“Sorry. How are you. My brother. Mr. Goldwyn.”
“Goodwin,” I said firmly, and shook brother’s hand. I was surprised to find he had a good shake. Sister was sitting at a desk, opening a drawer. She got out a checkbook, took a pen from a socket, made out a check, tried to blot it and made a smudge, and handed it to brother Daniel. He took one look at it and said:
“No.”
“Yes,” she snapped.
“I tell you, Bess, it won’t-”
“It will have to, Dan. At least for this week. That’s all there is to it. I’ve told you a thousand times-”
She stopped, looked at me, and looked at him.
“All right,” he said, and stuck the check in his pocket, and sat down on a chair, shaking his head and looking thoughtful.
“Now,” Bess turned to me, “what about it?”
“Nothing to brag about,” I told her. “There’s a slew of fingerprints on that letter and envelope, but since you discussed it with your brother and nephew and the girls and Dr. Brady, I suppose they all handled it. Did they?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “So. Maryella showed Mr. Wolfe how to make corned beef hash. The secret is chitlins. Aside from that, nothing to report. Except that Janet knows that you think she’s it. Also she wanted that picture.”
“What picture?”
“The snapshot of her you told me to throw in the wastebasket. It caught her eye and she wanted it. Is there any objection to her having it?”
“Certainly not.”
“Is there anything you want to say about it? That might help?”
“No, that picture has nothing to do with it. I mean that wouldn’t help you any.”
“Dr. Brady was requested to call at our office at two o’clock today but was too busy.”
Bess Huddleston went to a window and looked out and came back. “He wasn’t too busy to come and ride one of my horses,” she said tartly. “They ought to be back soon-I thought I heard them at the stable. . . .”
“Will he come to the house?”
“He will. For cocktails.”
“Good. Mr. Wolfe told me to say that there is a remote chance there might be prints on the other letter. The one the rich man got.”
“It isn’t available.”
“Couldn’t you get it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Has he turned it over to the police?”
“Good heavens, no!”
“Okay. I’ve played tag with Mister and had a talk with your nephew. Now if I could see where Janet keeps her stationery, and take a sample from that typewriter. Is that the one?”
“Yes. But first come to Janet’s room. I’ll show you.”
I followed her. It was at the other end of the house, on that floor, one flight up, a pleasant little room and nice and neat. But the stationery was a washout. It wasn’t in a box. It was in a drawer of a writing table with no lock on it, and all you had to do was open the drawer with a metal ring for a puller, which couldn’t possibly have had a print, and reach in and take what you wanted, paper and envelopes both. Bess Huddleston left me there, and after a look around where there was nothing to look for, I went back to the office. Daniel was still there on the chair where we had left him. I ran off some sample lines on the typewriter, using a sheet of Janet’s paper, and was putting it in my pocket when Daniel spoke:
“You’re a detective.”
I nodded. “That’s what they tell me.”
“You’re finding out who sent those anonymous letters.”
“Right.” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”
“Anyone who sends letters like that deserves to be immersed to the chin in a ten percent solution of hydrofluoric acid.”
“Why, would that be painful?”
Daniel shuddered. “It would. I stayed here because I thought you might want to ask me something.”
“Much obliged. What shall I ask you?”
“That’s the trouble.” He looked dismal. “There’s nothing I can tell you. I wish to God there was. I have no information to offer, even no suspicions. But I would like to offer a comment. Without prejudice. Two comments.”
I sat down and looked interested. “Number one?” I said receptively.
“You can pass them on to Nero Wolfe.”
“I can and will.”
Daniel eyed me, screwing up his lips. “You mentioned five people to my sister just now. Her nephew, Larry- mine too-Miss Nichols and Miss Timms, Dr. Brady, and me. It is worth considering that four of us would be injured by anything that injured my sister. I am her brother and I have a deep and strong affection for her. The young ladies are employed by her and they are well paid. Larry is also well paid. Frankly-I am his uncle-too well. But for his aunt, he might earn four dollars a day as a helper on a coal barge. I know of no other occupation that would not strain his faculties beyond their limit. But the point is, his prosperity depends entirely on hers. So it is conceivable-I offer this merely as a comment-that we four may properly be eliminated from suspicion.”
“Okay,” I said. “That leaves one.”
“One?”
“Sure, Doc Brady. Of the five I mentioned, you rule out four. Pointing straight at him.”
“By no means.” Daniel looked distressed. “You misunderstand me. I know very little about Dr. Brady, though it so happens that my second comment concerns him. I insist it is merely a comment. You have read the letter received by Mrs. Horrocks? Then you have probably realized that while it purports to be an attack on Dr. Brady, it is so manifestly absurd that it couldn’t possibly damage him. Mrs. Horrocks’ daughter died of tetanus. There is no such thing as a wrong medicine for tetanus, nor a right one either, once the toxin has reached the nerve centers. The antitoxin will prevent, but never, or very rarely, will it cure. So the attack on Dr. Brady was no attack at all.”
“That’s interesting,” I admitted. “Are you a doctor?”
“No, sir. I’m a research chemist. But any standard medical treatise-”
“Sure. I’ll look it up. What reason do you suppose Doc Brady might have for putting your sister on the skids?”
“So far as I know, none. None whatever.”
“Then that lets him out. With everyone else out, there’s no one left but your sister.”
“My sister?”
I nodded. “She must have sent the letters herself.”
That made him mad. In fact he rather blew up, chiefly because it was too serious a matter to be facetious about, and I had to turn on the suavity to calm him down. Then he went into a sulk. After fooling around with him for another ten minutes and getting nothing for my trouble, I decided to move on and he accompanied me downstairs and out to the terrace, where we heard voices.
If that was a sample of a merry gathering arranged by Bess Huddleston, I’ll roll my own, though I admit that isn’t fair, since she hadn’t done any special arranging. She was lying on a porch swing with her dress curled above her knees by the breeze, displaying a pair of bare legs that were merely something to walk with, the feet being shod with high-heeled red slippers, and I don’t like shoes without stockings, no matter whose legs they are. Two medium-sized black bears were sitting on the flagstones with their backs propped against the frame of the swing, licking sticks of candy and growling at each other. Maryella Timms was perched on the arm of a chair with her hand happening to rest on the shoulder of Larry Huddleston, who was sitting at careless ease in the chair the way John Barrymore would. Janet Nichols, in riding clothes, was in another chair, her face hot and flushed, which made her look better instead of worse as it does most people, and standing at the other end of the swing, also in riding clothes, was a wiry-looking guy with a muscular face.
When Bess Huddleston introduced us, Dr. Brady and me, I started to meet him halfway for the handshake, but I had taken only two and a half steps when the bears suddenly started for me as if I was the meal of their dreams. I leaped sideways half a mile in one bound and their momentum carried them straight on by, but as I whirled to faced them another big black object shot past me from behind like a bat out of hell and I jumped again, just at random. Laughter came from two directions, and from a third Bess Huddleston’s voice:
“They weren’t after you, Mr. Goldwin, they smelled Mister coming and they’re afraid of him. He teases them.”
The bears were not in sight. The orangutan jumped up on the swing and off again. I said savagely, “My name is Goolenwangel.”