“Hewitt?” Wolfe opened his eyes and scowled at me. “Lewis Hewitt?”
I knew that the sound of that name would churn his beer for him. Lewis Hewitt was the millionaire in whose greenhouse, on his Long Island estate, the black orchids had been produced-thereby creating in Wolfe an agony of envy that surpassed any of his previous childish performances.
“Yep,” I said cheerfully. “Lew himself, in his two hundred dollar topcoat and Homburg and gloves made of the belly-skin of a baby gazelle fed on milk and honey, and a walking stick that makes your best Malacca look like a piece of an old fishing pole. I saw her go out with him less than an hour ago, just before I left. And pinned to her left shoulder was a black orchid! He must have cut it for her himself. She becomes the first female in captivity to wear a black orchid. And only last week she was typing with her lovely fingers, ‘Yours of the ninth received and contents noted.'”
I grinned at him. “But Lew will have to get out the spray for the insects. Men are flocking in there who don’t know a stamen from a stigma. The guy having the picnic with her inside the ropes smirks fatuously. His name is Harry Gould and he is one of Dill’s gardeners. A gray-haired geezer that needs a shave gazes at her as if he was about to say his prayers-I’ve seen him twice. A wholesome young fellow with a serious chin wanders by and pretends he’s not looking at her. His name is Fred Updegraff. Updegraff Nurseries, Erie, Pennsylvania. They’ve got an exhibit not far off. And there’s a lot more, but chiefly there’s me. Your friend Lew is going to have me to contend with. She smiled at me today without meaning to, and I blushed from head to foot. My intentions are honorable but they are not vague. Look at that picture of her and then take a slant at this.” I lifted a heel to the corner of the desk and pulled my trouser leg up to the knee. “In your mind’s eye strip off the shoe and sock and garter and apply your knowledge of cross-pollination. What would be the result-”
“Pfui,” Wolfe said. “Don’t scar the desk. You will return there tomorrow and look for edge-wilt, and you will be here at six o’clock.”
But it didn’t work out that way. At lunch the next day his envy and curiosity finally foamed up to the climax. He put down his coffee cup, assumed the expression of a man prepared to brave all hardship or hazard for the sake of a Cause, and told me:
“Please bring the sedan around. I’m going up there and look at those confounded freaks myself.”
Chapter 2
So Thursday was my fourth day at the Flower Show in a row. It was the biggest mob of the week, and getting Nero Wolfe through and up to the fourth floor where the orchids were was like a destroyer making a way through a mine field for a battleship. We were halted a couple of times by acquaintances who wanted to exchange greetings, and as we passed the Rucker and Dill woodland glade on the third floor Wolfe stopped to look it over. There was a line of spectators three deep all the way around the ropes. Harry and Anne were playing mumblety-peg. When a flash bulb made a flare she didn’t flicker an eyelash.
“Look at her teeth when she smiles,” I said. “Look at her hair like fine-spun open kettle molasses. She was more self-conscious the first day or two. A year of this would spoil her. Look at the leaves on the peony bushes, turning yellow, pining away because she’ll be with them only one more day-”
“They are not peonies. They are azaleas and laurel, and they have a disease.”
“Call it a disease if you want to. They’re pining-”
He had started off, and I nearly knocked three women down getting around in front of him for interference.
At the orchid benches up on the fourth floor he disregarded everything else-though there was, for one thing, the finest display of B. thorntoni I had ever seen-and planted himself in front of the glass case. A card in the corner said, “Unnamed hybrid by Mr. Lewis Hewitt. The only three plants in existence.” They certainly were something different, and I had been through all the big establishments several times, not to mention the twenty thousand plants Wolfe had, with hundreds of varieties. I stood to one side and watched Wolfe’s face. He mumbled something to himself, and then just stood and looked, with his expanse of face five inches from the glass of the case. His emotions didn’t show, but from the twitching of a muscle on his neck I knew he was boiling inside. For a quarter of an hour he didn’t budge, not even when women bumped against him trying to get a peek at the orchids, though ordinarily he hates to have anyone touching him. Then he backed away and I thought he was through.
“It’s hot in here,” he said, and was taking off his overcoat. I took it to hold for him.
“Ah, Mr. Wolfe,” a voice said. “This is indeed a compliment! What do you think of them?”
It was Lewis Hewitt. Wolfe shook hands with him. He had on another hat and topcoat and gloves, but the same walking stick as the day before-a golden-yellow Malacca with reddish-brown mottles. Any good appraiser would have said $830 as is, on the hoof. He was tall enough to look down at Wolfe with a democratic smile below his aristocratic nose.
“They’re interesting,” Wolfe said.
Interesting. Ha ha.
“Aren’t they marvelous?” Hewitt beamed. “If I had time I’d take one from the case so you could have a good look, but I’m on my way upstairs to judge some roses and I’m already late. Will you be here a litffe later? Please do?-Hello, Wade. I’m running.”
He went. The “Wade” was for a little guy who had come up while he was talking. As this newcomer exchanged greetings with Wolfe I regarded him with interest, for it was no other than W. G. Dill himself, the employer of my future wife. In many ways he was the exact opposite of Lewis Hewitt, for he looked up at Wolfe instead of down, he wore an old brown suit that needed pressing, and his sharp gray eyes gave the impression that they wouldn’t know how to beam.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he was telling Wolfe. “I was at your house one day with Raymond Plehn-”
“I remember. Certainly, Mr. Dill.”
“I just saw Plehn downstairs and he told me you were here. I was going to phone you this afternoon. I wonder if you’d do something for me?”
“That depends-”
“I’ll explain. Let’s step aside away from this jostling.” They moved, and I followed suit. “Do you know anything about the Kurume yellows?”
“I’ve heard of them.” Wolfe was frowning but trying to be courteous. “I’ve read of them in horticultural journals. A disease fatal to broad-leaved evergreens, thought to be fungus. First found two years ago on some Kurume azaleas imported from Japan by Lewis Hewitt. You had some later, I believe, and so did Watson in Massachusetts. Then Updegraff lost his entire plantation, several acres, of what he called rhodaleas.”
“You do know about them.”
“I remember what I read.”
“Did you see my exhibit downstairs?”
“I glanced at it as I passed.” Wolfe grimaced. “The crowd.I came to see these hybrids. That’s a fine group of Cypripe-dium pubescens you have. Very fine. The Fissipes-”
“Did you see the laurel and azaleas?”
“Yes. They look sick.”
“They are sick. They’re dying. The Kurume yellows. The underside of the leaves shows the typical brown spots. Some scoundrel deliberately infected those plants, and I’d give a good deal to know who it was. I intend to know who it was!”
Wolfe looked sympathetic, and he really was sympathetic. Between plant growers a fatal fungus makes a bond. “It’s too bad your exhibit was spoiled,” he said. “But why a personal devil? Why a deliberate miscreant?”
“It was.”
“Have you evidence?”
“No. Evidence is what I want.”
“My dear sir. You are a child beating the stick it tripped on. You had that disease once on your place. A nest of spores in a bit of soil-”
Dill shook his head. “The disease was at my Long Island place. These plants came from my place in New Jersey. The soil could not possibly have become contaminated.”
“With fungi almost anything is possible. A tool taken from one place to the other, a pair of gloves-”
“I don’t believe it.” Dill’s voice indicated that nothing was going to make him believe it. “With the care we take. I am convinced it was done deliberately and maliciously, to ruin my exhibit. And I’m going to know who it was. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to find out for me.”