Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (24 page)

“It is indeed a small world,” Panzer said, shaking his head and grinning. “Like Orrie, I visited a man known for his ability to relieve suckers of their dimes and their dollars. He claims not to know anything about the Williamson kidnapping, and although he is hardly trustworthy, I tend to believe him in this instance. When I told him two brothers were said to be involved in the kidnapping, he also denied any knowledge of them or their whereabouts.

“What he did say, however, after receiving five dollars from me, is that any con runner who finds himself in some kind of trouble with the law probably will seek the aid of a lawyer named—you guessed it—Stanley Harding. He has availed himself of Mr. Harding’s legal expertise on more than one occasion when he has run afoul of the gendarmes, and he said Harding got him off lightly. Fred and Bill, are you also going to report that your sources mentioned this same individual?”

Durkin and Gore both shook their heads and went on to describe their evenings, which were essentially uneventful. When they finished, Panzer rubbed his palms together and looked at each of us. “Gentlemen, I wonder whether all of you are thinking what I am thinking?”

“Let me take a wild stab here,” Fred Durkin said. “We pay a visit to Stanley Harding?”

“Exactly!” Panzer said. “And we do it en masse. Let’s see; it is eleven thirty. If we leave now, we may catch him in his office before he goes out for lunch.”

We piled into two taxis and fifteen minutes later found ourselves on a street of warehouses and other nondescript buildings within a block of the East River, where two spans—which I later learned were the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges—arched across the gray water. Harding’s address was a narrow, three-story brick building wedged between two other equally tired structures.

The six of us trudged up a narrow stairway to the second floor, choosing not to trust the ancient elevator and its equally ancient operator, who was dozing on his stool with a girlie magazine on his lap. Painted in black on the glass door at the top of the stairs were the words
S. HARDING ESQ. ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
. Panzer rapped once on the glass, then pushed on in as a man’s voice asked, “Hello. Who’s there?”

No one sat at the desk in the anteroom, presumably where a secretary would normally be stationed. The door to the inner office was ajar, and the voice called out again.

This time, Panzer spoke. “Mr. Harding? Several of us are here to see you, sir.”

“Come in, come in, by all means. My door is open to all.”

We took him up on his offer, and the fiftyish little man stood—he couldn’t have been taller than five foot four—registered shock as we all squeezed our way into his small and unadorned office.

“My goodness, my goodness, so many of you,” he said, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses and running a hand over an almost-bald dome. “How can I help you, gentlemen? I’m afraid I can’t offer seating to all of you.” He gestured to his pair of guest chairs with a shrug of apology.

“That’s quite all right, we will stand,” Panzer said. “We understand that you frequently represent men who ... well, who have operated certain games of chance and other questionable enterprises.”

Harding nodded and ran an index finger along his little gray mustache. “I fervently believe that every American is entitled to adequate and able defense in a court of law. It is part of a citizen’s birthright,” he said in what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech. “Do all of you seek counsel?”

“Of a sort,” Panzer said. “My friends here and I are looking for certain individuals and feel you may be able to help us.”

“I’m sorry to say that missing persons are not my specialty, sir. For that, you would need to hire a private investigator,” Harding said, his pinched face beginning to register unease.

“Oh, I believe in this situation, you may be exactly what we are looking for. We want to locate two men, brothers who go by various names, among them Jasper, Schmidt, Bagley, and—”

“Now see here, you have come to the wrong place!” Harding yapped, standing and pointing at the door. “I want you all to go—”

“Sit back down!” Fred Durkin barked. “I think we have come to the right place.” Fred turned to Panzer.

“I agree with my colleague,” Saul said. “How is your standing with the Bar Association, Mr. Harding?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I said. I am wondering whether there have been other complaints about you, because my friends and I may choose to file one.”

Harding reached for his telephone, but before he could lift the receiver off its cradle, Bill Gore’s beefy hand enveloped the lawyer’s wrist. “No phone calls just now,” he grunted.

“This is outrageous!” Harding squeaked. “Help! Help!” This time, Gore’s hand went to the man’s neck, gripping it. “Enough of that, or you’ll have a good reason for needing help. Now sit down and shut up until we’re through with you.”

“Sorry, but my friend tends to have a quick temper,” Panzer said to the lawyer. “Bill, that’s quite enough. I am sure the gentleman will be calm now and, I hope, cooperative. Here is the situation, Mr. Harding,” Panzer continued, sitting on the corner of the desk and chatting as if to an old friend. “It’s one thing to defend and even harbor minor criminals, such as confidence men who use certain methods to separate greedy fools from their money. Well and good, but kidnapping is quite another matter, a felony to be precise. And in this particular case, it becomes even more newsworthy because it concerns the offspring of an extremely prominent New York figure whose name you would instantly recognize.”

“I ... I have no idea what you are talking about,” Harding said.

Panzer leaned in toward the little lawyer. “I believe that you do, sir. My friends want to know exactly where we can find the brothers who were mentioned earlier, and they will not leave this office until they learn where these men are.” As Saul was speaking, Orrie Cather pulled out his revolver and began polishing it with a handkerchief.

“Let us go back to the Bar Association again,” Panzer continued. “It seems likely they would be interested to learn that one of its members—you are a member, I assume—has knowledge of alleged kidnappers and their whereabouts.”

“I didn’t know anything at all about a kidnapping,” Harding whined. “They told me that—” He stopped himself in midsentence, nervously looking at each of us.

“Just what did they tell you?” I snapped.

“Uh, what I mean is ... well ... He slumped in his chair, head down.

“Mr. Harding, you could be in a whole lot of trouble, both with the lawyers’ group and the police,” Panzer said patiently. “You should also know that these men we are looking for may be involved in two murders.”

“Murder? Oh my God!”

“You had better talk to us—and right now.”

“Who are all of you, anyway?”

“It does not matter who we are, other than for you to know we won’t hesitate to turn you in for concealing the location of men who certainly are felons.”

Harding made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. “They go by several names, but their real surname is Bagley. I happened to be a friend of their father,” he said.

Panzer nodded. “The legendary Beer Barrel.”

“You knew him, too?”

“Only by reputation. Please go on.”

“I liked the old man,” the lawyer said. “The boys, well, they always seemed to find trouble, although for the most part, they confined their shenanigans to petty cons. I can’t see them involved in kidnapping and murder, although ...

“Yeah?” Cather prompted. “Don’t stop now.”

“Although they had a nasty streak, even as kids, which surprised me, because their father, con artist that he was, did not have a mean bone in his body. Larcenous, yes, but mean, never in my memory.”

“Interesting,” Panzer said. “But this isn’t helping us find the brothers. You know where they are.”

“What do you want them for?”

“That is our concern, Mr. Harding.”

“I must insist upon something.”

“You are in no position to do any insisting, pal,” Durkin growled.

The lawyer turned to Panzer. “Please, Mr. ...?”

“My name is unimportant, Counselor. What is it you want?”

“If I tell you where they—the Bagleys—are, you must promise not to say that I was the source.”

“That much we can do,” Panzer said. “I’m curious about one thing, though. How did they happen to get in touch with you recently?”

“One of them, Carl it was, telephoned me, yesterday, it was, and told me that he and his brother were in some trouble—he was not specific—and told me they might need my help. When I asked where they were in case I needed to get in touch with them, he told me.”

“And now you are going to tell us.”

Harding heaved another sigh. “They are in a hotel on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, the Farnham.”

“What name are they registered under?”

“Cunningham.”

“All right,” Panzer said to us, “we’re headed for the Bronx, except for you, Bill. Stay here and keep Mr. Harding company until you get our call. And we certainly do not want him using the telephone, do we?”

“We certainly don’t,” Gore agreed. “In fact, I’ll take possession of the instrument right now. Any instructions if the brothers in question happen to ring this number?”

“Do not answer any calls for at least an hour. When we telephone, it will be twice: I will hang up after two rings and then phone again within seconds.”

“Got it. What about food?”

“You just read my mind,” Panzer said. “I noticed there’s a deli down on the corner. Archie and I will go down there and get sandwiches for you and Mr. Harding. What’s your poison, Bill?”

“Ham on rye,” Gore said. “I’m awfully hungry. Can you make it two?”

“It’s Wolfe’s money, and you’re a growing lad. Done! And what can we get for you, Mr. Harding?”

“I am not hungry,” the lawyer said petulantly, folding his arms across his narrow chest and pouting.

“Come now, you need sustenance,” Panzer urged. “I have great admiration for Mr. Gore, but you may not find him particularly good company. He tends toward the quiet side, so there is not likely to be much conversation. You will need something to help pass the time, and what better for that than food?”

“Oh, all right,” Harding said, still pouting. “Corned beef on rye.”

Out on the street as we walked toward the deli, Panzer turned to me. “I wanted to talk to you, just the two of us. We are about to enter a new phase in this operation, and I could use your advice.”

“Me advising you? It seems to me that it should be the other away around.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve been observing you over these last days, and I like your instincts and judgment. We are going to need those qualities as we move ahead in this business.”

“And just how do you see us tackling the Bagleys?”

“I’ll answer a question with a question: What would you do, Archie?”

“I assume the plan is to take them alive?”

“Your assumption is correct.”

“Okay, let’s say that we pull that part off—more about the details in a minute. Then what?”

“We deliver them to Nero Wolfe,” Panzer said.

“The police are going to love that,” I said with a laugh. “Cramer will go straight through the roof.”

“Without question. But this is what Mr. Wolfe has instructed.”

“All right, if that’s the deal,” I said. “Now that Bill Gore will be staying here to keep watch on our lawyer friend, that makes five of us, all armed, against two Bagleys, also probably armed.”

“Go on,” Panzer said.

“They don’t know that we’re on to them, so we’ve got the element of surprise working for us, wouldn’t you agree?”

Panzer nodded. “I would.”

“I didn’t get as much as I should have out of high school, but in one of the history courses I took, we learned about diversionary tactics during wars.”

“And ...?”

“And that’s what I think we need here. Do you have any idea what that hotel in the Bronx is like?”

“Oddly enough, I do.” Panzer said. “I once caught up with an embezzler in a room at the Farnham, where he was holed up with a girlfriend, a henna-headed floozy whose best years were behind her. The place is either five or six stories high, and it’s quite a few cuts above a flophouse, quite respectable.”

“That figures,” I said. “The Bagley boys are walking around with plenty of dough at the moment. They could even have afforded a suite at the Plaza or the Waldorf.”

“No question about that.” Panzer agreed. “So you were talking about diversionary tactics, Archie. Go on.”

“We could try to take the brothers in their room at the hotel, but there are too many problems with that approach. For one, how would we get them to open the door? We could try to shoot our way in, of course, but they’re armed, and that risks a gun battle in close quarters, where everybody could be hurt—or worse. We need to get them out of the building.”

“I’m listening,” Panzer said.

“What gets people out of a hotel—fast?”

His eyes narrowed. “Archie, you are not going to tell me that you’re planning a fire, are you?”

“That’s my idea.”

“That’s also arson.”

“Not a real fire, Saul, but a phony one, which sends everybody rushing out into the street.”

Panzer flashed a lopsided grin. “A false fire alarm is a crime, as I know you are aware.”

“So are kidnapping and murder.”

“Okay, tell me exactly how you see this working, and I’ll tell you whether I think you’ve gone soft in the head.”

As we got sandwiches at the deli, I laid out my plan in detail to Panzer, watching his long face go from disbelief to surprise to acceptance, then back to disbelief and, finally, to acceptance once again.

B
y using the jump seats, four of us squeezed into a taxi heading north, destination: the Bronx. Saul Panzer had left in another cab to brief Nero Wolfe on our plans and to take Wolfe’s Heron sedan, which we hoped would be needed later. We had left Gore with Stanley Harding, and as we walked out, the terrified lawyer kept begging us not to tell the Bagley brothers how we found them. “If he keeps on like this, I’m going to gag the little bastard,” Bill said.