Some Buried Caesar (24 page)

Basil shrugged. “Just bums,” he said tolerantly.

My wrist watch said 10 minutes to 8 when footsteps stopped at our address again, a key was turned in the lock, and the door swung open. A keeper I hadn’t seen before stood in the gap and said, “Goodwin? You’re wanted.” He stepped aside to let me out, relocked the door, and let me precede him down the corridor. “Warden’s office,” he grunted.

Three men were standing in the office: Nero Wolfe, under self-imposed restraint, Frederick Osgood, scowling, and the warden, looking disturbed. I told them good evening. Osgood said, “Come on, Ollie,
we’ll step outside.” The warden muttered something about the rules, Osgood got impatient and brusque, and out they went.

Wolfe stood and looked at me with his lips compressed. “Well?” he demanded. “Where were your wits?”

“Sure,” I said bitterly, “brazen it out. Wits my eye. Fingerprints on the wallet. I bribed the shed attendant with ten bucks of Jimmy Pratt’s money, which I’ll explain to you some day if I don’t rot in this dungeon. But chiefly, a deputy sheriff says that this morning at the hotel he heard Bronson tell somebody in New York on the telephone that a man named Goodwin poked him in the jaw and took a receipt away from him. Ha ha ha. Did you ever hear anything so droll? Even so, they don’t think I’m a murderer. They only think I’m reticent. They’re going to break my will. Of course if I
had
taken a receipt from Bronson and if they should find it—”

Wolfe shook his head. “Since you didn’t, they can’t. Which reminds me …”

His hand went into his pocket and came out again with my card case in it. I took it and inspected it, saw that it contained its proper items and nothing else, and put it where it belonged.

“Thanks. No trouble finding it?”

“None. It was quite simple. I had a talk with Mr. Waddell after you left and told him of my interview with Mr. Bronson last evening whatever I thought might be helpful. Then he went, and I telephoned the courthouse and could learn nothing. I found myself marooned. Finally I succeeded in locating Mr. Osgood, and his daughter came for me. She had been questioned, but not, I imagine, with great severity—except
by her father. Mr. Osgood is difficult. He suspects you of arranging the meeting between his daughter and Mr. Pratt’s nephew, God knows why. Watch him when he comes back in here; he might even leap at you. He agreed to control himself if I would question you about it.”

“Good. You came to question me. I was wondering what you came for.”

“For one thing …” He hesitated, which was rare. He went on, “For one thing, I came to bring that package for you. The Osgood housekeeper kindly prepared it.”

I looked and saw a four-bushel bundle, wrapped in brown paper, on a table. “Saws and rope ladders?” I demanded.

He said nothing. I went and tore some of the paper off and found that it contained a pillow, a pair of blankets, and sheets. I returned to confront Wolfe.

“So,” I said. “So that’s the way it is. I believe you mentioned wits a minute ago?”

He muttered ferociously, “Shut up. It has never happened before. I have telephoned, I have roared and rushed headlong, and Mr. Waddell cannot be found. Since I learned you were detained—he’s deliberately hiding from me, I’m convinced of it. The judge won’t set bail without the concurrence of the District Attorney. We don’t want bail anyway. Pfui! Bail for my confidential assistant! Wait! Wait till I find him!”

“Uh-huh. You wait at Osgood’s, and I wait in a fetid cell with a dangerous felon for a mate. By heaven, I will play spoon-bean with your money. As for the package you kindly brought, take it back to the housekeeper. God knows how long I’ll be here,
and I don’t want to start in by getting a reputation as a sissy. I can take it, and it looks like I’m going to.”

“You spoke of money. That was my second reason for coming.”

“I know, you never carry any. How much do you want?”

“Well … twenty dollars. I want to assure you, Archie—”

“Don’t bother.” I got out the expense wallet and handed him a bill. “I can assure you that I shall come out of here with bugs—”

“Once when I was working for the Austrian government I was thrown into jail in Bulgaria—”

I strode to the door and pulled it open and bellowed into the hall: “Oh, warden! I’m escaping!”

He appeared from somewhere in a lumbering trot, stumbling. Behind him came Osgood, looking startled. From the other direction came the sound of a gallop, and that proved to be the keeper, with a revolver in his hand. I grinned at them: “April fool. Show me to my room. I’m sleepy. It’s the country air.”

Osgood rumbled, “Clown.” The warden looked relieved. I tossed a cheery good night to Wolfe over my shoulder, and started off down the hall with the keeper trailing me.

Basil was seated on his cot brushing his hair. He asked me what the yelling had been for and I told him I had had a fit. I asked him what time the lights went out and he told me 9 o’clock, so I proceeded to get my bed made. Having had the forethought to order 5 copies of the newspaper, there was more than enough to cover the cot entirely with a double thickness. Basil suspended the brushing momentarily to watch me arranging it with ample laps, and when I was nearly
through he observed that it would rustle so much that I wouldn’t be able to sleep and neither would he. I replied that when I once got set I was as dead as a log, and he remarked in a sinister tone that it might not turn out that way in my present quarters. I finished the job anyhow. Down the line somewhere two voices were raised in an argument as to whether February 22nd was a national holiday, and others joined in.

It was approaching 9 o’clock when the key was turned in our lock again and the keeper appeared in the door and told me I was wanted.

“Cripes,” Basil said, “we’ll have to install a telephone.”

It couldn’t be Wolfe, I thought. There was no one else it could be except Waddell or Barrow, and there wasn’t a chance of getting put on the sidewalk by them, and if they wanted to harry me they could damn well wait until morning. I decided to be contrary.

“Whoever it is, tell him I’ve gone to bed.”

Even in the dim light, I seemed to perceive that the keeper looked disappointed. He asked, “Don’t you want to see her?”

“Her?”

“It’s your sister.”

“Oh. I’ll be derned. My dear sister.”

My tone must have been good, for there was no audible derision as for the second time I preceded the keeper along the corridor. I went for two reasons, the first being curiosity. It might conceivably be Nancy or Caroline, but my guess was Lily, and the only way of finding out was to go and see. Second, I felt I should cooperate. 9 o’clock at night was no visiting time at a
jail, and if it was Lily she must have been liberal in her negotiations with the warden, and I hated to see money wasted. It was the first time I could remember that anyone had paid cash to have a look at me, and I thought it was touching. So I trotted along.

It was Lily. The warden was at his desk, and stayed there, and the keeper closed the door and stood in front of it. Lily was in a chair in a dark corner, and I crossed to her.

“Hello, sis.” I sat down.

“You know,” she said, “I was wondering last night what would be the best thing to do with you, but it never occurred to me to lock you up. When you get out of here I’ll try it. When will that be, by the way?”

“No telling. In time to spend Christmas at home, I hope. How are dad and ma and Oscar and Violet and Arthur—”

“Fine. Is it cosy?”

“Marvelous.”

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“Plenty. There’s a caterer.”

“Have you got money?”

“Sure, how much do you want?”

She shook her head. “No, really. I’m flush.” She opened her bag.

I reached and shut it. “No, you don’t. Jimmy Pratt gave me 10 dollars today and that’s partly why I’m here. Money is the root of all evil. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Why, Escamillo. I came to see you.”

“I’m aware of that. Did you bring any bedding?”

“No, but I can get some. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks. I was just curious. I have plenty of newspaper. But would you like to do me a favor?”

“I won’t sleep if I can’t do you a favor.”

“Will you be up at midnight?”

“I can stay up.”

“Do so. At midnight get Osgood’s on the phone and ask to speak to Mr. Nero Wolfe. Tell him you’re Mrs. Titus Goodwin and that you are at the Crowfield Hotel, having just come in an airplane from Cleveland, Ohio. Tell him that you got a telegram from your son Archie saying that he is in jail, stranded and abandoned and in despair. Tell him you want to know what the hell he had me put in jail for and you’ll have the law on him, and you’ll expect to see him first thing in the morning and he must be prepared to rectify his ghastly mistake without delay. And atone for it. Tell him he’ll have to atone for it.” I considered. “I guess that will do.”

She nodded. “I’ve got it. Is any of it straight?”

“No, it’s firecrackers.”

“Then why don’t I rout him out tonight? Make him come to the hotel right away and look for me. I mean at midnight.”

“My God, no. He’d kill me. That will be sufficient. You follow instructions.”

“I will. Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Kiss me.”

“I can’t until I wash my face. Anyway, I told you that wasn’t a precedent. I have to be careful. I kissed a girl once in the subway and when she came to she was on top of the Empire State Building. She had floated out through a grating and right on up.”

“Goodness. Did you ever send one clear to heaven?”

“The place is full of them.”

“When are you going to get out of here?”

“I don’t know. You might ask Wolfe on the phone tonight.”

“Well.” She looked at me, and I was reminded how she had peeled me like a potato in the Methodist tent. “What I really came for. Any bail, any amount, I could have it arranged for by 11 o’clock in the morning. Shall I?”

“I might come high.”

“I said any amount.”

“I wouldn’t bother. It would make Wolfe jealous. Thanks just the same.”

The keeper’s hoarse voice sounded:

“After 9 o’clock, chief. What about the lights?”

I got up and told him, “Okay, I’ll help you. Good night, sis.”

A
t 9 o’clock Thursday morning Basil sat on the edge of his cot brushing his hair. I sat on the edge of mine, with the newspapers still on it but a good deal the worse for wear, scratching my shoulder and my thigh and my right side and my left arm, with my forehead wrinkled in concentration, trying to remember the title of a book on prison reform which I had observed on Wolfe’s library shelves at home but had never bothered to look at. It was a shame I hadn’t read it because if I had I would have been much better prepared for a project which I had already got a pretty good start on. The idea of the project had occurred to me during breakfast for which meal I had limited myself to the common fare of my fellows for the sake of the experience, and I had got the start during the fifteen minutes from 8:30 to 8:45, when we had all been in the corridor together for what was called morning exercise, with a keeper and an ostentatious gun stationed at the open end.

Basil asked, “How many have we got?”

I told him four signed up and three more practically certain. I gave up trying to remember the name of the book and took my memo pad from my pocket and looked over the sheets I had written on:

I looked up with a dissatisfied frown. It was all right for a start, but there were 21 people inhabiting that corridor by actual count. I said in a resolute tone, “It has to be 100 per cent before nightfall. The fact is, Basil, you may be all right as Vice-President and/or Secretary and/or Treasurer, but you’re no damn good as an agitator. You didn’t get anybody.”

He put the brush down. “Well,” he said, “you made 3 mistakes. Demand number 9 will have to be amended by striking out the last five words. They simply don’t like the idea of a woman poking around the cells. Demand number 12 is bad in toto. Even when he’s out of jail a man resents having his personal liberties interfered with, and when he’s in jail the feeling is greatly intensified. But worst of all was your offering them a dime apiece to join. That made them suspicious and we’re going to have a hard time overcoming it.”

“I don’t see you making any strenuous effort.”

“Is that so. I could make a suggestion right now. Are you game to step it up to two bits per capita?”

“But you said—”

“Never mind what I said. Are you?”

“Well …” I figured it. “Three seventy-five. Yes.”

“But you wouldn’t play spoon-bean, a game of skill. It’s a funny world.” He arose and approached.
“Give me that ultimatum.” I tore off the sheet and handed it to him and he went to the door and tapped on a bar with his fingernail, 3 and 2. In a minute the skinny one with the Adam’s apple appeared and Basil began talking to him in a low tone. I got up and sauntered over to listen.