room, and Theodore Horstmann, the plant nurse, who thought that everything that grew except orchids was a weed, was fit to be tied.
So the atmosphere around the place was somewhat arctic, and on my way down in the elevator the thought struck me that this Naylor-Kerr or Kerr Naylor or Pine-Kerr Naylor business might be used as an excuse to go somewhere out of the cold for a few days. Why couldn’t it be me who got a job in the stock department? Grabbing a taxi from under the chins of two other prospective customers, I considered it. Just any job, one that happened to be loose, didn’t seem practical. A little friendly conversation with the elevator starter had informed me that the line of Naylor-Kerr, Inc., was Engineers’ Equipment and Supplies, and I knew all of nothing about them except maybe overalls. Anyway, the job would have to be one that would let me roam around and rub elbows, or it might take months, and I didn’t want months. It would be hard enough to maneuver Wolfe into letting me try it for a week, since he needed me every hour and might need me any minute, for anything and everything from opening the mail to bouncing unwanted customers or even shooting one, which had been known to happen.
Liking the idea, and being afraid of the dark when it comes to anything resembling murder, I told the taxi driver I had had a vision and asked him to go to the address of the Homicide Squad on West Twentieth Street. There by good luck I found that Purley Stebbins, my favorite sergeant, was on hand, and he obligingly got what I wanted with only three or four growls. A phone call to a brother sergeant downtown brought the information that the death of Waldo Wilmot Moore had occurred around midnight on December 4. The body had been discovered by a man and wife on Thirty-ninth Street a hundred and twenty feet east of Eleventh Avenue. The wife had phoned in while the man stood by, and a radio car had arrived on the scene at one-nineteen A.M. on December 5. It was a DOA, dead on arrival, with Moore’s head crushed and his legs broken. The car that hit him had been found the next morning, parked on West Ninety-fifth Street near Broadway. It was hot, having been stolen the evening of the fourth from where it was parked on West Fifty-fourth Street. Its owner had been checked up and down and backwards and forwards, and was out of it. No witnesses to the accident had been found, but the post-mortem report, plus laboratory examination of various particles clinging to the tires and fender of the stolen car, had satisfied everybody as to what had happened. It was filed as a routine hit-and-run and was still open. After the phone call Purley went through a door, and came back in a couple of minutes and told me that Homicide still had it and was working on it.
“Yeah,” I grinned at him, “I can imagine it-conferences, minute clues subjected to severe scrutiny, ten of your best men turning over stones all the way-” Purley pronounced a word. Having granted my slightest wish, he sneered, “Come and take my desk and do it. Now give. Who’s your client?” I shook my head. “About that noise you use for a voice, I know how you got it.
Your mother had a longing for nutmeg graters when she was carrying you. It might be, say, an insurance company.” “Nuts. No insurance company pays Nero Wolfe prices. Who invited you in?” “Nothing for now.” I got erect. “Somebody had a dream, that’s all. If and when anything for the teeth is brought on, we’ll see that you get a bite. Much obliged, and give my love to your boss.” But I had a chance to do my own love-giving. On my way out there he was, striding in from the entrance, Inspector Cramer himself, concentrated and in a hurry.
He saw me, stopped short, and demanded, “What do you want?” “Well, sir,” I said pleadingly, “I thought with my experience if you had a vacancy anywhere, I’d be willing to start as a patrolman and work my way-” “Natural-born clown,” he said personally. “Is it the Meredith case? Has Wolfe crashed the gate-” “No, sir, Mr. Wolfe would regard that as impertinent. As he was saying only yesterday, if ever Mr. Cramer-” He was on his way. I looked reproachfully at his broad manly back and then headed for the street.
CHAPTER Five
Seated at my desk in the office, I put the phone back in the cradle and told Nero Wolfe, “The bank says that Naylor-Kerr is good for anything up to twenty million.” Wolfe, seated behind his own desk, heaved a sigh and then was silent. I had given him the story complete, in a dry factual manner with no flavor or coloring on account of the coolness previously mentioned. His inclination, naturally, was to turn it down, since he was always annoyed at any hint of a prospect that he might have to use his brain, but I doubted if I would have to ride him hard on this because it looked like easy money and we could always use it.
He sighed again.
I spoke, still dry. “I suppose the best bet is that Pine killed Waldo Wilmot Moore himself and is keeping up appearances. What for being unknown to us, but surely not to everybody. Anyway, we would be paid by the corporation, not him.
His suggestion that you get a job in the stock department under another name shows that he has given the problem a great deal of thought. You could call yourself Clarence Camembert, for instance, or Percy Pickerel. If they gave you too much to do you could bring things home and I’d be glad to help. They could pay you by weight-say, a dollar a pound a week. As you stand now, or at least sit, close to three hundred and forty pounds, it would come to an annual salary-” “Archie. Your notebook.” “Yes, sir.” I got it and flipped to a new page.
“A letter to Mr. Pine, president and so on. Mr. Goodwin has reported his conversation this morning with you. I accept the job of investigating, on behalf of your company, the death of your former employee, Waldo Wilmot Moore. It is understood that the purpose of the investigation is to establish, with satisfactory evidence, the manner of his death-whether by accident or by the deliberate action, with intent, of some person or persons. The job does not, as I understand it, extend to the disclosure of the identity of the murderer-if there was a murder-nor to procurement of proof of guilt. Should such extension be desired, you may notify me. Paragraph.
“The procedure promising quickest results, I think, will be for you to put Mr.
Goodwin on the company payroll as a personnel expert. You can plausibly explain his presence as a part of your campaign to reduce your employee turnover. Thus he can spend his days there, moving freely about and conversing with anyone whomever, without causing comment or increasing the gossip you deplore. I suggest that you make his salary two hundred dollars weekly. Paragraph.
“My fee will of course be determined by the amount of time spent on the case and the amount and kind of work required. No guarantee is given. No retainer is necessary unless you prefer it that way, in which case the check should be for two thousand dollars. Sincerely.” Wolfe, who always straightened up to some extent to dictate, leaned back again.
“After lunch you can go down and give that to him.” If I had been cool before I was a glacier now. “Why lunch?” I demanded. “Why should I eat?” “Why not?” His eyes went open. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing. Not
