Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe (20 page)

Stopped by a red light on Park Avenue in the Fifties, I turned my head to say, “I'm taking the car back because I may need it. I may do a little errand for one of the cowboys. If so I probably won't be home for dinner.”

“A professional errand?”

“No. Personal.”

He grunted. “You have the afternoon, as agreed. If the errand is personal it is not my concern. But, knowing you as I do, I trust it is innocuous.”

“So do I.” The light changed and I fed gas.

It was ten minutes to four when I got back to the parking lot on 63rd Street. Walking west, I crossed Park Avenue and stopped for a look. Five cops were visible. One was talking to the driver of a car who wanted to turn the corner, two were standing at the curb talking, and two were holding off an assortment of pedestrians who wanted to get closer to three mounted cowboys. The cowboys were being spoken to by a man on foot, not in costume. As I moved to proceed one of the cops at the curb blocked me and spoke. “Do you live in this block, sir?”

I told him no, I was going to Miss Lily Rowan's party, and he let me pass. The New York Police Department likes to grant reasonable requests from citizens, especially when the request comes from a woman whose father was a Tammany district leader for thirty years. There were no parked cars on that side of the street, but twenty paces short of the building entrance a truck with cameras was hugging the curb, and there was another one farther on, near Madison Avenue.

When I had left with Wolfe Lily had had nine guests; now she had twenty or more. Three of the new arrivals were cowboys, making six with Cal Barrow, Harvey Greve, and Mel Fox; the rest were civilians. They were all on the terrace. The civilians were at the parapet, half at one end and half at the other, leaving the parapet clear for thirty feet in the middle. The cowboys,
their ten-gallon hats on their heads and their ropes in their hands, were lined up facing a tall skinny man in a brown suit. At the man's elbow was Roger Dunning, the promoter. The man was speaking.

“… and that's the way it's going to be. I'm the judge and what I say goes. I repeat that Greve hasn't done any practicing, and neither has Barrow or Fox. I have Miss Rowan's word for that, and I don't think you want to call her a liar. I've told you the order, but you don't move in until I call your name. Remember what I said, if you take a tumble off a bronc it's four feet down; here it's a hundred feet down and you won't get up and walk. Once again,
no hooligan stuff.
There's not supposed to be any pedestrians on this side of the street from four o'clock to five, but if one comes out of a house and one of you drops a loop on him you won't sleep in a hotel room tonight. We're here to have some fun, but don't get funny.” He looked at his watch. “Time to go. Fox, get—”

“I want to say something,” Roger Dunning said.

“Sorry, Roger, no time. We promised to start on the dot. Fox, get set. The rest of you scatter.”

He went to the parapet, to the left, and picked up a green flag on a stick that was there on a chair. Mel Fox stepped to the middle of the clear stretch, straddled the parapet, and started his noose going. The others went right and left to find spots in the lines of guests. I found a spot on the right that happened to be between Laura Jay and Anna Casado. Leaning over to get a view of the street, I saw I was blocking Laura Jay and drew in a little. The three mounted cowboys and the man I had seen talking to them were grouped on the pavement halfway to Park Avenue. The judge stuck his arm out with the green flag and dipped it, the man down with the mounted cowboys said something, and
one of the ponies was off on the jump, heading down the middle of the lane between the curb on our side and the parked cars on the other. Mel Fox, leaning out from his hips, moved his whirling loop back a little, and then brought it forward and let it go. When it reached bottom it was a little too far out and the cowboy on the pony was twenty feet ahead of it. The instant it touched the pavement Fox started hauling it in; he had thirty seconds until the flag started number two. He had it up and a noose going in less than that, but the judge went by his watch. The flag dipped, and here came the second one. That was a little better; the rope touched the pony's rump, but it was too far in. Fox hauled in again, shifted his straddle a little, and started another whirl. That time he nearly made it. Anna Casado, on my left, let out a squeal as the rope, descending smoothly in a perfect circle, brushed the edge of the cowboy's hat. The audience clapped, and a man in a window across the street shouted “Bravo!” Fox retrieved his rope, taking his time, dismounted from the parapet, said something I didn't catch because of other voices, and moved off as the judge called out, “Vince!”

A chunky little youngster in a purple shirt, Levis, and working boots mounted the parapet. Saturday night I had seen him stick it out bareback on one of the roughest broncs I had ever seen—not speaking as an expert. He wasn't so hot on a parapet. On his first try his loop turned straight up, which could have been an air current, on his second it draped over a parked car across the street, and on his third it hit the asphalt ten feet ahead of the pony.

Harvey Greve was next. Naturally I was rooting for him, since he had done me a lot of favors during the month I had spent at Lily's ranch. Lily called something to him from the other end of the parapet, and he
gave her a nod as he threw his leg over and started his loop. His first throw was terrible; the noose buckled and flipped before it was halfway down. His second was absolutely perfect; it centered around the cowboy like a smoke ring around a fingertip, and Harvey timed the jerk just right and had him. A yell came from the audience as the cowboy tightened the reins and the pony braked, skidding on the asphalt. He loosened the loop with one hand and passed it over his head, and as soon as it was free the judge sang out “Thirty seconds!” and Harvey started hauling in. His third throw sailed down round and flat, but it was too late by ten feet.

As the judge called Barrow's name and Cal stepped to the parapet, Laura Jay, on my right, muttered, “He shouldn't try it.” She was probably muttering to herself, but my ear was right there and I turned my head and asked her why. “Somebody stole his rope,” she said.

“Stole it? When? How?”

“He don't know. It was in the closet with his hat and it was gone. We looked all around. He's using the one that was on that saddle and it's new and stiff, and he shouldn't—”

She stopped and I jerked my head around. The flag had dipped and the target was coming. Considering that he was using a strange rope, and a new one, Cal didn't do so bad. His loops kept their shape clear down, but the first one was short, the second was wide, and the third hit bottom before the pony got there. Neither of the last two ropers, one named Lopez and the other Holcomb, did as well. When Holcomb's third noose curled on the curb below us the judge called, “Second round starts in two minutes! Everybody stay put!”

There were to be three rounds, giving each contestant a total of nine tries. Roger Dunning was stationed
near the judge, with a pad of paper and a pen in his hand, to keep score in case the decision had to be made on form and how close they came, but since Harvey Greve had got one that wouldn't be necessary.

In the second round Fox got a rider and Lopez got a pony. In the third round Holcomb got a rider and Harvey got his second one. The winner and first world champion rope-dropper or drop-roper from one hundred feet up: Harvey Greve! He took the congratulations and the riding from the other competitors with the grin I knew so well, and when he got kissed by a friend of Lily's who was starring in a hit on Broadway and knew how to kiss both on stage and off, his face was nearly as pink as Nan Karlin's shirt. Anna Casado broke off a branch of sagebrush and stuck it under his hatband. Lily herded us into the living room, where we gathered around the sawhorse, and Roger Dunning was starting a presentation speech when Cal Barrow stopped him.

“Wait a minute, this goes with it,” Cal said, and went and hung the rope on the horn. He turned and sent the blue-gray eyes right and then left. “I don't want to start no fuss right now, but when I find out who took mine I'll want to know.” He moved to the rear of the crowd, and Dunning put his hand on the seat of the saddle. Dunning had a long and narrow bony face with a scar at the side of his jaw.

“This is a happy occasion,” he said. “Thank God nothing happened like one of you falling off. I wanted to have a net down—”

“Louder!” Mel Fox called.

“You're just sore because you didn't win,” Dunning told him. “I wanted to have a net below but they wouldn't. This magnificent saddle with genuine silver rivets and studs was handmade by Morrison, and I
don't have to tell you what that means. It was donated by Miss Lily Rowan, and I want to thank her for her generosity and hospitality on behalf of everybody concerned. I now declare Harvey Greve the undisputed winner of the first and only roping contest ever held in a Park Avenue penthouse—anyway just outside the penthouse and we could see Park Avenue—and I award him the prize, this magnificent saddle donated by Miss Lily Rowan. Here it is, Harvey. It's all yours.”

Applause and cheers. Someone called “Speech!” and others took it up, as Harvey went and flattened his palm on the sudadero. He faced the audience. “I tell you,” he said, “if I tried to make a speech you'd take this saddle away from me. The only time I make a speech is when a cayuse gets from under me and that's no kind for here. You all know that was just luck out there, but I'm mighty glad I won because I sure had my eye on this saddle. The lady that kissed me, I didn't mind that atall, but I been working for Miss Lily Rowan for more'n three years and she never kissed me yet and this is her last chance.”

They let out a whoop, and Lily ran to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and planted one on each cheek, and he went pink again. Two men in white jackets came through the arch, with trays loaded with glasses of champagne. In the alcove a man at the piano and two with fiddles started “Home on the Range.” Lily had asked me a week ago what I thought of having the rug up and trying some barn dancing, and I had told her I doubted if many of the cowboys and girls would know how, and none of the others would. Better just let the East meet the West.

The best way to drink champagne, for me anyhow, is to gulp the first glass as a primer and sip from there on. Lily was busy being a hostess, so I waited to go and
touch glasses with her until I had taken a couple of sips from my second. “Doggone it,” I told her, “I'd a brung my rope and give it a whirl if I'd a known you was goin' tuh kiss the winner.” She said, “Huh. If I ever kissed you in front of an audience the women would scream and the men would faint.”

I moved around a while, being sociable, and wound up on a chair by a clump of sagebrush on the terrace, between Laura Jay and a civilian. Since I knew him well and didn't like him much, I didn't apologize for horning in. I asked her if Cal had found his rope, and she said she didn't think so, she hadn't seen him for the last half hour.

“Neither have I,” I said. “He doesn't seem to be around. I wanted to ask him if he'd found it. I haven't seen Wade Eisler either. Have you?”

Her eyes met mine straight. “No. Why?”

“No special reason. I suppose you know I'm in the detective business.”

“I know. You're with Nero Wolfe.”

“I work for him. I'm not here on business, I'm a friend of Miss Rowan's, but I'm in the habit of noticing things, and I didn't see Wade Eisler at the parapet while they were roping, and I haven't seen him since. I know you better than I do the others, except Harvey Greve, because I sat next to you at lunch, so I just thought I'd ask.”

“Don't ask me. Ask Miss Rowan.”

“Oh, it's not that important. But I'm curious about Cal's rope. I don't see why—”

Cal Barrow was there. He had come from the rear and was suddenly there in front of me. He spoke, in his low easy voice. “Can I see you a minute, Archie?”

“Where have
you
been?” Laura demanded.

“I been around.”

I stood up. “Find your rope?”

“I want to show you. You stay hitched, Laura.” She had started up. “You hear me?” It was a command, and from her stare I guessed it was the first one he had ever given her. “Come along, Archie,” he said, and moved.

He led me around the corner of the penthouse. On that side the terrace is only six feet wide, but in the rear there is space enough for a badminton court and then some. The tubs of evergreens that had been removed from the front were there, and Cal went on past them to the door of a shack which Lily used for storage. The grouse had been hung there Saturday afternoon. He opened the door and entered, and when I was in shut the door. The only light came from two small windows at the far end, so it was half dark coming in from broad daylight, and Cal said, “Look out, don't step on him.”

I turned and reached for the light switch and flipped it, turned back, and stood and looked down at Wade Eisler. As I moved and squatted Cal said, “No use taking his pulse. He's dead.”

He was. Thoroughly. The protruding tongue was purple and so were the lips and most of the face. The staring eyes were wide open. The rope had been wound around his throat so many times, a dozen or more, that his chin was pushed up. The rest of the rope was piled on his chest.

“That's my rope,” Cal said. “I was looking for it and I found it. I was going to take it but I thought I better not.”

“You thought right.” I was on my feet. I faced him and got his eyes. “Did you do it?”

“No, sir.”

I looked at my wrist: twelve minutes to six. “I'd like
to believe you,” I said, “and until further notice I do. The last I saw you in there you were taking a glass of champagne. More than half an hour ago. I haven't seen you since. That's a long time.”