Fer-De-Lance (19 page)

"I don't know." Wolfe appeared to be considering; as for me, I was handing it to Manuel for being cute enough to get what I was doing in the first five minutes; not many had done that. Wolfe downed a glass of beer and wiped his lips. "I really don't know. If it is actionable at all, I suppose it could only be through a complaint of libel from the murdered. I don't suppose you had that in mind?"

"I have only one thing in mind." Manuel's eyes were even smaller. "That it has got to stop."

"But, Mr. Kimball," Wolfe protested. "Give me a chance. You accused me of inventing absurdities. I have invented nothing. The invention, and a most remarkable and original one, even brilliant--and I am careful of words--was another's; only the discovery was mine. If the inventor were to say to me what you have said, I would put him down for a commendably modest man. No, sir, I did not invent that golf driver."

"And no one else did. Where is it?"

"Alas." Wolfe turned a hand palm up. "I have yet to see it."

"What proof is there that it ever existed?"

"The needle that it propelled into Barstow's belly."

"Bah. Why from a golf driver? Why on the first tee?"

"The wasp came from nowhere, and synchronized."

"No good, Mr. Wolfe." Manuel's intent little black eyes were scornful. "It's what I said, criminal nonsense. If you have no better proof than that, I repeat, I have a right to demand that you retract. I do so. I have this morning called on Mr. Anderson, the District Attorney at White Plains. He agrees with me. I demand that you see my father and retract and apologize; likewise the Barstows if you have told them. I have reason to suspect that you have."

Wolfe shook his head slowly from side to side. After a moment he said regretfully, "It's too bad, Mr. Kimball."

"It is. But you caught the crow, now you can eat it."

"No. You misunderstand me. I mean it's too bad that you are dealing with me. I am perhaps the only man on this hemisphere whom your courage and wit cannot defeat, and by incredibly bad luck you find yourself confronted by me. I am sorry; but just as you have assumed a task suitable for your abilities, I have found one congenial for mine. You will forgive me for wheeling onto your flank, since you have made it impossible for me to meet you frontally. I hardly suppose that you expected your direct attack to gain its feigned objective; you could hardly have had so poor an opinion of me as that. Your true objective must have been concealed, and probably it was the discovery of the nature and extent of the evidence I have so far acquired. But surely you know that, for how else could I have foretold the result of the autopsy?--I beg you, let me finish. Yes, I know when and where and by whom the golf driver was made, I know where the man who made it is now, and I know what results to expect from the advertisement which I inserted in this morning's newspapers and which you have perhaps seen."

Not a muscle on Manuel's face had stirred, and no change was perceptible in his tone. His eyes kept straight on Wolfe as he said, "If you know all that--I doubt if you do--is that not information for the District Attorney?"

"Yes. Do you want me to give it to him?"

"I? I want? Of course, if you have it."

"Good." Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. "I'll tell you what you do, Mr. Kimball. Do me a favor. On your way home this afternoon stop at Mr. Anderson's office; tell him what information I have and suggest that he send for it. Now--I am sorry--it is past my lunch hour. May I offer you a compliment? If almost anyone else I have known were in your position I would try to detain him longer on the chance of learning something. With you, I feel that eating my lunch will be more profitable."

Manuel was on his feet. "I should tell you, I am going from here to my lawyer. You will hear from him."

Wolfe nodded. "Certainly your best move. Obvious, but still the best. Your father would wonder if you did not."

Manuel Kimball turned and went. I got up and started after him for the courtesy of the house, but he was out of the front door before I made it.

I went back to Wolfe. He was leaning back with his eyes closed. I asked loud enough to wake him up, "Did that guy come here to find out if he'd have to go ahead and kill his father during the weekend?"

He sighed. His eyes opened and he shook his head. "Lunch, Archie."

"It won't be ready for ten minutes. Fritz only got back at one."

"The anchovies and celery will divert us."

So we went to the dining-room.

Right there, at that point, the Barstow-Kimball case went dead. At least Wolfe went dead, and that was the case as far as I was concerned. It wasn't a relapse, he just closed up. While plenty went into him during lunch, of course nothing came out; and when the meal was finished he went to the office and sat. I sat at my desk and caught up with a few things, but there wasn't much to do, and I kept glancing at Wolfe wondering when he would open up. Although his eyes were closed he must have felt my glances, for all of a sudden he looked at me and said: "Confound it, Archie, cannot paper be made not to rattle?"

I got up. "All right, I'll beat it. But damn it, where? Have you lost your tongue?"

"Anywhere. Go for a walk."

"And return?"

"Any time. It doesn't matter. Dinner."

"Are you waiting for Manuel to bump off his old man?"

"Go, Archie."

It seemed to me that he was rubbing it in, since it was already three-thirty and in another half hour he would himself have left to go up to the plant-rooms. But seeing the mood he was in, I got my hat from the hall and went out.

I went to a movie to think, and the more I thought the more uncomfortable I got. Manuel Kimball's visit and his challenge, for that was what it amounted to, darned near succeeded as far as I was concerned. I had been aware that we weren't quite ready to tell Mrs. Barstow what address to mail the check to, but I hadn't fully realized how awfully empty our bag was. We had found out some things to our own satisfaction, but we had no more proof that there had been a murder than we had had when we started. Let alone who had done it. But that wasn't all; the worst was that there was no place to go from there. Granted that it was Manuel Kimball, how could we tie him up? Find the golf driver. Fat chance. I could see him in his plane flying low over the river or a reservoir, dropping the club out with a chunk of lead wired to the shaft. Trace the poison to him. About the same chance. He had been planning this for years maybe, certainly months; he may even have had the poison with him when he came up with his father from the Argentine; anyway, he could have got it from there at any time--and try and find out. Get him to talk on the telephone with Mrs. Ricci and have her recognize his voice. Sure, that was it; any jury would convict on that without leaving the courtroom.

I sat in a movie three hours without seeing anything that happened on the screen, and all I got was a headache.

I never did know what Wolfe was up to that Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Was he just bumping his head against the wall, as I was? Maybe; he wasn't very sociable. Or was he possibly waiting for Manuel to make a move? But the only move Manuel could have made would have been to kill his father, and then where would we have been? Anderson would have left us out in the cold, and while neither Wolfe nor I would have worn any back for E.D. Kimball we certainly would have done so for the fifty grand. As far as E.D. Kimball was concerned, I figured that by rights he had been killed on June fourth anyway and he might be grateful for two weeks of grace. But Wolfe wasn't waiting for that; I was sure he didn't expect it from what he said about Manuel Sunday afternoon. It was then that he opened up and talked a little, but not to much point. He was being philosophic.

It was raining; it rained all that Sunday. I wrote some letters and went through two Sunday papers and spent a couple of hours on the roof chinning with Horstmann and looking over the plants, but no matter what I did I was in a bad humor. The damn rain never let up once. Not that it would have bothered me if I had had anything to do; I don't notice rain or shine if I'm out in it busy; but monkeying around that dry dark quiet house all day long with that constant patter outside and never a let up didn't help my disposition a bit. I was thankful when something happened around five-thirty that I could get good and sore about.

I was in the office yawning over a magazine when the telephone rang. It took me a few seconds to unwind myself out of the armchair I was in and get across to my desk, and when I got the receiver to my ear I was surprised to hear Wolfe's voice. He was answering from the plant-room phone. He always took calls in the plant-room when I was out, but usually when he knew I was in the house he left them to me. But it was his voice: "This is Wolfe."

Another voice: "This is Durkin, Mr. Wolfe. Everything is okay. She went to church this morning, and a while ago she came out and went to a candy store and bought an ice-cream cone. She's back in now, I expect for the night."

"Thank you, Fred. You'd better stay there until ten o'clock. Saul will be there in the morning at seven, and you resume at two."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"That's all."

I banged the receiver onto the hook, thinking there was a chance it might crack Wolfe's eardrum.

When he came into the office half an hour afterward I didn't look up, and I was careful to be buried in my magazine enough to make sure it wasn't upside down. I held onto that pose another half hour, turning a page when I thought of it. I was boiling.

Wolfe's voice, finally: "It's raining, Archie."

I didn't look up. "Go to hell. I'm reading."

"Oh no. Surely not, in those fitful gusts. I wish to inquire, would it be a good plan in the morning for you to collect the replies to our advertisement and follow their suggestions?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. The excitement would be too much for me."

Wolfe's cheeks folded up. "I begin to believe, Archie, that a persistent rain distresses you even more acutely than it does me. You are not merely imitating me?"

"No, sir. It's not the rain, you know damn well it isn't." I dropped the magazine on the floor and glared at him. "If the very best way you can think of to catch the cleverest murderer that ever gave me a highball is to start a game of tiddlywinks in Sullivan Street, you might at least have told me so I could remember Durkin in my prayers. Praying is all I'm good for maybe. What's Durkin trying to do, catch Anna hocking the golf stick?"

Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. "Compose yourself, Archie. Why taunt me? Why upbraid me? I am merely a genius, not a god. A genius may discover the hidden secrets and display them; only a god could create new ones. I apologize to you for failing to tell you of Durkin; my mind was occupied; I telephoned him yesterday after you went for a walk. He is not trying to catch Miss Fiore but to protect her. In the house she is probably safe; outside probably not. I do not think Manuel Kimball will proceed to devise means of completing his enterprise until he is satisfied that there is no danger of his being called to account for his first attempt, which failed through no fault of his. It was perfectly conceived and perfectly executed. As for us, I see no possibility but Miss Fiore; clever is too weak a word for Manuel Kimball; he has his own genius. I would not ask for a better means of defeating a rainy Sunday than contemplation of the beauty of his arrangements. He has left us nothing but Miss Fiore, and Durkin's function is to preserve her."

"Preserve is good. Since she might as well be sealed up in a can."

"I think the can may be opened. We shall try. But that must wait until we are completely satisfied as to June fifth. By the way, is Maria Maffei's telephone number in the book?--Good. Of course, we do not know what Miss Fiore is guarding so jealously. If it turns out to be trivial and insufficient, then we must abandon the skirmish and plan a siege. No man can commit so complicated a deed as a murder and leave no vulnerable points; the best he can do is render them inaccessible save to a patience longer than his own and an ingenuity more inspired. In Manuel Kimball's case those specifications are--well, considerable. If in fact Miss Fiore is guarding the jewel that we seek, I earnestly hope that he is not aware of it; if he is, she is as good as dead."

"With Durkin protecting her?"

"We cannot protect from lightning, we can only observe it strike. I have explained that to Fred. If Manuel Kimball kills that girl we shall have him. But I think he will not. Remember the circumstances under which he sent her the hundred dollars. At that time he could not have supposed that she knew anything that could connect him with Barstow, or he would not have made so inadequate a gesture. He knew only her first name. Probably Carlo Maffei had mentioned it, and had said enough of her character and of some small discovery she had made to suggest to Manuel Kimball, after he had killed Maffei, to risk a hundred dollars on the chance of additional safety without the possibility of added danger. If that surmise is correct, and if Miss Fiore knows nothing beyond what Kimball was aware that she knew, we are in for a siege. Saul Panzer will go to South America; I warned him yesterday on the telephone to be in readiness. Your program, already in my mind, will be elaborate and tiresome. It would be a pity, but we would have no just grievance against Manuel Kimball. It was only by his ill-fortune, and my unwarranted pertinacity in asking Miss Fiore a trivial question a second time, that the first piece of his puzzle was discovered."

Wolfe stopped. I got up and stretched. "All I have to say is, he's a dirty spiggoty."

"No, Archie. Mr. Manuel Kimball is an Argentinian."

"Spiggoty to me. I want a glass of milk. Can I bring you some beer?"

He said no, and I went to the kitchen.

I felt better. There were times when Wolfe's awful self-assurance gave me a touch of a dash of a suggestion of a pain in the neck, but there were other times when it was as good as a flock of pure and beautiful maidens smoothing my brow. This was one of the latter. After I had finished with a sufficient quantity of milk and cookies I went out to a movie and didn't miss a scene. When I went home it was still raining.