Chapter 1

We swooped down and hit the concrete alongside the Potomac at 1:20 p.m. on a raw Monday in early March.

I didn’t know whether I would be staying in Washington or hopping a plane for Detroit or Africa, so I checked my bags at the parcel room at the airport and went out front and flagged a taxi. For twenty minutes I sat back and watched the driver fight his way through two million government employees, in uniforms and in civies, on wheels and on foot, and for another twenty minutes, after entering a building, I showed credentials and waited and let myself be led through corridors, and finally was ushered into a big room with a big desk.

It was the first time I had ever seen the top mackaroo of United States Army Intelligence. He was in uniform and had two chins and a pair of eyes that wasted neither time nor space. I was perfectly willing to shake hands, but he just said to sit down, glanced at a paper on top of a pile and told me in a dry brittle voice that my name was Archie Goodwin.

I nodded noncommittally. For all I knew, it was a military secret.

He inquired acidly, “What the hell is the matter with Nero Wolfe?”

“Search me, sir. Why, is he sick?”

“You worked for him for ten years. As his chief assistant in the detective business. Didn’t you?”

“All of that. Yes, sir. But I never found out what was the matter with him. However, if you want some good guesses—”

“You seem to have done pretty well with that mess down in Georgia, Major Goodwin.”

“Much obliged, sir. Speaking of Nero Wolfe—”

“I am about to.” He shoved the papers aside. “That’s why I sent for you. Is he crazy?”

“That’s one theory.” I looked judicious and crossed my legs, remembered who I was now, and uncrossed them. “He’s a great man, I grant that, but you know what it was that made the Australian wild dog so wild. Assistant is not the word for it. I was a combination accelerator and brake. I may mention that my pay was roughly three times what it is at the moment. Of course if I were made a colonel—”

“How long have you been a major?”

“Three days.”

He pronounced a certain word, just one word, very snappy.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He nodded curtly, to signify that that was settled for good, and went on. “We need Nero Wolfe. Not necessarily in uniform, but we need him. I don’t know whether he deserves his reputation—”

“He does,” I declared. “I hate to admit it, but he does.”

“Very well. That seems to be the prevailing opinion. And we need him, and we’ve tried to get him. He has been seen by Captain Cross and by Colonel Ryder, and he refused to call on General Fife. I have a report here—”

“They handled him wrong.” I grinned. “He wouldn’t call on the King of China even if there was one. I doubt if he’s been outdoors since I left, two months ago. The only thing he has got is brains, and the only way to go is to take things to him: facts, problems, people—”

The mackaroo was shaking his head impatiently. “We tried to. Colonel Ryder went to try to get him to work on a certain matter of great importance, and he flatly refused. He’s no fascist or appeaser, according to his record. What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing sir. Nothing like that. He’s probably in a bad mood. His moods never are anything to brag about, and of course he’s dejected because I’m not there. But the main thing is they don’t know how to handle him.”

“Do you know how to handle him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then go and do it. We want him on a day basis under Schedule 34H. We want him immediately and urgently on a matter that Colonel Ryder went to him about. Nobody has even been able to make a start on it. How long will it take you?”

“I couldn’t say. It all depends.” I stood up with my heels together. “An hour, a day, a week, two weeks. I’ll have to live in his house with him as I always did. The best time to work on him is late at night.”

“Very well. On your arrival, report to Colonel Ryder at Governor’s Island by telephone, report progress to him, and tell him when you are ready for him to see Mr. Wolfe.” He got up and offered me a hand, and I took it. “And don’t waste any time.”

In another room downstairs I found they had got me a priority for a seat on the three o’clock plane for New York, and a taxi got me to the airport just in time to weigh my luggage through and make a run for it.

Chapter 2

All the seats were taken but one, the outside of a double near the front, and I nodded down at the occupant of the seat next to the window, a man with spectacles and a tired face, stuffed my hat and coat on the shelf, and lowered myself. In another minute we were taxiing down the runway, turning, vibrating, rolling, picking it up, and in the air. Just as I unfastened my seat belt, dainty female fingers gripped the seat arm, a female figure stopped, and the profile of a female head with fine blond hair was there in front of me, speaking across to the man with spectacles:

“Would you mind changing seats with me? Please?”

Not wanting to make a scene, there was nothing for me to do but scramble out of the way to permit the transfer. The man got out, the female got in and settled herself, and I sat down again just as the plane tilted for a bank.

She patted my arm and said, “Escamillo darling. Don’t kiss me here. Good heavens, you’re handsome in uniform.”

“I haven’t,” I said coolly, “any intention of kissing you anywhere.”

Her blue eyes were not quite wide open and a corner of her mouth was turned up a little. Viewed objectively, there was nothing at all wrong with the scenery, but I was in no frame of mind to view Lily Rowan objectively. I have told elsewhere how I met her just outside the fence of an upstate pasture. The episode started with me in the pasture along with a bull, and the situation was such that when I reached the fence considerations of form and dignity were minor matters. Anyhow, I got over, rolled maybe ten yards and scrambled to my feet, and a girl in a yellow shirt and slacks clapped her hands sarcastically and drawled at me. “Beautiful, Escamillo! Do it again!”

That was Lily. One thing had led to another. Several others. Until finally …

But now—

She squeezed my arm and said, “Escamillo darling.”

I gazed straight at her and said, “Lookit. The only reason I don’t get up and ask one of our fellow passengers to change seats with me is that I am in uniform and the service has notions about dignity in public places, and I know quite well that you are capable of acting like a lunatic. I am going to read the paper.”

I unfolded the Times. She was laughing in her throat, which I had once thought was an attractive sound, and she arranged herself in her seat so that her arm was against mine.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I wish that bull had got you that day three years ago. I never dreamed, when I saw you tumbling over that fence, that it would ever come to this. You haven’t answered my letters or telegrams. So I came to Washington to find out where you were, intending to go there — and here I am. Me, Lily Rowan! Escamillo, look at me!”

“I’m reading the paper.”

“Good heavens, you’re wonderful in uniform. Very rugged. Doesn’t it impress you that I found out you were taking this plane and got on before you did? Am I a smart girl or not?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Answer me,” she said with an edge to her voice.

She was capable of anything. “Yeah,” I said, “you’re smart.”

“Thank you. I’m also smart enough to know that your being mad at me because I said that Ireland shouldn’t give up any naval or air bases is phony. My father came here from Ireland and made eight million dollars building sewers — and I’m Irish and you know it, so your going sour on me on account of that is the bunk. I think you think you’re tired of me. I have palled on you. Well?”

I kept my eyes on the paper. “I’m in the Army now, pet.”

“So you are. Haven’t I sent you forty telegrams offering to go and be near you and read aloud to you? Thinking you might be sick or something, haven’t I been three times to see Nero Wolfe to find out if he was hearing from you? Which reminds me, what the dickens is the matter with him? He refuses to see me. And he likes me.”

“He does not like you. He likes no woman.”

“Well, he likes my being interested in his orchids. And besides, I wrote him that I had a case for him and would pay him myself. He wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone.”

I looked at her. “What kind of a case?”

A corner of her mouth went up. “Like to know?”

“Go to the devil.”

“Now, Escamillo. Am I your bauble?”

“No.”

“I am too. I like the way your nose twitches when you smell a case. This is about a friend of mine, or anyway a girl I know, named Ann Amory. I was worried about her.”

“I can’t see you being worried about a girl named Ann Amory, or any girl except one named Lily Rowan.”

Lily patted my arm. “That sounds more like you. Anyway, I wanted an excuse to see Nero Wolfe, and Ann was in trouble. All she really wanted was advice. She had found out something about somebody and wanted to know what to do about it.”

“What had she found out about who?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Her father used to work for my father, and I helped her out when he died. She works at the National Bird League and gets thirty dollars a week.” Lily shivered. “Good lord, think of it, thirty dollars a week! Of course that’s no worse than thirty dollars a day; you couldn’t possibly live anyhow. She came and asked me to send her to a lawyer and she certainly was upset. All she would tell me was that she had learned something terrible about someone, but from several things she let slip I think it’s her fiancé. I thought Nero Wolfe would be better for her than any lawyer.”

“And he wouldn’t see you?”

“No.”

“Ann didn’t mention any names at all?”

“No.”

“Where does she live?”

“Downtown, not far from you — 316 Barnum Street.”

“Who is her fiancé?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Lily patted my arm. “Listen, you big rugged hero. Where shall we have dinner tonight? My place?”

I shook my head. “I’m on duty. Your attitude on bases in Ireland is subversive. For all I know, you’re an Irish spy. I regard you as irresistible, but I’ve got my honor to think of. I warned you that day in the Methodist tent that my spiritual side—”

She cut me off and so it went. So it went for another hour, until we touched ground again at LaGuardia Airport. I wasn’t able to duck her there. For the sake of decorum I split a taxi with her to Manhattan, but in front of the Ritz, where she had her own tower, and where I knew she would be disinclined to tear up sidewalks. I got myself transferred to another taxi with my bags and gave the driver the address of Wolfe’s house on 35th Street.

In spite of the encounter with Lily, as I rolled downtown and then turned west, I’m here to tell you it was okay with me. I don’t know why it seemed as if I’d been away a lot longer than two months, but it did. I recognized stores and buildings, as if I owned them, that I didn’t remember ever bothering to look at before. I hadn’t sent a wire because I thought it would be fun to surprise them, and naturally I was looking forward to seeing Theodore up in the plant rooms with the orchids, and Fritz in the kitchen stirring things in bowls and sniffing and tasting, and Nero Wolfe himself seated at his desk, frowning at a page of the atlas or maybe growling at a book he was reading— No, he wouldn’t be in the office. He didn’t come down from the plant rooms until six o’clock, so he would be up there with Theodore. I would say hello to Fritz in the kitchen and then sneak up to my room and wait until after I heard the elevator descending, bringing Wolfe down to the office.

Chapter 3

That was the worst shock I ever got in my life, bar none.

I let myself in with my key, which was still on my ring, dropped my bags in the hall, entered the office, and didn’t believe my eyes. Stacks of unopened mail were on Wolfe’s desk. I walked over to it and saw that it hadn’t been dusted for ten years, and neither had mine. I turned around to face the door and felt myself swallowing. Either Wolfe or Fritz was dead, the only question was which. Next thing I knew I was in the kitchen, and what I saw there convinced me that they both were dead. They must be. The rows of pots and pans were dusty too, and the spice jars.

I swallowed again. I opened a cupboard door and saw not a damn thing but a dish of oranges and six cartons of prunes. I opened the refrigerator, and that finished it. There was nothing there but four heads of lettuce, four tomatoes, and a dish of applesauce. I dashed out and made for the stairs.

One flight up, both Wolfe’s room and the spare were uninhabited, but the furniture looked normal. Same for the two rooms on the floor above, one of which was mine. I kept going, on up to the plant rooms. In the four growing-rooms there was nothing under the glass but orchids, hundreds of them in bloom, but in the potting-room I finally found a sign of human life, namely a man. It was Theodore Horstmann, on a stool at the bench, making entries in a propagation record book which I had formerly kept.

I demanded, “Where’s Wolfe? Where’s Fritz? What the hell’s going on here?”

Theodore finished a word, blotted it, turned on the stool, and squeaked at me:

“Why, hello, Archie. They’re out exercising. Only they call it training. They’re out training.”

“Are they well? Alive?”

“Of course they’re alive. They’re training.”

“Training what?”

“Training each other. Or perhaps more accurately, training themselves. They’re going into the Army, to fight. I am going to stay here as caretaker. Mr. Wolfe was going to dispose of the plants, but I persuaded him to leave them with me. Mr. Wolfe doesn’t work with the plants any more; he only comes up here to sweat. He has to sweat all he can in order to reduce his weight, and then he has to get hardened up, so he and Fritz go over by the river and walk fast. Next week they’re going to start to run. He is dieting and he has stopped drinking beer. Last week he caught cold but he’s over it now. He won’t buy any bread or cream or butter or sugar or lots of things and I have to buy my own meat.”

“Where do they train?”

“Over by the river. Mr. Wolfe obtained permission from the authorities to train on a pier because the boys on the street ridiculed him. From seven to nine in the morning and four to six in the afternoon. Mr. Wolfe is very persistent. He spends the rest of the time up here sweating. He doesn’t talk much, but I heard him telling Fritz that if two million Americans will kill ten Germans apiece—”

I had had enough of Theodore’s squeak. I left him, went back down to the office, got a cloth and dusted my desk and chair, sat down and elevated my dogs, and scowled at the stacks of mail on Wolfe’s desk.

Good God, I thought, what a homecoming this turned out to be. I might have known something like this would happen if I left him to manage himself. It is not only bad, it may be hopeless. The fathead. The big fat goop. And I told that general I know how to handle him. Now what am I going to do?

At 5:50 I heard the front door open and close, and footsteps in the hall, and there was Nero Wolfe looking in at me from the threshold with Fritz back of him.

“What are you doing here?” he boomed.

I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live. I was speechless. He didn’t exactly look smaller, he merely looked deflated. The pants were his own, an old pair of blue serge. The shoes were strangers, rough army style. The sweater was mine, a heavy maroon number that I had bought once for a camping trip, and in spite of his reduction of circumference it was stretched so tight that his yellow shirt showed through the holes.

I found my tongue to say, “Come in! Come on in!”

“I’ve given up the office for the time being,” he said, and he and Fritz both turned and headed for the kitchen.

I sat there awhile, screwing up my lips and scowling, hearing noises they were making, and finally got up and moseyed out to join them. Apparently Wolfe had given up the dining-room too, for he and Fritz were both seated at the little table by the window eating prunes, with a bowl of lettuce and tomatoes, no dressing in sight, waiting for them. I propped myself against the long table, looking down at them, and managed a grin.

“Trying an experiment?” I asked pleasantly.

With his spoon Wolfe conveyed a prune seed from his mouth to the dish. He was looking at me and pretending not to. “How long,” he demanded, “have you been a major?”

“Three days.” I couldn’t help staring at him. It was unbelievable. “They promoted me on account of my table manners. Theodore tells me you are going to join the Army. May I ask in what capacity?”

Wolfe had another prune in his mouth. When he got rid of the seed he said, “Soldier.”

“You mean forward march and bang? Parachute troops? Commandos? Driving a jeep maybe—”

“That will do, Archie.” His tone was sharp and his glance was too. He put down his spoon. “I am going to kill some Germans. I didn’t kill enough in 1918. Whatever your reason for coming here — I presume it is your furlough before going overseas — I am sorry you came. I am quite aware of the physical difficulties that confront me, and I will tolerate no remarks from you. I am more keenly aware of them than you are. I am sorry you came, because I am undertaking a complicated adjustment in my habits, and your presence will make it more burdensome. I congratulate you on your promotion. If you are staying for dinner—”

“No, thank you,” I said politely. “I’ve got a date for dinner. But I’ll sleep here in my bed if you don’t mind. I’ll try not to annoy you—”

“Fritz and I go to bed at nine sharp.”

“Okay. I’ll take my shoes off downstairs. Much obliged for the fatted calf. I apologize for dusting off my desk and chair, but I was afraid I’d get my uniform dirty. My furlough is two weeks.”

“I hope, Archie, you will understand—”

I didn’t wait to hear it. If I had stayed there a second longer I would simply have had to cut loose.

Chapter 4

At Sam’s Place, at the corner, I went first to the phone booth and called Colonel Ryder at Governor’s Island to tell him I was on the job, and then settled myself at a table with a plate of beef stew and two glasses of milk.

As I ate the stew I considered the situation. It was not only tough, it was probably impossible. What had happened was quite plain: Wolfe had simply put his brains away in a drawer for the duration. He wasn’t going to do any thinking, because that was just work, whereas dieting and going outdoors every day and walking fast, getting ready to shoot some Germans — that was heroic. And he had already gone so far with it, and he was so damn bullheaded, that it looked hopeless. After mulling it over, I would have crossed it off and got my bags and headed for Governor’s Island, but for two things: first, I had told the general I knew how to handle him; and second, it looked as if he was going to kill himself if I didn’t stop him. If even one cell of his brain had been working — but it wasn’t.

I thought of appealing for help, to Marko Vukcic or Raymond Plehn or Lewis Hewitt, or even Inspector Cramer, but of course that was no good. Any kind of appeal or argument would only make him stubborner, since he was refusing to think. The only thing that would turn the trick was to manage somehow to get his brain going. I knew from experience what a job that was, and he had never been in a condition to compare with the one he was in now. Futhermore I was handicapped by having been away for two months and not knowing who had called at the office or tried to, or whether there had been any current events.

That, I thought, was one possibility, so after I had paid my check I went to the phone booth and called Inspector Cramer. He said he thought I was in the Army, and I said I thought so too, and then I asked him: “You got any good crimes on hand? Murders or robberies or even missing persons?”

That didn’t get me anywhere. Either he had nothing promising or he wasn’t telling me. I went out to the sidewalk and stood there scowling at a taxi driver. It was cold, darned cold for the middle of March, and flurries of snow were scooting around, and I had no overcoat. As a forlorn hope, because there was nothing else to do, I climbed in the taxi and told the driver to take me to 316 Barnum Street. It wasn’t actually a hope at all, just a stab in the dark because there wasn’t any light.

There was nothing about the outside of the building to warn me of the goofy assortment of specimens inside, merely an ordinary-looking old brick structure of four stories, the kind that had once been a private house but somewhere around the time I was born had been made into flats, with the vestibule fitted up with mailboxes and bell buttons. The card in one of the slots said Pearl O. Chack and beneath it in smaller letters, Amory. I pushed the button, shoved the door open when the click sounded, and was proceeding along the hall when a door toward the rear was suddenly flung open and somebody’s female ancestor appeared on the threshold. If you had deducted for skin and bones there wouldn’t have been more than 20 pounds left of her for tissue and internal parts all together. Straggling ends of white hair made a latticework for her piercing black eyes to see through, and there was no question about her being able to see. As I headed for her she snapped at me before I got there.

“What do you want?”

I produced a smile. “I would like to see—”

She chopped me off. “She sent you! I know she did! I thought it was her. She plays that trick sometimes. Goes out and rings the bell, thinking I won’t suspect it’s her. She wants to tell me she thinks I killed her mother. I know what she wants! If she ever says that to me once, just once, I’ll have her arrested! You tell her that! Go up and tell her that now!”

She was drawing back and shutting the door. I got a foot on the sill. “Just a minute, lady. I’ll go up and tell her anything you want me to. You mean Miss Amory? Ann Amory?”

“Ann? My granddaughter?” The black eyes darted at me through the white latticework. “Certainly not! You’re not fooling me—”

“I know I’m not, Mrs. Chack, but you’ve got me wrong. I want to see your granddaughter, that’s all. I came to see Ann. Is she—”

“I don’t believe it!” she snapped, and banged the door shut. I could have stopped it with my foot, but it seemed doubtful if that was the proper course under the circumstances, and besides, I had heard noises upstairs. Immediately after the door banged there were footsteps coming down, and by the time I had moved to the foot of the stairs a young man was there at my level. Evidently he had intended to say something, but at sight of the uniform changed to something else.

“Oh,” he said in surprise, “the Army? I expected—”

He stopped, looking at me. As to clothes he was careless and maybe not even too clean in a bright light, but otherwise you might have expected to find his picture as a back on a football team. Except he was a little light for it.

“Not at present on duty,” I said. “Why, what did you expect, the Navy?”

He laughed. “I just meant I didn’t expect to see an Army officer. Not here. And I heard you asking to see Miss Amory, and I didn’t know she knew any Army officers.”

“Do you know Miss Amory?”

“Sure I know her. I live here. Two flights up.” He extended a hand. “My name’s Leon Furey.”

“Mine’s Archie Goodwin.” We shook hands. “Do you happen to know if Miss Amory is at home?”

“She’s up on the roof.” He was taking me in. “Not the Archie Goodwin that works for Nero Wolfe?”

“That used to. Before I changed clothes. What is Miss Amory doing—”

A voice cut in from up above:

“Who is it, Leon? Bring him up!”

It was a borderline husky voice, the kind that requires further evidence before deciding the question, man or woman. The young man’s head pivoted for a quick look up the stairs and then turned back to me, and his face broke into a grin. It seemed likely that he regarded it as an engaging grin, or maybe even charming. The vote for him in the Larchmont Women’s Club would have stood about 92 to 11. He came closer to me and lowered his voice.

“I suppose you know you’re in a bughouse? My advice is to beat it. I’ll take a message for Miss Amory—”

“Leon!” the voice came down. “Bring him up here!”

“I’d like to see Miss Amory now,” I said, and started to by-pass Leon, but he shrugged his shoulders with masculine charm and started back upstairs, with me following. In the hall one flight up, standing in an open door, was the owner of the voice. The clothes, a brown woolen dress that might have been worn at the inauguration of McKinley, apparently settled the man or woman question, but aside from that she was built to play end or tackle on the same team with Leon. Also she stood more like a soldier than I did or was likely to.

“What’s this?” she demanded as we approached. “I don’t know you. Come in here.”

Leon called her “Miss Leeds,” and informed her that I was Archie Goodwin, formerly Nero Wolfe’s assistant, now Major Goodwin of the United States Army, but there was no knowing whether she got it, because she had her back turned, marching inside the apartment, taking it for granted we would follow, which we did. The furniture of the big room she led us into must have dated from McKinley’s childhood, and there was plenty of it. I sat down because she told me to as if she meant it, taking in the museum with a glance. To finish it off, there was a marble-topped table in the center of the room, with nothing on it but a dead hawk with its wings stretched out. Not a stuffed hawk, just a dead one, just lying there. I guess I stared at it, because she said, “He kills them for me.”

I asked politely, “Are you a taxidermist, Miss Leeds?”

“Oh, no, she likes pigeons,” Leon said in an informative tone. He was sitting on a piano stool with a plush top. “There are seventy thousand pigeons in Manhattan, and about ninety hawks, and they kill the pigeons. The hawks keep coming. They live on the ledges of buildings, and I kill them for Miss Leeds. I got that one—”

“That’s none of your business,” Miss Leeds told me brusquely. “I heard you talking to Mrs. Chack and asking for Ann Amory. I want you to understand that I do not wish any investigation into the death of my mother. It is not necessary. Mrs. Chack is crazy. Both crazy and malicious. She tells people that I think she killed my mother, but I don’t. I don’t think anyone killed my mother. She died of old age. I have explained thoroughly that no investigation is necessary, and I want it understood—”

“He’s not a policeman,” Leon put in. “He’s an Army officer, Miss Leeds.”

“What’s the difference?” she demanded. “Army or police, it’s all the same.” She was regarding me sternly. “Do you understand me, young man? You tell the mayor I want this stopped. I own this house and I own nine houses on this block and I pay my taxes, and I don’t intend to be annoyed. My mother wrote the mayor and she wrote the papers a thousand times what they ought to do. They ought to keep the hawks out of the city. I want to ask you what is being done about that. Well?”

I should have smiled at her, but she just wasn’t anything to smile at. So I looked her in the eye and said, “Miss Leeds, you want facts. Okay, here’s three facts. One. This is the first I ever heard of hawks. Two. This is the first I ever heard of your mother. Three. I came here to see Ann Amory, and Leon tells me she’s up on the roof.” I stood up. “If I see any hawks up there, I’ll catch ’em alive and wring their necks. And I’ll tell the mayor what you said.”

I walked out to the hall and along that to the next flight of stairs.

Chapter 5

The hall above and the one above that were each lit by a single unshaded bulb in a wall socket, but when I opened the door at the stairs to the roof, and passed through and closed it behind me, I was in darkness. I felt my way up with my feet on the wooden treads, found a latch at the top and opened a door, and was on the roof. Blinking at flakes of snow the wind was tossing around, and seeing nothing anywhere that might have been called Ann Amory, I headed for what looked like a penthouse to my left. Light was showing at the edges of a shaded window, and when I got to the door I could make out a sign painted on it:

RACING PIGEON LOFT

ROY DOUGLAS

KEEP OUT!

Since it said keep out, naturally my impulse was to go on in, but I restrained it and knocked. A man’s voice came asking who it was, and I called that it was company for Miss Amory, and the door swung open.

That house seemed to be inhabited exclusively by conclusion-jumpers. Without giving me a chance to introduce myself the young man who had opened the door, and closed it again after I entered, began telling me that he couldn’t possibly spare any more for at least four months, that he was willing and eager to do anything he could to help win the war but he had already sent me 40 birds and had to keep his stock for breeding, and he didn’t see why the Army didn’t understand.

Meanwhile I was surveying. Boxes and bags were stacked around, and shelves were cluttered with various kinds of items that I had never seen before. A door in the far wall had a sign on it: Do Not Open. A wire cage, more like a coop, with a pigeon in it, was on a table, and on a chair by the table was a girl. She was looking up at me with wide-open brown eyes. As for the young man, he wasn’t in Leon Furey’s class as a physical specimen, and they had short-changed him a little on his chin, but he would pass. I stopped him in the middle of his speech.

“You’re wasting it, brother. I’m not a pigeon collector. My name is Archie Goodwin and I came to see Miss Amory.” I put out a hand. “You’re Roy Douglas?” We shook. “Nice chilly place you’ve got here. Miss Amory?”

“I don’t know you,” the girl said in the kind of voice I like, “do I?”

“You do now,” I assured her. “Anyhow, you don’t need to, because I’m only a messenger boy. Lily Rowan wants you to come and have dinner with her, and sent me to get you.”

“Lily Rowan?” The brown eyes looked puzzled. “But why — she sent you for me?”

“Right.” I made it casual. “Since you know Lily, you may be surprised she didn’t send a brigadier general, but there was nothing around but majors.”

Ann laughed, and it was the kind of laugh I like. Then she looked at the pigeon in the coop, and at Roy, and back at me. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I’ve already had dinner. You mean she wants to see me?” She got up. “I suppose I’d better—” She made up her mind. “But I can go — You don’t need to bother—”

I got her out of there. Evidently Roy did not regard the proceeding with enthusiasm, and neither did the pigeon, but she came, after a little more discussion. Roy lighted us down to the top floor with a flashlight and then returned to his loft. On the ground floor I waited in the hall while Ann went in to speak to her grandmother and get a coat, and when she required less than five minutes for it I liked that too. On the street she didn’t take my arm and she didn’t try to keep step. So far she was batting a thousand. We got a taxi at the corner.

The next test was a little stiffer. As we turned uptown on Fifth Avenue I said, “Now it can be told. Here was the situation. I wanted a private talk with you. I couldn’t talk with you in the presence of Roy and the pigeon. I knew we couldn’t have a talk in your apartment because I had met your grandmother. If I had asked you to go somewhere with me, you would have refused. So I invented an invitation from Lily Rowan. Now what are we going to do?”

Her eyes were wide open at me. “Do you mean — But how did you know—”

“Just a minute. The question was rhetorical. I suppose you’ve heard of Nero Wolfe, the detective. I worked for him up to two months ago, when I joined the Army. Today Lily Rowan told me that you asked her to send you to a lawyer, and she has been trying to arrange for you to see Nero Wolfe, but Mr. Wolfe has been occupied. I think I can fix it. He is a very busy man, if you’ll just tell me what it’s about—”

“Oh,” she said. She gazed at me. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t — I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why not? You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Didn’t you intend to tell the lawyer you asked Lily to send you to?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Nero Wolfe is worth ten lawyers. Any ten.”

“But you’re not Nero Wolfe. You’re just a handsome young man in a uniform.” She shook her head again. “Really I couldn’t.”

“You’re wrong, sister. I’m handsome, but I’m not just handsome. However, we’ve got all night. Say we try this. We’ve both had dinner. Say we go somewhere and dance. Between dances I’ll explain to you how bright I am, and try to win your confidence, and get you to drink as much as possible to loosen your tongue. That might get us somewhere.”

She laughed. “Where would we go to dance?”

“Anywhere. The Flamingo Club.”

I told the driver.

She turned out to be a pretty fair dancer, but not much at bending the elbow. The dinner mob already had the place nearly filled, but I declared a priority on a table in a corner that was being held for some deb’s delight, and when he turned up with his Abigail Spriggs alumna I just stared him out of it into the jungle. Ann and I got along fine. Socially the evening was absolutely okay, but fundamentally I was there on business and from that angle it was close to a washout.

Not that I didn’t gather information. I learned that the pigeon I had seen in the coop was a Sion-Stassart pigeon named Dusky Diana, the holder of nine diplomas and the mother of four 500-mile winners, and Roy Douglas had paid $90 for her, and she had hit a chimney three days ago in a gust of wind while out exercising, and was being nursed. Also that there had been a feud between Miss Leed’s mother and Mrs. Chack, Ann’s grandmother, dating from the 19th century, which Mrs. Chack and Miss Leeds were carrying on. The cause of the feud was that Chack fed squirrels and Leeds fed pigeons, both using Washington Square as a base of operations. They were both there every morning soon after dawn, staying a couple of hours, and again in the late afternoon. Mrs. Chack could stay later than Mrs. Leeds, often until after dark, because pigeons went to bed earlier than squirrels, and it was Mrs. Chack’s daily triumph when the enemy had to give up and go home. The bitterest and deepest aspect of the feud was that Mrs. Chack had accused Miss Leed’s mother of poisoning squirrels on December 9, 1905, and tried to have her arrested. That date had not been forgotten and never would be.

Also I learned that Miss Leed’s mother had died on December 9, three months ago. Mrs. Chack had announced to the neighborhood that it had been a visitation of God’s slow anger at an ancient crime, and whisperings that got to the ears of the police had resulted in a discreet investigation, but nothing had come of it. Here I thought I had something up a tree, in fact I was sure I had, from the way Ann acted, but that was as far as I got. Nor was she discussing her fiancé, even to the extent of admitting she had one. Evidently she was sticking to it that I was just handsome.

All of a sudden, around midnight, I realized something. What brought it to my attention was the fact that I was noticing the smell of her hair while we were dancing. I was even sniffing it. It had startled me so I bumped into a couple on the right and nearly toppled them over. There I was — presumably on duty, working, and sore at her for being too damn stubborn to open up — and there I was deliberately smelling hair! That was a hell of a note. I steered her around to an edge, off the floor and back to the table, and sat her down and called for the check.

“Oh,” she said, “must we go?”

“Look here,” I told her, looking in her wide-open eyes, “you’re giving me a run-around. Maybe you did the same to Lily Rowan, or she did to me. Are you in trouble, or aren’t you?”

“Why, yes. Yes, Archie, I am.”

“What kind of trouble? A run in your stocking?”

“No, really. It’s — real trouble. Honestly.”

“But you’re not telling me about it?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Honestly I can’t. I mean — I don’t want to. You see, you are young and handsome. It’s something terrible — I don’t mean it’s terrible about me — it’s something terrible about someone.”

“Is it about the death of Miss Leed’s mother?”

“It—” She stopped. Then she went on. “Yes, it is. But that’s all I’ll tell you. If you’re going to be like this—”

The waiter brought the change, and I took my share. Then I said, “Okay. The reason I’m like this, I caught myself smelling your hair. Not only that, for the last half-hour I’ve had a different attitude toward our dancing. You may have noticed it.”

“Yes, I — did.”

“Very well. I didn’t. Until just now. I admit it’s possible there is romance ahead of us. Or you may break my heart and ruin my life. Anything can happen. But not yet. What I want to know now is, what time do you quit work?”

She was smiling at me. “I leave the office at five o’clock.”

“And what, go home?”

She nodded. “I usually get home a little before five-thirty. And take a bath, and start cooking dinner. This time of year, grandmother gets home from the Square around seven, and I have dinner ready for her. Sometimes Roy or Leon eats with us.”

“Could you eat early tomorrow and come to Nero Wolfe’s house at seven o’clock? And tell him about the trouble you’re in? Tell him all about it?”

She frowned at me, hesitating. I covered her hand, on the tablecloth, with mine. “Look, sister,” I said, “it’s possible that you’re headed for something terrible yourself. I’m not trying to pretend—”

I stopped because I felt a presence, and I felt eyes. I glanced up, and there were the eyes looking down at me, one on each side of Lily Rowan’s pretty little nose.

I tried to grin at her. “Why — hello there—”

“You,” Lily said, in a tone to cut my throat. “On duty, huh? You louse!”

I think she was going to smack me. Anyhow, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to care what she did, and intended to proceed without delay, so it was merely a question of who moved first and fastest. I was out of my chair, on my feet across the table from her, in half a second flat, with a gesture to Ann, and Ann passed that test too, a fairly tough one, with flying colors. As fast as I moved she was with me, and before even Lily Rowan could get any commotion started we had my cap from the hat-check girl and were out on the sidewalk.

As the taxi rolled away with us I patted Ann’s hand and said, “Good girl. Apparently she was upset about something.”

“She was jealous,” Ann chuckled. “My lord, she was jealous. Lily Rowan jealous of me!”

When I left her at 316 Barnum Street, it was agreed that she would be at Nero Wolfe’s place at 7:00 the next day. Even so, as the taxi took me back to 35th Street, I was not in a satisfactory frame of mind, and it wasn’t improved by finding pinned to my pillowcase a note which said:

Dear Archie, Miss Rowan telephoned four times, and when I told her you were not here she said I was a liar. I am sorry there is no bacon or ham or pancake flour or anything like that in the house. Fritz

Chapter 6

I slept because I always sleep, but my nerves must have been in bad shape, because when my eyes opened and read the clock at 6:50 I was immediately wide awake. I would have given my next two promotions for the satisfaction of planting myself in the downstairs hall and glaring at Wolfe and Fritz as they left on their way to the training field, but knowing that would be a bad blunder in strategy I restrained myself. All I did was open my door so I could hear noises, and when, promptly at 7:00 I heard the street door open and close, I went to a window and leaned out for a look. And there they went, off toward the river, Wolfe in the blue serge pants and my maroon sweater and heavy shoes, no hat, at a gait he probably thought was a stride, swinging his arms. It was simply too damn pathetic.

On that heavy gray March morning my Ann Amory operation looked pretty hopeless, but it was all I had, so I prepared to give it the works. After orange juice and ham and eggs and pancakes and two cups of coffee at Sam’s Place, I went back to the house and spent an hour at the typewriter and telephone cleaning up a few personal matters that had collected in my absence, and was just finishing up when, a little after 9:00, here came the Commandos back. My plan was to ignore them entirely, so I didn’t turn around when footsteps in the hall stopped at the open office door, but Wolfe’s voice sounded:

“Good morning, Archie. I spend the day upstairs. Did you sleep well?”

It was his regular morning question that he had asked me 4,000 times, and it made me homesick. I admit it. It softened me up. I swiveled my chair to face him, but that hardened me again, just one look at him.

“Fine, thanks,” I said coldly. “You messed my drawers up, I suppose looking for that sweater. I have something to say to you. I am speaking for the United States Army. There is one thing you are better qualified to do than anyone else, in connection with undercover enemy activities in this country. It is a situation requiring brains, which you used to have and sometimes used. The Commander in Chief, the Secretary of War, and the General Staff, also Sergeant York, respectfully request you to cut the comedy and begin using them. You are wrong if you think your sudden appearance in the front lines will make the Germans laugh themselves to death. They have no sense of humor.”

I thought that might make him mad enough to forget himself and enter the office, and if I once got him in there it would be a point gained, but he merely stood and scowled at me.

“You said,” he growled, “that you’re on furlough.”

“I did not. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That shows the condition you’re in. A thousand times, right in this room, I’ve heard you give people hell for inexact statements. What I said was that my furlough is two weeks. I did not say that I’m on it now. Nor did I mention—”

“Pfui!” he sputtered scornfully, and turned and started up the stairs. Which was another phenomenon I had never seen before, him mounting those stairs. It had cost him $7,000 to install the elevator.

I got my cap and left the house and started to work.

I tried to inject some enthusiasm into the day’s operations, and I did do my best, but at no point did any probability appear that I was going to turn up anything that could be used for a lever to pry Wolfe loose. It was a different problem from any that had ever confronted me before, because, since he was hell-bent for heroism, no appeal to his cupidity would work. In the condition he had got himself into, the only weak spot where I might break through was his vanity.

I learned from friends at Centre Street that the investigation of Mrs. Leeds’s death had never gone beyond the precinct, so I went there and made inquiries. The sergeant didn’t bother to look up the record. Nothing to it. The doctor had certified coronary thrombosis at the age of 87, and the neighborhood gossip about Mrs. Chack pinch-hitting for the vengeance of God because she got impatient with Him for waiting so long was the bunk.

Around noon I dropped in at 316 Barnum Street, and found Leon Furey still in bed, or anyhow still in pajamas. He said he had to sleep late because he did his hawk hunting mostly at night. I learned that killing hawks was his only visible means of support, that the Army had turned him down on account of a leaky valve, that Roy Douglas lived on the floor above him, the one next to the roof, and a few other items, but nothing that seemed likely to help me any. I found Roy up on the roof, in his loft. He wouldn’t let me in and wasn’t inclined for conversation. He said he was busy working on the widower system, and all I got out of him was that the widower system was a method of keeping a male pigeon away from his mate for a certain period, and letting him in with her for a couple of minutes just before shipping him to the liberation point for a race, the result being that he flew to get back as he had never flown before. I disapproved of it on moral grounds, but that didn’t seem to interest Roy either, so I left him to his widower system, descended again to the street, and began exploring the community.

For over three hours I collected neighborhood gossip, and it wasn’t worth a dime a bushel. I didn’t even get any significant dirt, let alone useful information. On the question of the death of old Mrs. Leeds, fourteen of them divided as follows:

4 Mrs. Chack killed her. 1 Miss Leeds killed her. 6 She died of old age. 3 She died of meanness.

No majority for anybody or anything. No nothing. I went home, arriving a little before 5:00, to think it over and decide whether it was worth while springing Ann on Wolfe at all and as I stood in the office frowning at the dust on Wolfe’s desk, the doorbell rang. I went and pulled the curtain aside for a look through the glass panel, and there was Roy Douglas on the stoop. My heart skipped a beat. Was something going to break? I pulled the door open and invited him in.

He acted embarrassed, as if he had something he wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure what it was. I took him to the office and dusted off a chair for him, and he sat down and opened his mouth for air a couple of times and then said:

“I guess I wasn’t very courteous down there at the loft today. I never am very polite when I’m working with the birds. You see, it makes them nervous to have strangers around.”

I nodded sympathetically. “Me too. By the way, I forgot to ask, how’s Dusky Diana coming along?”

“Oh, she’s much better. She’ll be all right.” He squinted at me. “I suppose Miss Amory told you about her?”

“Yeah, she told me a lot of interesting things.”

He shifted in his chair. Then he cleared his throat. “You were with her all evening, weren’t you?”

“Sure, I stuck around.”

“I saw you when you came back. When you brought her home. From my window.”

“Did you? It was pretty late.”

“I know it was. But I — You see, I was worried about her. I am worried about her. I think she’s in some kind of trouble or something, and I wondered if that was why she went to see that Lily Rowan.”

“You might ask her.”

He shook his head. “She won’t tell me. But I’m sure she’s in some kind of trouble, the way she acts. I don’t know Miss Rowan, so I can’t go and ask her, but I know you, that is I’ve met you, and if you were with them last evening — and then your coming to see me today — I thought you might tell me. You see, I’ve got a right to know about it, a kind of a right, because we’re engaged to be married.”

My brows went up. “You are? You and Miss Amory?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” He squinted at me. “So I wondered why you came to see me, and I thought maybe it was to tell me something about her, or ask me something, and that made me wonder — Anyhow, if you know whether she’s in trouble I wish you’d tell me.”

Except for the fact that I had solved the mystery of Ann’s fiancé, or rather it had solved itself, that certainly didn’t sound as if Roy’s visit was going to break anything. However, since I had him there, I thought I might as well see what he had concealed on his person, so I proceeded to treat him as a friend. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t help him out any on the nature of Ann’s difficulty, if any, and casually guided the conversation in the direction of the inhabitants of 316 Barnum Street. That proved to be a boomerang. The minute we arrived at that address he got started on pigeons, and then did he talk!

I learned things. He had been in the fancy, as he put it, since boyhood. Mrs. Leeds had built the loft for him and kept him going, and now Miss Leeds was carrying on. His birds had won a total of 116 diplomas in young bird races and 63 diplomas in old bird races. One year his Village Susie, a Blue Check Grooter, had returned first in the Dayton Great National, with 3,864 birds, 512 lofts competing. He had lost fourteen birds in the big smash in the Trenton 300-mile special last year. The best racing pigeons in the world, in his opinion, were the Dickinson strain of Sion-Stassarts — Dusky Diana was one.

I couldn’t get him off it. As the clock on the wall crept along toward 6:00 I began to think I’d have to pick him up and carry him outdoors, since Wolfe would come in from training soon after 6:00 and I didn’t want him there. But that problem was solved for me. At 5:55 the doorbell rang, and Roy got up and said he would be going, and followed me out to the front. I pulled the curtain aside for a look, and what did I see on the stoop but Lily Rowan, and she had seen me.

I slipped the chain in the socket so the door would only open four inches, let it come that far, and announced through the crack:

“Air raid alarm. Go home and get under the bed. I’m on—”

Her hand came in through the crack, her arm nearly up to the elbow.

“Shut it on that,” she said savagely. “Let me in.”

“No, girlie, I—”

“Let me in! Do you want me to yell it for the whole neighborhood—”

“Yell what?”

“There’s been a murder!”

“You mean there will be a murder. Some day—”

“Archie! You damned idiot! I tell you Ann Amory has been murdered! If you don’t—”

There was a noise from Roy at my elbow. I pushed him aside, slipped the chain off, let Lily through, shut the door, and got her by the shoulders, gripping her good.

“Spill it,” I told her. “If you think you’re putting on a charade—”

“Quit hurting me!” she spat. Then she was quiet. “All right, keep on hurting me. Go on. Harder.”

“Spill it, my love.”

“I am spilling it. I went there to see Ann. When I rang the bell the latch didn’t click, so I rang another bell and got in. The door of her apartment was standing a little open, so I knocked once and then went in. I thought she must be there because I had phoned her office and she said she would get home before five-thirty, and it was a quarter to six. She was there all right. She was there on the floor propped up against a chair with a scarf tied around her throat and her tongue hanging out and her eyes popping. She was dead. I saw she was dead and I—”

Roy Douglas went. He did it so quick, pulled the door open and scooted, that I didn’t even get a chance to make a grab for him.

“Goddamn it,” I said. I turned Lily loose and glanced at my wrist — 6:02. If I beat it with her it would be just my luck for Wolfe to be approaching and see me. Lily was sputtering:

“I tell you, Archie, it was the most awful—”

“Shut up.” I opened the door to the front room, steered her inside, and closed the door. “You do what I tell you, girlie, or I swear to God I’ll scalp you. Sit down and don’t breathe. Nero Wolfe will be coming in and I don’t want him to know you’re here. No, sit there, away from the window. I want to know one thing. Did you kill her?”

“No.”

“Look at me. You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Archie—”

“Shut up.”

I sat on the edge of a chair and put my fists on my knees and stared at the wall. I can’t think with my eyes closed the way Wolfe does. In maybe three minutes I thought I had it, at least a sketch of it, if only it hadn’t been for that damn Douglas kid. It all depended on him.

I looked at Lily. “Keep your voice low so we can hear the door open. You’d better whisper. How often have you been to the apartment?”

“Only once. A long time ago. I love you like this, Arch—”

“Save it for Christmas. Whose bell did you ring?”

“I don’t know. One of the upper—”

“Did anybody see you going in or coming out?”

“I don’t know about going in. I think not. I’m sure they didn’t coming out because I looked around and glanced up the stairs.”

“Does anybody there know you? Besides Ann?”

“Mrs. Chack does, that’s all. Ann’s grandmother.”

“Was anybody — hold it.”

The street door was opening. It closed again, and I heard Wolfe’s voice, and a murmur of Fritz’s. Footsteps went down the hall and the door to the kitchen opened and closed.

I went noiselessly to the door to the hall and eased it open. The one to the kitchen was shut, and sounds came from beyond it. I beckoned to Lily and when she joined me whispered in her ear, “Fast and silent. Understand?” and tiptoed to the front door and got it open without a sound. Lily slipped through and me after her, I shut the door with only a faint click, and we went down the steps to the sidewalk and turned east. She had to trot to keep up. When we reached the avenue and turned the corner I got her into a doorway.

“Now. Was anyone standing around the entrance when you went in?”

“Standing around? No. But what—”

“Don’t talk. I’m busy. You’re noticeable. Did anyone notice you going in or coming out?”

“I don’t think so. If they did I didn’t notice them.”

“Okay. I’m leaving you. Here’s your program. Go some place out of town, not far, Long Island or Westchester. Leave a note for me at the Ritz telling me where, but don’t tell anyone else. I—”

“You mean go now?”

“Right now. Pack a bag and go. Within an hour.”

“You go to hell.” She had my arm in both hands. “You darned nut, didn’t I run to you in my hour of need? I’m going to have a drink, several drinks, and you’re going to have some with me. What do you think I—”

I tried to bull it through, but nothing doing. She balked good, and time was precious. So I said, “Listen, angel. I’ve got a job to do and you’ve got to help. I haven’t time to explain it. Do as I say, and I’ll get a week-end leave Saturday and you can write your ticket, anything short of rowing on the lake in Central Park.”

“This coming Saturday?”

“Yes.”

“An absolutely unqualified promise?”

“Yes, damn it.”

“Gentlemen prefer blondes. Kiss me good-by.”

I made it a quick one, dashed across the sidewalk to a taxi, and told the driver corner of Barnum and Christopher, and step on it. My watch said 6:15. Roy had 13 minutes start on me.

Chapter 7

On account of Roy Douglas, there was a mighty slim hope of being able to fill in my sketch, but when I jumped from the cab at the corner and hotfooted it for Number 316 and saw there was no sign of anything unusual, the chances looked slightly better. The odds against me were still about 20 to 1. If anyone else, including Roy, had beat me to it and called the cops or a doctor or even the neighbors, or if grandma had come home early, or if 17 other things, my plan was a washout.

It would have been a swell break if the door had been unlatched, but it wasn’t, so I pushed the Chack-Amory button, not daring to risk one of the others, and in about five seconds the click sounded. That might have been either good or bad, and there was no time to speculate. I entered and went down the hall, and there was Roy standing in the open door of the Chack apartment, his face pasty and twitching, trembling all over. Before he could say anything I shoved him inside and closed the door, touching it only with a knuckle. He looked as if he might start screaming. I steered him out of the little hall into a room and to a chair, and pushed him into it.

“She’s dead,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t — look at her.”

“Keep quiet,” I commanded him. “Understand? Keep quiet. I know things about this you don’t know.”

I made a survey. There was no disorder, no sign of a scrap. I didn’t blame Roy for not being able to look at Ann, because it wasn’t actually Ann. It was only what was left, and it didn’t resemble Ann at all. Lily had mentioned the two main aspects, the tongue and the eyes. The upper part of the body was sort of propped up against the front of an upholstered chair, and the blue woolen scarf around the throat had a knot under the left ear. Approaching and kneeling down, it took me ten seconds to make sure that it was a body and not a girl. It was still as warm as life.

I returned to Roy. He was slumped in the chair with his head hanging, and I doubted if there was enough stiffness in his spine to lift his head to look at me, so I lowered myself to one knee to look at him.

“Listen, Roy,” I said, “we’ve got to do some things. How long ago did you get here?”

He stared at me. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t know. I came straight here.”

“How did you get in?”