Nine Short Stories

Short Stories by Rex Stout
An Officer and a Lady (1917) The Rope Dance (1916) Warner & Wife
(1915) Jonathan Stannard's Secret Vice (1915) A Tyrant Abdicates
(1914) Rose Orchid (1917) The Pay Yeoman (1914) An Agacella Or
(1914) The Mother of Invention (1914)
An Officer and a Lady
Bill Farden had had his eye on the big brick house on the corner for
some time.
He had worked one in that block--the white frame with the latticed
porch farther down toward Madison Street--during the early part of
March, and had got rather a nice bag. Then, warned off by the scare and
hullabaloo that followed, he had fought shy of that part of town for a
full month, confining his operations to one or two minor hauls in the
Parkdale section. He figured that by now things would have calmed
down sufficiently in this neighborhood to permit a quiet hour's work
without undue danger.
It was a dark night, or would have been but for the street lamp on the
corner. That mattered little, since the right side of the house was in
deep shadow anyway. By an oversight I have neglected to place the
scene of the story in the vicinity of a clock tower, so Bill Farden was
obliged to take out his watch and look at it in order to call attention to
the fact that it was an hour past midnight.
He nodded his head with satisfaction, then advanced across the lawn to
that side of the house left in deep shadow.
Two large windows loomed up side by side, then a wide expanse of
brick, then two more. After a leisurely examination he chose the second
of the first pair. A ray from his electric flash showed the old- fashioned
catch snapped to.

Grinning professionally, he took a thin shining instrument from his
pocket, climbed noiselessly onto the ledge and inserted the steel blade
in the slit. A quick jerk, a sharp snap, and he leaped down again. He
cocked his ear.
No sound.
The window slid smoothly upward to his push, and the next instant his
deft accustomed hand had noiselessly raised the inner shade. Again he
lifted himself onto the ledge, and this time across it, too. He was inside
the house.
He stood for a time absolutely motionless, listening. The faintest of
scratching noises came from the right.
"Bird," Bill observed mentally, and his experienced ear was
corroborated a moment later when the light of his electric flash
revealed a canary blinking through the bars of its cage.
There was no other sound, and he let the cone of light travel boldly
about the apartment. It was a well- furnished library and music room,
with a large shining table, shelves of books along the walls, a grand
piano at one end, and several comfortable chairs. Bill grunted and
moved toward a door at the farther corner.
He passed through, and a glance showed him the dining room. Stepping
noiselessly to the windows to make sure that the shades were drawn
tight, he then switched on the electric chandelier. There was promise in
the array of china and cut glass spread over the buffet and sideboard,
and with an expectant gleam in his eye he sprang to open the heavy
drawers.
The first held linen; he didn't bother to close it again. The second was
full of silver, dozens, scores of pieces of old falmily silver. In a trice
Bill flew to the ledge of the window by which he had entered and was
back again with a suitcase in his hand.
When the silver, wrapped in napkins, was safely in the suitcase, Bill

straightened and glanced sharply around. Should he leave at once with
this rare booty so easily gathered? He shook his head with decision and
returned to place the suitcase on the window ledge in the library; then
he came back, switched off the light in the dining room, and entered the
kitchen.
By unerring instinct he stepped to the refrigerator. A flash of his
pocket-lamp, and he gave a satisfied grunt. He turned on the light.
From the recesses of the ice-box he brought forth a dish of peas, some
sliced beef, half a chicken, some cold potatoes, and part of a strawberry
shortcake. In a drawer in the kitchen cabinet he found a knife and fork
and some spoons.
From a common-sense viewpoint the performance was idiotic. Having
broken into an inhabited house in the dead of night, rifled the silver
drawer and deposited the loot on the window sill, I for one would not
be guilty of the artistic crime of tacking on an anticlimax by returning
to the kitchen to rob the refrigerator and grossly stuff myself.
But Bill Farden was an old and experienced hand, thoroughly