The Rubber Band

Chapter 6

My di

Wolfe made it a rule never to talk business at table, but we got a little forward at that, because he steered Hilda Lindquist and Mike Walsh into the talk and we found out things about them. She was the daughter of Victor Lindquist, now nearly eighty years old and in no shape to travel, and she lived with him on their wheat farm in Nebraska. Apparently it wasn’t coffee cups she snapped in her fingers, it was threshing machines. Clara Fox had finally found her, or rather her father, through Harlan Scovil, and she had come east for the clean-up on the chance that she might get enough to pay off a few dozen mortgages and perhaps get something extra for a new tractor, or at least a mule.

Walsh had gone through several colors before fading out to his present dim obscurity. He had made three good stakes in Nevada and California and had lost all of them. He had tried his hand as a building contractor in Colorado early in the century, made a pile, and dropped it when a sixtyfoot dam had gone down the canyon three days after he had finished it.

He had come back east and made a pass at this and that, but apparently had used up all his luck. At present he was night watchman on a constructing job up at 5^th and Madison, and he was inclined to be sore on account of the three dollars he was losing by paying a substitute in order to keep this appointment with Clara Fox. She had found him a year ago through an ad in the paper.

Wolfe was the gracious host. He saw that Mike Walsh got two rye highballs and the women a bottle of claret, and like a gentleman he gave Walsh two extra slices of the beef, smothered with sauce, which he would have sold his soul for. But he wouldn’t let Walsh light his pipe when the coffee came. He said he had asthma, which was a lie. Pipe smoke didn’t bother him much, either. He was just sore at Walsh because he had had to give up the beef, and he took it out on him that way.

We hadn’t any more than got back to the office, a little after nine o’clock, and settled into our chairs—the whole company present this time—when the doorbell rang. I went out to the front door and whirled the lock and slid the bolt, and opened it. Fred Durkin stepped in. He looked worried, and I snapped at him, “Didn’t you get it?”

“Sure I got it.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, it was fu

I glared at him, fixed the door, and led him to the office. He went across and stood in front of Wolfe’s desk.

“I got the car, Mr. Wolfe. It’s in the garage. But Archie didn’t say anything about bringing a dick along with it, so I pushed him off. He grabbed a taxi and followed me. When I left the car in the garage just now and walked here, he walked too. He’s out on the sidewalk across the street.”

“Indeed.” Wolfe’s voice was thin; he disliked after-di

Fred shifted his hat to his other hand. He never could talk to Wolfe without getting fussed up, but I must admit there was often enough reason for it. Fred Durkin was as honest as sunshine, and as good a tailer as I ever saw, but he wasn’t as brilliant as sunshine. Warm and cloudy today and tomorrow. He said, “Well, I went to the garage and showed the note to the guy, and he said all right, wait there and he’d bring it down. He went off and in a couple of minutes a man with a wide mouth came up and asked me if I was going for a ride. I’d never saw him before, but I’d have known he was a city feller if I’d had my eyes shut and just touched him with my finger. I supposed he was working on something and was just looking under stones, so I just answered something friendly. He said if I was going for a ride I’d better get a horse, because the car I came for was going to remain there for the present.”

Wolfe murmured, “So you apologized and went to a drug store to telephone here for instructions.”

Fred looked startled. “No, sir, I didn’t. My instructions was to get that car, and I got it. That dick had no documents or nothing, in fact he didn’t have nothing but a wide mouth. I went upstairs with him after me. When the garage guy saw the kind of an argument it might be he just disappeared.

I ran the car down on the elevator myself and got into the street and headed east. The dick jumped on the ru

Wolfe put up a palm at him. “And the dick is now across the street?”

“Yes, sir. He was when I come in.”

“Excellent. I hope he doesn’t escape in the dark. Go to the kitchen and tell Fritz to give you a cyanide sandwich.”

Fred shifted his hat. “I’m sorry, sir, if I—”

“Go! Any kind of a sandwich. Wait in the kitchen. If we find ourselves getting into difficulties here, we shall need you.”

Fred went. Wolfe leaned back in his chair and got his fingers laced on his belly; his lips were moving, out and in, and out and in. At length he opened his eyes enough for Clara Fox to see that he was looking at her.

“Well. We were too late. I told you you were wasting time.”

She lifted her brows. “Too late for what?”

“To keep you out of jail. Isn’t it obvious? What reason could there be for watching your car except to catch you trying to go somewhere in it? And is it likely they would be laying for you if they had not already found the money?”

“Found it where?”

“I couldn’t say. Perhaps in the car itself. I am not a necromancer. Miss Fox. Now, before we—”

The phone rang, and I took it. It was Saul Panzer. I listened and got his story, and then told him to hold the wire and turned to Wolfe.

“Saul. From a pay station at Sixty-second and Madison. There was a dick playing tag with himself in front of Miss Fox’s address. Saul went through the apartment and drew a blank. Now he thinks the dick is sticking there, but he’s not sure. It’s possible he’s being followed, and if so should he shake the dick and then come here, or what?”

“Tell him to come here. By no means shake the dick. He may know the one Fred brought, and in that case they might like to have a talk.”

I told Saul, and hung up.

Wolfe was still leaning back, with his eyes half closed. Mike Walsh sat with his closed entirely, his head swaying on one side, and his breathing deep and even in the silence. Hilda Lindquist’s shoulders sagged, but her face was flushed and her eyes bright. Clara Fox had her lips tight enough to make her look determined.

Wolfe said, “Wake Mr. Walsh. Having attended to urgencies—in vain—

we may now at our leisure fill in some gaps. Regarding the fantastic business of the Rubber Band. Mr. Walsh, a sharp blow with your hand at the back of your neck will help. A drink of water? Very well. Did I understand you to say, Miss Fox, that you have found George Rowley?”

She nodded. “Two weeks ago.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But Mr. Wolfe … those detectives …”

“To be sure. You remember I told you you should be tied in your cradle?

For the present, this house is your cradle. You are safe here. We shall return to that little problem. Tell me about George Rowley.”

She drew a breath. “Well … we found him. I began a long while ago to do what I could, which wasn’t much. Of course I couldn’t afford to go to England, or send someone, or anything like that. But I gathered some information. For instance, I learned the names of all the generals who had commanded brigades in the British Army during the war, and as well as I could from this distance I began to eliminate them. There were hundreds and hundreds of them still alive, and of course I didn’t know whetner the one I wanted was alive or not. I did lots of things, and some oЈ them were pretty bright if I am a fool. I had found Mike Walsh through an advertisement, and I got photographs of scores of them and showed them to him. Of course, the fact that George Rowley had lost the lobe of his right ear was a help. On several occasions, when I learned in the newspapers that a British general or ex-general was in New York, I managed to get a look at him, and sometimes Mike Walsh did too. Two weeks ago another one came, and in a photograph in the paper it looked as if the bottom of his right ear was off. Mike Walsh stood in front of his hotel all one afternoon when he should have been asleep, and saw him, and it was George Rowley.”