Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 (17 page)

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. Ther 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.

“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.