes, until and unless it is contradicted. If they were connected, how? Did Ferrone drug the drinks, and did one of his teammates discover it and, enraged, go for him with the bat? It seems unlikely.” Wolfe focused on Beaky Durkin. “Mr. Durkin, most of what you told me has been corroborated by others, but you knew Ferrone better than anyone else. You discovered him and got him here. You were his roommate and counselor. You told me that because of his brilliant performance this season his salary for next year would be doubled; that his heart was set on winning today’s game and the series; that winning or losing meant a difference of some two thousand dollars to him personally; that his series money would pay his debts with some to spare; and that, knowing him intimately, you are positive that he could not have been bribed to drug the drinks. Is that correct?”

“It sure is.” Durkin was hoarse and cleared his throat. “Nick was a swell kid.” He looked around as if ready for an argument, but nobody started one.

“I know,” Wolfe said, “that the police got no impeachment of that. Do any of you dispute it?”

They didn’t.

“Then, without evidence, it is idiotic to assume that he drugged the drinks. The alternative, supposing that the two events were connected, is the reverse — that someone drugged the drinks and Ferrone knew or suspected it and was going to expose him, and was killed. That is how I see it. Call him X. X could have—”

“To hell with X,” Kinney blurted. “Name him!”

“Presently. X could have put the drugged drinks in the cooler any time during the late morning, as opportunity offered. What led Ferrone to suspect him of skulduggery may not be known, but conjecture offers a wide choice. Ferrone’s suspicion may have been only superficial, but to X any suspicion whatever was a mortal menace, knowing as he did what was going to happen on the ball field. When Ferrone questioned him he had to act. The two were of course in this room together, at the time the rest of you were leaving the clubroom for the field or shortly after. X was, as so many have been, the victim of progressive exigency. At first he needed only money, and to get it he stooped to scoundrelism; but it betrayed him into needing the life of a fellow man.”

“Cut the rhetoric,” Chisholm snapped. “Name him.”

Wolfe nodded. “Naming him is easy. But it is pointless to name him, and may even expose me to an action for slander, unless I so expound it as to enlist your help. As I said, I have no evidence. All I have is a fact about one of you, a fact known to all of you and to the police, which seems to me to point to guilt, but I admit that other interpretations are conceivable. You are better judges of that than I am, and I’m going to present it for your consideration. How can I best do that?”

He aimed his gaze at Baker and Prentiss, who were perched on a desk, raised a hand slowly, and scratched the tip of his nose. His eyes moved to pin Doc Soffer. His head jerked to the left to focus on Chisholm, and then to the right, to Beaky Durkin.

He spoke. “I’ll illustrate my meaning. Take you, Mr. Durkin. You have accounted for yourself, but you have been neither contradicted nor corroborated. You say you left the clubhouse shortly before the team did and went to your seat in the grandstand.”

“That’s right.” Durkin was still hoarse. “And I didn’t kill Nick.”

“I didn’t say you did. I am merely expounding. You say you remained in your seat, watching the game, until the third inning, when you were sent for by Mr. Chisholm to come to the clubhouse. That too is neither contradicted nor corroborated. Certainly you were there when you were sent for, but there is no proof that you had been there continuously since the game started and even before.”

“I don’t know about proof, but I was. I can probably find the guy that was sitting next to me.”

“You didn’t leave your seat once during that time?”

“I did not.”

Wolfe looked around. “Well, gentlemen. That’s the fact I can’t explain. Can you?”

They were gawking at him. “Do we have to?” Baker demanded.

“Someone does.” Wolfe’s voice sharpened. “Consider the situation. Consider the relationship of those two men. The discovery of Ferrone is Durkin’s proudest achievement as a baseball scout. He fosters him and treasures him. Today — now yesterday — at the game that will be the climax of Ferrone’s triumphant season, Durkin is in the clubroom and sees Ferrone there in uniform, with the others, young, sound, mighty, valiant. He leaves the clubhouse and goes to a seat in the grandstand, and soon he sees the team cross the field to the dugout, but no Ferrone. Durkin keeps his seat. Before long the loudspeaker announces that Garth, not Ferrone, will play second base. Durkin keeps his seat. The players take the field, and the game starts, with no Ferrone. Durkin keeps his seat. They play the first inning badly. Durkin keeps his seat. They play the second inning badly. Durkin keeps—”

“Good God!” Art Kinney yelled, moving.

“Exactly.” Wolfe lifted a hand. “Please, gentlemen, keep your seats. It is clearly fantastic. The announcement that Garth would play second base could have been taken by Durkin merely as a blunder, but when they took the field without Ferrone his disquiet and consternation would have been insupportable. The one thing he couldn’t possibly have done was to stay in his seat. Why did you, Mr. Durkin?”

“I couldn’t think—” He tried to clear his throat and sounded as if he were choking. “There was nothing I could do. What could I do?”

“I don’t know. I said I can’t explain what you did do, but I can try. Suppose the nonappearance of Ferrone was no surprise to you, because you knew where he was and what had happened to him. Suppose, further, you were in a state of severe systemic shock because you had murdered him. I submit that that explanation of your keeping your seat is plausible. Is any other? Can you offer one?”

Durkin took two steps. “Look here,” he said, “you can’t sit there and accuse me of a thing like that. I don’t have to stay here and take it, that kind of thing. I don’t have to, and I’m not going to.”

He started for the door, but Lew Baker was suddenly there in his path and speaking. “Back up, Beaky. I said back up!”

Beaky did so, literally. He backed until his rump hit the edge of the table, and felt for the edge with his hands, one on each side, and gripped it.

Wolfe was grim. “I was supposing, Mr. Durkin, not accusing. But I am now ready to accuse, and I do. I explained, when I was calling you X, how and why you acted.” His eyes moved. “Gentlemen, I ask you to look at him. Look at his face, his eyes. Look at his hands, clutching the table in dismay and despair. Yes, I accuse him. I say that that man drugged your drinks, caused you to lose your game, and, threatened with exposure, murdered your teammate.”

They were making sounds, and they were on their feet, including Art Kinney.

“Wait!” Wolfe said sharply, and they turned to him. “I must warn you, you approach him at your peril, for I have no proof. It will be gratifying to crush him, to press a confession out of him, but a confession is not evidence, and we need some. I suggest that you try for it. He did it for money, and surely he was paid something in advance, unless he is pure fool. Where is it? Certainly not on his person, since you have all been searched, but it is somewhere, and it would do admirably. Where is it?”

Lew Baker got to him ahead of the others. He told him in a thin, tight voice, so tight it twanged, “I wouldn’t want to touch you, Beaky, you dirty rat. Where is it? Where’s the jack?”

“Lew, I swear to God—”

“Skip it. You swearing to God! You fixed us, did you? And Nick — you fixed him. I’d hate to touch you, but if I do, God help you!”

The others were there, Kinney and Doc Soffer with them, crowding in on Durkin, who had pulled back onto the table, still gripping the edge. I went to the end of the table and stood. They were strong and hard, and their nervous systems had had a tough day. Aside from the killing of Nick Ferrone, whom they may or may not have loved, this was the bird who had made them play ball like half-witted apes in the most important game of their lives, to an audience of fifty million. If they really cut loose there could be another corpse in that room.

“Give me room, fellows,” Nat Neill said. “I’m going to plug him.”

Durkin didn’t flinch. His jaw was quivering, and his eyes looked sick, but he didn’t flinch.

“This is wrong,” Con Prentiss said. “He wants us to hurt him. He’d like to be knocked cold. He’s not a coward, he’s just a snake. Did you see his eyes when you said you’d plug him? That’s what he wants.”

“It’s a moral question,” Joe Eston said. “That’s the way to handle it; it’s a moral question.”

Art Kinney shouldered between two of them to get his face within ten inches of Durkin’s. “Look, Beaky. You’ve been in baseball thirty years. You know everybody in the majors, and we know you. What do you think’s going to happen? Where could you light? We’ve got you here now, and we’re going to keep you. I’ll send for the whole damn team. How will you like that?”

“I want a lawyer,” Durkin said in a sudden burst.

“By God!” Neill roared. “He wants a lawyer! Get out of the way! I’m going to clip him!”

“No, Beaky, no lawyers,” Kinney said. “I’ll send for the boys, and we’ll lock the doors. Where’s the money? We know you got it. Where is it?”

Durkin’s head went forward, down. Kinney put a fist under his chin and yanked it up and held it. “No, you don’t. Look at me. We’ve got you, but even if we didn’t, where could you go? Where you going to sleep and eat? You’re done, Beaky. Where’s the money?”

“Let me hold his chin,” Neill requested. “I’ll fix his goddam chin.”

“Shut up,” Eston told him. “It’s a moral question.”

Kinney’s fist was still propping Durkin’s chin. “I think,” he said, “the boys ought to have a look at you. They won’t be sleeping anyhow, not tonight. Con, get on the phone and find them. You too, Lew — the one in the clubroom. Get ’em here, and get all of ’em you can. They’ll come all right. Tell them not to spill it; we don’t want any cops around until we get—”

“No!” Durkin squawked.

“No what, Beaky?” Kinney removed his fist.

“I didn’t mean to kill Nick.” He was slobbering. “I swear I didn’t, Art. He suspected — he asked me — he found out I bet a grand against us, and he threw it at me, and I brought him in here to explain, but he wouldn’t believe me and he was going to tell you, and he got sore and came at me, and I grabbed the bat just to stop him, and when I saw he was dead — my God, Art, I didn’t want to kill Nick!”

“You got more than a grand for doping the drinks. How much did you get?”

“I’m coming clean, Art. You can check me, and I’m coming clean. I got five grand, and I’ve got five more coming. I had to have it, Art, because the bookies had me down and I was sunk. I was listed good if I didn’t come through. I had it on me, but with the cops coming I knew we’d be frisked, so I ditched it. You can see I’m coming clean, Art. I ditched it there in the radio.”

“What radio?”

“There in the corner. I stuffed it in through a slot.”

There was a scramble and a race. Prentiss tangled with a chair and went down with it, sprawling. Nat Neill won. He jerked the radio around and started clawing at the back, but the panel was screwed on.

“Here,” I said, “I’ve got a—”

He hauled off and swung with his bare fist, getting his plug out of his system, though not on Durkin. Grabbing an edge of the hole his fist had made, he yanked, and half the panel came. He looked inside and started to stick his hand in, but I shouldered him good and hard and sent him sideways. The others were there, three of them, surrounding me. “We don’t touch it, huh?” I instructed them, and bent down for a look in the radio, and there it was, lodged between a pair of tubes.

“Well?” Wolfe called as I straightened up.

“A good fat roll,” I told him and the world. “The one on the outside is a C. Do you—”

Beaky Durkin, left to himself on the table, suddenly moved fast. He was on his feet and streaking for the door. Joe Eston, who had claimed it was a moral issue, leaped for him as if he had been a blazing line drive trying to get by, got to him in two bounds, and landed with his right. Durkin went down all the way, slamming the floor with his head, and lay still.

“That will do,” Wolfe said, as one who had earned the right to command. “Thank you, gentlemen. I needed help. Archie, get Mr. Hennessy.”

I went to Kinney’s desk and reached for the phone. At the instant my fingers touched it, it rang. So instead of dialing I lifted it and, feeling cocky, told it, “Nero Wolfe’s uptown office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“That you, Goodwin?”

I said yes.

“This is Inspector Hennessy. Is Durkin there?”

I said yes.

“Fine. Hold him, and hold him good. We cracked Gale, and he spilled his guts. Durkin is it. Gale got to him and bought him. You’ll get credit for getting Gale, and that’ll be all right, but I’ll appreciate it if you’ll hold off and let it be announced officially. We’ll be there for Durkin in five minutes. Hold him good.”

“We’re already holding him good. He’s stretched out on the floor. Mr. Wolfe hung it on him. Also we have found a roll of lettuce he cached in the radio.”

Hennessy laughed. “You’re an awful liar, Goodwin. But you’re a privileged character tonight, I admit that. Have your fun. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “That was Hennessy. They broke Gale, and he unloaded. He gave them Durkin, and they’re coming for him. Hennessy doesn’t believe we already got him, but of course on that we’ve got witnesses. The trouble is this: which of us crossed the plate first — you with your one little fact, or me with my druggist? You can’t deny that Hennessy’s call came before I started to dial. How can we settle it?”

We can’t. That was months ago, and it’s not settled yet.

Content

Rex Stout
This Won’t Kill You

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