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Chapter 12

   At twelve o’clock noon Wolfe and I sat in the office. Fred Durkin was out in the kitchen eadng pork chops and pumpkin pie. He had made his appearance some twenty minutes before, with the pork chops in his pocket, for Fritz to cook, and a tale of injured innocence. One of Barber’s staff had found him in a detention room down at headquarters, put there to weigh his sins after an hour of displaying his ignorance to Inspector Cramer. The lawyer had pried him loose without much trouble and sent him on his way, which of course was West 35th Street. Wolfe hadn’t bothered to see him.
   Up in the tropical room was the unusual sight of Clara Fox’s dress and other items of apparel hanging on a string to dry out, and she was up in the south room sporting the dressing gown Wolfe had given me for Christmas four years before. I hadn’t seen her, but Fritz had taken her the gown. It looked as if we’d have to get her out of the house pretty soon or I wouldn’t have a thing to put on.
   Francis Horrocks had departed, having accepted my hint without any whats. Nothing had been explained to him. Wolfe, of course, wasn’t openly handing Clara Fox anything, but it was easy to see that she was one of the few women he would have been able to think up a reason for, from the way he talked about her. He told me that when she and Horrocks had come running into the potting room she had immediately stepped into the osmundine box, which had been all ready for her, and standing there she had fixed her eyes on Horrocks and said to him, “No questions, no remarks, and you do what Mr. Wolfe says. Understand.” And Horrocks had stood and stared with his mouth open as she stretched herself out in the box and Horstmann had piled osmundine on her three inches deep while Wolfe got the spray ready. Then he had come to and helped with the boards and the pots.
   In the office at noon, Wolfe was drinking beer and making random remarks as they occurred to him. He observed that since Inspector Cramer was sufficiently aroused to be willing to insult Nero Wolfe by having his house invaded with a search warrant, it was quite possible that he had also seen fit to proceed to other indefensible measures, such as tapping telephone wires, and that therefore we should take precautions. He stated that it had been a piece of outrageous stupidity on his part to let Mike Walsh go Monday evening before asking him a certain question, since he had then already formed a surmise which, if proven correct, would solve the problem completely.
   He said he was sorry that there was no telephone at the Lindquist prairie home in Nebraska, since it meant that the old gentleman would have to endure the rigors of a nine-mile trip to a village in order to talk over long distance; and he hoped that the connection with him would be made at one o’clock as arranged. He also hoped that Johnny Keems would be able to find Mike Walsh and escort him to the office without interference, fairly soon, since a few words with Walsh and a talk with Victor Lindquist should put him in a position where he could proceed with arrangements to dean up the whole affair. More beer. And so forth.
   I let him rave on, thinking he might fill in a couple of gaps by accident, but he didn’t.
   The phone rang. I took it, and heard Keems’ voice. I stopped him before he got started: “1 can’t hear you, Johnny. Don’t talk so close.”
   “What?”
   “I said, don’t talk so close.”
   “Oh. Is this better?”
   “Yeah.”
   “Well… I’m reporting progress backwards. I found the old lady in good health and took care of her for a couple of hours, and then she got hit by a brown taxi and they took her to the hospital.”
   “That’s too bad. Hold the wire a minute.” I covered the transmitter and turned to Wolfe. “Johnny found Mike Walsh and tailed him for two hours, and a dick picked him up and took him to headquarters.”
   “Picked up Johnny?”
   “No. Walsh.”
   Wolfe frowned, and his lips went out and in, and again. He sighed. “The confounded meddlers. Call him in.”
   I told the phone, “Come on in, and hurry,” and hung up.
   Wolfe leaned back with his eyes shut, and I didn’t bother him. It was a swell situation for a tantrum, and I didn’t feel like a dressing-down. If his observations had been anything at all more than shooting off, this was a bad breal^^and it might lead to almost anything, since if Mike Walsh emptied the bag for Cramer there was no telling what might be thought necessary for protecting the Marquis of Clivers from a sinister plof. I didn’t talk, but got out the plant records and pretended to go over them.
   At a quarter to one the doorbell rang, and I went and admitted Johnny Keems. I was still acting as hall boy, because you never could tell about Cramer. Johnny, looking like a Princeton boy with his face washed, which was about the only thing I had against him, followed me to the office and dropped into a chair without an invitation. He demanded, “How did I come through on the code? Not so bad, huh?”
   I grunted. “Perfectly marvelous. You’re a wonder. Where did you find Walsh?”
   He threw one leg over the other. “No trouble at all. Over on East Sixtyfourth Street, where he boards. Your instructions were not to approach him until I had a line or in case of emergency, so I found out by judicious inquiry that he was in there and then I stuck around. He came out at a quarter to ten and walked to Second Avenue and turned south. West on Fifty-eighth to Park. South on Park—”
   Wolfe put in, “Skip the itinerary.”
   Johnny nodded. “We were about there anyhow. At Fifty-sixth Street he went into the Hotel Portland.”
   “Indeed.”
   “Yep. And he stayed there over an hour. He used the phone and then took an elevator, but I stayed in the lobby because the house dick knows me and he saw me and I knew he wouldn’t stand for it. I knew Walsh might have got loose because there are two sets of elevators, but all I could do was stick, and at a quarter past eleven he came down and went out. He headed south and turned west on Fifty-fifth, and across Madison he went in at a door where it’s boarded up for construction. That’s the place you told me to try if I drew a blank at Sixty-fourth Street, the place where he works as a night watchman. I waited outside, thinking I might get stopped if I went in, and hoping he wouldn’t use another exit. But he didn’t. In less than ten minutes he came out again, but he wasn’t alone any more. A snoop had him and was hanging onto him. They walked to Park and took a taxi, and I hopped one of my own and followed to Centre Street. They went in at the big doors, and I found a phone.”
   Wolfe, leaning back, shut his eyes. Johnny Keems straightened his necktie and looked satisfied with himself. I tossed my notebook to the back of the desk, with his report in it, and tried to think of some brief remark that would describe how I felt. The telephone rang.
   I took it. A voice informed me that Inspector Cramer wished to speak to Mr. Goodwin, and I said to put him on and signaled to Wolfe to take his line. jjf The sturdy inspector spoke. “Goodwin? Inspector Cramer. How about doing me a favor?”
   “Surest thing you know.” I made it hearty. “I’m flattered.”
   “Yeah? It’s an easy one. Jump in your wagon and come down to my office.”
   I shot a glance at Wolfe, who had his receiver to his ear, but he made no sign. I said, “Maybe I could, except for one thing. I’m needed here to in spect cards or admission at the door. Like search warrants, for instance. You have no idea how they pile in on us.”
   Cramer laughed. “All right, you can have that one. There’ll be no search warrants while you’re gone. I need you down here for something. Tell Wolfe you’ll be back in an hour.”
   “Okay. Coming.”
   I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “Why not? It’s better than sitting here crossing my fingers. Fred and Johnny are here, and together they’re a fifth as good as me. Maybe he wants me to help him embroider Mike Walsh. I’d be glad to.”
   Wolfe nodded. “I like this. There’s something about it I like. I may be wrong. Go, by all means.”
   I shook my pants legs down, put the notebook and plant record away in the drawers, and got going. Johnny came to bolt the door behind me.
   I hadn’t been on the sidewalk for nearly twenty hours, and it smelled good. I filled the chest, waved at Tony with a cart of coal across the street, and opened up my knees on the way to the garage. The roadster whinnied as I went up to it, and I circled down the ramp, scared the daylights out of a truck as I emerged, and headed downtown with my good humor coming in again at every pore. I doubt if anything could ever get me so low that it wouldn’t perk me up to get out and enjoy nature, anywhere between the two rivers from the Battery to i loth Street, but preferably below 59th.
   I parked at the triangle and went in and took an elevator. They sent me right in to Cramer’s little inside room, but it was empty except for a clerk in uniform, and I sat down to wait. In a minute Cramer entered. I was thinking he might have the decency to act a little embarrassed, but he didn’t; be was chewing a cigar and he appeared hearty. He didn’t go to his desk, but stood there. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to rub it in, so I asked him, “Have you round Clara Fox yet?”
   He shook his head. “Nope. No Clara Fox. But we will. We’ve got Mike Walsh.”
   I lifted the brows. “You don’t say. Congratulations. Where’d you find him?”
   He frowned down at me. “I’m not going to try to bluff you, Goodwin. It’s a waste of time. That’s what I asked you to come down here for, this Mike Walsh. You and Wolfe have been cutting it pretty thin up there, but if you help me out on this we’ll call it square. I want you to pick this Mike Walsh out for me. You won’t have to appear, you can look through the panel.”
   “I don’t get you. I thought you said you had him.”
   “Him hell.” Cramer bit his cigar. “I’ve got eight of ‘em.” “Oh.” I grinned at him sympathetically. “Think of that, eight Mike Walshes! It’s a good thing it wasn’t Bill Smith or Abe Cohen.”
   “Will you pick him out?”
   “I don’t like to.” I pulled a hesitation. “Why can’t the boys grind it out themselves?”
   “Well, they can’t. We’ve got nothing at all to go on except that Harlan Scovil had his name on a piece of paper and he was at your place last night. We couldn’t use a hose on all eight of them even if we were inclined that way– The last one was brought in less than an hour ago, and he’s worse than any of the others. He’s a night watchman and he’s seventy if he’s a day, and he says who he knows or doesn’t know is none of our damn business, and I’m inclined to believe him. Look here, Goodwin. This Walsh isn’t a client of Wolfe’s. You don’t owe him anything, and anyway we’re not going to hurt him unless he needs it. Come on and take a look and tell me if we’ve got him.”
   I shook my head. “I’m sorry– It wouldn’t go with the program. I’d like to, but I can’t.”
   Cramer took his cigar from his mouth and pointed it at me. “Once more I’m asking you. Will you do it?”
   I just shook my head.
   He walked around the desk to his chair and sat down. He looked at me as if he regretted something. Finally he said, “It’s too much, Goodwin. This time it’s too much. I’m going to have to put it on to you and Wolfe both for obstructing justice. It’s all set for a charge. Even if I hated to worse than I do, I’ve got upstairs to answer to.”
   He pushed a button on his desk. I said, “Go ahead. Then, pretty soon, go ahead and regret it for a year or two and maybe longer.”
   The door opened and a gumshoe came in. Cramer turned to him. “You’ll have to turn ‘em loose. Nick. Put shadows on all of them except the kid that goes to N. Y. U. and the radio singer. They’re out. Take good men. If one of them gets lost you’ve got addresses to pick him up again. Any more they pick up, I’ll see them after you’ve got a record down.”
   “Yes, sir. The one from Brooklyn, the McGrue Club guy, is raising hell.”
   “All right. Let him out. I’ll phone McGrue later.”
   The gumshoe departed. Cramer tried to get his cigar lit. I said, “And as far as upstairs is concerned, to hell with the Commissioner. How does he know whether or not it’s justice that Wolfe’s obstructing? How about that cripple Paul Chapin and that bird Bowen? Did he obstruct justice that time? If you ask me, I think you had a nerve to ask me to come down here. Are we interfering with your legal right to look for these babies? You even looked for one of them under Wolfe’s bed and under my bed. Do Wolfe and I wear badges, and do we line up on the first and fifteenth for a city check? We do not.”
   Cramer puffed. “I ought to charge you.”
   I lifted the shoulders and let them drop. “Sure. You’re just sore. That’s one way cops and newspaper reporters are all alike, they can’t bear to have anyone know anything they won’t tell.” I looked at my wrist watch and saw it was nearly two o’clock. “I’m hungry. Where do I eat, inside or out?”
   Cramer said, “I don’t give a damn if you never eat. Beat it.”
   I floated up and out, down the hall, down in the elevator, and back to the roadster. I looked around comprehensively, reflecting that within a radius of a few blocks eight Mike Walshes were scattering in all directions, six of them with tails, and that I would give at least two bits to know where one of them was headed for. But even if he had gone by my elbow that second I wouldn’t have dared to take it up, since that would have spotted him for them, so I hopped in the roadster and swung north.
   When I got back to the house Wolfe and Clara Fox were in the dining room, sitting with their coffee. They were so busy they only had time to toss me a nod, and I sat down at my end of the table and Fritz brought me a plate. She had on my dressing gown, with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of Fritz’s slippers with her ankles bare. Wolfe was reciting Hungarian poetry to her, a line at a time, and she was repeating it after him; and he was trying not to look pleased as she leaned forward with an ear cocked at him and her eyes on his lips, asking as if she were really interested, “Say it again, slower, please do.”
   The yellow dressing gown wasn’t bad on her, at that, but I was hungry.
   I waded through a plate of minced lamb kidneys with green peppers, and a dish of endive, and as Fritz took the plate away and presented me with a hunk of pie I observed to the room, “If you’ve finished with your coffee and have any time to spare, you might like to hear a report.”
   Wolfe sighed. “I suppose so. But not here.” He arose. “If Fritz could serve your coffee in the office? And you. Miss Fox … upstairs.”
   “Oh, my lord. Must I dig in again?”
   “Of course. Until dinner time.” He bowed, meaning that he inclined his head two inches, and went off.
   Clara Fox got up and walked to my end. “I’ll pour your coffee.”
   “All right. Black and two lumps.”
   She screwed up her face. “With all this grand cream here? Very well. You know, Mr. Goodwin, this house represents the most insolent denial of female rights the mind of man has ever conceived. No woman in it from top to bottom, but the routine is faultless, the food is perfect, and the sweeping and dusting are impeccable. I have never been a housewife, but I can’t overlook this challenge. I’m going to marry Mr. Wolfe, and I know a girl that will be just the thing for you, and of course our friends will be in and out a good deal. This place needs some upsetting.”
   I looked at her. The hem of the yellow gown was trailing the floor. The throat of it was spreading open, and it was interesting to see where her shoulders came to and how the yellow made her hair look. I said, “You’ve already upset enough. Go upstairs and behave yourself. Wolfe has three wives and nineteen children in Turkey.”
   “I don’t believe it. He has always hated women until he saw how nicely they pack in osmundine.”
   I grinned at her and got up. “Thanks for the coffee. I may be able to persuade Wolfe to let you come down for dinner.”
   I balanced my cup and saucer in one hand while I opened the door for her with the other, and then went to the office and got seated at my desk and started to sip. Wolfe had his middle drawer open and was counting bottle caps to see how much beer he had drunk since Sunday morning. Finally he closed it and grunted.
   “I don’t believe it for a moment. Bah. Statistics are notoriously unreliable. I had a very satisfactory talk with Mr. Lindquist over long distance, and I am more than ever anxious for a few words with Mr. Walsh. Did you see him?”
   “No. I declined the invitation.” I reported my session with Cramer in detail, mostly verbatim, which was the way he liked it.
   Wolfe listened, and considered. “I see. Then Mr. Walsh is loose again.”
   “Yeah. Not only is he loose, but I don’t see how we can approach him, since there’s a tail on him. The minute we do they’ll know it’s him and grab him away from us.”
   “I suppose so.” Wolfe sighed. “Of course it would not do to abolish the police. For nine-tenths of the prey that the law would devour they are the ideal hunters, which is as it should be. As for Walsh, it is essential that I see him … or that you do. Bring Keems.”
   I went to the front room, where Johnny was taking ten cents a game from Fred Durkin with a checkerboard, and shook him loose. He sat down next to the desk and Wolfe wiggled a finger at him.
   “Johnny, this is important. I don’t send Archie because he is needed here, and Saul is not available.”
   “Yes, sir. Shoot.”
   “The Michael Walsh whom you followed this morning has been released by the police because they don’t know if he is the one they want. They have put a shadow on him, so it would be dangerous for you to pick him up even if you knew where to look. It is very important for Archie to get in touch with him. Since he is pretending to the police that he is not the man they seek, there is a strong probability that he will stick to the ordinary routine of his life; that is, that he will go to work this evening. But if he does that he will certainly be followed there and a detective will be covering the entrance all evening; therefore Archie could not enter that way to see him. I am covering all details so that you will know exactly what we want.
   “Is it true that when a building project is boarded up, there is boarding where the construction adjoins the sidewalk but not on the other sides, where there are buildings?”
   “I would think so; at least it may be so sometimes. Very well, I wish to know by what means Archie can enter that building project at, say, seven o’clock this evening. Explore them all. I understand from Miss Fox, who was there last Thursday evening to talk with Mr. Walsh, that they have just started the steel framework.”
   “Miss Fox also tells me that Mr. Walsh goes to work at six o’clock. I want to know if he does so today. You can watch the entrance at that time, or you may perhaps have found another vantage point for observing him from inside. Use your judgment and your wit. Should you phone here, use code as far as possible. Be here by six-thirty with your report.”
   “Yes, sir.” Johnny stood up. “If I have to sugar anybody around the other buildings in order to get through, I’ll need some cash.”
   Wolfe nodded with some reserve. I got four fives from the safe and passed them over and Johnny tucked them in his vest. Then I took him to the hall and let him out.
   I went back to my desk and fooled around with some things, made out a couple of checks, and ran over some invoices from Richardt. Wolfe was drinking beer and I was watching him out of the coiner of my eye. I was keyed up, and I knew why I was; it was something about him. A hundred times I tried to decide just what it was that made it so plain to me when he had the feeling that he was closing in and was about ready for the blow-up.
   Once I would think that it was only that he sat differently in his chair, a little farther forward, and another time I would guess that it was the way he made movements, not quicker exactly but closer together, and still another time I would light on something else. I doubt if it was any of those. Maybe it was electric. There was more of a current turned on inside of him, and somehow I felt it. I felt it that day, as he filled his glass, and drained it and filled it again. And it made me uncomfortable, because I wasn’t doing anything, and because there was always the danger that Wolfe would go off half cocked when he was keeping things to himself. So at length I offered an observation.
   “And I just sit here? What’s the idea, do you think those gorillas are coming back? I don’t. They’re not even watching the front. What was the matter with leaving Fred and Johnny here and letting me go to Fifty-fifth Street to do my own scouting? That might have been sensible, if you want me to see Mike Walsh by seven o’clock. All I’m suggesting is a little friendly chat. I’ve heard you admit you’ve got lots of bad habits, but the worst one is the way you dig up odd facts out of phone calls and other sources when my back is turned and then expect me …”
   I waved a hand.
   Wolfe said, “Nonsense. When have my expectations of you ventured beyond your capacity?”
   “Never. How could they? But, for instance, if it’s so important for me to see Mike Walsh it might be a good idea for me to know why, unless you want him wrapped up and brought here.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “Not that, I think. I’ll inform you, Archie. In good time.” He reached out and touched the button, then sighed and pushed the tray away. “As for my sending Johnny and letting you sit here, you may be needed. While you were out Mr. Muir telephoned to ask if he might call here at half past two. It is that now—”
   “The devil he did. Muir?”
   “Yes. Mr. Ramsey Muir. And as for my keeping you in ignorance of facts, you already interfere so persistently with my mental processes that I am disinclined to furnish you further grounds for speculation. In the present case you know the general situation as well as I do. Chiefly you lack patience, and my exercise of it infuriates you. If I know who killed Harlan Scotland since talking with Mr. Lindquist over long distance I think I do—why do I not act at once? Firstly because I require confirmation, and secondly because our primary interest in this case is not the solution of a murder but the collection of a debt. If I expect to get the confirmation I require from Mr. Walsh, why do I not get him at once, secure my confirmation, and let the police have him? Because the course they would probably take, after beating his story out of him, would make it difficult to collect from Lord Clivers, and would greatly complicate the matter of clearing Miss Fox of the larceny charge. We have three separate goals to reach, and since it will be necessary to arrive at all of them simultaneously—but there is the doorbell. Mr. Muir is three minutes late.”
   I went to the hall and took a look through the panel. Sure enough, it was Muir. I opened up and let him in. From the way he stepped over the door sill and snapped out that he wanted to see Wolfe, it was fairly plain that he was mad as hell. He had on a brown plaid topcoat cut by a tailor that was out of my class, but twenty-five years too young for him, and apparently he wasn’t taking it off. I motioned him ahead of me into the office and introduced him, and allowed myself a polite grin when I saw that he wasn’t shaking hands any more than Wolfe was. I pushed a chair around and he sat with his hat on his knees.
   Wolfe said, “Your secretary, on the telephone, seemed not to know what you wished to see me about. My surmise was, your charge against Miss Clara Fox. You understand of course that I am representing Miss Fox.”
   “Yes. I understand that.”
   “Well, sir?”
   The bones of Muir’s face seemed to show, and his ears seemed to point forward, more than they had the day before. He kept his lips pressed together and his jaw was working from side to side as if all this emotion in his old age was nearly too much for him. I remembered how he had looked at Clara Fox the day before and thought it was remarkable that he could keep his digestion going with all the stew there must have been inside of him.
   He said, “I have come here at the insistence of Mr. Perry.” His voice trembled a little, and when he stopped his jaw slid around. “I want you to understand that I know she took that money. She is the only one who could have taken it. It was found in her car.” He stopped a little to control his jaw. “Mr. Perry told me of your threat to sue for damages. The insinuation in it is contemptible. What kind of a blackguard are you, to protect a thief by hinting calumnies against men who … men above suspicion?”
   He paused and compressed his lips. Wolfe murmured, “Well, go on. I don’t answer questions containing two or more unsupported assumptions.”
   I don’t think Muir heard him; he was only hearing himself and trying not to blow up. He said, “I’m here only for one reason, for the sake of the Seaboard Products Corporation. And not on account of your dirty threat either.
   That’s not where the dirt is in the Seaboard Products Corporation that has got to be concealed.” His voice trembled again– “It’s the fact that the president of the corporation has to satisfy his personal sensual appetite by saving a common thief from what she deserves! That’s why she can laugh at me! That’s why she can stand behind your dirty threats! Because she knows what Perry wants, and she knows how—”
   “Mr. Muir!” Wolfe snapped at him. “I wouldn’t talk like that if I were you. It’s so futile. Surely you didn’t come here to persuade me that Mr. Perry has a sensual appetite.”
   Muir made a movement and his hat rolled from his knees to the floor, but he paid no attention to it. His movement was for the purpose of getting his hand into his inside breast pocket, from which he withdrew a square manila envelope. He looked in it and fingered around and took out a small photograph, glanced at it, and handed it to Wolfe. “There,” he said, “look at that.”
   Wolfe did so, and passed it to me. It was a snapshot of Clara Fox and Anthony D. Perry seated in a convertible coupe with the top down.
   I laid it on the edge of the desk and Muir picked it up and returned it to the envelope. His jaw was moving.
   He said, “I have more than thirty of them. A detective took them for me. Perry doesn’t know I have them. I want to make it clear to you that she deserves —.. that she has a hold on him …” Wolfe put up a hand. “I’m afraid I must interrupt you again, Mr. Muir. I don’t like photographs of automobiles. You say that Mr. Perry insisted on your coming here. I’ll have to insist on your telling me what for.”
   “But you understand—”
   “No. I won’t listen. I understand enough. Perhaps I had better put a question or two. Is it true that you have recovered all of the missing money?”
   Muir glared at him. “You know we have. It was found under the back seat of her car.”
   “But if that was her car in the photograph, it has no back seat.”
   “She bought a new one in August. The photograph was taken in July. I suppose Perry bought it. Her salary is higher than any other woman in our organization.”
   “Splendid. But about the money. If you have it back, why are you determined to prosecute?”
   “Why shouldn’t we prosecute? Because she’s guilty! She took it from my desk, knowing that Perry would protect her! With her body, with her Qesh, with her surrender—”
   “No, Mr. Muir.” Wolfe’s hand was up again. “Please. I put the question wrong, I shouldn’t have asked why. I want to know, are you determined to prosecute?”
   Muir clamped his lips. He opened them, and clamped them again. At last he spoke, “We were. I was.”
   “Was? Are you still?”
   No reply. “Are you still, Mr. Muir?”
   “I … no.”
   “Indeed.” Wolfe’s eyes narrowed. “You are prepared to withdraw the charge?”
   “Yes … under certain circumstances.”
   “What circumstances?”
   “I want to see her.” Muir stopped because his voice was trembling again.
   “I have promised Perry that I will withdraw the charge provided I can see her, alone, and tell her myself.” He sat up and his jaw tightened. “That…those are the circumstances.”
   Wolfe looked at him a moment and then leaned back. He sighed. “I think possibly that can be arranged. But you must first sign a statement exonerating her.”
   “Before I see her?”
   “Yes.”
   “No. I see her first.” Muir’s lips worked. “I must see her and tell her myself. If I had already signed a statement, she wouldn’t … no. I won’t do that.”
   “But you can’t see her first.” Wolfe sounded patient. “There is a warrant in force against her, sworn to by you. I do not suspect you of treachery, I merely protect my client. You say that you have promised Mr. Perry that you will withdraw the charge. Do so. Mr. Goodwin will type the statement, you will sign it, and I will arrange a meeting with Miss Fox later in the day.”
   Muir was shaking his head. He muttered, “No. No … I won’t.” All at once he broke loose worse than he had in Perry’s office the day before. He jumped up and banged his hand on the desk and leaned over at Wolfe. “I tell you I must see her! You damn blackguard, you’ve got her here! What for? What do you get out of it? What do you and Perry …”
   I had a good notion to slap him one, but of course he was too old and too little. Wolfe, leaning back, opened his eyes to look at him and then closed them. Muir went on raving. I got out of my chair and told him to sit down, and he began yelling at me, something about how I had looked at her in Perry’s office yesterday. That sounded as if he might really be going to have a fit, so I took a step and got hold of his shoulders with a fairly good grip and persuaded him into his chair, and he shut up as suddenly as he had started and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping his face with his hand trembling.
   As he did that and I stepped back, the doorbell rang. I wasn’t sure about leaving Wolfe there alone with a maniac, but when I didn’t move he lifted his brows at me, so I went to see who the customer was.
   I looked through the panel. It was a rugged-looking guy well past middle age in a loose-hanging tweed suit, with a red face, straight eyebrows over tired gray eyes, and no lobe on his right ear. Even without the ear I would have recognized him from the Times picture. I opened the door and asked him, what he wanted and he said in a wounded tone, “I’d like to see Mr. Nero Wolfe. Lord Clivers.”
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Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 13

   I nodded. “Right. Hop the sill.”
   I proceeded to tax the brain. Before I go on to describe that, I’ll make a confession. I had not till that moment seriously entertained the idea that the Marquis of Clivers had killed Harlan Scovil. And why not? Because like most other people, and maybe especially Americans, there was a sneaky feeling in me that men with noble titles didn’t do things like that. Besides, this bird had just been to Washington and had lunch at the White House, which cinched it that he wasn’t a murderer.
   As a matter of fact, I suspect that noblemen and people who eat lunch at the White House commit more than their share of murders compared to their numerical strength in the total population. Anyhow, looking at this one in the Sesh, and reflecting that he carried a pistol and knew how to use one, and considering how well he was fixed in the way of motive, and realizing that since Harlan Scoyil had been suspicious enough to make an advance call on Nero Wolfe he might easily have done the same on the Marquis of Clivers, I revised some of the opinions I had been forming. It looked wide open to me.
   That flashed through my mind. Also, as I disposed of his hat and stick and gloves for him, I wondered if it might be well to arrange a little confrontation between Muir and the marquis, but I didn’t like to decide that myself. So I escorted him to a seat in the front room, telling him Wolfe was engaged, and then returned to the hall and wrote on a piece of paper, “Old man Clivers,” and went to the office and handed the paper to Wolfe.
   Wolfe glanced at it, looked at me, and winked his right eye. I sat down.
   Muir was talking, much calmer but just as stubborn. They passed it back and forth for a couple of minutes without getting anywhere, until Wolfe said, “Futile, Mr. Muir. I won’t do it. Tell Mr. Perry that I shall proceed with the program I announced to him this morning. That’s final. I’ll accept nothing less than complete and unconditional exoneration of my client. Good day, sir. I have a caller waiting.”
   Muir stood up. He wasn’t trembling, and his jaw seemed to be back in place, but he looked about as friendly as Mussolini talking to the world.
   He didn’t say anything. He shot me a mean glance and looked at Wolfe for half a minute without blinking, and then stooped to pick up his hat and straightened up and steered for the door. I followed and let him out, and stood on the stoop a second watching him start off down the sidewalk as if he had half a jag on. He was like the mule in the story that kept running into trees; he wasn’t blind, he was just so mad he didn’t give a damn.
   I stood shaking my head more in anger than in pity, and then went back to the office and said to Wolfe, “I would say you hit bottom that time. He’s staggering. If you called that foxy, what would you say if you saw a rat?”
   Wolfe nodded faintly. I resumed, “I showed you that paper because I thought you might deem it advisable to let Clivers and Muir see each other. Unexpected like that, it might have been interesting. It’s my social instinct.”
   “No doubt. But this is a detective bureau, not a fashionable salon. Nor a menagerie—since Mr. Muir is plainly a lecherous hyena. Bring Lord Clivers.”
   I went through the connecting door to the front room, and Clivers looked around, surprised at my entering from a new direction. He was jumpy. I pointed him ahead and he stopped on the threshold and glanced around before venturing in. Then he moved spryly enough and walked over to the desk. Wolfe took him in with his eyes half shut, and nodded.
   “How do you do, sir.” Wolfe indicated the chair Muir had just vacated.
   “Be seated.”
   Clivers did a slow-motion circle. He turned all the way around, encompassing with his eyes the bookshelves, the wall maps, the Holbein reproductions, more bookshelves, the three-foot globe on its stand, the engraving of Brillat-Savarin, more bookshelves, the picture of Sherlock Holmes above my desk. Then he sat down and looked at me with a frown and pointed a thumb at me.
   “This young man,” he said.
   Wolfe said, “My confidential assistant, Mr. Goodwin. There would be no point in sending him out, for he would merely find a point of vantage we have prepared, and set down what he heard.”
   “The devil he would.” Clivers laughed three short blasts, haw-haw-haw, and gave me up. He transferred the frown to Wolfe. “I received your letter about that horse. It’s preposterous.”
   Wolfe nodded. “I agree with you. All debts are preposterous. They are the envious past clutching with its cold dead fingers the throat of the living present.”
   “Eh?” Clivers stared at him. “What kind of talk is that? Rot. What I mean to say is, two hundred thousand pounds for a horse. And uncollectible.”
   “Surely not.” Wolfe sighed. He leaned forward to press the button for Fritz, and back again. “The best argument against you is your presence here. If it is uncollectible, why did you come? Will you have some beer?”
   “What kind of beer?”
   “American. Potable.”
   “I’ll try it. I came because my nephew gave me to understand that if I wanted to see you I would have to come. I wanted to see you because I had to learn if you are a swindler or a dupe.”
   “My dear sir.” Wolfe lifted his brows. “No other alternatives? Another glass and bottle, Fritz.” He opened his and poured. “But you seem to be a direct man. Let’s not get mired in irrelevancies. Frankly, I am relieved. I feared that you might even dispute the question of identity and create a lot of unnecessary trouble.”
   “Dispute identity?” Clivers glared. “Why the devil should I?”
   “You shouldn’t, but I thought you might. You were, forty years ago in Silver City, Nevada, known as George Rowley?”
   “Certainly I was. Thanks, I’ll pour it myself.”
   “Good.” Wolfe drank, and wiped his lips. “I think we should get along. I am aware that Mr. Lindquist’s claim against you has no legal standing on account of the expiration of time. The same is true of the claim of various others; besides, the paper you signed which originally validated it is not available. But it is a sound and demonstrable moral obligation, and I calculated that rather than have that fact shown in open court you would prefer to pay. It would be an unusual case and would arouse much public interest. Not only are you a peer of England, you are in this country on an important and delicate diplomatic mission, and therefore such publicity would be especially undesirable. Would you not rather pay what you owe, or at least a fraction of it, than permit the publicity? I calculated that you would. Do you find the beer tolerable?”
   Clivers put down his glass and licked his lips. “It’ll do.” He screwed up his mouth and looked at Wolfe. “By God, you know, you might mean that.”
   “Verily, sir.”
   “Yes, by God, you might. I’ll tell you what I thought. I thought you were basing the claim on that horse with the pretense that it was additional to the obligation I assumed when I signed that paper. The horse wasn’t mentioned in the paper. Not a bad idea, an excellent go at blackmail. It all sounds fantastic now, but it wasn’t then. If I hadn’t signed that paper and if it hadn’t been for that horse I would have had a noose around my neck. Not so damn pleasant, eh? And of course that’s what you’re doing, claiming extra for the horse. But it’s preposterous. Two hundred thousand pounds for a horse? I’ll pay a thousand.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “I dislike haggling. Equally I dislike quibbling. The total claim is in question, and you know it. I represent not only Mr. and Miss Lindquist but also the daughter of Gilbert Fox, and indirectly Mr. Walsh; and I was to have represented Mr. Scovil, who was murdered last evening.” He shook his head again. “No, Lord Clivers. In my letter I based the claim on the horse only because the paper you signed is not available. It is the total claim we are discussing, and, strictly speaking, that would mean half of your entire wealth. As I said, my clients are willing to accept a fraction.”
   Clivers had a new expression on his face. He no longer glared, but looked at Wolfe quietly intent. He said, “I see. So it’s a serious game, is it? I would have paid a thousand for the horse, possibly even another thousand for the glass of beer. But you’re on for a real haul by threatening to make all this public and compromise my position here. Go to hell.” He got up.
   Wolfe said patiently, “Permit me. It isn’t a matter of a thousand or two for a horse. Precisely and morally, you owe these people half of your wealth. If they are willing—”
   “Bah! I owe them nothing! You know damn well I’ve paid them.”
   Wolfe’s eyes went nearly shut. “What’s that? You’ve paid them?”
   “Of course I have, and you know it. And I’ve got their receipt, and I’ve got the paper I signed.” Clivers abruptly sat down again. “Look here. Your man is here, and I’m alone, so why not talk straight? I don’t resent your being a crook, I’ve dealt with crooks before, and more pretentious ones than you.
   But cut out the pretense and get down to business. You have a good lever for blackmail, I admit it. But you might as well give up the idea of a big haul, because I won’t submit to it. I’ll pay three thousand pounds for a receipt from the Lindquists for that horse.”
   Wolfe’s forefinger was tapping gently on the arm of his chair, which meant he was dodging meteors and comets. His eyes were mere slits. After a moment he said, “This is bad. It raises questions of credibility.” He wiggled the finger. “Really bad, sir. How am I to know whether you really have paid? And if you have, how are you to know whether I was really ignorant of the fact and acting in good faith? Have you any suggestions?” He pushed the button. “I need some beer. Will you join me?”
   “Yes. It’s pretty good. Do you mean to say you didn’t know I had paid?”
   “I do. I do indeed. Though the possibility should certainly have occurred to me. I was too intent on the path under my feet.” He stopped to open hordes, pushed one across to Clivers, and filled his glass. “You say you paid them. What them? When? How much? What with? They signed a receipt? Tell me about it.”
   Clivers, taking his time, emptied his glass and set it down. He licked his lips, screwed up his mouth, and looked at Wolfe, considering. Finally he shook his head, “I don’t know about you. You’re clever. Do you mean that if I show evidence of having paid, and their receipt, you will abandon this preposterous claim for the horse on payment of a thousand pounds?”
   “Satisfactory evidence?” Wolfe nodded. “I’ll abandon it for nothing.”
   “Oh, I’ll pay a thousand. I understand the Lindquists are hard up. The evidence will be satisfactory, and you can see it tomorrow morning.”
   “I’d rather see it today.”
   “You can’t. I haven’t got it. It will arrive this evening on the Berengana. My dispatch bag will reach me tonight, but I shall be engaged. Come to my hotel any time after nine in the morning.”
   “I don’t go out. I am busy from nine to eleven. You can bring your evidence here any time after eleven.”
   “The devil I can.” Clivers stared at him, and suddenly laughed his three blasts again. Haw-haw-haw. He turned it off. “You can come to my hotel.
   You don’t look infirm.”
   Wolfe said patiently, “If you don’t bring it here, or send it, I won’t get to see it and I’ll have to press the claim for the horse. And by the way, how does it happen to be coming on the Berengaria?”
   “Because I sent for it. Monday of last week, eight days ago, a woman saw me. She got in to me through my nephew—it seems they had met socially. She represented herself as the daughter of Gil Fox and made demands. I wouldn’t discuss it with her. I thought it was straight blackmail and I would freeze her out. She was too damned good-looking to be honest. But I thought it worthwhile to cable to London for these items from my private papers, in case of developments. They’ll be here tonight.” our fee. Finally Wolfe’s eyelids raised enough to permit the conjecture that he was conscious..
   “It would have saved a lot of trouble,” he murmured, “if they had hanged you in 1895. Isn’t that so? As iЈ stands. Lord Clivers, I wish to assure you again of my complete good faith in this matter, and I suggest that we postpone commitments undl your evidence of payment has been examined. Tomorrow, then.” He looked at me. “Confound you, Archie. I have you to thank for this acarpous entanglement.”
   It was a new one, but I got the idea. He meant that he had drawn his sword in defense of Clara Fox because I had told him that she was the ideal of my dreams. I suppose it was me that sat and recited Hungarian poetry to her.
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Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 14

   When Wolfe came down to the office from the plant rooms at six o’clock, Saul Panzer and Orrie Gather were there waiting for him. Fred Durkin, who had spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen with the cookie jar, had been sent home at five, after I had warned him to cross the street if he saw a cop.
   Nothing much had happened, except that Anthony D. Perry had telephoned a little after Fred had left, to say that he would like to call at the office and see Wolfe at seven o’clock. Since I would be leaving about that time to sneak up on Mike Walsh, I asked him if he couldn’t make it at six, but he said other engagements prevented. I tried a couple of leading questions on him, but he got brusque and said his business was with Nero Wolfe.
   I knew Saul would be around, or Johnny Keems, so I said okay for seven.
   There had been no word from Johnny, The outstanding event of the afternoon had been the arrival of another enormous box of roses from the Horrocks person, and he had had the brass to have the delivery label addressed to me, with a card on the inside scribbled “Thanks Goodwin for forwarding,” so now in addition to acting as hall boy and as a second-hand ladies’ outfitter, apparently I was also expected to be a common carrier.
   I had lost sixty cents. At a quarter to four, a few minutes after Clivers had gone, Wolfe had suggested that since I hadn’t been out much a little exercise wouldn’t hurt me any. He had made no comments on the news from Clivers, and I thought he might if I went along with him, but I told him I couldn’t see it at two bits. He said, all right, a dime. So I mounted the stairs while he took the elevator and we met in his room. He took his coat and vest off, exhibiting about eighteen square feet of canary-yellow shirt, and chose the darts with yellow feathers, which were his favorites. The first hand he got an ace and two bull’s eyes, making three aces. By four o’clock, time for him to go to the plant rooms, it had cost me sixty cents and I bad got nothing out of it because he had been too concentrated on the game to talk.
   I went on up to the south room and was in there nearly an hour. There were three reasons for it: first, Wolfe had instructed me to tell Clara Fox about the visits from Muir and Clivers; second, she was restless and needed a little discipline; and third, I had nothing else to do anyhow. She had her clothes on again. She said Fritz had given her an iron to press with, but her dress didn’t look as if she had used it much. I told her I supposed an adventuress wouldn’t be so hot at ironing. When I told her about Muir she just made a face and didn’t seem disposed to furnish any remarks, but she was articulate about Clivers. She thought he was lying. She said that she understood he was considered one of the ablest of British diplomats, and it was to be expected he would use his talents for private business as well as public.
   I said that I hadn’t observed anything particularly able about him except that he could empty a glass of beer as fast as Nero Wolfe; that while he might not be quite as big a sap as his nephew Francis Horrocks he seemed fairly primitive to me, even for a guy who had spent most of his life on a little island.
   She said it was just a difference in superficial mannerisms, that she too had thought Horrocks a sap at first, that I would change my mind when I knew him better, and that after all traditions weren’t necessarily silly just because they weren’t American. I said I wasn’t talking about traditions, I was talking about saps, and as far as I was concerned saps were out, regardless of race, nationality, or religion. It went on from there until she said she guessed she would go up and take advantage of Mr. Wolfe’s invitation to look at the orchids, and I went down to send Fred home.
   When Wolfe came down I was at my desk working on some sandwiches and milk, for I didn’t know when I might get back from my trip uptown.
   I told him about the phone call from Perry. He went into the front room to get reports from Saul and Orrie, which made me sore as usual, but when he came back and settled into his chair and rang for beer I made no effort to stimulate him into any choice remarks about straining my powers of dissimulation, because he didn’t give me a chance. Having sent Orrie home and Saul to the kitchen, he was ready for me, and he disclosed the nature of my mission with Mike Walsh. It wasn’t precisely what I had expected, but I pretended it was by keeping nonchalant and casual. He drank beer and wiped his lips and told me, “I’m sorry, Archie, if this bores you.”
   I said, “Oh, I expect it. Just a matter of routine.”
   He winked at me, and I turned and picked up my milk to keep from grinning back at him, and the telephone rang.
   It was Inspector Cramer. He asked for Wolfe and I passed the signal, and of course kept my own line. Cramer said, “What about this Clara Eox? Are you going to bring her down here, or tell me where to send for her?”
   Wolfe murmured into the transmitter, “What is this, Mr. Cramer? A new tacric? I don’t get it.”
   “Now listen, Wolfe!” Cramer sounded hurt and angry. “First you tell me you’ve got her hid because we tried to snatch her on a phony larceny charge. Now that that’s out of the way, do you think you’re going to pull—”
   “What?” Wolfe stopped him. “The larceny charge out of the way?”
   “Certainly. Don’t pretend you didn’t know it, since of course you did it, though I don’t know how. You can put over the damnedest tricks.”
   “No doubt. But please tell me how you learned this.”
   “Frisbie over at the District Attorney’s office. It seems that a fellow named Muir, a vice-president up at that Seaboard thing where she worked, is a friend of Frisbie’s. He’s the one that swore out the warrant. Now he’s backed up, and it’s all off, and I want to see this Miss Fox and hear her tell me that she never heard of Harlan Scovil, like all the Mike Walshes we got.”
   Cramer became sarcastic. “Of course this is all news to you.”
   “It is indeed.” Wolfe sent a glance at me, with a lifted brow. “Quite pleasant news. Let’s see. I suspect it would be too difficult to persuade you that I know nothing of Miss Fox’s whereabouts, so I shan’t try. It is now six-thirty, and I shall have to make some inquiries. Where can I telephone you at eight?”
   “Oh, for God’s sake,” Cramer sounded disgusted. “I wish I’d let the Commissioner pull you in, as he wanted to. I don’t need to tell you why I hate to work against you, but have a heart. Send her down here, I won’t bite her. I was going to a show tonight.”
   “I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe affected his sweet tone, which always made me want to kick him. “I must Erst verify your information about the larceny charge, and then I must get in touch with Miss Fox. You’ll be there until eight o’clock.”
   Cramer grunted something profane, and we hung up.
   “So.” I tossed down my notebook. “Mr. Muir is yellow after all, and Mr. Perry is probably coming to find out how you knew he would be. Shake-up in the Seaboard Products Corporation. But where the devil is Johnny—ah, see that? All I have to do is pronounce his name and he rings the doorbell.”
   I went to the entrance and let him in. One look at his satisfied handsomeness was enough to show that he had been marvelous all over again. As a matter of fact, Johnny Keems unquestionably had an idea at the back of his head—and still has—that it would be a very fine thing for the detective business if he got my job. Which doesn’t bother me a bit, because I know Wolfe would never be able to stand him. He puts slick stuff on bis hair and he wears spats, and he would never get the knack of keeping Wolfe on the job by bawling him out properly. I know what I get paid high wages for, though I’ve never been able to decide whether Wolfe knows that I know.
   I took Johnny to the office and he sat down and began pulling papers out of his pocket. He shuffled through them and announced, “I thought it would be better to make diagrams. Of course I could have furnished Archie with verbal descriptions, but along with my shorthand I’ve learned—”
   Wolfe put in, “Is Mr. Walsh there now?”
   Johnny nodded. “He came a few minutes before six. I was watching from the back of a restaurant that fronts on Fifty-sixth Street, because I knew he’d have a shadow and I didn’t want to run a risk of being seen, a lot of those city detectives know me. By the way, there’s only the one entrance to the boarding, on Fifty-fifth.” He handed the papers across to Wolfe. “I dug up nine other ways to get in. Some of them you couldn’t use, but with two of them, a restaurant and a pet shop that’s open until nine, it’s a cinch.”
   Instead of taking the papers, Wolfe nodded at me. “Give them to Archie. Is there anyone in there besides Mr. Walsh?”
   “I don’t think so. It’s mostly steel men on the job now, and they quit at five. Of course it was dark when I left, and it isn’t lit up much. There’s a wooden shed at one side with a couple of tables and a phone and so on, and a man was standing there talking to Walsh, a foreman, but he looked as if he was ready to leave. The reason I was a little late, after I got out of there I went around to Fifty-fifth to see if there was a shadow on the job, and there was. I spotted him easy. He was standing there across the street, talking to a taxi driver.”
   “All right. Satisfactory. Go over the diagrams with Archie.”
   Johnny explained to me how good the diagrams were, and I had to agree with him. They were swell. Five of them I discarded, because four of them were shops that wouldn’t be open and the other was the Orient Club, which wouldn’t be easy to get into. Of the remaining four, one was the pet shop, one a movie theater with a fire alley, and two restaurants. After Johnny’s detailed description of the relative advantages and disadvantages, I picked one of the restaurants for the first stab. It seemed like a lot of complicated organization work for getting ready to stop in and ask a guy a question, but considering what the question led to in Wolfe’s mental arrangements it seemed likely that it might be worth the trouble. By the time we were through with Johnny’s battle maps it lacked only a few minutes till seven, and I followed my custom of chucking things in the drawers, plugging the phone for all the house connections, and taking my automatic and giving it a look and sticking it in my pocket. I got up and pushed my chair in.
   I asked Johnny, “Can you hang around for a couple of hours’ overtime?”
   “I can if I eat.”
   “Okay. You’ll find Saul in the kitchen. There’s a caller expected at seven and he’ll tend to the door. Stick around. Mr. Wolfe may want you to exercise your shorthand.”
   Johnny strode out. I think he practiced striding. I started to follow, but turned to ask Wolfe, “Are you going to grab time by the forelock? Will there be a party when I get back?”
   “I couldn’t say.” Wolfe’s hand was resting on the desk; he was waiting for the door to close behind me, to ring for beer. “We’ll await the confirmation.”
   “Shall I phone?”
   “No. Bring it.”
   “Okay.” I turned.
   The telephone rang. From force of habit I wheeled again and stepped to my desk for it, though I saw that Wolfe had reached for his receiver. So we both heard it, a voice that sounded far away but thin and tense with excitement. “Nero Wolfe! Nero—”
   I snapped, “Yes. Talking.”
   “I’ve got him! Come up here … Fifty-fifth Street … Mike Walsh this is … I’ve got him covered … come up—”
   It was cut off by the sound of a shot in the receiver—a sound of an explosion so loud in my ear that it might have been a young cannon. Then there was nothing. I said “Hello, Walsh! Walsh!” a few times, but there was no answer.
   I hung up and turned to Wolfe. “Well, by Godfrey. Did you hear anything?”
   He nodded. “I did. And I don’t understand it.”
   “Indeed. That’s a record. What’s the program, hop up there?”
   Wolfe’s eyes were shut, and his lips were moving out and in. He stayed that way a minute. I stood and watched him. Finally he said, “If Walsh shot someone, who was it? But if someone shot him, why now? Why not yesterday or a week ago? In any case, you might as well go and learn what happened. It may have been merely a steel girder crashing off its perch;
   there was enough noise.”
   “No. That was a gun.”
   “Very well. Find out. If you—ah! The doorbell. Indeed. You might attend to that first. Mr. Perry is punctual.”
   As I entered the hall Saul Panzer came out of the kitchen, and I sent him back. I turned on the stoop light and looked through the panel because it was getting to be a habit, and saw it was Perry. I opened the door and he stepped inside and put his hat and gloves on the stand. I followed him into the office.
   Wolfe said, “Good evening sir. I have reflected, Archie, that the less one meddles the less one becomes involved. You might have Saul phone the hospital that there has been an accident. Oh. no, Mr. Perry, nothing serious, thank you.”
   I went to the kitchen and told Saul Panzer: “Go to Alien’s on Thirtyfourth Street and phone headquarters that you think you heard a shot inside the building construction on Fifty-fifth near Madison and they’d better investigate at once. If they want to know who you are, tell them King George.
   Make it snappy.”
   That was a nickel wasted, but I didn’t know it then.
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Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
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Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 15

   Perry glanced at me as I got into my chair and opened my notebook. He was saying, “I don’t remember that anything ever irritated me more. I suppose I’m getting old. You mustn’t think I bear any ill will; if you preferred to represent Miss Fox, that was your right. But you must admit I played your hand for you; so far as I know there wasn’t the faintest shred of evidence with which you could have enforced your threat.” He smiled. “You think, of course, that my personal—er—respect for Miss Fox influenced my attitude and caused me to bring pressure on Muir. I confess that had a great deal to do with it. She is a charming young lady and also an extremely competent employee.”
   Wolfe nodded. “And my client. Naturally, I was pleased to leam that the charge had been dropped.”
   “You say you heard it from the police? I hoped I was bringing the good news myself.”
   “I got it from Inspector Cramer.” Wolfe had got his beer. He poured some, and resumed, “Mr. Cramer told me that he had been advised of it by a Mr. Frisbie, an Assistant District Attorney. It appears that Mr. Frisbie is a friend of Mr. Muir.”
   “Yes. I am acquainted with Frisbie. I know Skinner, the District Attorney, quite well.” Perry coughed, watched Wolfe empty his glass, and resumed, “So I’m not the bearer of glad tidings. But,” he smiled, “that wasn’t the chief purpose of my call.”
   “Well, sir?”
   “Well… I think you owe me something. Look at it this way. By threat ening me with a procedure which would have meant most distasteful publicity for my corporation, you forced me to exert my authority and compel Muir to drop his charge. Muir isn’t an employee; he is the highest officer of the corporation after myself and he owns a fair proportion of the stock. It wasn’t easy.” Perry leaned forward and got crisper. “I surrendered to you. Now I have a right to know what I surrendered to. The only possible inter– pretation of your threat was that Miss Fox had been framed,.and you wouldn’t have dared to make such a threat unless you had some sort of evidence for it.” He sat back and finished softly, “I want to know what that evidence is.”
   “But, Mr. Perry.” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Miss Fox is my client. You’re not.”
   “Ah.” Perry smiled. “You want to be paid for it? I’ll pay a reasonable amount.”
   “Whatever information I have gathered in the interest of Miss Fox is not for sale to others.”
   “Rubbish. It has served her well. She has no further use for it.” He leaned forward again. “Look here, Wolfe. I don’t need to try to explain Muir to you, you’ve talked with him. If he has got so bad that he tries to frame a girl out of senile chagrin and vindictiveness, don’t you think I ought to know it? He is our senior vice-president. Wouldn’t our stockholders think so?”
   “I didn’t know stockholders think.” Wolfe sighed. “But to answer your first question: yes, sir, I do think you ought to know it. But you won’t learn it from me. Let us not go on pawing the air, Mr. Perry. This is definite: I did have evidence to support my threat, but under no circumstances will you get from me any proof that you could use against Mr. Muir. So we won’t discuss that. If there is any other topic …”
   Perry insisted. He got frank. His opinion was that Muir was such an old goat that his active services were no longer of any value to the corporation. He wanted to deal fairly with Muir, but after all his first duty was to the organization and its stockholders. And so on. He had suspected from the first that there was something odd about the disappearance of that $30,000, and he reasserted his right to know what Wolfe had found out about it.
   Wolfe let him ramble on quite a while, but finally he sighed and sat up and got positive. Nothing doing.
   Perry seemed determined to keep his temper. He sat and bit his lower lip and looked at me and back at Wolfe again.
   Wolfe asked, “Was there anything else, sir?”
   Perry hesitated. Then he nodded. “There was, yes. But I don’t suppose … however … 1 want to see Miss Fox.”
   “Indeed.” Wolfe’s shoulders went up an inch and down again. “The demand for that young woman seems to be universal. Did you know the police are still looking for her? They want to ask her about a murder.”
   Perry’s chin jerked up. “Murder? What murder?”
   “Just a murder. A man on the street with five bullets in him. I would have supposed Frisbie had told you of it.”
   “No. Muir said Frisbie said something … I forget what … but this sounds serious. How can she possibly be connected with it? Who was killed?”
   “A man named Harlan Scovil. Murder is often serious. But I think you needn’t worry about Miss Fox; she really had nothing to do with it. You see, she is still my client. At present she is rather inaccessible, so if you could just tell me what you want to see her about …”
   I saw a spot of color on Perry’s temple, and it occurred to me that he was the fourth raan I had that day seen badly affected in the emotions by either the presence or the name of Clara Fox. She wasn’t a woman, she was an epidemic. But obviously Perry wasn’t going to repeat Muir’s performance.
   I watched the spot of color as it faded. At length he said to Wolfe quietly, “She is in this house. Isn’t she?”
   “The police searched this house today and didn’t find her.”
   “But you know where she is?”
   “Certainly.” Wolfe frowned at him. “If you have a message for her. Mr. Goodwin will take it.”
   “Can you tell me when and where it will be possible to see her?”
   “No. I’m sorry. Not at present. Tomorrow, perhaps …”
   Perry arose from his chair. He stood and looked down at Wolfe, and all of a sudden smiled. “All right,” he said. “I can’t say that my call here has been very profitable, but I’m not complaining. Every man has a right to his own methods if he can get away with them. As you suggest, I’ll wait till tomorrow; you may feel differently about it.” He put out his hand.
   Wolfe glanced at the outstretched hand, then opened his eyes to look directly at Perry’s face. He shook his head. “No, sir. You are perfectly aware that in view of this … event, I am no friend of yours.”
   Perry’s temple showed color again. But he didn’t say anything. He turned and steered for the door. I lifted myself and followed him. He already had his hat and gloves by the time I got to the hall stand, and when I opened the door for him I saw that he had a car outside, one of the new Wethersill convertibles. I watched him climb in, and waited until he had glided off before I re-entered and slid the bolt to.
   I stopped in the kitchen long enough to learn from Saul that he had phoned the message to headquarters but hadn’t been able to convince them that he was King George and so had rung off.
   In the office, Wolfe sat with his eyes closed and his lips moving. After sitting down and glancing over my notebook and putting it in the drawer, I observed aloud, “He’s wise.”
   No reply, no acknowledgment. I added, “Which is more than you are.”
   That met with the same lack of encouragement. I waited a courteous in terval and resumed, “The poor old fellow would give anything in the world to forestall unpleasant publicity for the Seaboard Products Corporation– Just think what he has sacrificed! He has spent the best part oЈ his life building up that business, and I’ll bet his share of the profits is no more than a measly half a million a year. But what I want to know—”
   “Shut up, Archie.” Wolfe’s eyes opened. “I can do without that now.” He grimaced at his empty glass. “I am atrociously uncomfortable. It is sufficiently annoying to deal with inadequate information, which is what one usually has, but to sit thus while surmises, the mere ghosts of facts, tumble idiotically in my brain, is next to insupportable. It would have been better, perhaps, if you had gone to Fifty-fifth Street. With prudence. At any rate, we can try for Mr. Cramer. I told him I would telephone him by eight, and it lacks only ten minutes of that. I particularly resent this sort of disturbance at this time of day. I presume you know we are having guinea chicken Braziliera. See about Mr. Cramer.”
   That proved to be a job. Cramer’s extension seemed to be permanently busy. After five or six tries I finally got it, and was told by someone that Cramer wasn’t there. He had left shortly after seven o’clock, and it wasn’t known where he was, and he had left no word about any expected message from Nero Wolfe. Wolfe received the information standing up, for Fritz had appeared to announce dinner. I reported Cramer’s absence and added, “Why don’t I go uptown now and see if something fell and broke? Or send Saul.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “No. The police are there, and if there is anything to hear we shall hear it later by reaching Mr. Cramer, without exposing ourselves.” He moved to the door. “There is no necessity for Johnny to sit in the kitchen at a dollar and a half an hour. Send him home. Saul may remain. Bring Miss Fox.”
   I performed the errands.
   At the dinner table, of course, business was out. Nothing was said to Clara Fox about the call for help from Mike Walsh or Perry’s visit. In spite of the fact that she had a rose pinned on her, she was distinctly down in the mouth and wasn’t making any effort in the way of peddling charm, but even so, appraising her coolly, I could see that she might be a real problem for any man who was at all impressionable. She had been in the plant rooms with Wolfe for an hour before six o’clock, and during dinner he went on with a conversation which they had apparently started then, about folk dances and that sort of junk. He even hummed a couple of tunes for her, after the guinea chicken had been disposed of, which caused me to take a firm hold on myself so as not to laugh the salad out of my mouth. At that, it was better than when he tried to whistle, for he did produce some kind of a noise.
   With the coffee he told her that the larceny charge had been dropped.
   She opened her eyes and her mouth both. “No, really? Then I can go!”
   She stopped herself and put out a hand to touch his sleeve, and color came to her cheeks. “Oh, I don’t mean … that was terrible, wasn’t it? But you know how I feel, hiding …”
   “Perfectly.” Wolfe nodded. “But I’m afraid you must ask us to tolerate you a little longer. You can’t go yet.”
   “Why not?”
   “Because, first, you might get killed. Indeed, it is quite possible, though I confess not very likely. Second, there is a development that must sdll be awaited. On that you must trust me. I know, since Archie told you of Lord Clivers’ statement that he has paid—”
   I didn’t hear the finish, because the doorbell rang and I wasn’t inclined to delay about answering it. I was already on pins and I would soon have been on needles if something hadn’t happened to open things up. I loped down the hall.
   It was only Johnny Keems, whom I had sent home over an hour before. Wondering what for, I let him in. He said, “Have you seen it?”
   I said, “No, I’m blind. Seen what?”
   He pulled a newspaper from his pocket and stuck it at me. “I was going to a movie on Broadway and they were yelling this extra, and I was nearby so I thought it would be better to run over with it than to phone—”
   I had looked at the headlines. I said, “Go to the office. No, go to the kitchen. You’re on the job, my lad. Satisfactory.”
   I went to the dining room and moved Wolfe’s coffee cup to one side and spread the paper in front of him. “Here,” I said, “here’s that development you’re awaiting.” I stood and read it with him while Clara Fox sat and looked at us.
   MARQUIS ARRESTED!
   BRITAIN ’S ENVOY FOUND STANDING OVER, MURDERED MAN’
   Gazette Reporter Witnesses Unprecedented Drama!
   At 7:05 this evening the Marquis of Clivers, special envoy of Great Britain to this country, was found by a city detective, within the cluttered enclosure of a building under construction on 5501 Street, Manhattan, standing beside the body of a dead man who had just been shot through the back of the head. The dead man was Michael Walsh, night watchman. The detective was Purley Stebbins of the Homicide Squad.
   At 7:00 a Gazette reporter, walking down Madison Avenue, seeing a crowd collected at 5501 Street, stopped to investigate. Finding that it was only two cars with shattered windshields and other minor damages from a collision, he strolled on, turning into 55th. Not far from the corner he saw a man stepping off the curb to cross the street. He recognized the man as Purley Stebbins, a city detective, and was struck by something purposeful in his gait. He stopped, and saw Stebbins push open the door of a board fence where a building is being constructed.
   The reporter crossed the street likewise, through curiosity, and entered the enclosure after the detective. He ventured further, and saw Stebbins grasping by the arm a man elegantly attired in evening dress, while the man tried to pull away. Then the reporter saw something else: the body of a man on the ground.
   Advancing close enough to see the face of the man in evening dress and recognizing him at once, the reporter was quick-witted enough to call sharply, “Lord Clivers!”
   The man replied, “Who the devil are you?”
   The detective, who was feeling the man for a weapon, instructed the reporter to telephone headquarters and get Inspector Cramer. The body was lying in such a position that the reporter had to step over it to get at the telephone on the wall of a wooden shed. Meanwhile Stebbins bad blown his whistle and a few moments later a patrolman in uniform entered. Stebbins spoke to him, and the patrolman leaned over the body and exclaimed, “It’s the night watchman, old Walsh!”
   Having phoned police headquarters, the reporter approached Lord Clivers and asked him for a statement. He was brushed aside by Stebbins, who commanded him to leave. The reporter persisting, Stebbins instructed the patrolman to put him out, and the reporter was forcibly ejected.
   The superintendent of the construction, reached on the telephone, said that the name of the night watchman was Michael Walsh. He knew of no possible connection between Walsh and a member of the British nobility.
   No information could be obtained from the suite of Lord Clivers at the Hotel Portland.
   At 7:30 Inspector Cramer and various members of the police force had arrived on the scene at 55th Street, but no one was permitted to enter the enclosure and no information was forthcoming.
   There was a picture of Clivers, taken the preceding week on the steps of the White House.
   I was raving. If only I had gone up there! I glared at Wolfe. “Be prudent! Don’t expose ourselves! I could have been there in ten minutes after that phone call! Great God and Jehosaphat!”
   I felt a yank at my sleeve and saw it was Clara Fox. “What is it? What—”
   I took it out on her. I told her savagely, “Oh, nothing much. Just another of your playmates bumped off. You haven’t got much of a team left. Mike Walsh shot and killed dead. Clivers standing there—”
   “Mike Walsb … no!” She jumped up and her face went white. “No! Let me see …”
   Wolfe had leaned back and closed his eyes, with his lips working. I reached for the paper and pushed it at her. “Sure, go ahead, hope you enjoy it.” As she leaned over the paper I heard her breath go in. I said, “Of all the goddamn wonderful management—”
   Wolfe cut in sharply, “Archie!”
   I muttered, “Go to hell everybody,” and sat down and bobbed my head from side to side in severe pain. The cockeyed thing had busted wide open and instead or going where I belonged I had sat and eaten guinea chicken Brazilisomething and listened to Wolfe hum folk tunes. Not only that, it had busted at the wrong place and Nero Wolfe had made a fool of himself. If I had gone I would have been there before Cramer or anyone else….
   Wolfe opened his eyes and said quietly, “Take Miss Fox upstairs and come to the office.” He lifted himself from his chair.
   So did Clara Fox. She arose with her face whiter than before and looked rrom one to the other of us. She announced, “I’m not going upstairs. I …I can’t just stay here. I’m going … I’m going …”
   Yes.” Wolfe lifted his brows at her. “Where?”
   She burst out, “How do I know where? Don’t you see I … I’ve got to do something?” She suddenly flopped back into her chair and clasped her hands and began to tremble. “Poor old Mike Walsh … why in the name of God … why did I ever …”
   Wolfe stepped to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Look here,” he snapped. “Do you wonder I’d rather have ten thousand orchids than a woman in my house?”
   She looked up at him, and shivered. “And it was you that let Mike Walsh go, when you knew—”
   “I knew very little. Now I know even less. Archie, bring Saul.”
   “Johnny is here—”
   “No. Saul.”
   I went to the kitchen and got him. Wolfe asked him, “How long will it take to get Hilda Lindquist here?”
   Saul considered half an instant. “Fifty minutes if I phone. An hour and a half if I go after her.”
   “Good. Telephone. You had better tell her on the phone that Mike Walsh has been killed, since if she sees a Gazette on the way she might succumb also. Is there someone to bring her?”
   “Yes, sir.”
   “Use the office phone. Tell her not to delay unnecessarily, but there is no great urgency. Wipe the spot of grease off the left side of your nose.”
   “Yes, sir,” Saul went, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket.
   Clara Fox said, in a much better tone, “I haven’t succumbed.” She brushed back her hair, but her hand was none too steady. “I didn’t mean, when I said you let Mike Walsh go—”
   “Of course not.” Wolfe didn’t relent any. “You weren’t in a condition to mean anything. You still are not. Archie and I have one or two things to do. You can’t leave this house, certainly not now. Will you go upstairs and wait till Miss Lindquist gets here? And don’t be conceited enough to imagine yourself responsible for the death of Michael Walsh. Your meddlings have not entitled you to usurp the fatal dignity of Atropos; don’t Batter yourself. Will you go upstairs and command patience?”
   “Yes.” She stood up. “But I want … if someone should telephone for me I want to talk.”
   Wolfe nodded. “You shall. Though I fancy Mr. Horrocks will be too occupied with this involvement of his chief for social impulses.”
   But it was Wolfe’s off day; he was wrong again. A phone call from Horrocks, for Clara Fox, came within fifteen minutes. In the interim Wolfe and I had gone to the office and learned from Saul that he had talked to Hilda Lindquist and she was coming, and Wolfe had settled himself in his chair, disposed of a bottle of beer, and repudiated my advances. Horrocks didn’t mention the predicament of his noble uncle; he just asked for Clara Fox, and I sent Saul up to tell her to take it in Wolfe’s room, since there was no phone in hers. I should have listened in as a matter of business, but I didn’t, and Wolfe didn’t tell me to.
   Finally Wolfe sighed and sat up. “Try for Mr. Cramer.”
   I did so. No result. They talked as if, for all they knew, Cramer might be up in Canada shooting mooseWolfe sighed again. “Archie. Have we ever encountered a greater jumble of nonsense?”
   “No, sir. If only I had gone—”
   “Don’t say that again, or I’ll send you upstairs with Miss Fox. Could that have ordered the chaos? The thing is completely ridiculous. It forces us to measures no less ridiculous. We shall have to investigate the movements of Mr. Muir since six o’clock this evening, to trust Mr. Cramer with at least a portion of our facts, to consider afresh the motivations and activities of Lord Clivers, to discover how a man can occupy two different spots of space at the same moment, and to make another long-distance call to Nebraska. I believe there is no small firearm that will shoot fifteen hundred miles, but we seem to be confronted with a determination and ingenuity capable of almost anything, and before we are through with this we may need Mr. Lindquist badly. Get that farm—the name is Donvaag?”
   I nodded and got busy. At that time of night, going on ten o’clock, the lines were mostly free, and I had a connection with Plainview, Nebraska, in less than ten minutes. It was a peison-to-person call and a good clear connection; Ed Donvaag’s husky voice, from his farmhouse out on the western prairie, was in my ear as plain as Francis Horrocks’ had been from the Hotel Portland. Wolfe took his line.
   “Mr. Donvaag? This is Nero Wolfe…. That’s it. You remember I talked to you this afternoon and you were good enough to go after Mr. Lindquist for a conversation with me…. Yes, sir. I have to ask another favor of you. Can you hear me well? Good. It will be necessary for you to go again to Mr. Lindquist tonight or the first thing tomorrow morning– Tell him there is reason to suspect that someone means him injury and may attempt it. … Yes. We don’t know how. Tell him to be circumspect—to be careful. Does he eat candy? He might receive a box of poisoned candy in the mail. Even, possibly, a bomb. Anything. He might receive a telegram saying his daughter has died—with results expected from the shock to him…. No, indeed. His daughter is well and there is nothing to fear for her… Well, this is a peculiar situation; doubtless you will hear all about it later. Tell him to be careful and to suspect anything at all unusual….You can go at once? Good. You are a good neighbor, sir. Good night.”
   Wolfe rang off and pushed the button for beer. He sighed. “That desperate fool has a good deal to answer for. Another four dollars. Three? Oh, the night rate. Bring another, Fritz. Archie, give Saul the necessary facts regarding Mr. Muir and send him out. We want to know where he was from six to eight this evening.”
   I went to the kitchen and did that. Johnny Keems was helping Fritz with the dishes and Saul was in my breakfast comer with the remainder of the dish of ripe olives. He didn’t write anything down; he never had to. He pointed his long nose at me and absorbed the dope, nodded, took a twenty for expenses, gathered up the last of the olives into a handful, and departed. I let him out.
   Back in the office, I asked Wolfe if he wanted me to try for Cramer again. He shook his head. He was leaning back with his eyes closed, and the faint movement of his lips in and out informed me that he was in conference with himself. I sat down and put my feet on my desk. In a few minutes I got up again and went to the cabinet and poured myself a shot of bourbon, smelled it, and poured it back into the bottle. It wasn’t whisky I wanted. I went to the kitchen and asked Johnny some more questions about the layout up at? 5th Street, and drank a glass of milk.
   It was ten o’clock when Hilda Lindquist arrived. There was a man with her, but when I told him Saul wasn’t there he didn’t come in. I told him Saul would fix it with him and he beat it. Hilda’s square face and brown dress didn’t look any the worse for wear during the twenty-four hours since she had gone off, but her eyes were solemn and determined. She said of course the thing was all off, since they had caught the Marquis of Clivers and he would be executed for murder, and her father would be disappointed because he was old and they would lose the farm, and would she be able to get her bag which she had left at the hotel, and she would like to start for home as soon as there was a train. I told her to drive in and park a while, there was still some fireworks left in the bag, but by the way she turned her eyes on me I saw that she might develop into a real problem, so I put her in the front room and asked her to wait a minute.
   I ran up to the south room and said to Clara Fox, “Hilda Lindquist is downstairs and I’m going to send her up. She thinks the show is over and she has to go back home to her poor old dad with her sock empty, and by the look in her eye it will take more than British diplomacy to keep her off of the next train. Nero Wolfe is going to work this out. I don’t know how and maybe he don’t either this minute, but he’ll do it. Nero Wolfe is probably even better than I think he is, and that’s a mouthful. You wrote the music for this piece, and half your band has been killed, and it’s up to you to keep the other half intact. Well?”
   I had found her sitting in a chair with her lips compressed tight and her hands clenched. She looked at me, “All right. I will. Send her up here.”
   “She can sleep in here with you, or in the room in front on this floor. You know how to ring for Fritz.”
   “All right.”
   I went down and told Squareface that Clara Fox wanted to speak to her, and shooed her up, and heard them exchanging greetings in the upper hall.
   There was nothing in the office but a gob of silence; Wolfe was still in conference. I would have tried some bulldozing if I had thought he was merely dreaming of stuffed quail or pickled pigs’ feet, but his lips were moving a little so I knew he was working. I fooled around my desk, went over Johnny’s diagrams again in connection with an idea that had occurred to me, checked over Horstmann’s reports and entered them in the records, reread the Gazette scoop on the affair at 55th Street, and aggravated myself into such a condition of uselessness that finally, at eleven o’clock sharp, I exploded. “If this keeps up another ten minutes I’ll get Weltschmerzi”
   Wolfe opened his eyes. “Where in the name of heaven did you get that?”
   I threw up my hands. He shut his eyes again.
   The doorbell rang. I knew it couldn’t be Johnny Keems with another extra, because he was in the kitchen with Fritz, since I hadn’t been able to prod an instruction from Wolfe to send him home again. It was probably Saul Panzer with the dope on Muir. But it wasn’t; I knew that when the bell started again as I entered the hall. It kept on ringing, so I leisurely pulled the curtain for a look through the panel, and when I saw there were four of them, another quartet, I switched on the stoop light to make a good survey. One of them, in evening dress, was leaning on the bell button. I recognized the whole bunch. I turned and beat it back to the office.
   “Who the devil is ringing that bell?” Wolfe demanded. “Why don’t you—”
   I interrupted, grinning. “That’s Police Commissioner Hombert. With him are Inspector Cramer, District Attorney Skinner, and my old friend Purley Stebbins of the Homicide Squad. Is it too late for company?”
   “Indeed.” Wolfe sat up and rubbed his nose. “Bring them in.”
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Underpromise; overdeliver.

Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 16

   They entered as if they owned the place. I tipped Purley a wink as he passed me, but he was too impressed by his surroundings to reciprocate, and I didn’t blame him, as I knew he might get either a swell promotion or the opposite out of this by the time it was over. From the threshold I saw a big black limousine down at the curb, and back of it two other police cars containing city fellers. Well, well, I thought to myself as I closed the door, this looks pretty damned ominous. Cramer had asked me if Wolfe was in the office and I had waved him on, and now I brought up the rear of the procession.
   I moved chairs around. Cramer introduced Hombert and Skinner, but Skinner and Wolfe had already met. At Cramer’s request I took Purley Stebbins to the kitchen and told him to play checkers with Johnny Keems. When I got back Hombert was shooting off his mouth about defiance of the law, and I got at my desk and ostentatiously opened my notebook. Cramer was looking more worried than I had ever seen him. District Attorney Skinner, already sunk in his chair as if he had been there all evening, had the wearied cynical expression of a man who had some drinks three hours ago and none since.
   Hombert was practically yelling. “… and you’re responsible for it! If you had turned those three people over to us last night this wouldn’t have happened! Cramer tells me they were here in this office! Walsh was here! This afternoon we had him at headquarters and your man wouldn’t point him out! You are directly and legally responsible for his death!” The Police Commissioner brought his fist down on the arm of his chair and glared. Cramer was looking at him and shaking his head faintly.
   “This sudden onslaught is overwhelming,” Wolfe murmured. “If I am legally responsible for Mr. Walsh’s death, arrest me. But please don’t shout at me—”
   “All right! You’ve asked for it!” Hombert turned to the inspector. “Put him under arrest!”
   Cramer said quietly, “Yes, sir. What charge?”
   “Any charge! Material witness! We’ll see whether he’ll talk or not!”
   Cramer stood up. Wolfe said, “Perhaps I should warn you, Mr. Hombert. If I am arrested, I shall do no talking whatever. And if I do no talking, you have no possible chance of solving the problem you are confronted with.” He wiggled a finger. “I don’t shout, but I never say anything I don’t mean. Proceed, Mr. Cramer.”
   Cramer stood still. Hombert looked at him, then looked grimly at Wolfe. “You’ll talk or you’ll rot’”
   “Then I shall certainly rot.” Wolre’s finger moved again. “Let me make a suggestion, Mr. Hombert. Why don’t you go home and go to sleep and leave this affair to be handled by Mr. Cramer, an experienced policeman, and Mr. Skinner, an experienced lawyer? You probably have abilities of some sort, but they are obviously inappropriate to the present emergency. To talk of arresting me is childish. I have broken no law and I am a sufficiently respectable citizen not to be taken into custody merely for questioning. Confound it, sir, you can’t go around losing your temper like this, it’s outrageous! You are entangled in a serious difficulty, I am the only man alive who can possibly extricate you from it, and you come here and begin yelling inane threats at me! Is that sort of conduct likely to appeal either to my reason or my sympathy?”
   Hombert glared at him, opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked at Cramer. District Attorney Skinner snickered. Cramer said to Hombert, “Didn’t I tell you he was a nut? Let me handle him.”
   Wolfe nodded solemnly. “That’s an idea, Mr. Cramer. You handle me.”
   Hombert, saying nothing, sat back and folded his arms and goggled.
   Cramer looked at Wolfe. “So you know about Walsh.”
   Wolfe nodded. “From the Gazette. That was unfortunate, the reporter happening on the scene.”
   “You’re telling me,” Cramer observed grimly. “Of course the marquis isn’t arrested. He can’t be. Diplomatic immunity. Washington is raising hell because it got in the paper, as if there was any way in God’s world of keeping it out of that lousy sheet once that reporter got away from there.” He waved a disgusted hand. “That’s that. The fact is, the Commissioner’s right. You’re responsible. I told you yesterday how important this was. I told you it was your duty as a citizen to help us protect the Marquis of Clivers.”
   Wolfe lifted his brows. “Aren’t you a little confused, Mr. Cramer? Or am I? I understood you wished to protect Lord Clivers from injury. Was it he who was injured this evening?”
   “Certainly it was,” Hombert broke in. “This Walsh was blackmailing him!”
   Cramer said, “Let me. Huh?”
   “Did Lord Clivers say that?” Wolfe asked.
   “No.” Cramer grunted. “He’s not saying anything, except that he knew Walsh a long time ago and went there to see him this evening by appoint ment and found him lying there dead. But we didn’t come here to answer questions for you, we came to find out what you know. We could have you pulled in, but decided it was quicker to come. It’s time to spill it. What’s it all about?”
   “I suppose so.” Wolfe sighed. “Frankly, I think you’re wrong; I believe that while you may have information that will help me, I have none that will help you. But we’ll get to that later. My connection with this affair arises from my engagement to press a civil claim on behalf of two clients, two young women. Also, to defend one of them from a trumped-up charge of larceny brought against her by an official of the Seaboard Products Corporation. Since I have succeeded in having the larceny charge withdrawn—”
   District Attorney Skinner woke up. He croaked in his deep bass, “Don’t talk so much. What has that got to do with it? Come to the point.”
   Wolfe said patiently, “Interruptions can only waste time, by forcing me to begin my sentences over again. Since I have succeeded in having the larceny charge withdrawn, and since they cannot possibly be suspected of complicity in the murder of Mr. Walsh, I am willing to produce my clients, with the understanding that if I send for them to come here they will be questioned here only and will not be taken from this house. I will not have—”
   “The hell you won’t!” Hombert was ready to boil again. “You can’t dictate to us—”
   But the authority of Wolfe’s tone and the assurance of his manner had made enough impression so that his raised palm brought Hombert to a halt.
   “I’m not dictating,” he snapped. “Confound it, let us get on or we shall be all night. I was about to say, I will not have the lives of my clients placed in possible jeopardy by releasing them from my own protection. Why should I? I can send for them and you can question them all you please—”
   “All right, all right,” Cramer agreed impatiently. “We won’t take them, that’s understood. How long will it take you to get them here?”
   “One minute perhaps, if they are not in bed. Archie? If you please.”
   I arose, grinning at Cramer’s stare, stepped over Skinner’s feet, and went up and knocked at the door of the south room.
   “Come in.”
   I entered. The two clients were sitting in chairs, looking as if they were too miserable to go to bed. I said, “Egad, you look cheerful. Come on, buck up! Wolfe wants you down in the office. There are some men down there that want to ask you some questions.”
   Clara Fox straightened up. “Ask us … now?” Hilda Lindquist tightened her lips and began to nod her head for I told you so.
   “Certainly.” I made it matter of fact. “They were bound to, sooner or later. Don’t worry, I’ll be right there, and tell them anything they want to know. There’s three of them. The dressed-up one with the big mouth is Police Commissioner Hombert, the one with the thin nose and ratty eyes is District Attorney Skinner, and the big guy who looks at you frank and friendly but may or may not mean it is Inspector Cramer.”
   “My God.” Clara Fox brushed back her hair and stood up.
   “All right,” I grinned. “Let’s go.”
   I opened the door, and followed them out and down.
   The three visitors turned their heads to look at us as we entered the office.
   Skinner, seeing Clara Fox, got up first, then Hombert also made it to his feet and began shoving chairs around. I moved some up, while Wolfe pronounced names. He had rung for beer while I was gone, and got it poured. I saw there was no handkerchief in his pocket and went and got him one out of the drawer.
   Cramer said, “So you’re Clara Fox. Where were you this morning?”
   She glanced at Wolfe. He nodded. She said, “I was here.”
   “Here in this house? All morning?”
   “Yes, last night and all day.”
   Cramer handed Wolfe a glassy stare. “What did you do to Rowcliff, grease him?”
   “No, sir.” Wolfe shook his head. “Mr. Rowcliff did his best, but Miss Fox was not easily discoverable. I beg you to attach no blame to your men. It is necessary for you to know that three of us are prepared to state on oath that Miss Fox has been here constantly, to make it at once obvious that she is in no way involved in Mr. Walshs death.”
   “I’ll be damned. What about the other one?”
   “Miss Lindquist came here at ten o’clock this evening. But she has been secluded in another part of the city. You may as well confine yourself to events previous to half past six yesterday. May I make a suggestion? Begin by asking Miss Fox to tell you the story which she recited to me at that hour yesterday, in the presence of Miss Lindquist and Mr. Walsh.”
   “Why … all right.” Cramer looked at Clara Fox. “Go ahead.”
   She told the story. At first she was nervous and jerky, and I noticed that when she was inclined to stumble she glanced across at Wolfe as he leaned back, massive and motionless, with his fingers twined on his belly and his eyes nearly shut. She glanced at him and went ahead. They didn’t interrupt her much with questions. She read the letter from her father, and when she finished and Cramer held out his hand for it, she glanced at Wolfe. Wolfe nodded, and she passed it over. Then she went on, with more detail even than she had told us. She spoke of her first letters with Harlan Scovil and Hilda Lindquist and her first meeting with Mike Walsh.
   She got to the Marquis of Clivers and Walsh’s recognition of him as he emerged from his hotel fifteen days back. From then on they were after her, not Cramer much, but Skinner and Hombert, and especially Skinner. He began to get slick, and of course what he was after was obvious. He asked her trick questions, such as where had her mother been keeping the letter from her father when she suddenly produced it on her deathbed. His way of being clever was to stay quiet and courteous and go back to one thing and then abruptly forward to another, and then after a little suddenly dart back again. Clara Fox was no longer nervous, and she didn’t get mad. I remembered how the day before she had stood cool and sweet in front of Perry’s desk. All at once Skinner began asking her about the larceny charge. She answered; but after a dozen questions on that Wolfe suddenly sdrred, opened his eyes, and wiggled a finger at the District Attorney.
   “Mr. Skinner. Permit me. You’re wasting time. The larceny charge is indeed pertinent to the main issue, but there is very little chance that you’ll ever discover why. The fact is that the line you have taken from the beginning is absurd.”
   “Thanks,” Skinner said drily. “If, as you say, it is pertinent, why absurd?”
   “Because,” Wolfe retorted, “you’re running around in circles. You have a fixed idea that you’re an instrument of justice, being a prosecuting attorney, and that it is your duty to comer everyone you see. That idea is not only dangerous nonsense, in the present case it is directly contrary to your real interest. Why is this distinguished company”—Wolfe extended a finger and bent a wrist—“present in my house? Because thirty thousand dollars was mislaid and two men were murdered? Not at all. Because Lord Clivers has become unpleasantly involved, the fact has been made public, and you are seriously embarrassed. You have wasted thirty minutes trying to trap Miss Fox into a slip indicating that she and Mr. Walsh and Mr. Scovil and Miss Lindquist hatched a blackmailing plot against Lord Clivers; you have even hinted that the letter written by her father to her mother seventeen years ago, of which Mr. Cramer now has her typewritten copy in his pocket, was invented by her. Is it possible that you don’t realize what your real predicament is?”
   “Thanks,” Skinner repeated, more drily still. “I’ll get to you—”
   “No doubt. But let me—no, confound it, I’m talking! Let me orient you a little. Here’s your predicament. An eminent personage, an envoy of Great Britain, has been discovered alone with a murdered man and the fact has been made public. Even if you wanted to you can’t keep him in custody because of his diplomatic immunity. Why not, then, to avoid a lot of official and international fuss, just forget it and let him go? Because you don’t dare; if he really did kill Mr. Walsh you are going to have to ask his government to surrender him to you, and fight to get him if necessary, or the newspapers will howl you out of office. You are sitting on dynamite, and so is Mr. Hombert, and you know it. I can imagine with what distaste you contemplate being forced into an effort to convict the Marquis of Clivers of murder. I see the complications; and the devil of it is that at this moment you don’t at all know whether he did it or not. His story that he went to see Mr. Walsh and found him already dead may quite possibly be true.
   “So, since an attempt to put Lord Clivers on trial for murder, and convict him, would not only create an international stink but might be disastrous for you personally, what should be your first and immediate concern? It seems obvious. You should swiftly and rigorously explore the possibility that he is not guilty. Is there someone else who wanted Harlan Scovil and Michael Walsh to die, and if so, who, and where is he? I know of only six people living who might help you in pursuing that inquiry. One of them is the murderer, another is an old man on a farm in Nebraska, and the other four are in this room. And, questioning one of them, what do you do? You put on an exhibition of your cunning at cross-examination in an effort to infer that she has tried to blackmail Lord Clivers, though he has had various opportunities to make such an accusation and has not done so. Again, you aim the weapon of your cunning, not at your own ignorance, but direcdy at Miss Fox, when you pounce on the larceny charge, though that accusation has been dismissed by the man who made it.
   “Bah!” Wolfe looked around at them. “Do you wonder, gentlemen, that I have not taken you into my confidence in this affair? Do you wonder that I have no intention of doing so even now?”
   Cramer grunted, gazing at a cigar he had pulled out of his pocket five minutes before. Skinner, scratching his ear, screwed up his mouth and looked sidewise at Clara Fox. Hombert let out a “Ha!” and slapped the arm of his chair. “So that’s your game! You’re not going to talk, eh? By God, you will talk!”
   “Oh, I’ll talk.” Wolfe sighed. “You may know everything you are entitled to know. You are already aware that Mr. Scovil was in this room yesterday afternoon and got killed shortly after leaving it. Mr. Goodwin talked with him and will repeat the conversation if you wish it. You may hear everything from Miss Fox and Miss Lindquist that I have heard; and from Miss Fox regarding Mr. Walsh. You may know of the claim which I have presented to Lord Clivers on behalf of Miss Lindquist and her father, which he has offered to settle. But there are certain things you may not know, at least not from me; for instance, the details of a long conversation which I had with Lord Clivers when he called here this afternoon. He can tell you—”
   “What’s that?” Skinner sat up, croaking, Hombert goggled. Cramer, who had finally got his cigar lit, jerked it up with his lip so that the ash fell to the rug. Skinner went on, “What are you trying to hand us? Clivers called on you today?”
   Wolfe nodded. “He was here over an hour. Perhaps I shouldn’t say today, since it is nearly one o’clock Wednesday morning. Yes, Lord Clivers calledr—w”
   We drank eight bottles of beer, and he greatly admired that terrestrial globe you see there.”
   Without taking his cigar from his mouth, Cramer rumbled, “I’ll be damned.” Hombert still goggled. Skinner stared, and at length observed, “I’ve never heard of your being a plain liar, Wolfe, but you’re dishing it up.”
   “Dishing it up?” Wolfe looked at me. “Does that mean lying, Archie?”
   “Naw,” I grinned, “it’s just rhetoric.”
   “Indeed.” Wolfe reached to push the button, and leaned back. “So you see, gentlemen, I not only have superior knowledge in this affair, I have it from a superior source. Lord Clivers gave me much interesting information, which of course I cannot consider myself free to reveal.” He turned his eyes on the Police Commissioner. “I understand, Mr. Hombert, that Mr. Devore, Mr. Cramer, and you were all in communication with him, protecting him, following the death of Mr. Scovil. It’s too bad he didn’t see fit to take you into his confidence. Maybe he will do so now, if you approach him properly.”
   Hombert sputtered, “I don’t believe this. We’ll check up on this.”
   “Do so.” Wolfe opened the bottle and filled his glass. “Will you have beer, gendemen? No? Water? Whisky? Miss Fox? Miss Lindquist? You haven’t asked Miss Lindquist anything. Must she sit here all night?”
   Skinner said, “I could use a good stiff highball. Listen, Wolfe, are you telling this straight?”
   “Of course I am. Fritz, serve what is required. Why would I be so foolish as to invent such a tale? Let me suggest that the ladies be permitted to retire.”
   “Well…” Skinner looked at Hombert. Hombert, tight-lipped, shrugged his shoulders. Skinner turned and asked abruptly, “Your name is Hilda Lindquist?”
   Her strong square face looked a little startled at the suddenness of it, then was lifted by her chin. “Yes.”
   “You heard everything Clara Fox said. Do you agree with it?”
   She stared. “What do you mean, agree with it?”
   “I mean, as far as you know, is it true?”
   “Certainly it’s true.”
   “Where do you live?”
   “ Plainview, Nebraska. Near there.”
   “When did you get to New York?”
   “Last Thursday. Thursday afternoon.”
   “All right. That’s all. But understand, you’re not to leave the city—”
   Wolfe put in, “My clients will remain in this house until I have cleared up this matter.”
   “See that they do.” Skinner grabbed his drink. “So you’re going to clear it up. God bless you. If I had your nerve I’d own Manhattan Island.” He drank.
   The clients got up and went. I escorted them to the hall, and while I was out there the doorbell rang. It was Saul Panzer. I went to the kitchen with him and got his report, which didn’t take long. Johnny Keems was there with his chair tipped back against the wall, half asleep, and Purley Stebbins was in a corner, reading a newspaper. I snared myself a glass of milk, took a couple of sips, and carried the rest to the office.
   Hombert and Cramer had highballs and Fritz was arranging another one for Skinner.
   I said to Wolfe, “Saul’s back. The subject left his office a few minutes before six and showed up at his apartment about a quarter after seven and dressed for dinner. Saul hasn’t been able to trace him in between. Shall he keep after it tonight?”
   “No. Send him home. Here at eight in the morning.”
   “Johnny too?”
   “Yes. No, wait.” Wolfe turned. “Mr. Cramer. Perhaps I can simplify something for you. I know how thorough you are. Doubtless you have discovered that there are various ways of getting into that place on Fifty-fifth Street, and I suppose you have had them all explored. You may even have learned that there was a man there this afternoon, investigating them.”
   Cramer was staring at him. “Now, somebody tell me, how did you know that? Yeah, we learned it, and we’ve got a good description, and there are twenty men looking for him …”
   Wolfe nodded. “I thought I might save you some trouble. I should have mentioned it before. The man’s out in the kitchen. He was up there for me.”
   Cramer went pop-eyed. “But good God! That was before Walsh was killed!” He put his drink down. “Now what kind of a—”
   “We wanted to see Walsh, and knew you would have a man posted at the entrance. He was there to find a way. He left a few minutes after six and was here from six-thirty until eight o’clock. You may talk with him if you wish, but it will be a waste of time. My word for it.”
   Cramer looked at him, and then at me. He picked up his drink. “To hell with it.”
   Wolfe said, “Send Johnny home.”
   Cramer said, “And tell Stebbins to go out front and tell Rowcliff to cancel that alarm and call those men in.”
   I went to perform those errands, and after letting the trio out I left the door open a crack and told Purley to shut it when he came back in. The enemy was inside anyhow, so there was no point in maintaining the barricade.
   Back in the office, Skinner and Hombert were bombarding Wolfe. It had got now to where it was funny. Clivers was the bird they had been busy protecting, and the one they were trying to get out of hanging a murder onto, and here they were begging Wolfe to spill what Clivers had disclosed to him over eight bottles of beer! I sat down and grinned at Cramer, and darned if he didn’t have decency enough to wink back at me. I thought that called for another highball, and went and got it for him.
   Skinner, with an open palm outstretched, was actually wheedling. “But, my God, can’t we work together on it? I’ll admit we went at it wrong, but how did we know Clivers was here this afternoon? He won’t tell us a damn thing, and as far as I personally am concerned I’d like to kick his rump clear across the Atlantic Ocean. And I’ll admit we can’t coerce you into telling us this vital information you say you got from Clivers, but we can ask for it, and we do. You know who I am. I’m not a bad friend to have in this county, especially for a man in your business. What’s Clivers to you, anyhow, why the devil should you cover him up?”
   “This is bewildering,” Wolfe murmured. “Last night Mr. Cramer told me I should help him to protect a distinguished foreign guest, and now you demand the opposite!”
   “All right, have your fun,” Skinner croaked. “But tell us this, at least. Did Clivers say anything to indicate that he had it ready for Mike Walsh?”
   Wolfe’s eyelids flickered, and after a moment he turned to me. “Your notebook, Archie. You will find a place where I asked Lord Clivers, ‘Don’t you believe him?’ I was referring to Mr. Walsh. Please read Lord Clivers’ reply.”
   I had the notebook and was thumbing it. I looked too far front, and flipped back. Finally I had it, and read it out, “Clivers: «I don’t believe anybody. I know damn well I’m a liar. I’m a diplomat. Look here. You can forget about Walsh. I’ll deal with him myself. I have to keep this thing clear, at least as long as I’m in this country. I’ll deal with Walsh. Scovil is dead. God rest his soul. Let the police do what they can with that. As for the Lindquists…”
   Wolfe stopped me with a ringer. “That will do, Archie. Put the notebook away.”
   “He will not put it away!” Hombert was beating up the arm of his chair again. “With that in it? We want—”
   He stopped to glare at Skinner, who had tapped a toe on his shin. Skinner was ready to melt with sweetness; his tone sounded like Romeo in the balcony scene. “Listen, Wolfe, play with us. Let us have that Your man can type it, or he can dictate from his notes and I’ll bring a man in to take it. Clivers is to sail for Europe Sunday. If we don’t get this thing on ice there’s going to be trouble.”
   Wolfe closed his eyes, and after a moment opened them again. They were all gazing at him, Cramer slowly chewing his cigar, Hombert holding in an explosion. Skinner looking innocent and friendly. Wolfe said, “Will you make a bargain with me, Mr. Skinner? Let me ask a few questions. Then, after considering the replies, I shall do what I can for you. I think it is more than likely you will find me helpful.”
   Skinner frowned. “What kind of questions?”
   “You will hear them.”
   A pause. “All right. Shoot.”
   Wolfe turned abruptly to the inspector. “Mr. Cramer. You had a man following Mr. Walsh from the time you released him this afternoon, and that man was on post at the entrance of the boarding on Fifty-fifth Street. I’d like to know what it was that caused him to cross the street and enter the enclosure, as reported in the Gazette. Did he hear a shot?”
   “No.” Cramer took his cigar from his mouth. “The man’s out in the kitchen. Do you want to hear it from him?”
   “I merely want to hear it.”
   “Well, I can tell you. Stebbins was away from his post for a few minutes, he’s admitted it. There was a taxi collision at the corner of Madison, and he had to go and look it over, which was bright of him. He says he was away only two minutes, but he may have been gone ten, you know how that is. Anyhow, he finally strolled back, on the south side of Fifty-fifth, and looking across at the entrance of the boarding he saw the door slowly opening, and the face of a man looked out and it wasn’t Walsh. There were pedestrians going by, and the face went back in and the door closed. Stebbins got behind a parked car. In a minute the face looked out again, and there was a man walking by, and the face disappeared again. Stebbins thought it was time to investigate and crossed the street and went in, and it was just lousy luck that that damn newspaper cockroach happened to see him. It was Clivers all right, and Walsh’s body was there on the ground—”
   “I know.” Wolfe sighed. “It was lying in front of the telephone. So Mr. Stebbins heard no shot.”
   “No. Of course, he was down at the corner and there was a lot of noise.”
   “To be sure. Was the weapon on Lord Clivers’ person?”
   “No.” Cramer sounded savage. “That’s one of the nice details. We can’t find any gun, except one in Walsh’s pocket that hadn’t been fired. There’s a squad of men still up there, combing it. Also there’s about a thousand hollow steel shafts sticking up from the base construction, and it might have been dropped down one of those.”
   “So it might,” Wolfe murmured. “Well … no shot heard, and no gun found.” He looked around at them. “I can’t help observing, gentlemen, that that news relieves me enormously. Moreover, I think you have a right to know that Mr. Goodwin and I heard the shot.”
   They stared at him.
   Skinner demanded, “You what? What the hell are you talking about?”
   Wolfe turned to me. “Tell them, Archie.”
   I let them have my open countenance. “This evening,” I said, and corrected it, “—last evening—Mr. Wolfe and I were in this office. At two minutes before seven o’clock the phone rang, and it happened that we both took off our receivers. A voice said, ‘Nero Wolfe!’ It sounded far off but very excited—it sounded—well, unnatural. I said, ‘Yes, talking,’ and the voice said, ‘I’ve got him, come up here. Fifty-fifth Street, this is Mike Walsh, I’ve got him covered, come up.’ The voice was cut off by the sound of an explosion, very loud, as if a gun had been shot close to the telephone. I called Walsh’s name a few times, but there was no answer. We sent a phone call to police headquarters right away.”
   I looked around respectfully for approval. Skinner looked concentrated, Hombert looked about ready to bust, and Cramer looked disgusted. The inspector, I could see, didn’t have far to go to get good and sore. He burst out at Wolfe, “What else have you got? First you tell me the man I’ve got the whole force looking for, thinking I’ve got a hot one, is one of your boy scouts acting as advance agent. Now you tell me that the phone call we’re trying to trace about a shot being heard, and you can’t trace a local call anyway with these damn dials, now you tell me you made that too.” He stuck his cigar in his mouth and bit it nearly in two.
   “But Mr. Cramer,” Wolfe protested, “is it my fault if destiny likes this address? Did we not notify you at once? Did I not even restrain Mr. Goodwin from hastening to the scene, because I knew you would not want him to intrude?”
   Cramer opened his mouth but was speechless. Skinner said, “You heard that shot on the phone at two minutes to seven. That checks. It was five after when Stebbins found Clivers there.” He looked around sort of helpless, like a man who has picked up something he didn’t want. “That seems to clinch it.” He growled at Wolfe, “What makes you so relieved about not finding the gun and Stebbins not hearing the shot, if you heard it yourself?”
   “In due time, Mr. Skinner.” Wolfe’s forefinger was gently tapping on the arm of his chair, and I wondered what he was impatient about. “If you don’t mind, let me get on. The paper says that Mr. Stebbins felt Lord Clivers for a weapon. Did he find one?”
   “No,” Cramer grunted. “He got talkative enough to tell us that he always carries a pistol, but not with evening dress.”
   “But since Lord Clivers had not left the enclosure, and since no weapon can be found, how could he possibly have been the murderer?”
   “We’ll find it,” Cramer asserted gloomily. “There’s a million places in there to hide a gun, and we’ll have to get into those shafts somehow. Or he might have thrown it over the fence. We’ll find it. He did it, damn it. You’ve ruined the only outside leads I had.”
   Wolfe wagged his head at him. “Cheer up, Mr. Cramer. Tell me this, please. Since Mr. Stebbins followed Mr. Walsh all afternoon, I presume you know their itinerary. What was it?”
   Skinner growled, “Don’t start stalling, Wolfe. Let’s get—”
   “I’m not stalling, sir. An excellent word, Mr. Cramer?”
   The inspector dropped his cigar in the tray. “Well, Walsh stopped at a lunch counter on Franklin near Broadway and ate. He kept looldng around, but Stebbins thinks he didn’t wise up. Then he took a surface car north and got off at Twenty-seventh Street and walked west. He went in the Seaboard Building and took the elevator and got off at the thirty-second floor and went into the executive offices of the Seaboard Products Corporation. Stebbins waited out in the hall. Walsh was in there nearly an hour. He took the elevator down again, and Stebbins didn’t want to take the same one and nearly lost him. He walked east and went into a drug store and used a telephone in a booth. Then he took the subway and went to a boarding house in East Sixty-fourth Street, where he lived, and he left again a little after half past five and walked to his job at Fifty-fifth Street. He got there a little before six.”
   Wolfe had leaned back and closed his eyes. They all looked at him.
   Cramer got out another cigar and bit off the end and fingered his tongue for the shreds. Hombert demanded, “Well, are you asleep?”
   Wolfe didn’t move, but he spoke. “About that visit Mr. Walsh made at the Seaboard Products Corporation. Do you know whom he saw there?”
   “No, how could I? Stebbins didn’t go in. Even if there had been any reason—the office was closed by the time I got Stebbins’s report. What difference does it make?”
   “Not much.” Wolfe’s tone was mild, but to me, who knew it so well, there was a thrill in it. “No, not much. There are cases when a conjecture is almost as good as a fact—even, sometimes, better.” Suddenly he opened his eyes, sat up, and got brisk. “That’s all, gentlemen. It is past two o’clock, and Mr. Goodwin is yawning. You will hear from me tomorrow—today, rather.”
   Skinner shook his head wearily. “Oh, no no no. Honest to God, Wolte, you’re the worst I’ve ever seen for trying to put over fast ones. There’s a lot to do yet. Could I have another highball?”
   Wolfe sighed. “Must we start yapping again?” He wiggled a finger at the District Attorney. “I offered you a bargain, sir. I said if I could get replies to a few questions I would consider them and would then do what I could for you. Do you think I can consider them properly at this time of night? I assure you I cannot. I am not quibbling. I have gone much further than you gentlemen along the path to the solution of this puzzle, and I am confronted by one difficulty which must be solved before anything can be done. When it will be solved I cannot say. I may light on it ten minutes from now, while I am undressing for bed, or it may require extended investigation and labor. Confound it, do you realize it will be dawn in less than four hours? It was past three when I retired last night.”
   He put his hands on the edge of his desk and pushed his chair back, rose to his feet, and pulled at the comers of his vest where a wide band of canary-yellow shirt puffed out.
   “Daylight will serve us better. No more tonight, short of the rack and the thumbscrew. You will hear from me.”
   Cramer got up too, saying to Hombert, “He’s always like this. You might as well stick pins in a rhinoceros,”
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Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 17

   When, about a quarter after nine Wednesday morning, I went up to the plant rooms with a message, I thought that Wolfe’s genius had at last bubbled over and he had gone nuts for good. He was in the potting room, stand ing by the bench, with a piece of board about four inches wide and ten inches long in each hand. He paid no attention to me when I entered. He held his hands two feet apart and then swiftly brought them together, flat sides of the two pieces of board meeting with a loud clap. He did that several times. He shook his head and threw one of the boards down and began hitting things with the other one, the top of the bench, one of its legs and then another one, the seat of a chair, the palm of his hand, a pile of wrapping paper. He kept shaking his head. Finally, deciding to admit I was there, he tossed the board down and turned his eyes on me with ferocious hostility – “Well, sir?” he demanded.
   I said in a resigned tone, “Cramer phoned again. That’s three times. He says that District Attorney Skinner got tight after he left here and is now at his office with a hangover, cutting off people’s heads. As far as that’s concerned, I’ve had four hours’ sleep two nights in a row and I’ve got a headache. He says that the publisher of the Gazette told the Secretary of State to go to hell over long distance. He wants to know if we have seen the morning papers. He says that two men from Washington are in Hombert’s office with copies of cables from London. He says that Hombert saw Clivers at his hotel half an hour ago and asked him about his visit to our office yesterday afternoon, and Clivers said it was a private matter and it will be a nice day if it don’t rain. He says you have got to open up or he will open you. In addition to that. Miss Fox and Miss Lindquist are having a dogfight because their nerves are going back on them. In addition to that, Fritz is on the warpath because Saul and Johnny hang out in the kitchen too much and Johnny ate up some tambo shells he was going to put mushrooms into for lunch. In addition to that, I can’t get you to tell me whether I am to go to the Hotel Portland to look at Clivers’ documents which came on the Berengaria. In addition to that …”
   I stopped for breath.
   Wolfe said, “You badger me. Those are all trivialities. look at me.” he picked up the board and threw it down again. “I am sacrificing my hours of pleasure in an effort to straighten out the only tangle that remains in this knot, and you harass me with these futilities. Did the Secretary of State go to hell? If so, tell the others to join him there.”
   “Yeah, sure. I’m telling you, they’re all going to be around here again. I can’t hold them off.”
   “Lock the door. Keep them out. I will not be hounded!”
   He turned away, definitely. I threw up my hands and beat it. On my way downstairs I stopped a second at the door of the south room, and heard the voices of the two clients still at it. In the lower hall I listened at the kitchen door and perceived that Fritz was still shrill with fury. The place was a madhouse.
   Wolfe had been impossible from the time I first went to his room around seven o’clock, because he hadn’t taken his phone when I buzzed him, to report the first call from Cramer. I had never seen him so actively unfriendly, but I didn’t really mind that, knowing he was only peeved at himself on account of his genius not working right. What got me on edge was first, I had a headache; second, Fritz and the clients had to unload their troubles on me; and third, I didn’t like all the cussings from outsiders on the telephone. It had been going on for over two hours and it was keeping up.
   After taking another aspirin and doing a few morning chores around the office, I sat down at my desk and got out the plant records and entered some items from Horstmann’s reports of the day before, and went over some bills and so on. There were circulars and lists from both Richardt and Hoehn in the morning mail, also a couple of catalogues from England, and I glanced over them and laid them aside. There was a phone call from Harry Foster of the Gazette, who had found out somehow that we were supposed to know something, and I kidded him and backed him off. Then, a little after ten o’clock, the phone rang again, and the first thing I knew I was talking to the Marquis of Clivers himself. I had half a mind to get Wolfe on, but decided to take the message instead, and after I rang off I gathered up the catalogues and circulars and reports and slipped a rubber band around them and proceeded upstairs.
   Wolfe was standing at one side of the third room, frowning at a row of seedling hybrids in their second year. He looked plenty forbidding, and Horstmann, whom I had passed in the tropical room, had had the appearance of having been crushed to earth.
   I sailed into the storm. I flipped the rubber band on my little bundle and said, “Here’s those lists from Richardt and also some from Hoehn, and some catalogues from England. Do you want them or shall I leave them in the potting room? And Clivers just called on the telephone. He says those papers came, and if you want to go and look at them, or send me, okay. He didn’t say anything about his little mix-up with the police last night, and of course I was too polite—”
   I stopped because Wolfe wasn’t listening. His lips had suddenly pushed out a full half inch, and he had glued his eyes on the bundle in my hand. He stood that way a long while and I shut my mouth and stared at him.
   Finally he murmured, “That’s it. Confound you, Archie, did you know it? Is that why you brought it here?”
   I asked courteously, “Have you gone cuckoo?”
   He ignored me. “But of course not. It’s your fate again.” He closed his eyes and sighed a deep sigh, and murmured, “Rubber Coleman. The Rubber Band. Of course.” He opened his eyes and flashed them at me. “Saul is downstairs? Send him up at once.”
   “What about Clivers?”
   He went imperious. “Wait in the office. Send Saul.”
   Knowing there was no use pursuing any inquiries, I hopped back down to the kitchen door and beckoned Saul out into the hall. He stuck his nose up at me and I told him, “Wolfe wants you upstairs. For God’s sake watch your step, because he has just found the buried treasure and you know what to expect when he’s like that. If he requests anything grotesque, consult me.
   I went back to my desk, but of course plant records were out. I lit a cigarette, and took my pistol out of the drawer and looked it over and put it back again, and kicked over my wastebasket and let it lay.
   There were steps on the stairs, and Saul’s voice came from the door. “Let me out, Archie. I’ve got work to do,”
   “Let yourself out. What are you afraid of?”
   I stuck my hands in my pockets and stretched out my legs and sat on my shoulder blades and scowled. Ten minutes after Saul had left the phone rang. I uttered a couple of expletives as I reached for it, thinking it was one of the pack with another howl, but Saul Panzer’s voice was in my ear. “Archie? Connect me with Mr. Wolfe.”
   I thought, now that was quick work, and plugged and buzzed. Wolfe’s voice sounded. “Nero Wolfe.”
   “Yes, sir. This is Saul. I’m ready.”
   “Good. Archie? You don’t need to take this.”
   I hung up with a bang and a snort. My powers of dissimulation were being saved from strain again. But that kind of thing didn’t really get me sore, for I knew perfectly well why Wolfe didn’t always point out to me the hole he was getting ready to crawl through: he knew that half the time I’d be back at him with damn good proof that it couldn’t he done, which would only have been a nuisance, since he intended to do it anyway. No guy who knows he’s right because he’s too conceited to be wrong can be expected to go into conference about it.
   Five minutes after that phone call from Saul the fun began. I got a ring from Wolfe upstairs. “Try for Lord Clivers.”
   I got the Hotel Portland and got through to him, and Wolfe spoke. “Good morning, sir. I received your message … Yes, so I understand … No, he can’t go …If you will be so good—one moment—a very important development has taken place, and I don’t like to discuss details on the telephone. You may remember that on the phone yesterday afternoon Mr. Walsh spoke to you regarding a certain person whom he had just seen…. Yes, he is both dangerous and desperate; moreover, he is cornered, and there is only one course open to you that can possibly prevent the fullest and most distasteful publicity on the whole affair. … I know that, that’s why I want you to come to my office at once…. No, sir, take my word for it, it won’t do, I should have to expose him immediately and publicly…. Yes, sir…. Good. That’s a sensible man. Be sure to bring those papers along. I’ll expect you in fifteen minutes….”
   Clivers rang off, but Wolfe stayed on.
   “Archie. Try for Mr. Muir.”
   I got the Seaboard Products Corporation, and Miss Barish, and then Muir, and buzzed Wolfe.
   “Mr. Muir? Good morning, sir. This is Nero Wolfe…. One moment, sir, I beg you. I have learned, to my great discomfiture, that I did an act of injustice yesterday, and I wish to rectify it. … Yes, yes, quite so, I understand…. Yes, indeed. I prefer not to discuss it on the telephone, but I am sure you will find yourself as satisfied as you deserve to be if you will come to my office at half past eleven this morning, and bring Mr. Perry with you…. No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that. Miss Fox will be here…. Yes, she is here now…. No, half past eleven, not before, and it will be necessary to have Mr. Perry present…. Oh, surely not, he has shown a most active interest…. Yes, it’s only a short distance….”
   I heard Muir’s click off, and said into my transmitter, “That will bring that old goat trotting up here without stopping either for Perry or his hat. Why didn’t you—”
   “Thanks, Archie. Try for Mr. Cramer.”
   I got headquarters, and Cramer’s extension and his clerk. Then the inspector. Wolfe got on. “Good morning, Mr. Cramer … Yes, indeed, I received your messages, but I have been occupied to good purpose. … So I understand, but could I help that? Can you be at my office at half past eleven? I shall be ready for you at that time…. The fact is, I do not intend merely to give you information, I hope to deliver a finished case. … I can’t help that either; do you think I have the Moerae running errands for me? … Certainly, if they wish to come, bring them, though I think it would be well if Mr. Hombert went back to diapers…. Yes, eleventhirty….”
   Cramer was off. I said, “Shall I try for the Cabinet?”
   “No, thanks.” Wolfe was purring. “When Lord Clivers arrives, bring him up here at once.”
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Underpromise; overdeliver.

Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 18

   I let Saul Panzer in when he came. There was no longer any reason why I shouldn’t relinquish the job of answering the door, which normally belonged to Fritz, but it seemed tactful to give him time to cool off a little; and besides, if I left him to his own devices in the kitchen a while longer without interruption, there was a chance that he would bounce a stewpan on Johnny’s bean, which would have done them both good.
   So I let Saul in and parked him in the front room, and also, a little later, I opened up for the Marquis of Clivers. Whereupon I experienced a delightful surprise, for he had his nephew along. Apparently there was no wedding on today; Horrocks looked sturdy and wholesome in a sack suit that hung like a dream, and I got so interested looking at it that I almost (orgot it was him inside of it. I suggested him toward the office and said to Clivers, “Mr. Wolfe would like to see you upstairs. Three flights. Climb, or elevator?”
   He was looking concentrated and sour. He said climb, and I took him up to the plant rooms and showed him Wolfe and left him there.
   When I got back down Horrocks was still standing in the hall.
   “If you want to wait,” I said, “there’s a place in the office to hold the back of your lap. You know, chair.”
   “The back of my lap?” He stared, and by gum, he worked at it till he got it. “Oh, quite. Thanks awfully. But I … I say, you know, Miss Fox got quite a wetting. Didn’t she?”
   “Yeah, she was good and damp.”
   “And I suppose she is still here, what?”
   It was merely a question of which would be less irritating, to let him go on and circle around it for a while, or cut the knot for him and hand him the pieces. Deciding for the latter, I said, “Wait here,” and mounted the stairs again. They seemed to have quieted down in the south room.
   I knocked and went in and told Clara Fox, “That young diplomat is down below and wants to see you and I’m going to send him up. Keep him in here. We’re going to be busy in the office, and it gives me the spirit of seventy-six to look at him.”
   She made a dive for her vanity case, and I descended to the hall again and told Horrocks he knew the way.
   It was ten after eleven. There was nothing for me to do but sit down and suck my finger. There was one thing I would have liked to remind Wolfe of before the party began, but I didn’t myself know bow important it was, and anyway I had no idea how he intended to stage it. There was even a chance that this was to be only a dress rehearsal, a preliminary, to see what a little panic would do, but that wouldn’t be like him. The only hint he condescended to give me was to ring me on the house phone and tell me he would come down with Clivers after the others had arrived, and until then I was to say nothing of Clivers’ presence. I went in to see if Saul was talking, but he wasn’t, so I went back and sat down and felt my pulse.
   The two contingents, official and Seaboard, showed up within three minutes of each other. I let them in. The official came first. I took them to the office, where I had chairs pulled up. Skinner looked bilious, Hombert harassed, and Cramer moderately grim. When they saw Wolfe wasn’t in the office they started to get exasperated, but I silenced them with a few well chosen phrases, and then the bell rang again and I went for the second batch.
   Muir and Perry were together. Perry smiled a tight smile at me and told me good morning, but Muir wasn’t having any amenities; I saw his hand tremble a little as he hung his hat up, and he could have gone from that right on into permanent palsy without any tears wasted as far as I was con cemed. I nodded them ahead.
   They stopped dead inside the office door, at sight of the trio already there. Muir looked astonished and furious; Perry seemed surprised, looking from one to the other, and then turned to me. “I thought… Wolfe said eleventhirty, so I understood from Muir … if these gentlemen …”
   “It’s all right.” I grinned at him. “Mr. Wolfe has arranged for a little con ference. Have chairs. Do you know Mr. Hombert, the Police Commissioner? Inspector Cramer? Mr. Ramsey Muir. Mr. Anthony D. Perry.”
   I got to the house phone on my desk and buzzed the plant rooms. Wolfe answered, and I told him, “All here.” The two bunches of eminent visitors were putting on a first class exhibition of bad manners; neither had expected to see the other. Cramer looked around at them, slowly from one face to another, and then looked at me with a gleam in his eyes. Hombert was grumbling something to Perry. Skinner turned and croaked at me, “What kind of damn nonsense is this?” I just shook my head at him, and then I heard the creak of the elevator, and a moment later the door of the office opened and Wolfe entered with another visitor whom none of them had expected to see.
   They approached. Wolfe stopped, and inclined his head. “Good morning, gentlemen. I believe some of you have met Lord Clivers. Not you, Mr. Perry? No. Mr. Muir. Mr. Skinner, our District Attorney. I want to thank all of you for being so punctual….”
   I was seeing a few things. First, Clivers stood staring directly at Perry, reminding me of how Harlan Scovil had stared at him two days before, and Clivers had thrust his right hand into the side pocket of his coat and didn’t take it out. Second, Perry was staring back, and his temples were moving and his eyes were small and hard. Third, Inspector Cramer had put his weight forward in his chair and his feet back under him, but he was sitting too far away, the other side of Skinner, to get anywhere quick.
   I swiveled and opened a drawer unostentatiously and got out my automatic and laid it on the desk at my elbow. Hombert was starting to bellyache. “I don’t know, Wolfe, what kind of a high-handed procedure you think—”
   Wolfe, who had moved around the desk and into his chair, put up a palm at him. “Please, Mr. Hombert. I think it is always advisable to take a shortcut when it is feasible. That’s why I requested a favor of Lord Clivers.” He looked at Clivers. “Be seated, sir. And tell us, have you ever met Mr. Perry before?”
   Clivers, with his hand still in his pocket, lowered himself into his chair, which was between Hombert and me, without taking his eyes off Perry. “I have,” he said gruffly. “By gad, you were right. He’s Coleman. Rubber Coleman.”
   Perry just looked at him.
   Wolfe asked softly, “What about it, Mr. Perry?”
   You could see from Perry’s chin that this teeth were damped. His eyes went suddenly from Clivers to Wolfe and stayed there; then he looked at me, and I returned it. His shoulders started going up, slowly up, high, as he took in a long breath, and then slowly they started down again. When they touched bottom he looked at Wolfe again and said, “I’m not talking. Not just now. You go on.”
   Wolfe nodded. “I don’t blame you, sir. It’s a lot to give up, to surrender that old secret.” He glanced around the circle. “You gentlemen may remember, from Miss Fox’s story last night, that Rubber Coleman was the man who led that little band of rescuers forty years ago. That was Mr. Perry here. But you do not yet know that on account of that obligation Lord Clivers, in the year 1906, twenty-nine years ago, paid Coleman—Mr. Perry—the sum or one million dollars. Nor that this Coleman-Perry has never, to this day, distributed any of that sum as he agreed to do.”
   Cramer grunted and moved himself another inch forward. Skinner was sunk in his chair with his elbows on its arms and his fingertips placed neatly together, his narrowed eyes moving from Wolfe to Clivers to Perry and back again. Hombert was biting his lip and watching Clivers.
   Muir suddenly squeaked, “What’s all this about? What has this got to do—”
   Wolfe snapped at him, “Shut up. You are here, sir, because that seemed the easiest way to bring Mr. Perry, and because I thought you should know the truth regarding your charge against Miss Fox. If you wish to leave, do so; if you stay, hold your tongue.”
   Clivers put in brusquely, “I didn’t agree to this man’s presence.”
   Wolfe nodded. “I think you may leave that to me. After all. Lord Clivers, it was you who originally started this, and if the hen has come home to roost and I am to pluck it for you, I must be permitted a voice in the method.” He turned abruptly. “What about it, Mr. Perry? You’ve had a moment for reflection. You were Rubber Coleman, weren’t you?”
   “I’m not talking.” Perry was gazing at him, and this time he didn’t have to strain the words through his teeth. His Bps compressed a little, his idea being that he was smiling. “Lord Clivers may quite possibly be mistaken.”
   He tried the smile again. “It may even be that he will … will realize his mistake.” He looked around. “You know me, Mr. Skinner. You too, Mr. Hombert. I am glad you are here. I have evidence to present to you that this man Wolfe is engaged in a malicious attempt to damage my reputation and that of my vice-president and the firm I direct. Mr. Muir will bear me out.” He turned small hard eyes on Wolfe. “I’ll give you rope. All you want. Go on.”
   Wolfe nodded admiringly. “Superlative.” He leaned back and surveyed the group. “Gentlemen, I must ask you to listen, and bear with me. You will reach my conclusion only if I describe my progress toward it. I’ll make it as brief as possible.
   “It began some forty-five hours ago, when Mr. Perry called here and asked me to investigate a theft of thirty thousand dollars from the drawer of Mr. Muir’s desk. Mr. Goodwin called at the Seaboard office and asked questions. He was there from four-forty-five until five-fifty-five, and for a period of thirty-five minutes, from five-twenty until five-fifty-five, he saw neither Mr. Perry nor Mr. Muir, because they had gone to a conference in the directors’ room. The case seemed to have undesirable features, and we decided not to handle it. I find I shall need some beer.”
   He reached to push the button, and leaned back again. “You know of Harlan Scovil’s visit to this office Monday afternoon. Well, he saw Mr. Perry here. He not only saw him, he stared at him. You know of the phone call, at five-twenty-six, which summoned Mr. Scovil to his death. Monday night, in addition to these things, I also knew the story which Miss Fox had related to us in the presence of Mr. Walsh and Miss Lindquist; and when, having engaged myself in Miss Fox’s interest, it became necessary to consider the murder of Harlan Scovil, I scanned the possibilities as they presented themselves at that moment.
   “Assuming, until disproven, that Harlan Scovil’s murder was connected with the Rubber Band affair, the first possibility was of course Lord Clivers himself, but Tuesday morning he was eliminated, when I learned that the murderer was alone in the automobile. An article in Sunday’s Times, which Mr. Goodwin had kindly read to me, stated that Lord Clivers did not know how to drive a car, and on Tuesday, yesterday, I corroborated that through an agent in London, at the same time acquiring various bits of information regarding Lord Clivers. The second possibility was Michael Walsh. I had talked with him and formed a certain judgment of him, and no motive was apparent, but he remained a possibility. The same applied to Miss Lindquist. Miss Fox was definitely out of it, because I had upon consideration accepted her as a client.”
   Somebody burst out, “Ha!” Hombert ventured a comment, while Wolfe poured beer and gulped, but it went unheeded. Wolfe wiped his Ups and went on.
   “Among the known possibilities, the most promising one was Anthony D. Perry. On account of the phone call which took Mr. Scovil to the street to die, it was practically certain that his murderer had known he was in this office; and because, so far as I was aware, Mr. Perry was the only person who had known that, it seemed at least worth while to accept it as a conjecture. Through Metropolitan Biographies and also through inquiries by one of my men, I got at least negative support for the conjecture; and I got positive support by talking over long distance to Nebraska, with Miss Lindquist’s father. He remembered with considerable accuracy the appearance of the face and figure of Rubber Coleman, and while of course there could be no real identification by a telephone talk after forty years, still it was support. I asked Mr. Lindquist, in fact, for descriptions of all the men concerned in that affair, thinking there might be some complication more involved than this most obvious one, but it was his description of Rubber Coleman which most nearly approximated that of Mr, Perry. The next step—”
   “Wait a minute, Wolfe.” Skinner’s croak was imperative. “You can’t do this. Not this way. If you’ve got a case, I’m the District Attorney. If you haven’t-” Perry cut in, “Let him alone! Let him hang himself.”
   Hombert muttered something to Cramer, and the inspector rumbled back.
   Clivers spoke up. “I’m concerned in this. Let Wolfe talk.” He used a finger of his left hand to point at Perry because his right hand was still in his coat pocket. “That man is Rubber Coleman. Wolfe learned that, didn’t he? What the devil have the rest of you done, except annoy me?”
   Perry leveled his eyes at the marquis. “You’re mistaken, Lord Clivers. You’ll regret this.”
   Wolfe had taken advantage of the opportunity to finish his botde and ring for another. Now he looked around. “You gendemen may be curious why, if Mr. Perry is not Rubber Coleman, he does not express indignant wonderment at what I am talking about Oh, he could explain that. Long ago, shordy after she entered Seaboard’s employ, Miss Fox told him the story which you heard from her last night. He knows all about the Rubber Band, from her, and also about her efforts to find its surviving members. And by the way, as regards the identity—did Mr. Walsh telephone you around five o’clock yesterday afternoon, Lord Clivers, and tell you he had just found Rubber Coleman?”
   Clivers nodded. “He did.”
   “Yes.” Wolfe looked at Cramer. “As you informed me, immediately after leaving the Seaboard office, where he had gone on account of his unfortunate suspicions regarding Miss Fox and myself after Harlan Scovil had been killed, Mr. Walsh sought a telephone. There—as can doubdess be verified by inquiry, along with multitudinous other details—he had seen Mr. Perry. It is a pity he did not inform me, since in that case he would still be alive; but what he did do was to phone Lord Clivers, with whom he had had a talk in the morning. He had called at the Hotel Portland and Lord Clivers had considered it advisable to see him, had informed him of the payment which had been made to Rubber Coleman long before, and had declared his intention of giving him a respectable sum of money. Now, learning from Mr. Walsh over the telephone that he had found Rubber Coleman, Lord Clivers saw that immediate and purposeful action was required if publicity was to be avoided; and he told Mr. Walsh that around seven o’clock that evening, on his way to a dinner engagement, he would stop in at the place Mr. Walsh was working, which was a short distance from his hotel. I have been told these details within the last hour. Is that correct, sir?”
   Clivers nodded. “It is.”
   Wolfe looked at Perry, but Perry’s eyes were fixed on Clivers. Wolfe said, “So, for the identity, we have Mr. Lindquist’s description, Mr. Walsh’s phone call, and Lord Clivers’ present recognition. Why, after forty years, Mr. Scovil and Mr. Walsh should have recognized Rubber Coleman is, I think, easily explicable. On account of the circumstances, their minds were at the moment filled with vivid memories of that old event, and alert with suspicion. They might have passed Mr. Perry a hundred times on the street without a second glance at him, but in the situations in which they saw him recollection jumped for them.” He looked again at the Seaboard president, and again asked, “What about it now, Mr. Perry? Won’t you give us that?”
   Perry moved his eyes at him. He spoke smoothly. “I’m still not talking. I’m listening.” He suddenly, spasmodically, jerked forward, and there was a stir around the circle. Cramer’s bulk tensed in his chair. Skinner’s hands dropped. Clivers stiffened. I got my hand to my desk, on the gun. I don’t think Perry noticed any of it, for his gaze stayed on Wolfe, and he jerked back again and set his jaw. He said not quite so smoothly, “You go on.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “You’re a stubborn man, Mr. Perry. However-as I started to say, the next step for me, yesterday afternoon, was to get in touch with Mr. Walsh, persuade him of my good faith, show him a photograph of Mr. Perry, and substantiate my conjecture. That became doubly important and urgent after Lord Clivers called here and I learned of the payment that had been made to Coleman in 1906.1 considered the idea of asking Lord Clivers for a description of Coleman, and even possibly showing him Perry’s photograph, but rejected it I was at that moment by no means convinced of his devotion to scruple, and even had I been, I would not have cared to alarm him further by showing him the imminence of Coleman s discovery—and the lid blown off the pot First I needed Mr. Walsh, so I sent a man to Fifty-fifth Street to reconnoiter.
   “Of course, I had found out other things. For instance, one of my men had visited the directors’ room of the Seaboard Products Corporation and learned that it has a second door, into the public hall, through which Mr. Perry might easily have departed at five-twenty or [hereabouts Monday afternoon on some errand, and returned some thirty minutes later, without Mr. Goodwin’s knowledge. Questions to his business associates who were present might elicit answers. For another instance, Miss Fox had breakfast with me yesterday morning—and I assure you, Mr. Skinner, I did not waste the time in foolish queries as to where her mother used to keep letters sixteen years ago.
   “Combining information with conjecture, I get a fair picture of some of Mr. Perry’s precautionary activities. In the spring of 1932 he saw an advertisement in a newspaper seeking knowledge of the whereabouts of Michael Walsh and Rubber Coleman. In a roundabout way he learned who had inserted it; and a month later Clara Fox was in the employ of the Seaboard Products Corporation. He could keep an eye on her, and did so. He cultivated her company, and earned a degree of her confidence. When she found Harlan Scovil, and later Hilda Lindquist, and still later Michael Walsh, he knew of it. He tried to convince her of the foolishness of her enterprise, but without success. Then suddenly, last Thursday, he learned she had found Lord Clivers, and he at once took measures to hamstring her. He may even then have considered murder and rejected it; at any rate, he decided that sending her to prison as a thief would completely discredit her and would be sufficient. He knew that her initiative was the only active force threatening him, and that with her removed there would be little danger. An opportunity was providentially at hand. Friday afternoon he himself took that thirty thousand dollars from Mr. Muir’s desk, and sent Miss Fox into that room with a cablegram to be copied. I don’t know—”
   Muir had popped up out of his chair and was squealing, “By God, I believe it! By God if I don’t! And all the time you were plotting against her! You dirty sneak, you dirty—”
   Cramer, agile on his feet, had a hand on Muir’s shoulder. “All right, all right, you just sit down and we’ll all believe it. Come on, now.” He eased him down, Muir chattering.
   Perry said contemptuously, bitingly, “So that’s you, Muir.” He whirled, and there was a quality in his movement that made me touch my gun again. “Wolfe, all this you’re inventing, you’ll eat it.” He added slowly, “And it will finish you.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “Oh no, sir, I assure you.” He sighed. “To continue: I don’t know how and when Mr. Perry concealed the money in Miss Fox’s automobile, but one of my men has uncovered a possibility which the police can easily follow. At any rate, it is certain that he did. That is unimportant. Another thing that moved him to action was the fact that Clara Fox had told him that, having heard him speak favorably of the abilities of Nero Wolfe, she had decided to engage me in the Rubber Band enterprise. Apparently Mr. Perry did give my competence a high rating, for he took the trouble to come here himself to get me to act for the Seaboard Products Corporation, which would of course have prevented me from taking Miss Fox as a client.
   “But he had an unpleasant surprise here. He was sitting in that chair, the one he is in now, when a man walked into the room and said, ‘My name’s Harlan Scovil.’ And the man stared at Mr. Perry. We cannot know whether he definitely recognized him as Rubber Coleman or whether Mr. Perry merely suspected that he did. In any event, it was enough to convince Mr. Perry that something more drastic than a framed-up larceny charge was called for without delay; for obviously it would not do for any living person to have even the remotest suspicion that there was any connection between Anthony D. Perry, corporation president, bank director, multi-millionaire, and eminent citizen, and the Rubber Band. Lord Clivers tells me that forty years ago Rubber Coleman was headstrong, sharp of purpose, and quick on the trigger. Apparently he has retained those characteristics. He went to his office and at once phoned Mr. Goodwin to come there. At five-twenty he went to the directors’ room. A moment later he excused himself to his associates, left by the door to the public hall, descended to the ground floor and telephoned Harlan Scovil, saying what we can only guess at but certainly arranging a rendezvous, went to the street and selected a parked automobile and took it, drove to where Scovil was approaching the rendezvous and shot him dead, abandoned the car on Ninth Avenue, and returned to the Seaboard Building and the directors’ room. It was an action admirably quickwitted, direct and conclusive, with probably not one chance in a million of it’s being discovered but for the fact that Miss Fox had happened to pick me to collect a fantastic debt for her.”
   Wolfe paused to open and pour beer. Skinner said, “I hope you’ve got something, Wolfe. I hope to heaven you’ve got something, because if you haven’t …”
   Wolfe drank, and put his glass down. “I know. I can see the open jaws of the waiting beasts.” He thumbed at Perry. “This one here in front. But let him wait a little longer. Let us go on to last evening. That is quite simple. We are not concerned with the details of how Mr. Walsh got to see Mr. Perry at his office yesterday afternoon; it is enough to know that he did, since he phoned Lord Clivers that he had found Rubber Coleman. Well, there was only one thing for Mr. Perry to do, and he did it. Shortly after half past six o’clock he entered that building enclosure by one of the ways we know of—possibly he is a member of the Orient Club, another point for inquirycrept up on old Mr. Walsh and shot him in the back of the head, probably muffling the sound of the shot by wrapping the gun in his overcoat or something else, moved the body to the vicinity of the telephone it it was not already there, left by the way he had come, and drove rapidly—”
   “Wait a minute!” Cramer broke in, gruff. “How do you fit that? We know the exact time of that shot, two minutes to seven, when Walsh called you on the phone. And you heard the shot. We already know—”
   “Please, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe was patient. “I’m not telling you what you already know; this, for you, is news. I was saying, Mr. Perry drove rapidly downtown and arrived at this office at exactly seven o’clock.”
   Hombert jerked up and snorted. Cramer stared at Wolfe, slowly shaking his head. Skinner, frowning, demanded, “Are you crazy, Wolfe? Yesterday you told us you heard the shot that killed Walsh, at six-fifty-eight. Now you say that Perry fired it, and then got to your office at seven o’clock.” He snarled, “Well?”
   “Precisely.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Do you remember that last night I told you that I was confronted by a difficulty which had to be solved before anything could be done? That was it. You have just stated it. Archie, please tell Saul to go ahead.” I got up and went and opened the door to the front room. Saul Panzer was sitting there. I called to him, “Hey, Mr. Wolfe says to go ahead.” Saul made for the hall and I heard him going out the front door.
   Wolfe was saying, “It was ingenious and daring for Mr. Perry to arrange for Mr. Goodwin and me to furnish his alibi. But of course, strictly speaking, it was not an alibi he had in mind; it was a chronology of events which would exclude from my mind any possibility of his connection with Mr. Walsh’s death. Such a connection was not supposed to occur to anyone, and above all not to me; for it is fairly certain that up to the time of his arrival here today Mr. Perry felt satisfactorily assured that no one had the faintest suspicion of his interest in this affair. There had been two chances against him: Harlan Scovil might have spoken to Mr. Goodwin between the time that Mr. Perry left here Monday afternoon and the time he phoned to summon Mr. Goodwin to his office; or Mr. Walsh might have communicated with me between five and six yesterday. But he thought not, for there was no indication of it from us; and he had proceeded to kill both of them as soon as he could reasonably manage it. So he arranged—”
   Skinner growled, “Get on. He may not have had an alibi in mind, but he seems to have one. What about it?”
   “As I say, sir, that was my difficulty. It will be resolved for you shortly. I thought it better-ah! Get it, Archie.”
   It was the phone. I swiveled and took it, and found myself exchanging greetings with Mr. Panzer. I told Wolfe, “Saul.”
   He nodded, and got brisk. “Give Mr. Skinner your chair. If you would please take that receiver, Mr. Skinner? I want you to hear something. And you, Mr. Cramer, take mine—here—the cord isn’t long enough, I’m afraid you’ll have to stand. Kindly keep the receiver fairly snug on your ear. Now, Mr. Skinner, speak into the transmitter, ‘Ready.’ That one word will be enough.”
   Skinner, at my phone, croaked, “Ready.” The next development was funny. He gave a jump, and turned to glare at Wolfe, while Cramer, at Wolfe’s phone, jerked a little too, and yelled into the transmitter, “HeyS Hey, you!”
   Wolfe said, “Hang up, gentlemen, and be seated. Mr. Skinner, please! That demonstration was really necessary. What you heard was Saul Panzer in a telephone booth at the druggist’s on the next comer. There, of course, the instrument is attached to the wall. What he did was this.”
   Wolfe reached into his pocket and took out a big rubber band. He removed the receiver from his French phone, looped the band over the transmitter end, stretched it out, and let it Sip. He replaced the receiver.
   “That’s all,” he announced. “That was the shot Mr. Goodwin and I heard over the telephone. The band must be three-quarters of an inch wide, and thick, as I learned from experiments this morning– On this instrument, of course, it is nothing; but on the transmitter of a pay-station phone, with the impact and jar and vibration simultaneous, the effect is startling. Didn’t you find it so, Mr. Skinner?”
   “I’ll be damned,” Cramer muttered. “I will be damned.”
   Skinner said, “It’s amazing. I’d have sworn it was a gun.”
   “Yes.” Wolfe’s eyes, half shut, were on Perry. “I must congratulate you, sir. Not only efficient, but appropriate. Rubber Coleman. The Rubber Band. I fancy that was how the idea happened to occur to you. Most ingenious, and ludicrously simple. I wish you would tell us what old friend or employee you got to help you try it out, for surely you took that precaution. It would save Mr. Cramer a lot of trouble.”
   Wolfe was over one hurdle, anyway. He had Skinner and Hombert and Cramer with him, sewed up. When he had begun talking they had kept their eyes mostly on him, with only occasional glances at Perry; then, as he had uncovered one point after another, they had” gradually looked more at Perry; and by now, while still listening to Wolfe, they weren’t bothering to look at him much. Their gaze was on Perry, and stayed there, and, for that matter, so was mine and Muir’s and Clivers’. Perry was obviously expecting too much of himself. He had waited too long for a convenient spot to open up with indignation or defiance or a counter-attack, and no doubt Wolfe’s little act with the rubber band had been a complete surprise to him. He was by no means ready to break down and have a good cry, because he wasn’t that kind of a dog, but you could see he was stretched too tight. Just as none of us could take our eyes off him, he couldn’t take his off Wolfe. From where I sat I could see his temples moving, plain.
   He didn’t say anything.
   Skinner’s bass rumbled, “You’ve made up a good story, Wolfe. I’ve got a suggestion. How about leaving your man here to entertain Perry for a while and the rest of us go somewhere for a little talk? I need to ask some questions.”
   Wolfe shook his head. “Not at this moment, sir, it you please. Patience; my reasons will appear. First, is the chronology clear to all of you? At or about six-thirty-five Mr. Perry killed Mr. Walsh, leaving his body near the telephone, and immediately drove downtown, stopping, perhaps, at the same drug store where Saul Panzer just now demonstrated for us. I think that likely, for that store has a side entrance through which the phone booths can be approached with little exposure to observation. From there he phoned here, disguising his voice, and snapping his rubber band. Two minutes later he was at my door, having established the moment at which Michael Walsh was killed. There was of course the risk that by accident the body had been discovered in the twenty minutes which had elapsed, but it was slight, and in any event there was nothing to point to him. As it happened, he had great luck, for not only was the body not discovered prematurely, it was discovered at precisely the proper moment, and by Lord Clivers himself! I think it highly improbable that Mr. Perry knew that Lord Clivers was expected there at that hour, or indeed at all; that was coincidence. How he must have preened himself last evening—for we are all vainer of our luck than of our merits—when he learned the news! The happy smile of Providence! Isn’t that so, Mr. Perry?”
   Perry smiled into Wolfe’s face—a thin tight smile, but he made a go of it. He said, “I’m still listening … but it strikes me you’re about through. As Mr. Skinner says, you’ve made up a good story.” He stopped, and his jaw worked a little, then he went on. “Of course you don’t expect me to reply to it, but I’m going to, only not with words. You’re in a plot to blackmail Lord Clivers, but that’s his business. I’m going back to my office and get my lawyer, and I’m going to come down on you for slander and for conspiracy, and also your man Goodwin. I am also going to swear out a warrant against Clara Fox, and this time there’ll be no nonsense about withdrawing it.” He clamped his jaw, and loosened it again. “You’re done, Wolfe. I’m telling you, you’re done.”
   “Oh, no.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “You spoke too soon, sir. I am not done. Let me finish my slander and give you more basis for your action. I’m not boring you, am I? No.”
   Wolfe looked at the District Attorney. “I am aware, Mr. Skinner, that I have exasperated you, but in the end I think you will agree that my procedure was well advised. First, on account of the undesirable publicity in connection with Lord Clivers, and the fact that he is soon to sail for home, prompt action was essential. Second, there was the advantage of showing Mr. Perry all at once how many holes he will have to plug up, for he is bound to get frantic about it and make a fool of himself. He was really sanguine enough to expect to keep his connection with this completely concealed. His leaving the directors’ room Monday afternoon and returning; his access to Clara Fox’s car for concealing the money, which is now being investigated by one of my men, Orrie Gather; the visit to him by Michael Walsh; his entrance into, and exit from, the building enclosure last evening; his overcoat, perhaps, which he wrapped around his pistol; his entering the corner drug store to telephone; all these and a dozen other details are capable of inquiry; and, finding himself confronted by so many problems all requiring immediate attention, he is sure to put his foot in it.”
   Skinner grunted in disgust. “Do you mean to say you’ve given us all you’ve got? And now you’re letting him know it?”
   “But I’ve got all that’s necessary.” Wolfe sighed. “For, since we are all convinced that Mr. Perry did kill Harlan Scovil and Michael Walsh, it is of no consequence whether he can be legally convicted and executed.”
   Cramer muttered, “Uh-huh, you’re nuts.” Skinner and Hombert stared, speechless.
   “Because,” Wolfe went on, “he is rendered incapable of further mischief anyway; and even if you regard the criminal law as an instrument of barbarous vengeance, he is going to pay. What is it that he has been trying so desperately to preserve, with all his ruthless cunning? His position in society, his high repute among his fellow men, his nimbus as a master biped. Well, he will lose all that, which should be enough for any law.” He extended his hand. “May I have those papers. Lord Clivers?”
   Clivers reached to his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope, and I got it and handed it to Wolfe. Wolfe opened the flap and extracted some pieces of paper, and unfolded them, with the usual nicety of his fingers, “I have here,” he said, “a document dated Silver City, Nevada, June second, 1895, in which George Rowley agrees to make a certain future compensation for services rendered. It is signed by him, and attested by Michael Walsh and Rubber Coleman as witnesses. I also have another, same date, headed PLEDGE OF THE RUBBER BAND, containing an agreement signed by various persons. I also have one dated London, England, August eleventh, 1906, which is a receipt for two hundred thousand, seven hundred sixty-one pounds, signed by Rubber Coleman, Gilbert Fox, Harlan Scovil, Turtle-back, Victor Lindquist, and Michael Walsh. After the Turtle-back,’ in parentheses, appears the name William Mollen. I also have a check Јor the same amount, dated September nineteenth, drawn to the order of James N. Coleman and endorsed by him for payment.”
   Wolfe looked around at them. “The point here is, gentlemen, that none of those men except Coleman ever saw that receipt. He forged the names of all the others.” He whirled suddenly to Perry, and his voice was a whip.
   “Well, sir? Is that slander?”
   Perry held himself. But his voice was squeezed in his throat. “It is. They signed it.”
   “Ha! They signed it? So at last we have it that you’re Rubber Coleman?”
   “Certainly I’m Coleman. They signed it, and they got their share.”
   “Oh, no.” Wolfe pointed a finger at him and held it there. “You’ve made a bad mistake, sir; you didn’t kill enough men. Victor Lindquist is still alive and in possession of all his faculties. I talked to him yesterday on the telephone, and I warned him against any tricks that might be tried. His testimony, with the corroboration we already have, will be ample for an English court. Slander? Pfui!” He turned to the others. “So you see, it isn’t really so important to convict Mr. Perry of murder. He is now past sixty. I don’t know the English penalty for forgery, but certainly he will be well over seventy when he emerges from jail, discredited, broken, a pitiable relic—”
   Wolfe told me later that his idea was to work Perry into a state where he would then and there sign checks for Clara Fox and Victor Lindquist, and Walsh’s and ScoviTs heirs if any, for their share of the million dollars. I don’t know. Anyhow, the checks didn’t get signed, because dead men can’t write even their names.
   It happened like lightning, a bunch of reflexes. Perry jerked out a gun and turned it on Wolfe and pulled the trigger. Hombert yelled and Cramer jumped. I could never have got across in time to topple him, and anyway, as I say, it was reflex. I grabbed my gun and let him have it, but then Cramer was there and I quit. There was a lot of noise. Perry was down, sunk in bis chair, and they were pawing him. I dived around the desk for Wolfe, who was sitting there looking surprised for once in his Ufe, feeling with his right hand at his upper left arm.
   Him protesting, I pulled his coat open and the sleeve oS, and the spot of blood on the outside of the arm of the canary-yellow shirt looked better to me than any orchid. I stuck my Bnger in the hole the bullet had made and ripped the sleeve and took a look, and then grinned into the fat devil’s face. “Just the meat, and not much of that. You don’t use that arm much anyhow.”
   I heard Cramer behind me, “Dead as a doornail,” and turned to see the major casualty. They had let it come on out of the chair and stretched it on the floor. The inspector was kneeling by it, and the others standing, and Clivers and Skinner were busy putting out a fire. Clivers was pulling and rubbing at the bottom front of one side of his coat, where the bullet and flame had gone through when he pulled the trigger with his hand still in his pocket, and Skinner was helping him. He must have plugged Perry onetenth of a second before I did.
   Cramer stood up. He said heavily, “One in the right shoulder, and one clear through him, through the heart. Well, he asked for it.”
   I said, “The shoulder was mine. I was high.”
   “Surely not, Archie.” It was behind me, Wolfe murmuring. We looked at him; he was sopping blood off of his arm with his handkerchief. “Surely not. Do you want Lord Clivers’ picture in the Gazette again? We must protect him. You can stand the responsibility of a justifiable homicide. You can—what do you call it, Mr. Cramer’?—take the rap.”
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Chapter 19

   “Five thousand pounds,” Clivers said. “To be paid at once, and to be returned to me if and when recovery is made from Coleman’s estate. That’s fair. I don’t: say it’s generous. Who the devil can afford to be generous nowadays?”
   Wolfe shook his head. “I see I’ll have to get you on the wing. You dart like a hummingbird from two thousand to ten to seven to five. We’ll take the ten, under the conditions you suggest.”
   Clara Fox put in, “I don’t want anything. I’ve told you that. I won’t take anything.”
   It was nearly three o’clock and we were all in the office. There had been six of us at lunch, which had meant another pick-me-up. Muir had gone, sped on his way by a pronouncement from Wolfe to the effect that he was a scabrous jackass, without having seen Clara Fox. Cramer and Hombert and Skinner had departed, after accepting Wolfe’s suggestion for protecting the marquis from further publicity, and I had agreed to tt. Doc Vollmer had come and fixed up Wolfe’s arm and had gone again. What was left of Rubber Coleman-Anthony D. Perry had been taken away under Cramer’s supervision, and the office floor looked bare because the big red and yellow rug where Perry had sat and where they had stretched him out was down in the basement, waiting for the cleaners to call. The bolt was back on the front door and I was acting as hall boy again, because reporters were still buzzing around the entrance like flies on the screen on a cloudy day.
   Wolfe said, “You’re still my client. Miss Fox. You are under no compulsion to take my advice, but it is my duty to offer it. First, take what belongs to you; your renunciation would not resurrect Mr. Scovil or Mr. Walsh, nor even Mr. Perry. Almost certainly, a large sum can be collected from Mr. Perry’s estate. Second, remember that I have earned a fee and you will have to pay it. Third, abandon for good your career as an adventuress; you’re much too soft-hearted for it.”
   Clara Fox glanced at Francis Horrocks, who was sitting there looking at her with that sickening sweet expression that you occasionally see in public and at the movies. It was a relief to see him glance at Wolfe and get his mind on something else for a brief moment. He blurted out, “I say, you know, if she doesn’t want to take money from that chap’s estate, she doesn’t have to. It’s her own affair, what? Now, if my uncle paid your fee … it’s all the same …”
   “Shut up, Francis.” Clivers was impatient. “How the devil is it all the same? Let’s get this settled. I’ve already missed one engagement and shall soon be late for another. Look here, seven thousand.”
   Hilda Lindquist said, “I’ll take what I can get. It doesn’t belong to me, it’s my father’s.” Her square face wasn’t exactly cheerful, but I wouldn’t say she looked wretched. She leveled her eyes at Clivers. “If you had been halfway careful when you paid that money twenty-nine years ago, father would have got his share then, when mother was still alive and my brother hadn’t died.”
   Clivers didn’t bother with her. He looked at Wolfe. “Let’s get on. Eight thousand.”
   “Come, come, sir.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “Make it dollars. Fifty thousand. The exchange favors you. There is a strong probability that you’ll get it back when Perry’s estate is settled; besides, it might be argued that you should pay my tee instead of Miss Fox. There is no telling how this might have turned out for you but for my intervention.”
   “Bah.” Clivers snorted. “Even up there. I saved your life. I shot him.”
   “Oh, no. Read the newspapers. Mr. Goodwin shot him.”
   Clivers looked at me, and suddenly exploded with his three short blasts, haw-haw-haw. “So you did, eh? Goodwin’s your name? Damned fine shooting!” He turned to Wolfe. “All right. Draw up a paper and send to my hotel, and you’ll get a check.” He got up from his chair, glancing down at the mess he had made of the front of his coat. “I’ll have to go there now and change. A fine piece of cloth ruined. I’m sorry not to see more of your orchids. You, Francis! Come on.”
   Horrocks was murmuring something in a molasses tone to Clara Fox and she was taking it in and nodding at him. He finished, and got up. “Right-o.” He moved across and stuck out his paw at Wolfe. “You know, I want to say, it was devilish dever, the way you watered Miss Fox yesterday morning and they never suspected. It was the race you put on that stumped them, what?”
   “No doubt.” Wolfe got his hand back again. “Since you gentlemen are sailing Saturday, I suppose we shan’t see you again. Bon voyage.”
   “Thanks,” Clivers grunted. “At least for myself. My nephew isn’t sailing.
   He has spent a fortune on cables and got himself transferred to the Washington embassy. He’s going to carve out a career. He had better, because I’m damned if he’ll get my tide for another two decades. Come on, Francis.”
   I glanced at Clara Fox, and my dreams went short on ideals then and there.
   If I ever saw a woman look smug and self-satisfied …
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Chapter 20

   At twenty minutes to four, with Wolfe and me alone in the office, the door opened and Fritz came marching in. Clamped under his left arm was the poker-dart board; in his right hand was the box of javelins. He put the box down on Wolfe’s desk, crossed to the far wall and hung up the board, backed off and squinted at it, straightened it up, turned to Wolfe and did his little bow, and departed.
   Wolfe emptied his glass of beer, arose from his chair, and began fingering the darts, sorting out the yellow ones.
   He looked at me. “I suppose this is foolhardy,” he murmured, “with this bullet wound, to start my blood pumping.”
   “Sure,” I agreed. “You ought to be in bed. They may have to amputate.”
   “Indeed.” He frowned at me. “Of course, you wouldn’t know much about it. As far as my memory serves, you have never been shot by a high-caliber revolver at dose range.”
   “The lord help me.” I threw up my hands. “Is that going to be the tune? Are you actually going to have the nerve to brag about that little scratch? Now, if Hombert’s foot hadn’t jostled his chair and he had hit what he aimed at …”
   “But he didn’t.” Wolfe moved to the fifteen-foot mark. He looked me over. “Archie. If you would care to join me at this …”
   I shook my head positively. “Nothing doing. You’ll keep beefing about your bullet wound, and anyway I can’t afford it. You’ll probably be luckier than ever.”
   He put a dignified stare on me. “A dime a game.”
   “No.”
   “A nickel.”
   “No. Not even for matches.”
   He stood silent, and after a minute of that heaved a deep sigh. “Your salary is raised ten dollars a week, beginning last Monday.”
   I lifted the brows. “Fifteen.”
   “Ten is enough.”
   I shook my head. “Fifteen.”
   He sighed again. “Confound you! All right. Fifteen.”
   I arose and went to the desk to get the red darts.
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