Rex Stout
Help Wanted, Male
I
He paid us a visit the day he stopped the bullet.
Ben Jensen was a publisher, a politician, and in my opinion a poop. I had had a sneaking idea that he would have gone ahead and bought the inside Army dope that Captain Peter Root had offered to sell him if he had been able to figure out a way of using it without any risk of losing a hunk of hide. But he had played it safe and had co-operated with Nero Wolfe like a good little boy. That had been a couple of months before.
Now, early on a Tuesday morning, he phoned to say he wanted to see Wolfe. When I told him that Wolfe would be occupied with the orchids, as usual, until eleven o’clock, he fussed a little and made a date for eleven sharp. He arrived five minutes ahead of time, and I escorted him into the office and invited him to deposit his big bony frame in the red leather chair.
After he sat down he asked me, “Don’t I remember you? Aren’t you Major Goodwin?”
“Yep.”
“You’re not in uniform.”
“I was just noticing,” I said, “that you need a haircut. At your age, with your gray hair, it looks better trimmed. More distinguished. Shall we continue with the personal remarks?”
There was the clang of Wolfe’s personal elevator out in the hall, and a moment later Wolfe entered, exchanged greetings with the caller, and got himself, all of his two hundred and sixty-some pounds, lowered into his personal chair behind his desk.
Ben Jensen said, “Something I wanted to show you — got it in the mail this morning,” and took an envelope from his pocket and stood up to hand it across. Wolfe glanced at the envelope, removed a piece of paper from it and glanced at that, and passed them along to me. The envelope was addressed to Ben Jensen, neatly hand-printed in ink. The piece of paper had been clipped from something, all four edges, with scissors or a sharp knife, and it had printed on it, not by hand, in large black script:
Wolfe murmured, “Well, sir?”
“I can tell you,” I put in, “free for nothing, where this came from.”
Jensen snapped at me. “You mean who sent it?”
“Oh, no. For that I would charge. It was clipped from an ad for a movie called Meeting at Dawn. The movie of the century. I saw the ad last week in the American Magazine. I suppose it’s in all the magazines. If you could find—”
Wolfe made a noise at me and murmured again at Jensen, “Well, sir?”
“What am I going to do?” Jensen demanded.
“I’m sure I don’t know. Have you any notion who sent it?”
“No. None at all.” Jensen sounded grieved. “Damn it, I don’t like it. It’s not just the usual junk from an anonymous crank. Look at it! It’s direct and to the point. I think someone’s going to try to kill me, and I don’t know who or why or when or how. I suppose tracing it is out of the question, but I want some protection. I want to buy it from you.”
I put up a hand to cover a yawn. I knew there would be nothing doing — no case, no fee, no excitement. In the years I had been living in Nero Wolfe’s house on West Thirty-fifth Street, acting as a goad, prod, lever, irritant, and chief assistant in the detective business, I had heard him tell at least fifty scared people, of all conditions and ages, that if someone had determined to kill them and was going to be stubborn about it he would probably succeed. On occasion, when the bank balance was doing a dive, he had furnished Cather or Durkin or Panzer or Keems as a bodyguard at a hundred percent mark-up, but now they were all fighting Germans or Japs, and anyhow, we had just deposited a five-figure check from a certain client.
Jensen got sore, naturally, but Wolfe only murmured at him that he might succeed in interesting the police or that we would be glad to give him a list of reliable detective agencies which would provide companions for his movements as long as he remained alive — at sixty bucks for twenty-four hours. Jensen said that wasn’t it, he wanted to hire Wolfe’s brains. Wolfe merely made a face and shook his head. Then Jensen wanted to know what about Goodwin? Wolfe said that Major Goodwin was an officer in the United States Army.
“He’s not in uniform,” Jensen growled.
Wolfe was patient. “Officers in Military Intelligence on special assignments,” he explained, “have freedoms. Major Goodwin’s special assignment is to assist me in various projects entrusted to me by the Army. For which I am not paid. I have little time now for my private business. I think, Mr. Jensen, you should move and act with reasonable precaution for a while. For example, in licking the flaps of envelopes — such things as that. Examine the strip of mucilage. Nothing is easier than to remove the mucilage from an envelope flap and replace it with a mixture containing a deadly poison. Any door you open, anywhere, stand to one side and fling the door wide with a push or a pull before crossing the sill. Things like that.”
“Good God!” Jensen muttered.
Wolfe nodded. “That’s how it is. But keep in mind that this fellow has severely restricted himself, if he’s not a liar. He says he will watch you die. That greatly limits him in method and technique. He or she has to be there when it happens. So I advise prudence and a decent vigilance. Use your brains, but give up the idea of renting mine. No panic is called for. Archie, how many people have threatened to take my life in the past ten years?”
I pursed my lips. “Oh, maybe twenty-two.”
“Pfui.” He scowled at me. “At least a hundred. And I am not dead yet, Mr. Jensen.”
Jensen pocketed his clipping and envelope and departed, no better off than when he came except for the valuable advice about licking envelopes and opening doors. I felt kind of sorry for him and took the trouble to wish him good luck as I escorted him to the front and let him out to the street, and even used some breath to tell him that if he decided to try an agency Cornwall and Mayer had the best men. Then I went back to the office and stood in front of Wolfe’s desk, facing him, and pulled my shoulders back and expanded my chest. I took that attitude because I had some news to break to him and thought it might help to look as much like an Army officer as possible.
“I have an appointment,” I said, “at nine o’clock Thursday morning, in Washington, with General Carpenter.”
Wolfe’s brows went up a millimeter. “Indeed?”
“Yes, sir. At my request. I wish to take an ocean trip. I want to get a look at a German. I would like to catch one, if it can be done without much risk, and pinch him and make some remarks to him. I have thought up a crushing remark to make to a German and would like to use it.”
“Nonsense.” Wolfe was placid. “Your three requests to be sent overseas have been denied.”
“Yeah, I know.” I kept my chest out. “But that was just colonels and old Fife. Carpenter will see my point. I admit you’re a great detective, the best orchid-grower in New York, a champion eater and beer-drinker, and a genius. But I’ve been working for you a hundred years — anyhow, a lot of years — and this is a hell of a way to spend a war. I’m going to see General Carpenter and lay it out. Of course he’ll phone you. I appeal to your love of country, your vanity, your finer instincts — what there is of them — and your dislike of Germans. If you tell Carpenter it would be impossible for you to get along without me, I’ll put pieces of gristle in your crabmeat and sugar in your beer.”
Wolfe opened his eyes and glared at me. The mere suggestion of sugar in his beer made him speechless.
I sat down and said in a pleasant conversational tone, “I told Jensen that Cornwall and Mayer is the best agency.”