As we climbed out a man appeared from around a corner-a tall, lanky specimen in a red wool shirt and dungarees who hadn’t shaved for at least three days. As he caught sight of Noel he spoke. “Oh, it’s you, Mr Tedder?”
“On my own two feet,” Noel said, meeting him and offering a hand. Either he believed in democracy or Wolfe had made it a habit. “How are you, Jake?”
“I’ll make out if they don’t trip me.” Jake gave us a glance. “The roof, huh? We had a shower Friday and it leaked again. I phoned your mother.”
“She’s been… not so good.”
Jake nodded. “Too bad about Mr Vail. Terrible thing. You know they’ve been after me, but what could I tell ’em? For nearly a week all kinds of people drivin’ in. I’m takin’ no chances.” His hand went to his hip pocket and came out with a gun, an old black Marley.32. He patted it. “Maybe I couldn’t hit a rabbit, but I can scare ’em off.” He put it back. “You want to see in your mother’s room where it leaked?”
“Not today, Jake.” Noel’s squeak wasn’t so squeaky; perhaps his voice was changing. “My mother may be out this week. These men are detectives from New York and they want to look around in the house. They think there may be something-I don’t know exactly what. You know how detectives are. Is there a door open?”
Jake nodded. “The back door’s open, the one off the kitchen. I cook and eat in the kitchen, better tools there. Your mother knows I do. Lucky I had bacon and eggs on hand when he came Wednesday morning. Terrible thing about him. I sure do know how detectives are, I do now.” He looked at us. “No offense to you fellows.”
Obviously one of us ought to say something, so I said, “We don’t offend easy. We know how caretakers are too.”
“I bet you do.” He chuckled. “I just bet you do. You want me to help with anything, Mr Tedder?”
“No, thanks. We’ll make out. This way, Goodwin.” Noel headed for the corner Jake had come from, and we followed.
To prove how competent and experienced we are I could describe the next forty minutes in detail, but it wouldn’t help you any more than it did us. We had learned from Noel that the possibilities were limited. Jimmy Vail had been a town man and had never got intimate with this country place. His bedroom was the only spot in the house he had had personal relations with, so we tried that first, but after we had looked in the two closets and the bottom drawer of a chest, then what? The bed was a big old walnut thing with a canopy, and there was enough room under it for an assortment of wardrobe trunks, but room was all there was.
We went all around, downstairs and up. We even spent ten minutes in the cellar, most of it in a storage room where there were some ancient pieces of luggage along with the other stuff. We looked in the garage, which was big enough for five cars, and there in a corner saw something that would have seemed promising if it hadn’t been there in the open where anyone might have lifted the lid-a big old-fashioned trunk. I did lift the lid and saw something that took me back to my boyhood days in Ohio. But a couple of cardboard boxes had held my two-year collection of birds’ eggs, and here were dozens of compartments, some with one egg and some with two or three. I asked Noel if they were his, and he said no, they had been his father’s, and the trunk held more than three hundred different kinds of eggs. I lifted the tray out, and underneath it was another tray, not so many compartments but bigger eggs. Orrie came for a look and said, “Let’s take that. It may not be worth half a million, but it’s worth something.” I put the top tray back in and was shutting the lid when I heard the sound of a car.
The garage doors were closed and the sound was faint, but I have good ears. The parking area where we had left the Heron was on this side of the house, but not in front of the garage. The door we had come through was standing open-the door from the garage to a back hall. I stepped to it quietly and poked my head through, and in a moment heard a voice I had heard before. Margot Tedder. She was asking Jake whose car that was. Then Jake, telling her: her brother Noel and four detectives from New York who were searching the house for something. Margot asked, searching for what? Jake didn’t know. Then Margot calling her brother, a healthier yell than I thought she had in her: “Noel! Noel!!”
Preferring the garage to the outdoors as a place for a conference, I sang out, “We’re in the garage!” and turned and told Noel, “It’s your sister.”
“I know it is. Damn her.”
“I’ll do the talking. Okay?”
“Like hell you will. She’ll do the talking.”
It’s a pleasure to work with men who can tell time. Saul had started to move when I called out that we were in the garage, and Fred and Orrie a second later, and I had moved back from the door, taking Noel with me. So when Margot appeared and headed for Noel, with Jake right behind her, and Uncle Ralph behind Jake, all my three colleagues had to do was take another step or two and they were between the newcomers and the exit. And both Saul and Orrie were only arm’s length from Jake’s hip pocket. It’s a real pleasure.
I was at Noel’s side. As Margot approached she gave me a withering glance, then switched it to Noel, stopped in front of him, and said, “You utter idiot. Get out and take your gang with you.”
I said politely, “It’s as much his house as yours, Miss Tedder, and he got here first. What if he tells you to get out?”
She didn’t hear me. “You heard me, Noel,” she said. “Take this scum and go.”
“Go yourself,” Noel said. “Go to hell.”
She about-faced and started for the door. I raised my voice a little. “Block it! Saul, you’d better get it.”
“I have it,” Saul said and raised his hand to show me the gun he had lifted from Jake’s pocket. Margot saw it and stopped. Fred and Orrie had filled the doorway. Uncle Ralph made a noise. Jake looked at Margot, then at Noel, and back at Margot. Saul was back of him, and he didn’t know he had been disarmed.
“You wouldn’t shoot,” Margot said scornfully, and I have to admit there was no shake in her voice.
“No,” I told her back, “he wouldn’t shoot, but why should he? Five against three, granting that you’re one and Jake is with you. As Jake told you, we’re looking for something, and we haven’t finished. Noel told you to go, but it would be better for you to stay here in the garage, all three of you, until we’re through. One of you might use the phone, and we’d be interrupted. I don’t-”
I stopped because she was moving. She went to the door, just short of Fred and Orrie, just not touching them, and said, “Get out of the way.”
Orrie smiled at her. He thinks he knows how to smile at girls, and as a matter of fact he does. “We’d like to,” he said, “but we’re glued.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” I told her, “but there’s a stack of chairs there by the wall. Fred and Orrie, you-”
“Jake! Go and phone my mother!” Her voice still didn’t shake, but it was a little shrill.
And by gum, Jake’s hand went back to his hip pocket. I was almost sorry his gun was gone; it would have been interesting to see how he handled it. His jaw dropped, and he wheeled and saw it in Saul’s hand. “It’s all right,” Saul said, “you’ll get it back.” Jake turned to Noel and said, “Fine lot you brought.” He turned to Margot. “I guess I can’t.”
“You guess right,” I told him. “Fred and Orrie, you stay here and keep the peace. Noel and Saul and I will look around some more. But it has occurred to me that I may have overlooked something. Wait till I see.” I went to the corner where the big trunk was, lifted the lid, took out the top tray, and put it on the floor gently. Then I reached in and got the loops at the ends of the second tray and eased it up and out, and I damn near dropped it. There at the bottom of the trunk was an old tan leather suitcase. I took three seconds out to handle my controls, staring at it, then carefully put the tray on the floor to one side, straightened up, and said, “Come and take a look, Noel.” He came and stooped over to see, then reached a hand in and heaved, and out it came. At that point I decided that he might really have two feet. I had expected him to squeak something like “Jesus Holy Christ what the hell,” but he squeaked nothing. He just reached in and got it, put it on the floor, undid the clasps, and opened the lid; and there was the biggest conglomeration of engraved lettuce I had ever had the pleasure of looking at. I glanced around. Purcell was at my elbow, and Jake was at his elbow, and Saul was right behind them. Margot was approaching, hips stiff as ever. Noel, squatting, with a hand flattened out on top of the find, tilted his head back to look up at me and said, “I didn’t believe him, but I thought I might as well come. How in the name of God did he know it was here?”