Archie Meets Nero Wolfe (18 page)

“That may well be,” Wolfe stated. “Although by all accounts, Miss Trent has been an exemplary employee, is that not so?”

“True, she has,” Williamson nodded, drinking the last of his Remisier. Panzer, who occupied the yellow chair next to mine, quickly got the bottle and refilled his glass.

“Enough on the young woman for the moment,” Wolfe said. “Let us turn our attention to Charles Bell. Mr. Panzer has some information of interest, and then we will discuss Inspector Cramer.”

Panzer cleared his throat. “After we learned Mr. Bell’s identity, I talked to someone I know who has connections at the morgue. Through that individual, I reached Mr. Bell’s sister, Arlene Perkins, who had identified his body. Per Mr. Wolfe’s instructions, I visited her at home in New Jersey, and—”

“I should have been the one to talk to her and give her our condolences,” Williamson interrupted, “but Charles left us no forwarding address. And I also should be paying for his—”

“Please, sir,” Wolfe said, holding up a palm. “That can wait. Let Mr. Panzer continue.”

“I learned from Mr. Bell’s sister that he had planning for some time to give his notice to the Williamsons. She told me that he hinted to her that he had some ‘big plans,’ but that he was very secretive regarding details. When I suggested that those plans might have to do with Tommie’s kidnapping and the subsequent ransom payment, Mrs. Perkins became very angry and—”

“As I would have, too,” Williamson said, although without his earlier fervor. Maybe the Remisier had begun to mellow him.

“She got angry with me,” Panzer continued, “so I backed off fast. I went on to ask about whom his friends were, and she said she didn’t know, that she and her brother had not been close the last few years and rarely saw each other. She told me she was surprised that after all this time, he had asked to stay with her and her husband until he got himself resettled.”

“Did Mrs. Perkins say anything about her brother’s reason for leaving the Williamsons when he did?” I asked.

“Yeah, Archie, she sure did. Bell told her that the others on the staff acted like he was part of the kidnapping plot, and that he just couldn’t take their suspicious attitudes anymore.”

“That is outrageous,” Williamson said, shaking his head. “If only I had known this sort of thing was happening right under my own roof. All of it was so unfair to poor Charles, rest his soul.”

“There is something more,” Panzer said after taking a sip of his scotch. “Mrs. Perkins told me that during the time she was waiting for Bell to move in with them, she got three telephone calls for her brother, all from the same man, deep voice, no discernible accent. Each time, she asked if she could take a message, and each time he told her he would call again.”

“There you have what we know about Mr. Bell,” Wolfe said. “It would be instructive to know his movements from the time he left your employ until his death, but determining them would no doubt be difficult.”

I turned to Williamson. “You mentioned that Bell left your home in his own vehicle, a Plymouth coupe, I believe you said?”

“I wasn’t there when he left, and yes, his machine was a Plymouth, which I allowed him to keep in an empty stall. I have to assume that he departed in that vehicle because it is no longer in our garage.”

“Has the auto been located?” I asked.

Wolfe looked questioningly at Panzer and Williamson, both of whom shook their heads. “Saul, do you have any suggestions as to how we can locate this—what is it?—Plymouth?”

Panzer’s expression was one of chagrin. “I’m sorry, sir. That should have been the first thing to come to mind. I will get on it first thing tomorrow.”

“Only when you are able,” Wolfe said with a flip of the hand. In his eyes, it seemed that Saul could do no wrong. “Now, Mr. Williamson, let us discuss your impending meeting with Inspector Cramer. From my brief and rancorous telephone conversation with him, it became clear that the Police Department finally has connected three events: the murder of Barney Haskell, your son’s kidnapping, and the shooting of Mr. Bell. The inspector will no doubt try to bully you, and my advice is to answer all his questions fully and truthfully. That includes my involvement and that of operatives who are in my employ.”

“I do not know this Cramer, other than as a testy voice at the other end of a telephone wire,” Williamson said, “but he does not intimidate me. I happen to be a close friend of his boss, Police Commissioner Humbert, whom I have known for years. Further, I am probably the largest single donor to the Police Athletic League, which has sponsored so many good programs for the city’s poorer children. I say this not to boast, but to establish my standing with the Police Department.”

“I did not mean to infer, sir, that you might be intimidated by Inspector Cramer,” Wolfe said. “Rather, my point is that the time has come to show him our cards. I am no more intimidated by the inspector than you are, overbearing though he can be. Having said that, I have found that on occasion it becomes advantageous to concede certain points to the man, particularly when he feels his authority has been usurped. Such a move on our part makes it more likely that he will then share at least some of what the police have learned, based on my past dealings with him.”

“Meaning that we bow to his wishes?”

“By no means, sir. But bear in mind that Mr. Cramer commands an army of men, while we possess only a handful of foot soldiers, albeit intrepid and talented ones. I suggest that we meet with the inspector together, presenting a united front.”

“So that our stories are consistent?” Williamson posed with a tight smile.

“That is part of it,” Wolfe allowed. “But, in addition, together we present a formidable combination: you are a well-known and respected public figure and civic benefactor, and I have been known to solve criminal cases that have left the police baffled.”

“You are not one to indulge in false modesty, are you?”

“No, sir. Nor, I suspect, are you. False humility is a transparent plea for praise and recognition, neither of which I find worth the price of the pretense.”

“Well put!” Williamson said with a grin, clapping once. His mood had lightened measurably since partaking of the Remisier. “I assume we would meet with the inspector here.”

“Correct.”

“I would like to request that Mr. Goodwin be present. I have grown in the last days to appreciate his perspective and his opinions.”

“Because he possesses the same qualities, Mr. Panzer also will be a party to the discussion,” Wolfe said.

“When will we meet?” Williamson asked, rising.

“Tomorrow night, nine o’clock,” Wolfe said, nodding to Panzer, who got up without a word and left the room.

As we reached the front door, Panzer moved up and thrust an object into Williamson’s hand. “For you, sir, with Mr. Wolfe’s best regards,” he said.

The tycoon took the sealed bottle of Remisier, cradled it, and smiled down as if it were his firstborn. “Thank Mr. Wolfe for me,” he said softly. As we went to the car, the world’s leading hotelier walked with a spring in his step that had been absent earlier in the evening.

O
n the drive back to Long Island, Williamson slumped down and dozed in the well-upholstered backseat while I mulled over our meeting with Cramer tomorrow and the case in general. It seemed inescapable that the late Charles Bell was involved in the kidnapping, but in what way? I had already scoured his quarters the way I thought a detective should, looking for anything that might provide a lead, but without success.

Bell had left his onetime home barer than Old Mother Hubbard’s infamous cupboard. And he had done every bit of the clean-out himself, as I had learned from Emily Stratton, who told me he never wanted anyone else on the household staff to enter his rooms. “Not that any of us would want to set foot in the place anyway,” she had said with a sniff. “Not with the kind of things that went on up there.”

When I gave her a questioning look, she lowered her voice, nodded, and silently mouthed “women,” pronouncing the word as if it were a disease.

I gave her my best imitation of a shocked look. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes, many times, and many of them.” She nodded again, turned on her heel, and walked off, head held high in judgment.

Even as I congratulated myself on how thoroughly I had combed those upstairs rooms, I finally came to the realization that there were other places where I should have been looking. The glove boxes of the three Williamson autos, for starters. And the garage itself, where no maid apparently ever went and which is larger than most homes, with more places to hide a possible clue than a magician’s closet full of props.

It was after eleven when we returned to the estate. Williamson, still fuzzy from his nap, yawned, wished me a good night, and trudged into the house, clutching his precious bottle of Remisier to his bosom. I then began a search.

The glove boxes yielded nothing other than maps of the New York metropolitan area and New England, owners’ manuals, and registration documents. Although the garage was generally well lit, there were some dark corners. After playing the beam of a flashlight along the walls and floor and opening every one of the automotive tool drawers, I started in on the wooden desk that served as what amounted to a chauffeur’s office.

I found that Charles Bell either had done little office work during his years with the Williamsons or else had once again meticulously purged every object from the premises. Even the wastebasket between the desk and the back wall was as empty as a senator’s campaign promises. As I turned away from that wire-mesh trash receptacle, I almost missed it. A crumpled scrap of paper intended for the wastebasket had gotten wedged into a crack between the wall and the baseboard. I pulled the sheet out and smoothed it on the desktop: a single word was scrawled in pencil,
Pollard
, presumably in Bell’s handwriting.

On a chance, I pulled down the stack of telephone directories from the shelf above the desk and started paging them. For those of you who are fascinated by statistics, there were eighty-eight listings for the last name Pollard in the Manhattan directory, twenty-one in the Bronx book, and forty-three in Queens. Those numbers were more than I wanted to deal with, so I went to the Yellow Pages. Turning to the alphabetical listings, I found a Pollard Engraving Co., a Pollard Furniture Store, and—what do you know?—a Pollard Truck Leasing service. Even more interesting, that last establishment was located in the Bronx.

A glance at my watch told me it might be too late to call Del Bascom at home, but I dialed his number anyway. He answered on the second ring.

“Goodwin here. Did I wake you?”

“Nah, Archie, not me. The wife and I stay up till midnight, sometimes later. We both like to read. For her, it’s romantic stuff, for me, good old Zane Grey and his western tales. How’s things at the Williamson palace?”

“They’re getting more interesting all the time. Have you ever by chance impersonated a cop?”

“On occasion, although I don’t care to. It’s a quick way to get your license lifted, likely for good. I’ve known that to happen to a few tecs over the years.”

“But not guys as smart as us, right?”

“Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that, Archie.”

“Just listen, will you?”

M
onday morning at breakfast, I told Waverly that after dropping Tommie off at school, I would be heading into New York on an errand for Burke Williamson and would be back by late morning or early afternoon. Because the butler was my nominal supervisor, I wanted to stay on the formal Englishman’s good side. And as I had expected, he did not question the details of my errand. If the assignment was one requested by Mr. Williamson, it had to be all right as far as Waverly was concerned.

After watching Tommie jump out of the car and run to join his friends on the MeadesGate Academy playground, I pulled off the road in a quiet spot and peeled off my uniform jacket, replacing it with a sport coat and exchanging my chauffeur’s cap for a snap-brim felt hat. Looking in the rearview mirror to straighten my tie, I then followed what was becoming a familiar route into New York, specifically to the borough of the Bronx.

The Pollard Truck Leasing Service occupied a dumpy-looking, single-story brick building along a commercial stretch of Jerome Avenue that had elevated train tracks running above it. Next to the building was a lot filled with trucks and vans of various shapes and sizes. I parked the car a block down the street and checked my watch. Bascom was due in five minutes.

He showed up right on time, marching down the sidewalk and spotting the Pierce-Arrow. This was a Del Bascom I had not seen before: wearing a fedora and a belted raincoat with the collar turned up, hands jammed into the pockets, and a belligerent expression pasted on his mug.

“The name’s Lieutenant Danahey,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he slid into the front seat next to me, “and you are Sergeant Rourke. And by God, this better be worth it, Archie.”

“Will they get suspicious if they don’t see a patrol car?”

“I don’t plan to give ’em time to think about that. The plan is to have these bozos back on their heels so fast they won’t remember their own names, right? Let’s go.”

We got out of the auto and strode resolutely down the block toward our destination. I wondered if we looked like plainclothes cops to passersby. I hoped so, although I wasn’t sure I looked old enough to be any kind of cop.

With Bascom leading the way, we entered the leasing outfit’s cluttered and grimy office. “Help ya?” a fat specimen wearing an undershirt and three days of beard drawled from behind the counter as if he had no interest in helping us.

“Yes, I believe that you can,” Bascom snapped. “We are looking for information about a truck that we believe got leased here.” He gave the date of the kidnapping.

“And just who might you be to go around asking questions?” the fat man asked in a surly tone.

“Detective Lieutenant Danahey of Homicide, that’s who, pal. And this is Sergeant Rourke. We are here investigating a murder.” He whipped out a police badge that looked to me like the genuine article, quickly jamming it back into his pocket.