As we went up the concrete steps, single file, a shout came from somewhere on the left. “Go get ’em, Nero! Sick ’em!”
Such is fame.
2
“This is urgent!” Emil Chisholm squeaked. “It’s urgent!”
There was no chair in the clubroom of the size Wolfe likes and needs, but there was a big leather couch, and he was on it, breathing hard and scowling. Mondor was seated over against the wall, out of it. Chisholm, a hefty broad-shouldered guy not as tall as me, with a wide thick mouth and a long straight nose, was too upset to stand or sit, so he was boiling around. I was standing near an open window. Through it came a sudden swelling roar from the crowd out in the stands.
“Shut that goddam window!” Chisholm barked.
I did so.
“I’m going home,” Wolfe stated in his most conclusive tone. “But not until they have left. Perhaps, if you will tell me briefly—”
“We’ve lost the series!” Chisholm shouted.
Wolfe closed his eyes and opened them again. “If you’ll keep your voice down?” he suggested. “I’ve had enough noise today. If losing the series is your problem, I’m afraid I can’t help.”
“No. Nobody can.” Chisholm stood facing him. “I blew up, damn it, and I’ve got to get hold of myself. This is what happened. Out there before the game Art got a suspicion—”
“Art?”
“Art Kinney, our manager. Naturally he was watching the boys like a hawk, and he got a suspicion something was wrong. That first—”
“Why was he watching them like a hawk?”
“That’s his job! He’s manager!” Chisholm realized he was shouting again, stopped, clamped his jaw and clenched his fists, and after a second went on. “Also Nick Ferrone had disappeared. He was here with them in the clubhouse, he had got into uniform, and after they went out and were in the dugout he just wasn’t there. Art sent Doc Soffer back here to get him, but he couldn’t find him. He was simply gone. Art had to put Garth at second base. Naturally he was on edge, and he noticed things, the way some of the boys looked and acted, that made him suspicious. Then—”
A door opened and a guy came running in, yelling, “Fitch hit one and Neill let it get by and Asmussen scored! Fitch went on to third!”
I recognized him, chiefly by his crooked nose, which had got in the way of a line drive back in the twenties when he was a Cardinal infielder. He was Beaky Durkin, now a Giant scout, with a recent new lease on life because he had dug up Nick Ferrone out in Arkansas.
Chisholm jerked his arms up and pushed palms at Durkin. “Get out! Get the hell out!” He took a threatening step. “Send Doc — hey, Doc! Come in here!”
Durkin, backing out, collided with another in the doorway. The other was Doc Soffer, the Giants’ veteran medico, bald, wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a long torso and short legs. Entering, he looked as if his ten best-paying patients had just died on him.
“I can’t sweat it, Doc,” Chisholm told him. “I’m nuts. This is Nero Wolfe. You tell him.”
“Who are you?” Wolfe demanded.
Soffer stood before him. “I’m Doctor Horton Soffer,” he said, clipping it. “Four of my men, possible five, have been drugged. They’re out there now, trying to play ball, and they can’t.” He stopped, looking as if he were about to break down and cry, gulped twice, and went on. “They didn’t seem right, there in the dugout. I noticed it, and so did Kinney. That first inning there was no doubt about it, something was wrong. The second inning it was even worse — the same four men, Baker, Prentiss, Neill, and Eston — and I got an idea. I told Kinney, and he sent me here to investigate. You see that cooler?”
He pointed to a big white-enameled electric refrigerator standing against a wall. Mondor, seated near it, was staring at us.
Wolfe nodded. “Well?”
“It contains mostly an assortment of drinks in bottles. I know my men’s habits — every little habit they’ve got, and big one too. I knew that after they get into uniform before a game those four men — the four I named — have the habit of getting a bottle of Beebright out of the cooler and—”
“What is Beebright?”
“It’s a carbonated drink that is supposed to have honey in it instead of sugar. Each of those four drinks a bottle of it, or part of one, before he goes out to the field, practically without exception. And it was those four that were off — terrible; I never saw anything like it. That’s why I got my idea. Kinney was desperate and told me to come and see, and I did. Usually the clubhouse boy cleans up here after the men leave for the field, but this being the deciding game of the World Series, today he didn’t. Stuff was scattered around — as you see, it still is — and there was a Beebright bottle there on that table with a little left in it. It didn’t smell wrong, and I didn’t want to waste any tasting it. I had sent for Mr. Chisholm, and when he came we decided what to do. He sent for Beaky Durkin, who had a seat in the grandstand, because he knew Ferrone better than anyone else and might have some idea that would help. I took the Beebright down the street to a drugstore, and made two tests. The first one, Ranwez’s, didn’t prove anything, but that was probably because it is limited—”
“Negatives may be skipped,” Wolfe muttered.
“I’m telling you what I did,” Soffer snapped. He was trying to keep calm. “Ranwez’s test took over half an hour. The second, Ekkert’s, took less. I did it twice, to check. It was conclusive. The Beebright contained sodium pheno-barbital. I couldn’t get the quantity, in a hurry like that, but on a guess it was two grains, possibly a little more, in the full bottle. Anyone can get hold if it. Certainly that would be no problem for a bigtime gambler who wanted to clean up on a World Series game. And—”
“The sonofabitch,” Chisholm said.
Doc Soffer nodded. “And another sonofabitch put it in the bottles, knowing those four men would drink it just before the game. All he had to do was remove the caps, drop the tablets in, replace the caps, and shake the bottles a little — not much, because it’s very soluble. It must have been done today after twelve o’clock, because otherwise someone else might have drunk it, and anyway, if it were done much in advance the drinks would have gone stale, and those men would have noticed it. So it must have been someone—”
Chisholm had marched to the window. He whirled and yelled, “Ferrone did it, damn him! He did it and lammed!”
Beaky Durkin appeared. He came through the door and halted, facing Chisholm. He was trembling, and his face was white, all but the crooked nose.
“Not Nick,” he said hoarsely. “Not that boy. Nick didn’t do it, Mr. Chisholm!”
“Oh, no?” Chisholm was bitter. “Did I ask you? A fine rookie of the year you brought in from Arkansas! Where is he? Get him and bring him in again and let me get my hands on him! Go find him! Will you go find him?”
“Go where?”
“How the hell do I know? Have you any idea where he is?”
“No.”
“Will you go find him?”
Durkin lifted helpless hands and dropped them.
“He’s your pet, not mine,” Chisholm said savagely. “Get him and bring him in, and I’ll offer him a new contract. That will be a contract. Beat it!”
Durkin left through the door he had entered by.
Wolfe grunted. “Sit down, please,” he told Chisholm. “When I address you I look at you, and my neck is not elastic. Thank you, sir. You want to hire me for a job?”
“Yes. I want—”
“Please. Is this correct? Four of your best players, drugged as described by Doctor Soffer, could not perform properly, and as a result a game is lost, and a World Series?”