Bloodied Ivy (12 page)

“And the charge is dropped?” Wolfe persisted, still not budging.

“Yes, dammit,” Hobson said, his face now the color of a wedge of watermelon. “Goodwin can pick up his belongings at the front desk!”

With that, Wolfe marched out, with me two paces behind. He turned right and went into the entrance hall, where Saul Panzer was sitting in a straight-backed metal chair reading a dog-eared copy of the bathing-suit issue of
Sports Illustrated
, which looked like it was missing more than a few pages. “Saul, we’re going,” Wolfe announced, and the two of them stood waiting as I retrieved my pocketload of possessions, including the skeleton keys. I made a big deal out of checking to make sure everything was there, then signed the sheet Pierce slipped across the desk at me and thanked him. Still whistling, Pierce winked.

Saul, who as usual looked like he could use a shave, nodded and gave me a thumbs-up as he popped his flat cap on and set it at a rakish angle. “Did you find out about rooms?” Wolfe asked him when we were on the sidewalk in front of the police station.

“Yep. Best place around, no contest, is the Prescott Inn, which is just off the campus. I’ve reserved rooms for both you and Archie there tonight. I’m told the food’s first-rate, too, although with what you’re used to, there’s a better-than-even chance that it may not measure up.”

“Satisfactory,” Wolfe said. As far as he’s concerned, Saul Panzer can do no wrong, and I’d have to second that. Saul isn’t impressive to look at, given a face that’s all nose, stooped shoulders that make him seem even shorter than he is, and a wardrobe the Salvation Army would reject for its resale stores. But he’s far and away the finest street operative in Manhattan, and probably the United States, which is why Wolfe always calls on him when we need a tailing job or a casing job or hard-to-get information about anyone from a two-bit thief to a corporation president.

“Pretty fancy wheels,” I said to Saul, tapping the fender of the forest-green Lincoln Town Car parked at the curb. “You two drive up in this?”

Saul shrugged. “It seemed like the best the rental place had, and it handles okay. Where’s the Mercedes, in back?”

I said it was and told Wolfe to wait while I brought it around. As I walked away, Wolfe was thanking Saul for the chauffeuring job and wishing him a good drive back to New York. And he meant it; to Wolfe, any drive, regardless of length, is a risky venture at best, which I knew was why he had decided on staying the night in Prescott. Anything was preferable to two seventy-five-mile drives in the same day.

I pulled up in front of the station. Wolfe was indeed a vision, wearing his gray overcoat and black homburg and holding tightly to his redthorn walking stick. I was sorry more of the citizenry of Prescott wasn’t around to appreciate this historic sight: the world’s greatest private detective standing on a sidewalk in a small town in upstate New York. And glowering.

As I eased to the curb, Saul opened the back door for Wolfe, then closed it behind him and put his suitcase and my smaller overnight bag on the front seat next to me. “Archie, Fritz packed a change of clothes for you and put your shaving kit in there, too,” Saul said.

“Bless him. And bless you, too, my son,” I told him and saluted. Pulling away, I could see Saul in my rearview mirror thumbing his nose at me and grinning from sideburn to sideburn.

“I suppose you’d like to go straight to the Prescott Inn?” I asked Wolfe.

“Confound it, yes!” he grumbled as he adjusted himself and gripped the passenger strap as if it were a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. I followed the directions that Saul had scratched on a sheet of paper, and three minutes later, we were in front of a two-story, American Colonial—what else?—mansion on a tree-lined street just outside the town’s business district and within sight of the very building where Cortland had his office.

“Looks nice,” I observed, and was rewarded with a grunt from the back seat, where Wolfe was still clutching the strap even though I had stopped the car. As far as he’s concerned, you simply can’t be too careful when you’re traveling, and for once, I had to agree.

T
HE PRESCOTT INN WAS FIRST-RATE
, all right. With a minimum of fuss, I got Wolfe settled in his room, which turned out to be a suite—bedroom and sitting room—both decorated of course in Early American. And the sitting room had a chair that came reasonably close to accommodating Wolfe’s dimensions, which is saying something. Saul had done his job, as usual. My room was next door, and while it would never be mistaken for a suite, it was far from shabby itself.

“Okay,” I told Wolfe after I’d unpacked his stuff and put it away. “I know you’re sore as hell about being here, and you’re sore at me for getting you here. In fact, you’re sore about this whole damn situation. But to show my good faith, I’m going to order you beer from room service—it’s on me.”

He sat and pouted in the big chair while I called down and asked the voice at the other end to have two bottles of Remmers sent up for him and milk for me. Then I took a chair facing him. “Are you going to talk, or just sit there and let me prattle on?”

“Pah. That man was hysterical.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Cortland, of course. When he telephoned me, he was in a dither, to the point where he neglected to use any of his polysyllabic vocabulary. He reported that the police had told him you were being held but refused to give him any further information. To hear his histrionics, one would have thought you were only minutes from an appointment with the guillotine. I contemplated calling the Prescott police myself, but chose instead, with Saul’s assistance, to beard them in their den.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, looking insufferably smug, as if to say that I, the man of action, needed him, the original stay-at-home, to enter the arena and put things right.

“I’m genuinely touched that you’d make this trek, and just to get me out of a hole at that,” I said.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Need I remind you, Archie, that this contretemps began with high-sounding pronouncements about how you were investigating Mr. Markham’s murder at your own expense, and on your own time. I might have known that—”

I was saved from this further onslaught of smugness by the bell, or rather, the bellhop. He was at the door, all five-feet-four of him, with a pencil-thin mustache, black shoe-polished hair parted in the middle, and a smile that made Vanna White look like a mope by comparison. So much for insignificant details; the important fact was that he had two chilled bottles of Wolfe’s favorite beer, Remmers, along with a pilsner glass, and my milk. I paid him, added a tip that made the smile even wider, and took the tray, setting it on the end table at Wolfe’s left.

“Interesting historical fact: This is the oldest college in New York State,” I said as he poured beer and studied the settling foam.

“University,” he corrected, looking unimpressed. “We should call Mr. Cortland. What time is it?”

“Four-oh-five. You want me to try him now?”

“Later. Have you eaten since breakfast?”

“Negative. Funny, I was just thinking about my stomach. It’s a little early for dinner, though. I can stand to wait a couple of hours. Did you have something before you left?”

“Barely.” Wolfe winced at the memory. “Mr. Cortland’s frenzied call came just as I was finishing lunch.”

“Gulping down your food is rough on the digestive system,” I sympathized. “Do you want dinner in the dining room, or should I have it brought up here?”

“Here,” Wolfe said quietly. He obviously was preparing for the worst. To him, a meal away from Fritz is the next thing to a sentence on Devil’s Island.

“Well, I assume you’d like to start thinking about it anyway. Try the room service menu,” I said, taking it from the desk and handing it across. “What’s the program?”

Wolfe sucked in slightly more than a bushel of air and let it out slowly. “I want to see Mr. Cortland—preferably before dinner.”

“Any other instructions?”

“Not at the moment,” he said airily, opening the menu.

“Okay, I’ll be next door.” I got up to go, and his eyes stayed on the menu, one of his ways of telling me he didn’t particularly care what I did, other than reaching Cortland. In my room, I dialed the professor at home, then at the office; no answer at either place. I dropped onto the bed and closed my eyes; after all, I was newly released from incarceration and needed a period of readjustment to society, to say nothing of a recharging of my batteries. When I opened my eyes, it was a few ticks before five. I got up and opened my overnight bag. Fritz had done a terrific packing job, including everything I could possibly need for a stay of three or four days. I briefly considered calling home to thank him, but scratched the idea; Fritz always frets when Wolfe is away from home and would probably strafe me with questions about how he felt, whether he was getting enough to eat, whether he was dressing warmly enough, and so on. I could do without that just now.

I washed up and tried Cortland at home again, this time with success. “I’m over at the Prescott Inn,” I announced. “So is Wolfe.”

“Oh? You’ve been released?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes. What happened to that damn key that you were supposed to leave in the flowerpot?”

“Oh, Mr. Goodwin, I’m so chagrined,” he said. “In my hurry to leave for Kingston—I’m afraid I was running late as usual—I simply forgot. I don’t know what to say—”

“Say you’ll never do it again, cross your heart. Their dungeon is horrible, but somehow I survived it all. That’s all in the past, though. Mr. Wolfe would like to see you here. I strongly suggest that you come as fast as you can.”

Cortland said he’d make it fifteen minutes, which meant that if Wolfe didn’t prolong the meeting, he could still have his dinner at the usual time—or even earlier, if he was of a mind. I mention this because his stomach in large measure—no pun intended—dictates his actions. I gave myself nine-to-two odds that his conversation with Cortland would take no more than an hour and probably less. I ran a comb through my hair and dialed Wolfe’s suite. He answered on the third ring. “Yes?” His tone was the same one I get when I interrupt him during one of his sessions in the plant rooms.

“Mr. Cortland will be over in less than ten minutes now, or so he promises. Do you want me to order dinner before he gets here and have it brought up at, say, seven?”

There was a five-second pause, followed by a deep breath, intended to represent suffering. “Yes. I’ll have the endive salad, the chicken and dumplings, the strawberries Romanoff, and coffee.” From his tone, it was obvious he wasn’t about to bet his house in Cairo on the abilities of the folks manning the kitchen. “Also, Archie, have more beer brought up now, and something for you and Mr. Cortland as well.”

Having been thus directed, I called downstairs and gave them two identical dinner orders—I liked the sound of Wolfe’s choices. I also asked them to send up more beer and a bottle of their highest-priced Scotch, along with soda. I didn’t know anything for sure about Cortland’s preference, but he seemed like a Scotch drinker. If I happened to be wrong, there was always room service; we could easily become their best customers.

After I got off the phone, I looked in the mirror, straightened my tie, and went down the hall to Wolfe’s door, knocking once and pronouncing my name. He grunted and I let myself in with the key. He was right where I’d left him in the big chair, except now he had a new book,
A History of Venice
, by John Julius Norwich.

“Beer’s on the way,” I told him. “And so, as you know, is Cortland. Are you ready for him?” My answer was a glare, which lasted all of three seconds before he returned to his book. The sawed-off waiter with the mustache, the smile, and the libations beat the professor to our room, only by a minute or so. Wolfe had his beer and I was unscrewing the cap on the Scotch when the knock came. I went to the door and cracked it, bracing it with one foot, which turned out to be unnecessary. The man in the hall appeared about as likely as Woody Allen to bull his way into a room.

“Enter,” I told Cortland, who blinked, gave a whispered hello, and cautiously stepped in, squaring his shoulders. He was wearing a nicely cut light gray suit, a great improvement over those ridiculous rainbow sportcoats. “Please sit down, Mr. Cortland,” Wolfe rumbled, gesturing toward the upholstered chair that I’d positioned facing him. “Will you have something to drink?”

“Scotch, please—with soda if you’ve got it.” Score one for my character analysis. I stirred Scotch-and-sodas for Cortland and myself while Wolfe poured the first of three bottles of Remmers that were lined up like soldiers at parade rest on the table. I handed our guest his drink, pulled up a straight-backed chair for myself, and flipped my notebook open.

“Sir,” Wolfe said after taking a healthy swallow of beer, “as I believe you know, the Prescott police now are aware you have engaged me to investigate Mr. Markham’s death. Under the circumstances, Mr. Goodwin had very little alternative but to divulge our role to them. How do you feel about this?”

Cortland sipped Scotch and set his glass down gingerly. “It was going to come out eventually,” he said, shrugging.

“It was indeed. Now that I’m here,” Wolfe said, allowing himself an expression that showed his near-misery, “I would like to talk to several people, preferably in a group. And it would be helpful if you could orchestrate this.”

Cortland fidgeted. As I watched him, I realized he didn’t have any idea how unusual it was for Wolfe to be unleashed on the world. You’d better not blow this opportunity, buddy, I thought, either for your sake or for our almighty and most honorable bank balance.

“Well, I suppose I can at least ask,” the professor said, bobbing his head and clearing his throat. “I think I know who you want to engage in conversation, and when they see Mr. Goodwin, they’ll realize I wasn’t being totally forthright with them the first time he paid a visit, You now, the false name and all.” He stared glumly into his Scotch, no doubt wondering how the coming events would affect his academic reputation.

“As you said yourself, it was going to come out anyway.”