“We’re losing it.” Chisholm’s head swung toward the window and back again. “Of course it’s lost.”
“And you assume a gambler or a group of gamblers is responsible. How much could he or they win on a game?”
“On today’s game, any amount. Fifty thousand or double that, easy.”
“I see. Then you need the police. At once.”
Chisholm shook his head. “Damn it, I don’t want to. Baseball is a wonderful game, a clean game, the best and cleanest game on earth. This is the dirtiest thing that’s happened in baseball in thirty years, and it’s got to be handled right and handled fast. You’re the best detective in the business, and you’re right here. With a swarm of cops trooping in, God knows what will happen. If we have to have them later, all right, but now here you are. Go to it!”
Wolfe was frowning. “You think this Nick Ferrone did it.”
“I don’t know!” Chisholm was yelling again. “How do I know what I think? He’s a harebrained kid just out of the sticks, and he’s disappeared. Where’d he go and why? What does that look like?”
Wolfe nodded. “Very well.” He drew a deep sigh. “I can at least make some gestures and see.” He aimed a finger at the door Beaky Durkin and Doc Soffer had used. “Is that an office?”
“It leads to Kinney’s office — the manager.”
“Then it has a phone. You will call police headquarters and report the disappearance of Nick Ferrone, and ask them to find him. Such a job, when urgent, is beyond my resources. Tell them nothing more for the present if you want it that way. Where do the players change clothing?”
“Through there.” Chisholm indicated another door. “The locker room. The shower room is beyond.”
Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “Archie. You will look around. All contiguous premises except this room, which you can leave to me.”
“Anything in particular?” I asked.
“No. You have good eyes and a head of sorts. Use them.”
“I could wait to phone the police,” Chisholm suggested, “until you—”
“No,” Wolfe snapped. “In ten minutes you can have ten thousand men looking for Mr. Ferrone, and it will cost you ten cents. Spend it. I charge more for less.”
Chisholm went, through the door at the left, with Doc Soffer at his heels. Since Wolfe had said “all contiguous premises,” I thought I might as well start in that direction, and followed them, across a hall and into another room. It was good-sized, furnished with desks, chairs, and accessories. Beaky Durkin was on a chair in a corner with his ear to a radio turned low, and Doc Soffer was heading for him. Chisholm barked, “Shut that damn thing off!” and crossed to a desk with a phone. Under other circumstances I would have enjoyed having a look at the office of Art Kinney, the Giants’ manager, but I was on a mission and there was too big an audience. I about-faced and back-tracked. As I crossed the clubroom to the door in the far wall, Wolfe was standing by the open door of the refrigerator with a bottle of Beebright in his hand, holding it at arm’s length, sneering at it, and Mondor was beside him. I passed through, and was in a room both long and wide, with two rows of lockers, benches and stools, and a couple of chairs. The locker doors were marked with numbers and names too. I tried three; they were locked. After going through a doorway to the left, I was in the shower room. The air in there was a little damp, but not warm. I went to the far end, glancing in at each of the shower stalls, was disappointed to see no pillbox that might have contained sodium phenobarbital, and returned to the locker room.
In the middle of the row on the right was the locker marked “Ferrone.” Its door was locked. With my portable key collection I could have operated, but I don’t take it along to ball games, and nothing on my personal ring was usable. It seemed to me that the inside of that locker was the one place that needed attention, certainly the first on the list, so I returned to the clubroom, made a face at Wolfe as I went by, and entered Kinney’s office. Chisholm had finished phoning and was seated at a desk, staring at the floor. Beaky Durkin and Doc Soffer had their ears glued to the radio, which was barely audible.
I asked Chisholm, “Have you got a key to Ferrone’s locker?”
His head jerked up, and he said aggressively, “What?”
“I want a key to Ferrone’s locker.”
“I haven’t got one. I think Kinney has a master key. I don’t know where he keeps it.”
“Fifteen to two,” Durkin informed us, or maybe just talking to himself. “Giants batting in the ninth, two down. Garth got a home run, bases empty. It’s all—”
“Shut up!” Chisholm yelled at him.
Since Kinney would soon be with us, and since Ferrone’s locker had first call, I thought I might as well wait there for him. However, with our client sitting there glaring at me, it would be well to display some interest and energy, so I moved. I took in the room. I went to filing cabinets and looked them over. I opened a door, saw a hall leading to stairs down, backed up, and shut the door. I took in the room again, crossed to another door in the opposite wall, and opened that.
Since I hadn’t the faintest expectation of finding anything pertinent beyond that door, let alone a corpse, I must have made some sound or movement in my surprise, but if so it wasn’t noticed. I stood for three seconds, then slipped inside and squatted long enough to get an answer to the main question.
I arose, backed out, and addressed Soffer. “Take a look here, Doc. I think he’s dead. If so, watch it.”
He made a noise, stared, and moved. I marched out, into the clubroom, crossed to Wolfe, and spoke. “Found something. I opened a door to a closet and found Nick Ferrone, in uniform, on the floor, with a baseball bat alongside him and his head smashed in. He’s dead, according to me, but Doc Soffer is checking, if you want an expert opinion. Found on contiguous premises.”
Wolfe grunted. He was seated on the leather couch. “Mr. Ferrone?” he asked peevishly.
“Yes, sir.”
“You found him?”
“Yes, sir.”
His shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down again. “Call the police.”
“Yes, sir. A question. Any minute the ballplayers will be coming in here. The cops won’t like it if they mess around. The cops will think we should have prevented it. Do we care? It probably won’t be Cramer. Do we—”
A bellow, Chisholm’s, came through. “Wolfe! Come in here! Come here!”
He got up, growling. “We owe the police nothing, certainly not deference. But we have a client — I think we have. I’ll see. Meanwhile you stay here. Everyone entering this room remains, under surveillance.” He headed for Kinney’s office, whence more bellows were coming.
Another door opened, the one in the west wall, and Nat Neill, the Giants’ center fielder, entered, his jaw set and his eyes blazing. Following him came Lew Baker, the catcher. Behind them, on the stairs, was a clatter of footsteps.
The game was over. The Giants had lost.
3
Another thing I don’t take along to ball games is a gun, but that day there was a moment when I wished I had. After any ordinary game, even a lost one, I suppose the Giants might have been merely irritated if, on getting to the clubhouse, they found a stranger there, backed up against the door to the locker room, who told them firmly that on account of a state of emergency they could not pass. But that day they were ready to plug one another, so why not a stranger?
The first dozen were ganging me, about to start using hands, when Art Kinney, the manager, appeared, strode across, and wanted to know what. I told him to go to his office and ask Chisholm. The gang let up then, to consider — all but Bill Moyse, the second-string catcher, six feet two, and over two hundred pounds. He had come late, after Kinney. He breasted up to me, making fists, and announced that his wife was waiting for him and he was going in to change, and either I would move or he would move me. One of his teammates called from the rear, “Show him her picture, Bill! That’ll move him!”