Wolfe took something from his vest pocket, with his left hand, because his right was holding the osmundine fork for support. “Here’s the piece of string that was looped on the cane. Not that I would expect you to identify it. I may as well say here that the cane was handed to Mr. Hewitt because it was his property.”
He handed the string to Cramer.
I was sunk. Ordinarily, in such circumstances, I would have been watching faces and movements, and hearing what sounds were made or words blurted, but this time he had me. He looked as if he was in his right mind, with all the assured arrogance of Nero Wolfe salting away another one, but either he was cuckoo or I was. He was not only spilling the beans; he was smashing the dish. In any conceivable case it was good-bye orchids. I looked at Hewitt.
And Hewitt should have been half astonished and half sore, and he wasn’t. He was pale, and he was trying to pretend he wasn’t pale. He was staring at Wolfe, and he licked his lips — the end of his tongue came out and went in, and then came out again.
Uh-uh, I thought. So that’s it. But my God, then—
Cramer was looking at the string. W. G. Dill asked, “May I see it?” and held out a hand, and Cramer gave it to him but kept his eyes on it.
“Of course,” Wolfe said, “the point is, not who picked the cane up, but who put it there. Miss Lasher, who saw him do it, could tell us but prefers not to. She claims she didn’t see him. So we’ll have to get at it by indirection. Here are some facts that may help — but it isn’t any too comfortable in here. Shall we move downstairs?”
“No,” Hewitt said. “Go ahead and finish.”
“Go ahead,” Cramer said. He reached for the string and Dill handed it to him and he stuffed it in his pocket.
“I’ll make it as brief as possible,” Wolfe promised. “Harry Gould had an employer. One day he found a garage job-card in one of his employer’s cars — possibly it had slipped under a seat and been forgotten — I don’t know. Anyhow he found it and he kept it. I don’t know why he kept it. He may have suspected that his employer had been on a trip with a woman, for the card was from a garage in Salamanca, New York, which is quite a distance from Long Island. A man with the blackmailing type of mind is apt to keep things. It is understandable that he kept the card. It is less understandable that his employer had been careless enough to leave it in the car.” Wolfe turned his head suddenly and snapped at Hewitt:
“Was it just an oversight, Mr. Hewitt?”
But Hewitt had stuff in him at that. He was no longer pale and he wasn’t licking his lips. His eyes were steady and so was his voice:
“Finish your story, Mr. Wolfe. I am inclined — but no matter. Finish your story.”
“I prefer to use your name instead of clumsy circumlocutions like ‘his employer.’ It’s neater.”
“By all means keep it neat. But I warn you that merely because I acknowledged ownership of that cane—”
“Thank you. I appreciate warnings. So I’ll say Hewitt hereafter. The time came when Harry Gould’s suspicions regarding the card became more definite. Again I don’t know why, but my surmise is that he learned about the loss of the most valuable plantation of broad-leaved evergreens in the country — the rhodalea plantation of the Updegraff Nurseries of Erie, Pennsylvania — by an attack of the Kurume yellows. He knew that Hewitt was inordinately proud of his own broad-leaved evergreens, and that he was capable of abnormal extremes in horticultural pride and jealousy. He also, being a gardener, knew how easy it would be, with a bag or two of contaminated peat mulch, to infect another plantation if you had access to it. At any rate, his suspicion became definite enough to cause him to go to Salamanca, which is in the western part of New York near the Pennsylvania border, not far from Erie, and see the proprietor of the Nelson Garage. That was in December. He learned that when Hewitt had gone there with his car months before, damaged in an accident, he had been accompanied not by a woman, but by a man of a certain description, with a cast in his eye. He went to Erie and found the man among the employees of the Updegraff Nurseries. His name was Pete Arango.”
Fred Updegraff started up with an ejaculation.
Wolfe showed him a palm. “Please, Mr. Updegraff, don’t prolong this.” He turned. “And Mr. Hewitt, I’m being fair. I’m not trying to stampede you. I admit that much of this detail is surmise, but the main fact will soon be established beyond question. I sent a man to Salamanca last night, partly to learn why Harry Gould had so carefully preserved an old garage job-card, and partly because he had written on the back of it that name Pete Arango, and I knew that Pete Arango was in the employ of the Updegraff Nurseries. My man phoned me this morning to say that he will be back here at one o’clock, and the proprietor of the Nelson Garage will be with him. He’ll tell us whether you were there with Pete Arango. Do you suppose you’ll remember him?”
“I’ll—” Hewitt swallowed. “Go ahead.”
Wolfe nodded. “I imagine you will. I wouldn’t be surprise if Gould even got a written confession from Pete Arango that you had bribed him to infect the rhodalea plantation, by threatening to inform Mr. Updegraff that he had been at Salamanca, not far away, in your company. At least he got something that served well enough to put the screws on you. You paid him something around five thousand dollars. Did he turn the confession over to you? I suppose so. And then — may I hazard a guess?”
“I think,” Hewitt said evenly, “you’ve done too much guessing already.”
“I’ll try one more. Gould saw Pete Arango at the Flower Show, and the temptation was too much for him. He threatened him again, and made him sign another confession, and armed with that made another demand on you. What this time? Ten thousand? Twenty? Or he may even have got delusions of grandeur and gone to six figures. Anyhow, you saw that it couldn’t go on. As long as ink and paper lasted for Pete Arango to write confessions with, you were hooked. So you — by the way, Mr. Updegraff, he’s up there at your exhibit, isn’t he, and available? Pete Arango? We’ll want him when Mr. Nelson arrives.”
“You’re damn right he’s available,” Fred said grimly.
“Good.”
Wolfe’s head pivoted back to Hewitt. He paused, and the silence was heavy on us. He was timing his climax, and just to make it good he decorated it.
“I suppose,” he said to Hewitt in a tone of doom, “you are familiar with the tradition of the drama? The three traditional knocks to herald the tragedy?”
He lifted the osmundine fork and brought it down again, thumping the floor with it, once, twice, thrice.
Hewitt gazed at him with a sarcastic smile, and it was a pretty good job with the smile.
“So,” Wolfe said, “you were compelled to act, and you did so promptly and effectively. And skillfully, because, for instance, Mr. Cramer has apparently been unable to trace the revolver, and no man in the world is better at that sort of thing. As Honorary Chairman of the Committee, naturally you had the run of the exhibit floors at any hour of the day; I suppose you chose the morning, before the doors were opened to the public, to arrange that primitive apparatus. I don’t pretend to be inside of your mind, so I don’t know when or why you decided to use your own cane as the homicide bait for some unsuspecting passer-by. On the theory that—”
The door opened and Theodore Horstmann was on the threshold.
“Phone call for Mr. Hewitt,” he said irritably. Theodore resented his work being interrupted by anything whatever. “Pete Arando or something.”
Hewitt stood up.
Cramer opened his mouth, but Wolfe beat him to it by saying sharply, “Wait! You’ll stay here, Mr. Hewitt! Archie — no, I suppose he would recognize your voice. Yours too, Mr. Cramer. Mr. Dill. You can do it if you pitch your voice low. Lead him on, get him to say as much as you can—”