Chapter 1

I didn’t mind it at all,” our visitor said gruffly but affably. “It’s a pleasure.” He glanced around. “I like rooms that men work in. This is a good one.”

I was still swallowing my surprise that he actually looked like a miner, at least my idea of one, with his big bones and rough weathered skin and hands that would have been right at home around a pick handle. Certainly swinging a pick was not what he got paid for as chairman of the board of the Continental Mines Corporation, which had its own building down on Nassau Street not far from Wall.

I was also surprised at the tone he was using. When, the day before, a masculine voice had given a name on the phone and asked when Nero Wolfe could call at his office, and I had explained why I had to say never, and it had ended by arranging an appointment at Wolfe’s office for eleven the next morning, I had followed up with a routine check on a prospective client by calling Lon Cohen at the Gazette, Lon had told me that the only reason James U. Sperling didn’t bite ears off was because he took whole heads and ate them bones and all. But there he was, slouching in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk like a big friendly roughneck, and I’ve just told you what he said when Wolfe started the conversation by explaining that he never left the office on business and expressing a regret that Sperling had had to come all the way to our place on West Thirty-fifth Street nearly to Eleventh Avenue. He said it was a pleasure!

“It will do,” Wolfe murmured in a gratified tone. He was behind his desk, leaning back in his custom-made chair, which was warranted safe for a quarter of a ton and which might some day really be put to the test if its owner didn’t level off. He added, “If you’ll tell me what your problem is perhaps I can make your trip a good investment.”

Seated at my own desk, at a right angle to Wolfe’s and not far away, I allowed myself a mild private grin. Since the condition of his bank balance did not require the use of sales pressure to snare a client, I knew why he was spreading the sugar. He was merely being sociable because Sperling had said he liked the office. Wolfe didn’t like the office, which was on the first floor of the old brownstone house he owned. He didn’t like it, he loved it, and it was a good thing he did, since he was spending his life in it — except when he was in the kitchen with Fritz, or in the dining room across the hall at mealtime, or upstairs asleep, or in the plant rooms up on the roof, enjoying the orchids and pretending he was helping Theodore with the work.

My private grin was interrupted by Sperling firing a question at me: “Your name’s Goodwin, isn’t it? Archie Goodwin?”

I admitted it. He went to Wolfe.

“It’s a confidential matter.”

Wolfe nodded. “Most matters discussed in this office are. That’s commonplace in the detective business. Mr. Goodwin and I are used to it.”

“It’s a family matter.”

Wolfe frowned, and I joined in. With that opening it was a good twenty-to-one shot that we were going to be asked to tail a wife, and that was out of bounds for us. But James U. Sperling went on.

“I tell you that because you’d learn it anyhow.” He put a hand to the inside breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a bulky envelope. “These reports will tell you that much. They’re from the Bascom Detective Agency. You know them?”

“I know Mr. Bascom.” Wolfe was still frowning. “I don’t like ground that’s been tramped over.”

Sperling went right on by. “I had used them on business matters and found them competent, so I went to Bascom with this. I wanted information about a man named Rony, Louis Rony, and they’ve been at it a full month and they haven’t got it, and I need it urgently. Yesterday I decided to call them off and try you. I’ve looked you up, and if you’ve earned your reputation I should have come to you first.” He smiled like an angel, surprising me again, and convincing me that he would stand watching. “Apparently you have no equal.”

Wolfe grunted, trying not to look pleased. “There was a man in Marseille — but he’s not available and he doesn’t speak English. What information do you want about Mr. Rony?”

“I want proof that he’s a Communist. If you get it and get it soon, your bill can be whatever you want to make it.”

Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t take jobs on those terms. You don’t know he’s a Communist, or you wouldn’t be bidding so high for proof. If he isn’t, I can’t very well get evidence that he is. As for my bill being whatever I want to make it, my bills always are. But I charge for what I do, and I can do nothing that is excluded by circumstance. What I dig up is of necessity contingent on what has been buried, but the extent of my digging isn’t, nor my fee.”

“You talk too much,” Sperling said impatiently but not impolitely.

“Do I?” Wolfe cocked an eye at him. “Then you talk.” He nodded sidewise at me. “Your notebook, Archie.”

The miner waited until I had it ready, open at a fresh page, and then spoke crisply, starting with a spelling lesson. “L-o-u-i-s. R-o-n-y. He’s in the Manhattan phone book, both his law office and his home, his apartment — and anyway, it’s all in that.” He indicated the bulky envelope, which he had tossed onto Wolfe’s desk. “I have two daughters. Madeline is twenty-six and Gwenn is twenty-two. Gwenn was smart enough to graduate with honors at Smith a year ago, and I’m almost sure she’s sane, but she’s too damn curious and she turns her nose up at rules. She hasn’t worked her way out of the notion that you can have independence without earning it. Of course it’s all right to be romantic at her age, but she overdoes it, and I think what first attracted her to this man Rony was his reputation as a champion of the weak and downtrodden, which he has got by saving criminals from the punishment they deserve.”

“I think I’ve seen his name,” Wolfe murmured. “Haven’t I, Archie?”

I nodded. “So have I. It was him that got What’s-her-name, that baby peddler, out from under a couple of months ago. He seems to be on his way to the front page.”

“Or to jail,” Sperling snapped, and there was nothing angelic about his tone. “I think I handled this wrong, and I’m damned sure my wife did. It was the same old mistake, and God only knows why parents go on making it. We even told her, and him too, that he would no longer be admitted into our home, and of course you know what the reaction was to that. The only concession she made, and I doubt if that was to us, was never to come home after daylight.”

“Is she pregnant?” Wolfe inquired.

Sperling stiffened. “What did you say?” His voice was suddenly as hard as the hardest ore ever found in any mine. Unquestionably he expected it to crush Wolfe into pretending he hadn’t opened his mouth, but it didn’t.

“I asked if your daughter is pregnant. If the question is immaterial I withdraw it, but surely it isn’t preposterous unless she also turns her nose up at natural laws.”

“She is my daughter,” Sperling said in the same hard tone. Then suddenly his rigidity gave way. All the stiff muscles loosened, and he was laughing. When he laughed he roared, and he really meant it. In a moment he controlled it enough to speak. “Did you hear what I said?” he demanded.

Wolfe nodded. “If I can believe my ears.”

“You can.” Sperling smiled like an angel. “I suppose with any man that’s one of his tenderest spots, but I might be expected to remember that I am not just any man. To the best of my knowledge my daughter is not pregnant, and she would have a right to be astonished if she were. That’s not it. A little over a month ago my wife and I decided to correct the mistake we had made, and she told Gwenn that Rony would be welcome at our home as often as she wanted him there. That same day I put Bascom onto him. You’re quite right that I can’t prove he’s a Communist or I wouldn’t have had to come to you, but I’m convinced that he is.”

“What convinced you?”

“The way he talks, the way I’ve sized him up, the way he practices his profession — and there are things in Bascom’s reports, you’ll see that when you read them—”

“But Mr. Bascom got no proof.”

“No. Damn it.”

“Whom do you call a Communist? A liberal? A pink intellectual? A member of the party? How far left do you start?”

Sperling smiled. “It depends on where I am and who I’m talking to. There are occasions when it may be expedient to apply the term to anyone left of center. But to you I’m using it realistically. I think Rony is a member of the Communist party.”

“If and when you get proof, what are you going to do with it?”

“Show it to my daughter. But it has to be proof. She already knows what I think; I told her long ago. Of course she told Rony, and he looked me in the eye and denied it.”

Wolfe grunted. “You may be wasting your time and money. Even if you get proof, what if it turns out that your daughter regards a Communist party card as a credential for romance?”

“She doesn’t. Her second year in college she got interested in communism and went into it, but it didn’t take her long to pull out. She says it’s intellectually contemptible and morally unsound. I told you she’s smart enough.” Sperling’s eyes darted to me and went back to Wolfe. “By the way, what about you and Goodwin? As I said, I looked you up, but is there any chance I’m putting my foot in it?”

“No,” Wolfe assured him. “Though of course only the event can certify us. We agree with your daughter.” He looked at me. “Don’t we?”

I nodded. “Completely. I like the way she put it. The best I can do is ‘a Commie is a louse’ or something like that.”

Sperling looked at me suspiciously, apparently decided that I merely had IQ trouble, and returned to Wolfe, who was talking.

“Exactly what,” he was asking, “is the situation? Is there a possibility that your daughter is already married to Mr. Rony?”

“Good God, no!”

“How sure are you?”

“I’m sure. That’s absurd — but of course you don’t know her. There’s no sneak in her — and anyhow, if she decides to marry him she’ll tell me — or her mother — before she tells him. That’s how she’d do it—” Sperling stopped abruptly and set his jaw. In a moment he let it loose and went on, “And that’s what I’m afraid of, every day now. If she once commits herself it’s all over. I tell you it’s urgent. It’s damned urgent!”

Wolfe leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Sperling regarded him a while, opened his mouth and closed it again, and looked at me inquiringly. I shook my head at him. When, after another couple of minutes, he began making and unmaking fists with his big bony hands, I reassured him.

“It’s okay. He never sleeps in the daytime. His mind works better when he can’t see me.”

Finally Wolfe’s lids went up and he spoke. “If you hire me,” he told Sperling, “it must be clear what for. I can’t engage to get proof that Mr. Rony is a Communist, but only to find out if proof exists, and, if it does, get it if possible. I’m willing to undertake that, but it seems an unnecessary restriction. Can’t we define it a little better? As I understand it, you want your daughter to abandon all thought of marrying Mr. Rony and stop inviting him to your home. That’s your objective. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why restrict my strategy? Certainly I can try for proof that he’s a Communist, but what if he isn’t? Or what if he is but we can’t prove it to your daughter’s satisfaction? Why limit the operation to that one hope, which must be rather forlorn if Mr. Bascom has spent a month at it and failed? Why not hire me to reach your objective, no matter how — of course within the bounds permitted to civilized man? I would have a much clearer conscience in accepting your retainer, which will be a check for five thousand dollars.”

Sperling was considering. “Damn it, he’s a Communist!”

“I know. That’s your fixed idea and it must be humored. I’ll try that first. But do you want to exclude all else?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“Good. And I have — yes, Fritz?”

The door to the hall had opened and Fritz was there.

“Mr. Hewitt, sir. He says he has an appointment. I seated him in the front room.”

“Yes,” Wolfe glanced at the clock on the wall. “Tell him I’ll see him in a few minutes.” Fritz went, and Wolfe returned to Sperling.

“And I have correctly stated your objective?”

“Perfectly.”

“Then after I’ve read Mr. Bascom’s reports I’ll communicate with you. Good day, sir. I’m glad you like my office—”

“But this is urgent! You shouldn’t waste an hour!”

“I know.” Wolfe was trying to stay polite. “That’s another characteristic of matters discussed in this office — urgency. I now have an appointment, and shall then eat lunch, and from four to six I shall be working with my plants. But your affair need not wait on that. Mr. Goodwin will read the reports immediately, and after lunch he will go to your office to get all required details — say two o’clock?”

James U. Sperling didn’t like it at all. Apparently he was set to devote the day to arranging to save his daughter from a fate worse than death, not even stopping for meals. He was so displeased that he merely grunted an affirmative when, as I let him out the front door, I courteously reminded him that he was to expect me at his office at 2:15 and that he could save himself the trouble of mailing the check by handing it to me then. I took time out for a brief survey of the long black Wethersill limousine waiting for him at the curb before I returned to the office.

The door to the front room was open and Wolfe’s and Hewitt’s voices came through. Since their mutual interest was up in the plant rooms and they wouldn’t be using the office, I got the bulky envelope Sperling had left on Wolfe’s desk and made myself comfortable to read Bascom’s reports.

Chapter 2

A couple of hours later, at five to two, Wolfe returned his empty coffee cup to the saucer, pushed his chair back, got all of him upright, walked out of the dining room, and headed down the hall toward his elevator. I, having followed, called to his half an acre of back, “How about three minutes in the office first?”

He turned. “I thought you were going to see that man with a daughter.”

“I am, but you won’t talk business during meals, and I read Bascom’s reports, and I’ve got questions.”

He shot a glance at the door to the office, saw how far away it was, growled, “All right, come on up,” and turned and made for the elevator.

If he has his rules so do I, and one of mine is that a three-by-four private elevator with Wolfe in it does not need me too, so I took the stairs. One flight up was Wolfe’s bedroom and a spare. Two flights up was my bedroom and another spare. The third flight put me on the roof. There was no dazzling blaze of light, as in winter, since this was June and the shade slats were all rolled down, but there was a blaze of color from the summer bloomers, especially in the middle room. Of course I saw it every day, and I had business on my mind, but even so I slowed up as I passed a bench of white and yellow Dendrobium bensoniae that were just at their peak.

Wolfe was in the potting room, taking his coat off, with a scowl all ready for me.

“Two things,” I told him curtly. “First, Bascom not only—”

He was curter. “Did Mr. Bascom get any lead at all to the Communist party?”

“No. But he—”

“Then he got nothing for us.” Wolfe was rolling up his shirt sleeves. “We’ll discuss his reports after I’ve read them. Did he have good men on it?”

“He sure did. His best.”

“Then why should I hire an army to stalk the same phantom, even with Mr. Sperling’s money? You know what that amounts to, trying to track a Communist down, granting that he is one — especially when what is wanted is not presumption, but proof. Bah. A will-o’-the-wisp. I defined the objective and Mr. Sperling agreed. See him and get details, yes. Get invited to his home, socially. Meet Mr. Rony and form an opinion of him. More important, form one of the daughter, as intimately and comprehensively as possible. Make appointments with her. Seize and hold her attention. You should be able to displace Mr. Rony in a week, a fortnight at the most — and that’s the objective.”

“I’ll be damned.” I shook my head reproachfully. “You mean make a pass at her.”

“Your terms are yours, and I prefer mine. Mr. Sperling said his daughter is excessively curious. Transfer her curiosity from Mr. Rony to you.”

“You mean break her heart.”

“You can stop this side of tragedy.”

“Yeah, and I can stop this side of starting.” I looked righteous and outraged. “You’ve gone a little too far. I like being a detective, and I like being a man, with all that implies, but I refuse to degrade whatever glamour I may—”

“Archie!” He snapped it.

“Yes, sir.”

“With how many young women whom you met originally through your association with my business have you established personal relationships?”

“Between five and six thousand. But that’s not—”

“I’m merely suggesting that you reverse the process and establish the personal relationship first. What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything.” I shrugged. “Okay. Maybe nothing. It depends. I’ll take a look at her.”

“Good. You’re going to be late.” He started for the supply shelves.

I raised my voice a little. “However, I’ve still got a question, or two, rather. Bascom’s boys had a picnic trying to tail Rony. The first time out, before anything could have happened to make him suspicious, he had his nose up and pulled a fade. From then on not only did they have to use only the best, but often even that wasn’t good enough. He knew the whole book and some extra chapters. He may or may not be a Communist, but he didn’t learn all that in Sunday school.”

“Pfui. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?” Wolfe said contemptuously. He took a can of Elgetrol from the shelf and began shaking it. “Confound it, let me alone.”

“I will in a minute. The other thing, three different times, times when they didn’t lose him, he went into Bischoff’s Pet Shop on Third Avenue and stayed over an hour, and he doesn’t keep any pets.”

Wolfe stopped shaking the can of Elgetrol. He looked at it as if he didn’t know what it was, hesitated, put the can back on the shelf, and looked at me.

“Oh,” he said, not curtly. “He did?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wolfe looked around, saw the oversized chair in its place, and went to it and sat down.

I wasn’t gratified at having impressed him. In fact, I would have preferred to pass the chance up, but I hadn’t dared. I remembered too well a voice — a hard, slow, precise voice, cold as last week’s corpse — which I had heard only three times altogether, on the telephone. The first time had been in January 1946, and the second and third had been more than two years later, while we were looking for the poisoner of Cyril Orchard. Furthermore, I remembered the tone of Wolfe’s voice when he said to me, when we had both hung up after the second phone call, “I should have signaled you off, Archie, as soon as I recognized his voice. I tell you nothing because it is better for you to know nothing. You are to forget that you know his name. If ever, in the course of my business, I find that I am committed against him and must destroy him, I shall leave this house, find a place where I can work — and sleep and eat if there is time for it — and stay there until I have finished.”

I have seen Wolfe tangle with some tough bozos in the years I’ve been with him, but none of them has ever had him talking like that.

Now he was sitting glaring at me as if I had put vinegar on his caviar.

“What do you know about Bischoff’s Pet Shop?” he demanded.

“Nothing to speak of. I only know that last November, when Bischoff came to ask you to take on a job, you told him you were too busy and you weren’t, and when he left and I started beefing you told me that you were no more eager to be committed for Arnold Zeck than against him. You didn’t explain how you knew that that pet shop is a branch of Zeck’s far-flung shenanigans, and I didn’t ask.”

“I told you once to forget that you know his name.”

“Then you shouldn’t have reminded me of it. Okay, I’ll forget again. So I’ll go down and phone Sperling that you’re too busy and call it off. He hasn’t—”

“No. Go and see him. You’re late.”

I was surprised. “But what the hell? What’s wrong with my deducting? If Rony went three times in a month to that pet shop, and probably more, and stayed over an hour, and doesn’t keep pets, and I deduce that he is presumably an employee or something of the man whose name I forget, what—”

“Your reasoning is quite sound. But this is different. I was aware of Mr. Bischoff’s blemish, no matter how, when he came to me, and refused him. I have engaged myself to Mr. Sperling, and how can I scuttle?” He looked up at the clock. “You’d better go.” He sighed. “If it could be managed to keep one’s self-esteem without paying for it...”

He went and got the can of Elgetrol and started shaking it, and I headed out.

Chapter 3

That was two o’clock Thursday. At two o’clock Saturday, forty-eight hours later, I was standing in the warm sunshine on a slab of white marble as big as my bedroom, flicking a bright blue towel as big as my bathroom, to chase a fly off of one of Gwenn Sperling’s bare legs. Not bad for a rake’s progress, even though I was under an assumed name. I was now Andrew instead of Archie. When I had told Sperling of Wolfe’s suggestion that I should meet the family, not of course displaying Wolfe’s blueprint, and he had objected to disclosing me to Rony, I had explained that we would use hired help for tailing and similar routine, and that I would have a try at getting Rony to like me. He bought it without haggling and invited me to spend the weekend at Stony Acres, his country place up near Chappaqua, but said I’d have to use another name because he was pretty sure his wife and son and elder daughter, Madeline, knew about Archie Goodwin. I said modestly that I doubted it, and insisted on keeping the Goodwin because it was too much of a strain to keep remembering to answer to something else, and we settled for changing Archie to Andrew. That would fit the A. G. on the bag Wolfe had given me for my birthday, which I naturally wanted to have along because it was caribou hide and people should see it.

The items in Bascom’s reports about Louis Rony’s visits to Bischoff’s Pet Shop had cost Sperling some dough. If it hadn’t been for that Wolfe would certainly have let Rony slide until I reported on my weekend, since it was a piddling little job and had no interest for him except the fee, and since he had a sneaking idea that women came on a lope from every direction when I snapped my fingers, which was foolish because it often takes more than snapping your fingers. But when I got back from my call on Sperling Thursday afternoon Wolfe had already been busy on the phone, getting Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather, and when they came to the office Friday morning for briefing Saul was assigned to a survey of Rony’s past, after reading Bascom, and Fred and Orrie were given special instructions for fancy tailing. Obviously what Wolfe was doing was paying for his self-esteem — or letting Sperling pay for it. He had once told Arnold Zeck, during their third and last phone talk, that when he undertook an investigation he permitted prescription of limits only by requirements of the job, and now he was leaning backward. If Rony’s pet shop visits really meant that he was on one of Zeck’s payrolls, and if Zeck was still tacking up his KEEP OFF signs, Nero Wolfe had to make it plain that no one was roping him off. We’ve got our pride. So Saul and Fred and Orrie were at it.

So was I, the next morning, Saturday, driving north along the winding Westchester parkways, noticing that the trees seemed to have more leaves than they knew what to do with, keeping my temper when some dope of a snail stuck to the left lane as if he had built it, doing a little snappy passing now and then just to keep my hand in, dipping down off the parkway onto a secondary road, following it a couple of miles as directed, leaving it to turn into a graveled drive between ivy-covered stone pillars, winding through a park and assorted horticultural exhibits until I broke cover and saw the big stone mansion, stopping at what looked as if it might be the right spot, and telling a middle-aged sad-looking guy in a mohair uniform that I was the photographer they were expecting.

Sperling and I had decided that I was the son of a business associate who was concentrating on photography, and who wanted pictures of Stony Acres for a corporation portfolio, for two reasons: first, because I had to be something, and second, because I wanted some good shots of Louis Rony.

Four hours later, having met everybody and had lunch and used both cameras all over the place in as professional a manner as I could manage, I was standing at the edge of the swimming pool, chasing a fly off Gwenn’s leg. We were both dripping, having just climbed out.

“Hey,” she said, “the snap of that towel is worse than a fly bite — if there was a fly.”

I assured her there had been.

“Well, next time show it to me first and maybe I can handle it myself. Do that dive from the high board again, will you? Where’s the Leica?”

She had been a pleasant surprise. From what her father had said I had expected an intellectual treat in a plain wrapper, but the package was attractive enough to take your attention off of the contents. She was not an eye-stopper, and there was no question about her freckles, and while there was certainly nothing wrong with her face it was a little rounder than I would specify if I were ordering a la carte; but she was not in any way hard to look at, and those details which had been first disclosed when she appeared in her swimming rig were completely satisfactory. I would never have seen the fly if I had not been looking where it lit.

I did the dive again and damn near pancaked. When I was back on the marble, wiping my hair back, Madeline was there, saying, “What are you trying to do, Andy, break your back? You darned fool!”

“I’m making an impression,” I told her. “Have you got a trapeze anywhere? I can hang by my toes.”

“Of course you can. I know your repertory better than you think I do. Come and sit down and I’ll mix you a drink.”

Madeline was going to be in my way a little, in case I decided to humor Wolfe by trying to work on Gwenn. She was more spectacular than Gwenn, with her slim height and just enough curves not to call anywhere flat, her smooth dark oval face, and her big dark eyes which she liked to keep half shut so she could suddenly open them on you and let you have it. I already knew that her husband was dead, having been shot down in a B-17 over Berlin in 1943, that she thought she had seen all there was but might be persuaded to try another look, that she liked the name Andy, and that she thought there was just a chance that I might know a funny story she hadn’t heard. That was why she was going to be in my way a little.

I went and sat with her on a bench in the sun, but she didn’t mix me a drink because three men were gathered around the refreshment cart and one of them attended to it — James U. Sperling, Junior. He was probably a year or two older than Madeline and resembled his father hardly at all. There was nothing about his slender straightness or his nice smooth tanned skin or his wide spoiled mouth that would have led anyone to say he looked like a miner. I had never seen him before but had heard a little of him. I couldn’t give you a quote, but my vague memory was that he was earnest and serious about learning to make himself useful in the corporation his father headed, and he frequently beat it to Brazil or Nevada or Arizona to see how mining was done, but he got tired easy and had to return to New York to rest, and he knew lots of people in New York willing to help him rest.

The two men with him at the refreshment cart were guests. Since our objective was confined to Rony and Gwenn I hadn’t bothered with the others except to be polite, and I wouldn’t be dragging them in if it wasn’t that later on they called for some attention. Also it was beginning to look as if they could stand a little attention right then, on account of a situation that appeared to be developing, so the field of my interest was spreading out a little. If I ever saw a woman make a pass, Mrs. Paul Emerson, Connie to her friends and enemies, was making one at Louis Rony.

First the two men. One of them was just a super, a guy some older than me named Webster Kane. I had gathered that he was some kind of an economist who had done some kind of a job for Continental Mines Corporation, and he acted like an old friend of the family. He had a big well-shaped head and apparently didn’t own a hairbrush, didn’t care what his clothes looked like, and was not swimming but was drinking. In another ten years he could pass for a senator.

I had welcomed the opportunity for a close-up of the other man because I had often heard Wolfe slice him up and feed him to the cat. At six-thirty P.M. on WPIT, five days a week, Paul Emerson, sponsored by Continental Mines Corporation, interpreted the news. About once a week Wolfe listened to him, but seldom to the end; and when, after jabbing the button on his desk that cut the circuit, Wolfe tried some new expressions and phrases for conveying his opinion of the performance and the performer, no interpreter was needed to clarify it. The basic idea was that Paul Emerson would have been more at home in Hitler’s Germany or Franco’s Spain. So I was glad of a chance to take a slant at him, but it didn’t get me much because he confused me by looking exactly like my chemistry teacher in high school out in Ohio, who had always given me better marks than I had earned. Also it was a safe bet that he had ulcers — I mean Paul Emerson — and he was drinking plain soda with only one piece of ice. In swimming trunks he was really pitiful, and I had taken some pictures of him from the most effective angles to please Wolfe with.

It was Emerson’s wife, Connie, who seemed to be heading for a situation that might possibly have a bearing on our objective as defined by Wolfe. She couldn’t have had more than four or five years to dawdle away until her life began at forty, and was therefore past my deadline, but it was by no means silly of her to assume that it was still okay for her to go swimming in mixed company in broad daylight. She was one of those rare blondes that take a good tan, and had better legs and arms, judged objectively, than either Gwenn or Madeline, and even from the other side of the wide pool the blue of her eyes carried clear and strong. That’s where she was at the moment, across the pool, sitting with Louis Rony, getting her breath after showing him a double knee lock that had finally put him flat, and he was no matchstick. It was a new technique for making a pass at a man, but it had obvious advantages, and anyway she had plenty of other ideas and wasn’t being stingy with them. At lunch she had buttered rolls for him. Now I ask you.

I didn’t get it. If Gwenn was stewing about it she was keeping it well hid, though I had noticed her casting a few quick glances. There was a chance that she was counterattacking by pretending she would rather help me take pictures than eat, and that she loved to watch me dive, but who was I to suspect a fine freckled girl of pretending? Madeline had made a couple of cracks about Connie’s routine, without any sign that she really cared a damn. As for Paul Emerson, the husband, the sour look on his undistinguished map when his glance took in his wife and her playmate didn’t seem to mean much, since it stayed sour no matter where he was glancing.

Louis Rony was the puzzle, though. The assumption was that he was making an all-out play for Gwenn, either because he was in love with her or because he wanted something that went with her; and if so, why the monkeyshines with the mature and beautifully tanned blonde? Was he merely trying to give Gwenn a nudge? I had of course done a survey on him, including the contrast between his square-jawed rugged phiz and the indications that the race of fat and muscle would be a tie in another couple of years, but I wasn’t ready for a final vote. From my research on him, which hadn’t stopped with Bascom’s reports, I knew all about his record as a sensational defender of pickpockets, racketeers, pluggers, fences, and on down the line, but I was holding back on whether he was a candidate for the throne Abe Hummel had once sat on, or a Commie trying out a new formula for raising a stink, or a lieutenant, maybe even better, in one of Arnold Zeck’s field divisions, or merely a misguided sucker for guys on hot spots.

However, the immediate puzzle about him was more specific. The question for the moment wasn’t what did he expect to accomplish with Connie Emerson, or what kind of fuel did he have in his gas tank, but what was all the fuss about the waterproof wallet, or bag, on the inside of his swimming trunks? I had seen him give it his attention, not ostentatiously, four times altogether; and by now my curiosity had really got acute, for the fourth time, right after the knee-lock episode with Connie, he had gone so far as to pull it out for a look and stuff it back in again. My eyes were still as good as ever, and there was no doubt about what it was.

Naturally, I did not approve of it. At a public beach, or even at a private beach or pool where there is a crowd of strangers and he changes with other males in a common room, a man has a right to guard something valuable by putting it into a waterproof container and keeping it next to his hide, and he may even be a sap if he doesn’t. But Rony, being a house guest like the rest of us, had changed in his own room, which wasn’t far from mine on the second floor. It is not nice to be suspicious of your hosts or fellow guests, and even if you think you ought to be there must have been at least a dozen first-class hiding places in Rony’s room for an object small enough to go in that thing he kept worrying about. It was an insult to everybody, including me. It was true that he kept his worry so inconspicuous that apparently no one else noticed it, but he had no right to take such a risk of hurting our feelings, and I resented it and intended to do something about it.

Madeline’s fingers touched my arm. I finished a sip of my Tom Collins and turned my head.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah what?” she smiled, opening her eyes.

“You touched me.”

“No, did I? Nothing.”

It was evidently meant as a teaser, but I was watching Gwenn poise for a back flip, and anyway there was an interruption. Paul Emerson had wandered over and now growled down at me.

“I forgot to mention it, Goodwin, I don’t want any pictures unless they have my okay — I mean for publication.”

I tilted my head back. “You mean any at all, or just of you?”

“I mean of me. Please don’t forget that.”

“Sure. I don’t blame you.”

When he had made it to the edge of the pool and fallen in, presumably on purpose, Madeline spoke.

“Do you think a comparative stranger like you ought to take swipes at a famous character like him?”

“I certainly do. You shouldn’t be surprised, if you know my repertory so well. What was that crack, anyhow?”

“Oh — when we go in I guess I’ll have to show you something. I should control my tongue better.”

On the other side Rony and Connie Emerson had got their breath back and were making a dash for the pool. Jimmy Sperling, whom I preferred to think of as Junior, called to ask if I could use a refill, and Webster Kane said he would attend to it. Gwenn stopped before me, dripping again, to say that the light would soon be right for the west terrace and we ought to put on some clothes, and didn’t I agree with her?

It was one of the most congenial jobs of detecting I had had in a long while, and there wouldn’t have been a cloud in sight if it hadn’t been for that damn waterproof wallet or bag that Rony was so anxious about. That called for a little work, but it would have to wait.

Chapter 4

Hours later, in my room on the second floor, which had three big windows, two three-quarter beds, and the kind of furniture and rugs I will never own but am perfectly willing to use as a transient without complaining, I got clean and neat for dinner. Then I retrieved my keys from where I had hid them behind a book on a shelf, took my medicine case from the caribou bag, and unlocked it. This was a totally different thing from Rony’s exhibition of bad manners, since I was there on business, and the nature of my business required me to carry various unusual items in what I called my medicine case. All I took from it was a tiny, round, soft light brown object, which I placed tenderly in the little inner coin pocket inside the side pocket of my jacket. I handled it with tweezers because it was so quick to dissolve that even the moisture of my fingers might weaken it. I relocked the medicine case and returned it to the bag.

There was a knock on my door and I said come in. It opened and Madeline entered and advanced, enveloped in a thin white film of folds that started at her breasts and stopped only at her ankles. It made her face smaller and her eyes bigger.

“How do you like my dress, Archie?” she asked.

“Yep. You may not call that formal, but it certainly—” I stopped. I looked at her. “I thought you said you liked the name Andy. No?”

“I like Archie even better.”

“Then I’d better change over. When did Father confide in you?”

“He didn’t.” She opened her eyes. “You think I think I’m sophisticated and just simply impenetrable, don’t you? Maybe I am, but I wasn’t always. Come along, I want to show you something.” She turned and started off.

I followed her out and walked beside her along the wide hall, across a landing, and down another hall into another wing. The room she took me into, through a door that was standing open, was twice as big as mine, which I had thought was plenty big enough, and in addition to the outdoor summer smell that came in the open windows it had the fragrance of enormous vases of roses that were placed around. I would just as soon have taken a moment to glance around at details, but she took me across to a table, opened a bulky leather-bound portfolio as big as an atlas to a page where there was a marker, and pointed.

“See? When I was young and gay!”

I recognized it instantly because I had one like it at home. It was a clipping from the Gazette of September ninth, 1940. I have not had my picture in the paper as often as Churchill or Rocky Graziano, or even Nero Wolfe, but that time it happened that I had been lucky and shot an automatic out of a man’s hand just before he pressed the trigger.

I nodded. “A born hero if I ever saw one.”

She nodded back. “I was seventeen. I had a crush on you for nearly a month.”

“No wonder. Have you been showing this around?”

“I have not! Damn it, you ought to be touched!”

“Hell, I am touched, but not as much as I was an hour ago. I thought you liked my nose or the hair on my chest or something, and here it was only a childhood memory.”

“What if I feel it coming back?”

“Don’t try to sweeten it. Anyway, now I have a problem. Who else might possibly remember this picture — and there have been a couple of others — besides you?”

She considered. “Gwenn might, but I doubt it, and I don’t think anyone else would. If you have a problem, I have a question. What are you here for? Louis Rony?”

It was my turn to consider, and I let her have a poker smile while I was at it.

“That’s it,” she said.

“Or it isn’t. What if it is?”

She came close enough to take hold of my lapels with both hands, and her eyes were certainly big. “Listen, you born hero,” she said earnestly. “No matter what I might feel coming back or what I don’t, you be careful where you head in on anything about my sister. She’s twenty-two. When I was her age I was already pretty well messed up, and she’s still as clean as a rose — my God, I don’t mean a rose, you know what I mean. I agree with my dad about Louis Rony, but it all depends on how it’s done. Maybe the only way not to hurt her too much is to shoot him. I don’t really know what he is to her. I’m just telling you that what matters isn’t Dad or Mother or me or Rony, but it’s my sister, and you’d better believe me.”

It was the combination of circumstances. She was so close, and the smell of roses was so strong, and she was so damned earnest after dallying around with me all afternoon, that it was really automatic. When, after a minute or two, she pushed at me, I let her go, reached for the portfolio and closed it, and took it to a tier of shelves and put it on the lowest one. When I got back to her she looked a little flushed but not too overcome to speak.

“You darned fool,” she said, and had to clear her throat. “Look at my dress now!” She ran her fingers down through the folds. “We’d better go down.”

As I went with her down the wide stairs to the reception hall it occurred to me that I was getting my wires crossed. I seemed to have a fair start on establishing a personal relationship, but not with the right person.

We ate on the west terrace, where the setting sun, coming over the tops of the trees beyond the lawn, was hitting the side of the house just above our heads as we sat down. By that time Mrs. Sperling was the only one who was calling me Mr. Goodwin. She had me at her right, probably to emphasize my importance as the son of a business associate of the Chairman of the Board, and I still didn’t know whether she knew I was in disguise. It was her that Junior resembled, especially the wide mouth, though she had filled in a little. She seemed to have her department fairly under control, and the looks and manners of the help indicated that they had been around quite a while and intended to stay.

After dinner we loafed around the terrace until it was about dark and then went inside, all but Gwenn and Rony, who wandered off across the lawn. Webster Kane and Mrs. Sperling said they wanted to listen to a broadcast, or maybe it was video. I was invited to partake of bridge, but said I had a date with Sperling to discuss photography plans for tomorrow, which was true. He led me to a part of the house I hadn’t seen yet, into a big high-ceilinged room with four thousand books around the walls, a stock ticker, and a desk with five phones on it among other things, gave me a fourth or fifth chance to refuse a cigar, invited me to sit, and asked what I wanted. His tone was not that of a host to a guest, but of a senior executive to one not yet a junior executive by a long shot. I arranged my tone to fit.

“Your daughter Madeline knows who I am. She saw a picture of me once and seems to have a good memory.”

He nodded. “She has. Does it matter?”

“Not if she keeps it to herself, and I think she will, but I thought you ought to know. You can decide whether you had better mention it to her.”

“I don’t think so. I’ll see.” He was frowning, but not at me. “How is it with Rony?”

“Oh, we’re on speaking terms. He’s been pretty busy. The reason I asked to see you is something else. I notice there are keys for the guest-room doors, and I approve of it, but I got careless and dropped mine in the swimming pool, and I haven’t got an assortment with me. When I go to bed I’ll want to lock my door because I’m nervous, so if you have a master key will you kindly lend it to me?”

There was nothing slow about him. He was already smiling before I finished. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think so. There are certain standards — oh, to hell with standards. But he is here as my daughter’s guest, with my permission, and I think I would prefer not to open his door for you. What reason have you—”

“I was speaking of my door, not someone else’s. I resent your insinuation, and I’m going to tell my father, who owns stock in the corporation, and he’ll resent it too. Can I help it if I’m nervous?”

He started to smile, then thought it deserved better than that, and his head went back for a roar of laughter. I waited patiently. When he had done me justice he got up and went to the door of a big wall safe, twirled the knob back and forth, and swung the door open, pulled a drawer out and fingered its contents, and crossed to me with a tagged key in his hand.

“You can also shove your bed against the door,” he suggested.

I took the key. “Yes, sir, thank you, I will,” I told him and departed.

When I returned to the living room, which was about the size of a tennis court, I found that the bridge game had not got started. Gwenn and Rony had rejoined the party. With a radio going, they were dancing in a space by the doors leading to the terrace, and Jimmy Sperling was dancing with Connie Emerson. Madeline was at the piano, concentrating on trying to accompany the radio, and Paul Emerson was standing by, looking down at her flying fingers with his face sourer than ever. At the end of dinner he had taken three kinds of pills, and perhaps had picked the wrong ones. I went and asked Madeline to dance, and it took only a dozen steps to know how good she was. Still more relationship.

A little later Mrs. Sperling came in, and she was soon followed by Sperling and Webster Kane. Before long the dancing stopped, and someone mentioned bed, and it began to look as if there would be no chance to dispose of the little brown capsule I had got from my medicine case. Some of them had patronized the well-furnished bar on wheels which had been placed near a long table back of a couch, but not Rony, and I had about decided that I was out of luck when Webster Kane got enthusiastic about nightcaps and started a selling campaign. I made mine bourbon and water because that was what Rony had shown a preference for during the afternoon, and the prospect brightened when I saw Rony let Jimmy Sperling hand him one. It went as smooth as if I had written the script. Rony took a swallow and then put his glass on the table when Connie Emerson wanted both his hands to show him a rumba step. I took a swallow from mine to make it the same level as his, got the capsule from my pocket and dropped it in, made my way casually to the table, put my glass down by Rony’s in order to have my hands for getting out a cigarette and lighting it, and picked the glass up again, but the wrong one — or I should say the right one. There wasn’t a chance the maneuver had been observed, and it couldn’t have been neater.

But there my luck ended. When Connie let him go Rony went to the table and retrieved his glass, but the damn fool didn’t drink. He just held onto it. After a while I tried to prime him by sauntering over to where he was talking with Gwenn and Connie, joining in, taking healthy swallows from my glass, and even making a comment on the bourbon, but he didn’t lift it for a sip. The damn camel. I wanted to ask Connie to get a knee lock on him so I could pour it down his throat. Two or three of them were saying good night and leaving, and I turned around to be polite. When I turned back again Rony had stepped to the bar to put his glass down, and when he moved away there were no glasses there but empty ones. Had he suddenly gulped it down? He hadn’t. I went to put my glass down, reached across for a pretzel, and lowered my head enough to get a good whiff of the contents of the ice bucket. He had dumped it in there.

I guess I told people good night; anyway I got up to my room. Naturally I was sore at myself for having bungled it, and while I undressed I went back over it carefully. It was a cinch he hadn’t seen me switch the glasses, with his back turned and no mirror he could have caught it in. Neither had Connie, for her view had been blocked by him and she only came up to his chin. I went over it again and decided no one could have seen me, but I was glad Nero Wolfe wasn’t there to explain it to. In any case, I concluded in the middle of a deep yawn, I wouldn’t be using Sperling’s master key. Whatever reason Rony might have had for ditching the drink, he sure had ditched it, which meant he was not only undoped but also alerted... and therefore... therefore something, but what... therefore... the thought was important and it was petering out on me...

I reached for my pajama top but had to stop to yawn, and that made me furious because I had no right to yawn when I had just fumbled on a simple little thing like doping a guy... only I didn’t feel furious at all... I just felt awful damn sleepy...

I remember saying to myself aloud through gritted teeth, “You’re doped you goddam dope and you get that door locked,” but I don’t remember locking it. I know I did, because it was locked in the morning.

Chapter 5

All day Sunday was a nightmare. It rained off and on all day. I dragged myself out of bed at ten o’clock with a head as big as a barrel stuffed with wet feathers, and five hours later it was still the size of a keg and the inside was still swampy. Gwenn was keeping after me to take interiors with flashbulbs, and I had to deliver. Strong black coffee didn’t seem to help, and food was my worst enemy. Sperling thought I had a hangover, and he certainly didn’t smile when I returned the master key and refused to report events if any. Madeline thought there was something funny about it, but the word funny has different meanings at different times. There was one thing, when I got roped in for bridge I seemed to be clairvoyant and there was no stopping me. Jimmy suspected I was a shark but tried to conceal it. About the worst was when Webster Kane decided I was in exactly the right condition to start a course in economics and devoted an hour to the first lesson.

I was certainly in no shape to make any headway in simple fractions, let alone economics or establishing a relationship with a girl like Gwenn. Or Madeline either. Sometime during the afternoon Madeline got me alone and started to open me up for a look at my intentions and plans — or rather, Wolfe’s — regarding her sister, and I did my best to keep from snarling under the strain. She was willing to reciprocate, and I collected a few items about the family and guests without really caring a damn. The only one who was dead set against Rony was Sperling himself. Mrs. Sperling and Jimmy, the brother, had liked him at first, then had switched more or less to Sperling’s viewpoint, and later, about a month ago, had switched again and taken the attitude that it was up to Gwenn. That was when Rony had been allowed to darken the door again. As for the guests, Connie Emerson had apparently decided to solve the problem by getting Rony’s mind off of Gwenn and onto someone else, namely her; Emerson seemed to be neither more nor less sour on Rony than on most of his other fellow creatures; and Webster Kane was judicious. Kane’s attitude, of some importance because of his position as a friend of the family, was that he didn’t care for Rony personally but that a mere suspicion didn’t condemn him. He had had a hot argument with Sperling about it.

Some of the stuff Madeline told me might have been useful in trying to figure who doped Rony’s drink if I had been in any condition to use it, but I wasn’t. I would have made myself scarce long before the day was done but for one thing. I intended to get even, or at least make a stab at it.

As for the doping, I had entered a plea of not guilty, held the trial, and acquitted myself. The possibility that I had taken my own dope was ruled out; I had made that switch clean. And Rony had not seen the switch or been told of it; I was standing pat on that. Therefore Rony’s drink had been doped by someone else, and he had either known it or suspected it. It would have been interesting to know who had done it, but there were too many nominations. Webster Kane had been mixing, helped by Connie and Madeline, and Jimmy had delivered Rony’s drink to him. Not only that, after Rony had put it down on the table I had by no means had my eyes fixed on it while I was making my way across. So while Rony might have a name for the supplier of the dose I had guzzled, to me he was just X.

That, however, was not what had me hanging on. To hell with X, at least for the present. What had me setting my jaw and bidding four spades, or trotting around after Gwenn with two cameras and my pockets bulging with flashbulbs, when I should have been home in bed, was a picture I would never forget: Louis Rony pouring into a bucket the drink I had doped for him, while I stood and gulped the last drop of the drink someone else had doped for him. He would pay for that or I would never look Nero Wolfe in the face again.

Circumstances seemed favorable. I collected the information cautiously and without jostling. Rony had come by train Friday evening and been met at the station by Gwenn, and had to return to town this evening, Sunday; and no one was driving in. Paul and Connie Emerson were house guests at Stony Acres for a week; Webster Kane was there for an indefinite period, preparing some economic something for the corporation; Mom and the girls were there for the summer; and Sperling Senior and Junior would certainly not go to town Sunday evening. But I would, waiting until late to miss the worst of the traffic, and surely Rony would prefer a comfortable roomy car to a crowded train.

I didn’t ask him. Instead, I made the suggestion, casually, to Gwenn. Later I made it pointedly to Madeline, and she agreed to drop a word in if the occasion offered. Then I got into the library alone with Sperling, suggested it to him even more pointedly, asked him which phone I could use for a New York call, and told him the call was not for him to hear. He was a little difficult about it, which I admit he had a right to be, but by that time I could make whole sentences again and I managed to sell him. He left and closed the door behind him, and I got Saul Panzer at his home in Brooklyn and talked to him all of twenty minutes. With my head still soggy, I had to go over it twice to be sure not to leave any gaps.

That was around six o’clock, which meant I had four more hours to suffer, since I had picked ten for the time of departure and was now committed to it, but it wasn’t so bad. A little later the clouds began to sail around and you could tell them apart, and the sun even took a look at us just before it dropped over the edge; and what was more important, I risked a couple of nibbles at a chicken sandwich and before I was through the sandwich was too, and also a piece of cherry pie and a glass of milk. Mrs. Sperling patted me on the back and Madeline said that now she would be able to get some sleep.

It was six minutes past ten when I slid behind the wheel of the convertible, asked Rony if he had remembered his toothbrush, and rolled along the plaza into the curve of the drive.

“What’s this,” he asked, “a forty-eight?”

“No,” I said, “forty-nine.”

He let his head go back to the cushion and shut his eyes.

There were enough openings among the clouds to show some stars but no moon. We wound along the drive, reached the stone pillars, and eased out onto the public road. It was narrow, with an asphalt surface that wouldn’t have been hurt by a little dressing, and for the first mile we had it to ourselves, which suited me fine. Just beyond a sharp turn the shoulder widened at a spot where there was an old shed at the edge of thick woods, and there at the roadside, headed the way we were going, a car was parked. I was going slow on account of the turn, and a woman darted out and blinked a flashlight, and I braked to a stop. As I did so the woman called, “Got a jack, mister?” and a man’s voice came, “My jack’s broke, you got one?”

I twisted in the seat to back off the road onto the grass. Rony muttered at me, “What the hell,” and I muttered back, “Brotherhood of man.” As the man and woman came toward us I got out and told Rony, “Sorry, but I guess you’ll have to move; the jack’s under the seat.” The woman, saying something about what nice people we were, was on his side and opened the door for him, and he climbed out. He went out backwards, facing me, and just as he was clear something slammed against the side of my head and I sank to the ground, but the grass was thick and soft. I stayed down and listened. It was only a few seconds before I heard my name.

“Okay, Archie.”

I got to my feet, reached in the car to turn off the engine and lights, and circled around the hood to the other side, away from the road. Louis Rony was stretched out flat on his back. I didn’t waste time checking on him, knowing that Ruth Brady could give lectures on the scientific use of a persuader, and anyhow she was kneeling at his head with her flashlight.

“Sorry to break into your Sunday evening, Ruth darling.”

“Nuts to you, Archie my pet. Don’t stand talking. I don’t like this, out here in the wilderness.”

“Neither do I. Don’t let him possum.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a blade of grass up his nose.”

“Good. If he wiggles tap him again.” I turned to Saul Panzer, who had his shirt sleeves rolled up. “How are the wife and children?”

“Wonderful.”

“Give ’em my love. You’d better be busy the other side of the car, in case of traffic.”

He moved as instructed and I went to my knees beside Ruth. I expected to find it on him, since it wouldn’t have been sensible for him to take such pains with it when he went swimming and then carelessly pack it in his bag, which had been brought down by one of the help. And I did find it on him. It was not in a waterproof container but in a cellophane envelope, in the innermost compartment of his alligator-skin wallet. I knew that must be it, because nothing else on him was out of the ordinary, and because its nature was such that I knelt there and goggled, with Ruth’s flashlight focused on it.

“The surprise is wasted on me,” she said scornfully. “I’m on. It’s yours and you had to get it back. Comrade!”

“Shut up.” I was a little annoyed. I removed it from the cellophane cover and inspected it some more, but there was nothing tricky about it. It was merely what it was, a membership card in the American Communist party, Number 128–394, and the name on it was William Reynolds. What annoyed me was that it was so darned pat. Our client had insisted that Rony was a Commie, and the minute I do a little personal research on him, here’s his membership card! Of course the name meant nothing. I didn’t like it. It’s an anti-climax to have to tell a client he was dead right in the first place.

“What do they call you, Bill or Willie?” Ruth asked.

“Hold this,” I told her, and gave her the card. I got the key and opened up the car trunk, hauled out the big suitcase, and got the big camera and some bulbs. Saul came to help. Ruth was making comments which we ignored. I took three pictures of that card, once held in Saul’s hand, once propped up on the suitcase, and once leaning against Rony’s ear. Then I slipped it back in the cellophane cover and replaced it in the wallet, and put the wallet where I found it, in Rony’s breast pocket.

One operation remained, but it took less time because I had more experience at taking wax impressions of keys than at photography. The wax was in the medicine case, and the keys, eight of them, were in Rony’s fold. There was no need to label the impressions, since I didn’t know which key was for what anyway. I took all eight, not wanting to skimp.

“He can’t last much longer,” Ruth announced.

“He don’t need to.” I shoved a roll of bills at Saul, who had put the suitcase back in the trunk. “This came out of his wallet. I don’t know how much it is and don’t care, but I don’t want it on me. Buy Ruth a string of pearls or give it to the Red Cross. You’d better get going, huh?”

They lost no time. Saul and I understand each other so well that all he said was, “Phone in?” and I said, “Yeah.” The next minute they were off. As soon as their car was around the next bend I circled to the other side of the convertible, next the road, stretched out on the grass, and started groaning. When nothing happened I quit after a while. Just as my weight was bringing the wet in the ground through the grass and on through my clothes, and I was about to shift, a noise came from Rony’s side and I let out a groan. I got onto my knees, muttered an expressive word or two, groaned again, reached for the handle of the door and pulled myself to my feet, reached inside and turned on the lights, and saw Rony sitting on the grass inspecting his wallet.

“Hell, you’re alive,” I muttered.

He said nothing.

“The bastards,” I muttered.

He said nothing. It took him two more minutes to decide to try to stand up.

I admit that an hour and fifty minutes later, when I drove away from the curb in front of his apartment on Thirty-seventh Street after letting him out, I was totally in the dark about his opinion of me. He hadn’t said more than fifty words all the way, leaving it to me to decide whether we should stop at a State Police barracks to report our misfortune, which I did, knowing that Saul and Ruth were safely out of the county; but I couldn’t expect the guy to be very talkative when he was busy recovering after an expert operation by Ruth Brady. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he had been sitting beside me in silent sympathy with a fellow sufferer or had merely decided that the time for dealing with me would have to come later, after his brain had got back to something like normal.

The clock on the dash said 1:12 as I turned into the garage on Eleventh Avenue. Taking the caribou bag, but leaving the other stuff in the trunk, I didn’t feel too bad as I rounded the corner into Thirty-fifth Street and headed for our stoop. I was a lot better prepared to face Wolfe than I had been all day, and my head was now clear and comfortable. The weekend hadn’t been a washout after all, except that I was coming home hungry, and as I mounted the stoop I was looking forward to a session in the kitchen, knowing what to expect in the refrigerator kept stocked by Wolfe and Fritz Brenner.

I inserted the key and turned the knob, but the door would open only two inches. That surprised me, since when I am out and expected home it is not customary for Fritz or Wolfe to put on the chain bolt except on special occasions. I pushed the button, and in a moment the stoop light went on and Fritz’s voice came through the crack.

“That you, Archie?”

That was odd too, since through the one-way glass panel he had a good view of me. But I humored him and told him it really was me, and he let me in. After I crossed the threshold he shut the door and replaced the bolt, and then I had a third surprise. It was past Wolfe’s bedtime, but there he was in the door to the office, glowering at me.

I told him good evening. “Quite a reception I get,” I added. “Why the barricade? Someone been trying to swipe an orchid?” I turned to Fritz. “I’m so damned hungry I could even eat your cooking.” I started for the kitchen, but Wolfe’s voice stopped me.

“Come in here,” he commanded. “Fritz, will you bring in a tray?”

Another oddity. I followed him into the office. As I was soon to learn, he had news that he would have waited up all night to tell me, but something I had said had pushed it aside for the moment. No concern at all, not even life or death, could be permitted to shove itself ahead of food. As he lowered himself into the chair behind his desk he demanded, “Why are you so hungry? Doesn’t Mr. Sperling feed his guests?”

“Sure.” I sat. “There’s nothing wrong with the grub, but they put something in the drinks that takes your appetite. It’s a long story. Want to hear it tonight?”

“No.” He looked at the clock. “But I must. Go ahead.”

I obliged. I was still getting the characters introduced when Fritz came with the tray, and I bit into a sturgeon sandwich and went on. I could tell from Wolfe’s expression that for some reason anything and everything would be welcome, and I let him have it all. By the time I finished it was after two o’clock, the tray had been cleaned up except for a little milk in the pitcher, and Wolfe knew all that I knew, leaving out a few little personal details.

I emptied the pitcher into the glass. “So I guess Sperling’s hunch was good and he really is a Commie. With a picture of the card and the assortment I got of Rony, I should think you could get that lined up by that character who has appeared as Mr. Jones on our expense list now and then. He may not actually be Uncle Joe’s nephew, but he seems to be at least a deputy in the Union Square Politburo. Can’t you get him to research it?”

Fritz had brought another tray, with beer, and Wolfe poured the last of the second bottle.

“I could, yes.” He drank and put the glass down. “But it would be a waste of Mr. Sperling’s money. Even if that is Mr. Rony’s card and he is a party member, as he well may be, I suspect that it is merely a masquerade.” He wiped his lips. “I have no complaint of your performance, Archie, which was in character, and I should know your character; and I can’t say you transgressed your instructions, since you had a free hand, but you might have phoned before assuming the risks of banditry.”

“Really.” I was sarcastic. “Excuse me, but since when have you invited constant contact on a little job like tripping up a would-be bridegroom?”

“I haven’t. But you were aware that another factor had entered, or at least been admitted as conjecture. It is no longer conjecture. You didn’t phone me, but someone else did. A man — a voice you are acquainted with. So am I.”

“You mean Arnold Zeck?”

“No name was pronounced. But it was that voice. As you know, it is unmistakable.”

“What did he have to say?”

“Neither was Mr. Rony’s name pronounced, nor Mr. Sperling’s. But he left no room for dubiety. In effect I was told to cease forthwith any inquiry into the activities or interests of Mr. Rony or suffer penalties.”

“What did you have to say?”

“I — demurred.” Wolfe tried to pour beer, found the bottle was empty, and set it down. “His tone was more peremptory than it was the last time I heard it, and I didn’t fully conceal my resentment. I stated my position in fairly strong terms. He ended with an ultimatum. He gave me twenty-four hours to recall you from your weekend.”

“He knew I was up there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be damned.” I let out a whistle. “This Rony boy is really something. A party member and one of Mr. Z.’s little helpers — which isn’t such a surprising combination, at that. And not only have I laid hands on him, but Saul and Ruth have too. Goddam it! I’ll have to — when did this phone call come?”

“Yesterday afternoon—” Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Saturday, at ten minutes past six.”

“Then his ultimatum expired eight hours ago and we’re still breathing. Even so, it wouldn’t have hurt to get time out for changing our signals. Why didn’t you phone me and I could—”

“Shut up!”

I lifted the brows. “Why?”

“Because even if we are poltroons cowering in a corner, we might have the grace not to talk like it! I reproach you for not phoning. You reproach me for not phoning. It is only common prudence to keep the door bolted, but there is no possible—”

That may not have been his last syllable, but if he got one more in I didn’t hear it. I have heard a lot of different noises here and there, and possibly one or two as loud as the one that interrupted Wolfe and made me jump out of my chair halfway across the room, but nothing much like it. To reproduce it you could take a hundred cops, scatter them along the block you live in, and have them start unanimously shooting windows with forty-fives.

Then complete silence.

Wolfe said something.

I grabbed a gun from a drawer, ran to the hall, flipped the switch for the stoop light, removed the chain bolt, opened the door, and stepped out. Across the street to the left two windows went up, and voices came and heads poked out, but the street was deserted. Then I saw that I wasn’t standing on the stone of the stoop but on a piece of glass, and if I didn’t like that piece there were plenty of others. They were all over the stoop, the steps, the areaway, and the sidewalk. I looked straight up, and another piece came flying down, missed me by a good inch, and crashed and tinkled at my feet. I backed across the sill, shut the door, and turned to face Wolfe, who was standing in the hall looking bewildered.

“He took it out on the orchids,” I stated. “You stay here. I’ll go up and look.”

As I went up the stairs three at a time I heard the sound of the elevator. He must have moved fast. Fritz was behind me but couldn’t keep up. The top landing, which was walled with concrete tile and plastered, was intact. I flipped the light switch and opened the door to the first plant room, the warm room, but I stopped after one step in because there was no light. I stood for five seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and by then Wolfe and Fritz were behind me.

“Let me get by,” Wolfe growled like a dog ready to spring.

“No.” I pushed back against him. “You’ll scalp yourself or cut your throat. Wait here till I get a light.”

He bellowed past my shoulder. “Theodore! Theodore!”

A voice came from the dim starlit ruins. “Yes, sir! What happened?”

“Are you all right?”

“No, sir! What—”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, but what happened?”

I saw movement in the direction of the corner where Theodore’s room was, and a sound came of glass falling and breaking.

“You got a light?” I called.

“No, the doggone lights are all—”

“Then stay still, damn it, while I get a light.”

“Stand still!” Wolfe roared.

I beat it down to the office. By the time I got back up again there were noises from windows across the street, and also from down below. We ignored them. The sight disclosed by the flashlights was enough to make us ignore anything. Of a thousand panes of glass and ten thousand orchid plants some were in fact still whole, as we learned later, but it certainly didn’t look like it that first survey. Even with the lights, moving around through that jungle of jagged glass hanging down and protruding from plants and benches and underfoot wasn’t really fun, but Wolfe had to see and so did Theodore, who was okay physically but got so damn mad I thought he was going to choke.

Finally Wolfe got to where a dozen Odontoglossum harryanum, his current pride and joy, were kept. He moved the light back and forth over the gashed and fallen stems and leaves and clusters, with fragments of glass everywhere, turned, and said quietly, “We might as well go downstairs.”

“The sun will be up in two hours,” Theodore said through his teeth.

“I know. We need men.”

When we got to the office we phoned Lewis Hewitt and G. M. Hoag for help before we called the police. Anyway, by that time a prowl car had come.

Chapter 6

Six hours later I pushed my chair back from the dining table, stretched all the way, and allowed myself a good thorough yawn without any apology, feeling that I had earned it. Ordinarily I have my breakfast in the kitchen with Fritz, and Wolfe has his in his room, but that day wasn’t exactly ordinary.

A gang of fourteen men, not counting Theodore, was up on the roof cleaning up and salvaging, and an army of glaziers was due at noon. Andy Krasicki had come in from Long Island and was in charge. The street was roped off because of the danger from falling glass. The cops were still nosing around out in front and across the street, and presumably in other quarters too, but none was left in our house except Captain Murdoch, who, with Wolfe, was seated at the table I was just leaving, eating griddlecakes and honey.

They knew all about it, back to a certain point. The people who lived in the house directly across the street were away for the summer. On its roof they had found a hundred and ninety-two shells from an SM and a tommy gun, and they still had scientists up there collecting clues to support the theory that that was where the assault had come from, in case the lawyer for the defense should claim that the shells had been dropped by pigeons. Not that there was yet any call for a lawyer for the defense, since there were no defendants. So far there was no word as to how they had got to the roof of the unoccupied house. All they knew was that persons unknown had somehow got to that roof and from it, at 2:24 A.M., had shot hell out of our plant rooms, and had made a getaway through a passage into Thirty-sixth Street, and I could have told them that much without ever leaving our premises.

I admit we weren’t much help. Wolfe didn’t even mention the name of Sperling or Rony, let alone anything beginning with Z. He refused to offer a specific guess at the identity of the perpetrators, and it wasn’t too hard to get them to accept that as the best to be had, since it was quite probable that there were several inhabitants of the metropolitan area who would love to make holes not only in Wolfe’s plant rooms but in Wolfe himself. Even so, they insisted that some must be more likely to own tommy guns and more willing to use them in such a direct manner, but Wolfe said that was irrelevant because the gunners had almost certainly been hired on a piece-work basis.

I left the breakfast table as soon as I was through because there were a lot of phone calls to make — to slat manufacturers, hardware stores, painters, supply houses, and others. I was at it when Captain Murdoch left and Wolfe took the elevator to the roof, and still at it when Wolfe came down again, trudged into the office, got himself lowered into his chair, leaned back, and heaved a deep sigh.

I glanced at him. “You’d better go up and take a nap. And I’ll tell you something. I can be just as stubborn as you can, and courage and valor and spunk are very fine things and I’m all for them, but I’m also a fairly good bookkeeper. If this keeps up, as I suppose it will, the balance sheet will be a lulu. I have met Gwenn socially and therefore might be expected to grit my teeth and stick; but you haven’t, and all you need to do is return his retainer. What I want to say is that if you do I promise never to ride you about it. Never. Want me to get the Bible?”

“No.” His eyes were half closed. “Is everything arranged for the repairs and replacements?”

“As well as it can be now.”

“Then call that place and speak to the elder daughter.”

I was startled. “Why her? What reason have you—”

“Pfui. You thought you concealed the direction your interest took — your personal interest — but you didn’t. I know you too well. Call her and learn if all the family is there — all except the son, who probably doesn’t matter. If they are, tell her we’ll be there in two hours and want to see them.”

“We?”

“Yes. You and I.”

I got at the phone. He was not really smashing a precedent. It was true that he had an unbreakable rule not to stir from his office to see anyone on business, but what had happened that night had taken this out of the category of business and listed it under struggle for survival.

One of the help answered, and I gave my name and asked for Miss Madeline Sperling. Her husband’s name had been Pendleton, but she had tossed it in the discard. My idea was to keep to essentials, but she had to make it a conversation. Rony had called Gwenn only half an hour ago and told her about the holdup, and of course Madeline wanted it all over again from me. I had to oblige. She thought she was worried about my head, and I had to assure her there were no bad cracks in it from the bandit’s blow. When I finally got her onto the subject at hand, though, and she knew from the way I put it that this was strictly business and deserved attention, she snapped nicely into it and made it straight and simple. I hung up and turned to Wolfe.

“All set. They’re there, and she’ll see that they stay until we come. We’re invited for lunch.”