Free Black Orchids by Rex Stout

Long Island, sir. My instructions were to investigate Anne Tracy. I learned that she lives in Richdale, where the Dill nurseries and offices are. You know she works there-“
    “I was aware of that. Be brief.”
    “Yes, sir. I went out to Richdale and made inquiries. I contacted a young woman-as you know, I am especially effective with young women-“
    “Contact is not a verb and I said be brief.”
    “Yes, sir. The last time you told me that I looked it up in the dictionary and I certainly don’t want to contradict you but it says contact is a verb. Transitive or intransitive.”
    “Contact is not a verb under this roof.”
    “Yes, sir. I learned that Miss Tracy’s father had worked at Dill’s for many years, up to about a year ago. He was assistant superintendent in charge of broad-leaved evergreens. Dill discovered he was kiting shipments and fired him.”
    “Kiting shipments?”
    “Yes, sir. On shipments to a big estate in Jersey, the Cullen place. He would ship two hundred rhododendrons instead of one hundred and collect from Cullen for the extra hundred personally, at half price. It amounted to several thousand dollars.”
    Anne lifted her head and turned it and made a noise of protest.
    “Miss Tracy says it was only sixteen hundred dollars,” Johnny said. “I’m telling you what I was told. People exaggerate, and this never was made public, and Tracy wasn’t arrested. He stole it to pay a specialist for fixing his son’s eyes, something wrong with his son’s eyes. He can’t get another job. His daughter was Dill’s secretary and still is. She gets fifty a week and pays back twenty on what her father stole, so I was told. She refuses to verify those figures.”
    Wolfe looked at Anne.
    “It doesn’t matter,” Anne said, looking at me. “Does it?”
    “I suppose not,” Wolfe said, but if it’s wrong, correct it.”
    “It’s wrong. I get twenty dollars a week and I pay back ten.”
    “Good God,” I blurted, “you need a union.”
    That was probably Freudian. Probably subconsciously I meant she needed a union with me. So I added hastily, “I mean a labor union. Twenty bucks a week!”
    Johnny looked annoyed. He’s a conservative. “So of course that gave me an in. I went to Miss Tracy’s home and explained to her confidentially the hole she was in. That this murder investigation would put the police on to her father’s crime, and that she and Dill were compounding a felony, which is against the law, and that the police would have to be fixed or they’d all be in jail, and there was only one man I knew of who could fix it because he was on intimate terms with high police officials, and that was Mr. Nero Wolfe. I said she’d better come and see you immediately, and she came. It was nearly eleven o’clock and there was no train in from Richdale, so we took a taxi.”
    Johnny shot me a glance, as much as to say, “Try and match that one.”
    “How far is it to Richdale?” Wolfe demanded.
    “From here? Oh, twenty-five miles.”
    “How much was the taxi fare?”
    “Eight dollars and forty cents counting the tip. The bridge-“
    “Don’t put it on expense. Pay it yourself.”
    “But-but, sir-Archie always brings people here-“
    “Pay it yourself. You are not Archie. Thank God. One Archie is enough. I sent you to get facts, not Miss Tracy- certainly I didn’t send you to coerce her with preposterous threats and fables about my relations with the police. Go to the kitchen-no. Go home.”
    “But, sir-“
    “Go home. And for God’s sake quit trying to imitate Archie. You’ll never make it. Go home.”
    Johnny went.
    Wolfe asked the guests if they would like some beer and they shook their heads. He poured a glass for himself, drank some, wiped his lips, and leaned back.
    “Then-” Anne began, but it got caught on the way out. She cleared her throat and swallowed, and tried again. “Then what he said-you said his threat was preposterous. You mean the police won’t do