Rex Stout
Murder Is Corny
1
When the doorbell rang that Tuesday evening in September and I stepped to the hall for a look and through the one-way glass saw Inspector Cramer on the stoop, bearing a fair-sized carton, I proceeded to the door, intending to open it a couple of inches and say through the crack, “Deliveries in the rear.” He was uninvited and unexpected, we had no case and no client, and we owed him nothing, so why pretend he was welcome?
But by the time I had reached the door I had changed my mind. Not because of him. He looked perfectly normal — big and burly, round red face with bushy gray eyebrows, broad heavy shoulders straining the sleeve seams of his coat. It was the carton. It was a used one, the right size, the cord around it was the kind McLeod used, and the NERO WOLFE on it in blue crayon was McLeod’s style of printing. Having switched the stoop light on, I could observe those details as I approached, so I swung the door open and asked politely, “Where did you get the corn?”
I suppose I should explain a little. Usually Wolfe comes closest to being human after dinner, when we leave the dining room to cross the hall to the office, and he gets his bulk deposited in his favorite chair behind his desk, and Fritz brings coffee; and either Wolfe opens his current book or, if I have no date and am staying in, he starts a conversation. The topic may be anything from women’s shoes to the importance of the new moon in Babylonian astrology. But that evening he had taken his cup and crossed to the big globe over by the bookshelves and stood twirling the globe, scowling at it, probably picking a place he would rather be.
For the corn hadn’t come. By an arrangement with a farmer named Duncan McLeod up in Putman County, every Tuesday from July 20 to October 5, sixteen ears of just-picked corn were delivered. They were roasted in the husk, and we did our own shucking as we ate — four ears for me, eight for Wolfe, and four in the kitchen for Fritz. The corn had to arrive no earlier than five-thirty and no later than six-thirty. That day it hadn’t arrived at all, and Fritz had had to do some stuffed eggplant, so Wolfe was standing scowling at the globe when the doorbell rang.
And now here was Inspector Cramer with the carton. Could it possibly be it? It was. Handing me his hat to put on the shelf, he tramped down the hall to the office, and when I entered he had put the carton on Wolfe’s desk and had his knife out to cut the cord, and Wolfe, cup in hand, was crossing to him. Cramer opened the flaps, took out an ear of corn, held it up, and said, “If you were going to have this for dinner, I guess it’s too late.”
Wolfe moved to his elbow, turned the flap to see the inscription, his name, grunted, circled around the desk to his chair, and sat “You have your effect,” he said. “I am impressed. Where did you get it?”
“If you don’t know, maybe Goodwin does.” Cramer shot a glance at me, went to the red leather chair facing the end of Wolfe’s desk, and sat “I’ve got some questions for you and for him, but of course you want grounds. You would. At a quarter past five, four hours ago, the dead body of a man was found in the alley back of Rusterman’s restaurant. He had been hit in the back of the head with a piece of iron pipe which was there on the ground by the body. The station wagon he had come in was alongside the receiving platform of the restaurant, and in the station wagon were nine cartons containing ears of corn.” Cramer pointed. “That’s one of them, your name on it. You get one like it every Tuesday. Right?”
Wolfe nodded. “I do. In season. Has the body been identified?”
“Yes. Driver’s license and other items in his pockets, including cash, eighty-some dollars. Kenneth Faber, twenty-eight years old. Also men at the restaurant identified him. He had been delivering the corn there the past five weeks, and then he had been coming on here with yours. Right?”
“I don’t know.”
“The hell you don’t If you’re going to start that kind—”
I cut in. “Hold it. Stay in the buggy. As you know, Mr. Wolfe is up in the plant rooms from four to six every day except Sunday. The corn usually comes before six, and either Fritz or I receive it. So Mr. Wolfe doesn’t know, but I do. Kenneth Faber has been bringing it the past five weeks. If you want—”
I stopped because Wolfe was moving. Cramer had dropped the ear of corn onto Wolfe’s desk, and Wolfe had picked it up and felt it, gripping it in the middle, and now he was shucking it. From where I sat, at my desk, the rows of kernels looked too big, too yellow, and too crowded. Wolfe frowned at it, muttered, “I thought so,” put it down, stood up, reached for the carton, said, “You will help, Archie,” took an ear, and started shucking it. As I got up Cramer said something but was ignored.
When we finished we had three piles, as assorted by Wolfe. Two ears were too young, six were too old, and eight were just right He returned to his chair, looked at Cramer, and declared, “This is preposterous.”
“So you’re stalling,” Cramer growled.
“No. Shall I expound it?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
“Since you have questioned men at the restaurant, you know that the corn comes from a man named Duncan McLeod, who grows it on a farm some sixty miles north of here. He has been supplying it for four years, and he knows precisely what I require. It must be nearly mature, but not quite, and it must be picked not more than three hours before it reaches me. Do you eat sweet corn?”
“Yes. You’re stalling.”
“No. Who cooks it?”
“My wife. I haven’t got a Fritz.”
“Does she cook it in water?”
“Sure. Is yours cooked in beer?”
“No. Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water. Ideally the corn—”
“How much longer are you going to stall?”
“I’m not stalling. Ideally the corn should go straight from the stalk to the oven, but of course that’s impractical for city dwellers. If it’s picked at the right stage of development it is still a treat for the palate after twenty-four hours, or even forty-eight; I have tried it. But look at this.” Wolfe pointed to the assorted piles. “This is preposterous. Mr. McLeod knows better. The first year I had him send two dozen ears, and I returned those that were not acceptable. He knows what I require, and he knows how to choose it without opening the husk. He is supposed to be equally meticulous with the supply for the restaurant, but I doubt if he is; they take fifteen to twenty dozen. Are they serving what they got today?”
“Yes. They’ve admitted that they took it from the station wagon even before they reported the body.” Cramer’s chin was down, and his eyes were narrowed under the eyebrow hedge. “You’re the boss at that restaurant.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Not the boss. My trusteeship, under the will of my friend Marko Vukcic when he died, will end next year. You know the arrangement; you investigated the murder; you may remember that I brought the murderer back from Yugoslavia.”
“Yeah. Maybe I never thanked you.” Cramer’s eyes came to me. “You go there fairly often — not to Yugoslavia, to Rusterman’s. How often?”
I raised one brow. That annoys him because he can’t do it. “Oh, once a week, sometimes twice. I have privileges, and it’s the best restaurant in New York.”
“Sure. Were you there today?”
“No.”
“Where were you at five-fifteen this afternoon?”