Fer-de-Lance

MANUEL KIMBALL
CHAPTER 15

I stood up. Wolfe sat a moment silent, his lips pushing out and in, then he said, "Show the gentleman into the front room, Fritz. The hall is so dark I would scarcely recognize his face if I saw him there… Just a moment. Be sure the blinds are up in the front room; and leave the door to the hall open so there will be plenty of air." Fritz went out. Wolfe said, his voice a little quieter even than usual, "Thank you, Miss Fiore. You have been very patient and have kept within your rights. Would you mind if Mr. Archie does not take you home? He has work to do. Mr. Fritz is an excellent driver. Archie, will you take Miss Fiore to the kitchen and arrange with Fritz? You might then accompany her to the entrance."

I nodded. "I get you. Come on, Anna."

She started, too loud, "Can't Mr. Archie-"

"Don't talk. I'll take you home some other day. Come on."

I got her into the kitchen, and explained to Fritz the pleasure that awaited him. I don't think I had ever really felt sorry for Anna until I saw that Fritz didn't blush when I told him to take her home. That was terrible. But I left the feeling sorry for later; while Fritz was getting off his apron and his coat and hat on, I was figuring how to handle it.

I said, "Look here, Anna, let's have some fun. You said something about getting married, and that made me wonder what kind of a man you'd like to marry. There's a man sitting in the front room now, I'll bet he's just the kind. Very good-looking. As we go out we'll stop and look through the door at him, and then I'll go outside with you and you will tell me if he's the kind. Will you do that?"

Anna said, "I know the kind-"

"All right. Don't talk. I don't want him to hear your voice, so he won't know we're looking at him. Ready, Fritz?"

We went out. Fritz had followed instructions and left the door open between the hall and the front room, and I steered Anna to the left of the hall so she wouldn't be too close to the door. Manuel Kimball was in there, a good view, in an armchair, with one knee hanging over the other. Having heard our steps he was looking in our direction, but it was so dark in the hall he couldn't see much. I had a hand on Anna's elbow and my eyes on her face as she looked in at Kimball. I let her look a couple of seconds and then eased her toward the entrance where Fritz was holding the door open for us. Outside, I closed the door behind me.

"Is that the kind you like, Anna?"

"No. Mr. Archie, if I tell you-"

"Some other day. That's the girl. So long… It won't matter if lunch is late, Fritz, I've an idea we may be late too, and there'll be no guest."

I ducked back in, and went past the open front room door to the office. Wolfe hadn't moved. I said, "She never saw him before. Or if she did, she could give Lynn Fontanne a furlong start and lope in ahead of her." He inclined his head. I asked, "Shall I bring him in?" He inclined his head again.

I went directly through to the front room, by the connecting door. Manuel Kimball got up from his chair and faced around and bowed. I said, "Sorry to keep your waiting. We had a young lady client who thinks we can bring back her husband just by whistling to him, and it's not that easy. Come this way."

Wolfe didn't feel formal enough to get up, but he kept his hands laced on his belly. As I led Manuel toward him he said, "How do you do, Mr. Kimball. You will forgive me for not rising; I am not rude, merely unwieldy. Be seated."

I couldn't see any signs that Manuel Kimball was suffering with agitation, but he did look concentrated. His black eyes seemed smaller than when I had seen him before, and concerned with something too important to permit of darting around everywhere to see what they could see. He was wiry and neat in a lightweight, finely tailored suit, with a yellow bow tie and yellow gloves in his pocket. He wasn't bothering with me. After he got into the chair which was still warm from Anna Fiore, his eyes went to Wolfe and stayed there.

Wolfe asked, "Will you have some beer?"

He nodded his head. "Thank you."

I took the hint. In the kitchen I got a couple of bottles from the ice-box and a glass from the shelf and fixed up a tray. I made it snappy because I didn't want to miss anything. I went back with the tray and put it on Wolfe's desk, and then sat down at my desk and pulled some papers out of a drawer and got things fixed up. Manuel Kimball was talking.

"… told me of his visit to your office yesterday. My father and I are on a completely confidential basis. He told me everything you said to him. Why did you say what you did?"

"Well." Wolfe pulled out his drawer to get the opener, removed the cap from a bottle and dropped it into the drawer, and filled a glass. He watched the foam a moment, then turned back to Manuel. "In the first place, Mr. Kimball, you say that your father repeated everything to you that I told him. You can hardly know that. So let us be properly selective. Your tone is minatory. What specifically do you wish to berate me for? What did I say to your father that you would rather I had left unsaid?"

Manuel smiled, and got colder. "Don't try to twist my words, Mr. Wolfe. I am not expressing my preferences, I am asking you to account for statements that seem to me unwarranted. I have that right, as the son of a man who is getting old. I have never before seen my father frightened, but you have frightened him. You told him that Barstow was killed as a result of borrowing my father's golf driver."

"I did, indeed."

"You admit it. I trust that your man there taking this down will include your confession. What you told my father is criminal nonsense. I have never believed the tale of the poisoned needle as regarded Barstow; I believe it less now. What right have you to invent such absurdities and distress, first the whole Barstow family, now my father, with them? Probably it is actionable, my lawyer will know about that. Certainly it is unjustifiable and it must be stopped."

"I don't know." Wolfe appeared to be considering; as for me, I was handing it to Manuel for being cute enough to get what I was doing in the first five minutes; not many had done that. Wolfe downed a glass of beer and wiped his lips. "I really don't know. If it is actionable at all, I suppose it could only be through a complaint of libel from the murdered. I don't suppose you had that in mind?"

"I have only one thing in mind." Manuel's eyes were even smaller. "That it has got to stop."

"But, Mr. Kimball," Wolfe protested. "Give me a chance. You accused me of inventing absurdities. I have invented nothing. The invention, and a most remarkable and original one, even brilliant--and I am careful of words--was another's; only the discovery was mine. If the inventor were to say to me what you have said, I would put him down for a commendably modest man. No, sir, I did not invent that golf driver."

"And no one else did. Where is it?"

"Alas." Wolfe turned a hand palm up. "I have yet to see it."

"What proof is there that it ever existed?"

"The needle that it propelled into Barstow's belly."

"Bah. Why from a golf driver? Why on the first tee?"

"The wasp came from nowhere, and synchronized."

"No good, Mr. Wolfe." Manuel's intent little black eyes were scornful. "It's what I said, criminal nonsense. If you have no better proof than that, I repeat, I have a right to demand that you retract. I do so. I have this morning called on Mr. Anderson, the District Attorney at White Plains. He agrees with me. I demand that you see my father and retract and apologize; likewise the Barstows if you have told them. I have reason to suspect that you have."

Wolfe shook his head slowly from side to side. After a moment he said regretfully, "It's too bad, Mr. Kimball."

"It is. But you caught the crow, now you can eat it."

"No. You misunderstand me. I mean it's too bad that you are dealing with me. I am perhaps the only man on this hemisphere whom your courage and wit cannot defeat, and by incredibly bad luck you find yourself confronted by me. I am sorry; but just as you have assumed a task suitable for your abilities, I have found one congenial for mine. You will forgive me for wheeling onto your flank, since you have made it impossible for me to meet you frontally. I hardly suppose that you expected your direct attack to gain its feigned objective; you could hardly have had so poor an opinion of me as that. Your true objective must have been concealed, and probably it was the discovery of the nature and extent of the evidence I have so far acquired. But surely you know that, for how else could I have foretold the result of the autopsy?--I beg you, let me finish. Yes, I know when and where and by whom the golf driver was made, I know where the man who made it is now, and I know what results to expect from the advertisement which I inserted in this morning's newspapers and which you have perhaps seen."

Not a muscle on Manuel's face had stirred, and no change was perceptible in his tone. His eyes kept straight on Wolfe as he said, "If you know all that--I doubt if you do--is that not information for the District Attorney?"

"Yes. Do you want me to give it to him?"

"I? I want? Of course, if you have it."

"Good." Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. "I'll tell you what you do, Mr. Kimball. Do me a favor. On your way home this afternoon stop at Mr. Anderson's office; tell him what information I have and suggest that he send for it. Now--I am sorry--it is past my lunch hour. May I offer you a compliment? If almost anyone else I have known were in your position I would try to detain him longer on the chance of learning something. With you, I feel that eating my lunch will be more profitable."

Manuel was on his feet. "I should tell you, I am going from here to my lawyer. You will hear from him."

Wolfe nodded. "Certainly your best move. Obvious, but still the best. Your father would wonder if you did not."

Manuel Kimball turned and went. I got up and started after him for the courtesy of the house, but he was out of the front door before I made it.

I went back to Wolfe. He was leaning back with his eyes closed. I asked loud enough to wake him up, "Did that guy come here to find out if he'd have to go ahead and kill his father during the weekend?"

He sighed. His eyes opened and he shook his head. "Lunch, Archie."

"It won't be ready for ten minutes. Fritz only got back at one."

"The anchovies and celery will divert us."

So we went to the dining-room.

Right there, at that point, the Barstow-Kimball case went dead. At least Wolfe went dead, and that was the case as far as I was concerned. It wasn't a relapse, he just closed up. While plenty went into him during lunch, of course nothing came out; and when the meal was finished he went to the office and sat. I sat at my desk and caught up with a few things, but there wasn't much to do, and I kept glancing at Wolfe wondering when he would open up. Although his eyes were closed he must have felt my glances, for all of a sudden he looked at me and said: "Confound it, Archie, cannot paper be made not to rattle?"

I got up. "All right, I'll beat it. But damn it, where? Have you lost your tongue?"

"Anywhere. Go for a walk."

"And return?"

"Any time. It doesn't matter. Dinner."

"Are you waiting for Manuel to bump off his old man?"

"Go, Archie."

It seemed to me that he was rubbing it in, since it was already three-thirty and in another half hour he would himself have left to go up to the plant-rooms. But seeing the mood he was in, I got my hat from the hall and went out.

I went to a movie to think, and the more I thought the more uncomfortable I got. Manuel Kimball's visit and his challenge, for that was what it amounted to, darned near succeeded as far as I was concerned. I had been aware that we weren't quite ready to tell Mrs. Barstow what address to mail the check to, but I hadn't fully realized how awfully empty our bag was. We had found out some things to our own satisfaction, but we had no more proof that there had been a murder than we had had when we started. Let alone who had done it. But that wasn't all; the worst was that there was no place to go from there. Granted that it was Manuel Kimball, how could we tie him up? Find the golf driver. Fat chance. I could see him in his plane flying low over the river or a reservoir, dropping the club out with a chunk of lead wired to the shaft. Trace the poison to him. About the same chance. He had been planning this for years maybe, certainly months; he may even have had the poison with him when he came up with his father from the Argentine; anyway, he could have got it from there at any time--and try and find out. Get him to talk on the telephone with Mrs. Ricci and have her recognize his voice. Sure, that was it; any jury would convict on that without leaving the courtroom.

I sat in a movie three hours without seeing anything that happened on the screen, and all I got was a headache.

I never did know what Wolfe was up to that Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Was he just bumping his head against the wall, as I was? Maybe; he wasn't very sociable. Or was he possibly waiting for Manuel to make a move? But the only move Manuel could have made would have been to kill his father, and then where would we have been? Anderson would have left us out in the cold, and while neither Wolfe nor I would have worn any back for E.D. Kimball we certainly would have done so for the fifty grand. As far as E.D. Kimball was concerned, I figured that by rights he had been killed on June fourth anyway and he might be grateful for two weeks of grace. But Wolfe wasn't waiting for that; I was sure he didn't expect it from what he said about Manuel Sunday afternoon. It was then that he opened up and talked a little, but not to much point. He was being philosophic.

It was raining; it rained all that Sunday. I wrote some letters and went through two Sunday papers and spent a couple of hours on the roof chinning with Horstmann and looking over the plants, but no matter what I did I was in a bad humor. The damn rain never let up once. Not that it would have bothered me if I had had anything to do; I don't notice rain or shine if I'm out in it busy; but monkeying around that dry dark quiet house all day long with that constant patter outside and never a let up didn't help my disposition a bit. I was thankful when something happened around five-thirty that I could get good and sore about.

I was in the office yawning over a magazine when the telephone rang. It took me a few seconds to unwind myself out of the armchair I was in and get across to my desk, and when I got the receiver to my ear I was surprised to hear Wolfe's voice. He was answering from the plant-room phone. He always took calls in the plant-room when I was out, but usually when he knew I was in the house he left them to me. But it was his voice: "This is Wolfe."

Another voice: "This is Durkin, Mr. Wolfe. Everything is okay. She went to church this morning, and a while ago she came out and went to a candy store and bought an ice-cream cone. She's back in now, I expect for the night."

"Thank you, Fred. You'd better stay there until ten o'clock. Saul will be there in the morning at seven, and you resume at two."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"That's all."

I banged the receiver onto the hook, thinking there was a chance it might crack Wolfe's eardrum.

When he came into the office half an hour afterward I didn't look up, and I was careful to be buried in my magazine enough to make sure it wasn't upside down. I held onto that pose another half hour, turning a page when I thought of it. I was boiling.

Wolfe's voice, finally: "It's raining, Archie."

I didn't look up. "Go to hell. I'm reading."

"Oh no. Surely not, in those fitful gusts. I wish to inquire, would it be a good plan in the morning for you to collect the replies to our advertisement and follow their suggestions?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. The excitement would be too much for me."

Wolfe's cheeks folded up. "I begin to believe, Archie, that a persistent rain distresses you even more acutely than it does me. You are not merely imitating me?"

"No, sir. It's not the rain, you know damn well it isn't." I dropped the magazine on the floor and glared at him. "If the very best way you can think of to catch the cleverest murderer that ever gave me a highball is to start a game of tiddlywinks in Sullivan Street, you might at least have told me so I could remember Durkin in my prayers. Praying is all I'm good for maybe. What's Durkin trying to do, catch Anna hocking the golf stick?"

Wolfe wiggled a finger at me. "Compose yourself, Archie. Why taunt me? Why upbraid me? I am merely a genius, not a god. A genius may discover the hidden secrets and display them; only a god could create new ones. I apologize to you for failing to tell you of Durkin; my mind was occupied; I telephoned him yesterday after you went for a walk. He is not trying to catch Miss Fiore but to protect her. In the house she is probably safe; outside probably not. I do not think Manuel Kimball will proceed to devise means of completing his enterprise until he is satisfied that there is no danger of his being called to account for his first attempt, which failed through no fault of his. It was perfectly conceived and perfectly executed. As for us, I see no possibility but Miss Fiore; clever is too weak a word for Manuel Kimball; he has his own genius. I would not ask for a better means of defeating a rainy Sunday than contemplation of the beauty of his arrangements. He has left us nothing but Miss Fiore, and Durkin's function is to preserve her."

"Preserve is good. Since she might as well be sealed up in a can."

"I think the can may be opened. We shall try. But that must wait until we are completely satisfied as to June fifth. By the way, is Maria Maffei's telephone number in the book?--Good. Of course, we do not know what Miss Fiore is guarding so jealously. If it turns out to be trivial and insufficient, then we must abandon the skirmish and plan a siege. No man can commit so complicated a deed as a murder and leave no vulnerable points; the best he can do is render them inaccessible save to a patience longer than his own and an ingenuity more inspired. In Manuel Kimball's case those specifications are--well, considerable. If in fact Miss Fiore is guarding the jewel that we seek, I earnestly hope that he is not aware of it; if he is, she is as good as dead."

"With Durkin protecting her?"

"We cannot protect from lightning, we can only observe it strike. I have explained that to Fred. If Manuel Kimball kills that girl we shall have him. But I think he will not. Remember the circumstances under which he sent her the hundred dollars. At that time he could not have supposed that she knew anything that could connect him with Barstow, or he would not have made so inadequate a gesture. He knew only her first name. Probably Carlo Maffei had mentioned it, and had said enough of her character and of some small discovery she had made to suggest to Manuel Kimball, after he had killed Maffei, to risk a hundred dollars on the chance of additional safety without the possibility of added danger. If that surmise is correct, and if Miss Fiore knows nothing beyond what Kimball was aware that she knew, we are in for a siege. Saul Panzer will go to South America; I warned him yesterday on the telephone to be in readiness. Your program, already in my mind, will be elaborate and tiresome. It would be a pity, but we would have no just grievance against Manuel Kimball. It was only by his ill-fortune, and my unwarranted pertinacity in asking Miss Fiore a trivial question a second time, that the first piece of his puzzle was discovered."

Wolfe stopped. I got up and stretched. "All I have to say is, he's a dirty spiggoty."

"No, Archie. Mr. Manuel Kimball is an Argentinian."

"Spiggoty to me. I want a glass of milk. Can I bring you some beer?"

He said no, and I went to the kitchen.

I felt better. There were times when Wolfe's awful self-assurance gave me a touch of a dash of a suggestion of a pain in the neck, but there were other times when it was as good as a flock of pure and beautiful maidens smoothing my brow. This was one of the latter. After I had finished with a sufficient quantity of milk and cookies I went out to a movie and didn't miss a scene. When I went home it was still raining.

But Monday morning was beautiful. I got out early. Even in New York the washed air was so fresh and sweet in the sunlight that it somehow dissolved all the motor exhausts and the other million smells sneaking out of windows and doors and alleys and elevator lids, and made it a pleasure to breathe. I stepped on it. By half past eight I was out of Bronx Park and turning into the Parkway.

I had collected more than twenty answers to the ad and had gone through them. About half of them were phony; chiselers trying to horn in or poor fish trying to be funny. Some others were honest enough but off of my beat; apparently June fifth had been a good day for landing in pastures with airplanes. Three of them not only looked good but fitted together; it seemed that they had all seen the same plane land in a meadow somewhere a couple of miles east of Hawthorne. That was too good to be true.

But it wasn't. A mile out of Hawthorne, following the directions in the letter, I left the highway and turned into an uphill dirt road with the ruts left washed out and stony by the rain. After a while the road got so narrow and doubtful that it looked as if it might play out any minute, and I stopped at a house and asked where the Carters lived. On up. I went on.

The Carter residence, on top of the hill, was about ready to fall down. It hadn't been painted since the war, and the grass was weeds. But the dog that got up to meet me was friendly and happy, and the wash on the line looked clean in the sunshine. I found Mrs. Carter around back, getting the rest of the wash through. She was skinny and active, with a tooth gone in front.

"Mrs. T.A. Carter?"

"Yes, sir."

"I've come to see you about your reply to an ad I put in Saturday's paper. About my landing with my airplane. Your letter is quite complete. You saw me land?"

She nodded. "I sure did. I didn't see the ad though, Minnie Vawter saw it and I had told her about the airplane and she remembered it and brought the ad up Saturday afternoon. It was lucky I had told her about it. Sure I saw you land."

"I wouldn't have supposed you could see me from here."

"Sure, look. This is a pretty high hill." She led me across the yard and through a clump of sumacs. "See that view? My husband says that view's worth a million dollars. See the reservoir, like a lake?" She pointed. "That field down there's where you landed. I wondered what was up, I thought you'd broke something. I've seen plenty of airplanes in the air, but I never saw one land before."

I nodded. "That's it all right. Thanks to the completeness of your letter, there's not much I need to ask you. You saw me land at ten minutes past six, and saw me get out and walk south across the meadow, toward the road. You came into the house then to look at the dinner on the stove, and saw me no more. At twilight my plane was still there; you went to bed at half past nine, and in the morning it was gone."

"That's right. I thought it would be better to put it all in the letter, because-"

"Correct. I imagine you are usually correct, Mrs. Carter. Your description of my plane is better than I could do myself. And from such a distance; you have good eyes. By the way, could you tell me who lives in that house down there, the white one?"

"Sure. Miss Wellman. She's an artist from New York. It was Art Barrett, the man that works for her that drove you to Hawthorne."

"Oh. Of course. Yes, that's the place. I'm much obliged to you, Mrs. Carter, you're going to help me win my bet. It was a question of how many people saw me."

I decided to give her a five-spot. The Lord knows she needed it, judging from appearances; and she had sewed Manuel Kimball up tighter than a bag of bran.

I don't know how sure Wolfe had been of Manuel up to that point, but I do know that he postponed the works for Anna Fiore until after June fifth was settled. I hadn't been sure at all. I never did like my feelings as well as Wolfe liked his; they often got me talking big, but they always left me uneasy until I got satisfactory facts to tuck them in with. So I figured that Mrs. Carter's handout was cheap at five bucks. Manuel Kimball was settled with us. To get enough to settle him with a jury was another matter, but as far as we were concerned he was all set. Mrs. Carter got her hand all around the five dollar bill and started toward the house, remarking that the wash wouldn't finish itself.

I stood a minute looking down at the meadow far below. That was where Manuel Kimball had landed and left his plane; across that field he had walked to the white house and asked a man there to drive him to Hawthorne; at Hawthorne, which was only a few miles from his home, he had either had his own car waiting or had rented one at a garage; he had driven to New York, stopping probably at White Plains to telephone Carlo Maffei and arrange a meeting. He was already screwed up, and alarmed, because Maffei had abandoned the trip to Europe; and when he met him that evening at seven-thirty and Maffei produced the clipping he had cut from the Times that morning and began to talk about how hard it was to keep his mouth shut about golf drivers, that was plenty for Manuel. With Maffei in the car with him, he drove to some secluded nook and found an opportunity to sink a knife five inches into Carlo's back at the point where the heart was waiting for it. Leaving the knife there to hold the blood in, he drove around the countryside until he found the sort of spot he needed, dragged Maffei's body out of the car and carried it into a thicket, returned to the car and drove to Hawthorne, where he got a taxi to take him back to the white house that was there in the valley below me. If he needed help taking off in the plane, Art Barrett and the taxi driver were both handy. Around ten o'clock he landed on his own private lighted field, and told Skinner that it was really more fun flying at night than in the daytime.

There was nothing wrong with that, except possibly one thing: it was giving Carlo Maffei credit for a lot of activity between his ears to suppose that reading that piece about Barstow's death was enough to put him wise. But I laid that away; there was no knowing what might have happened before to make Maffei suspicious, and the mere oddity of the outlandish contraption he had been paid so well to construct had certainly made him wonder.

I decided not to tackle Art Barrett. I couldn't very well present myself as the aviator as I had with Mrs. Carter, since he had driven Manuel to Hawthorne, and there was nothing he could tell me that would be worth the trouble of doping out an approach. For the present I had enough. There would be time for that later, if we needed him for a case. The other two replies to the ad could wait too. I was itching to get back to Thirty-fifth Street, remembering that Wolfe had promised to use a can opener on Anna Fiore if I succeeded in pulling Manuel Kimball down out of the clouds for the evening of June fifth.

I stopped at the clothesline for a good-bye to Mrs. Carter, got the roadster turned around by inching back and forth between the boulders that lined the narrow road, and floated off downhill toward the highway.

I discovered I was singing, and I asked myself, why all the elation? All I had found was the proof that we were on a spoke and not on the rim; we still had to get to the hub, and we were just as far away from that as we had been before. I went on singing anyhow, rolling along the Parkway; and at Fordham Road I stopped and telephoned Wolfe what I had got. He was already down from the plant-rooms, and when I halted at Thirty-sixth Street for a red light Tiffany's whistle was blowing noon.

I left the roadster in front. Wolfe was in the office. He was seated at his desk, and Fritz was bringing in a tray with a glass and two bottles of beer.

Wolfe said, "Good morning, Friend Goodwin."

"What?" I stared. "Oh, I get you." I had left my hat on. I went to the hall and tossed it on a hook and came back. I sat down and grinned. "I wouldn't go sour now even for Emily Post. Didn't I tell you Manuel Kimball was just a dirty spiggoty? Of course it was your ad that did it."

Wolfe didn't look as if he was on my boat; he didn't seem interested. But he nodded and said, "You found the pasture."

"I found everything. A woman that saw him land and know just which parts of his plane are red and which blue, and a man that drove him to Hawthorne--everything we could ask for."

"Well." He wasn't looking at me.

"Well! What are you trying to do, get me sore again? What's the matter-"

The palm of his hand coming up from the chair arm stopped me. "Easy, Archie. Your discovery is worthy of celebration, but you must humor me by postponing it. Your explosive return chanced unfortunately to interrupt an interesting telephone call I was about to make. I was reaching for the book when you entered; possibly you can save me that effort. Do you happen to know the Barstow number?"

"Sure. Something's up, huh? Do you want it?"

"Get it, please, and listen in. Miss Sarah Barstow."

I went to my desk, glanced at the book to make sure of the number, and called. In a moment Small's voice was in my ear. I asked to speak to Miss Barstow, and after a little wait she was on the wire and I nodded to Wolfe. He took off his receiver. I kept mine at my ear.

He said, "Miss Barstow?--This is Nero Wolfe--Good morning. I am taking the liberty of calling to inquire if the orchids reached you safely.--No, orchids.--I beg your pardon?--Oh. It is a mistake apparently. Did you not do me the honor of sending me a note this morning requesting me to send you some orchids?--You sent no note?--No, no, it is quite all right.--A mistake of some sort, I am sorry.--Goodbye."

We hung up. Wolfe leaned back in his chair. I put on a grin.

"You're getting old, sir. In the younger set we don't send the girls orchids until they ask for them."

Wolfe's cheeks stayed put. His lips were pushing out and in, and I watched him. His hand started for the drawer to get the opened for a bottle, but he pulled his hand back again without touching the drawer.

He said, "Archie, you have heard me say that I am an actor. I am afraid I have a weakness for dramatic statement. It would be foolish not to indulge it when a good opportunity is offered. There is death in this room."

I suppose I must have involuntarily glanced around, for he went on, "Not a corpse; I mean not death accomplished but death waiting. Waiting only for me perhaps, or for all of us; I don’t know. It is here. While I was upstairs this morning with the plants Fritz came up with a note--this note."

He reached in his pocket and took out a piece of paper and handed it to me. I read it:

Dear Mr. Wolfe,

Last week, at your house, Mr. Goodwin kindly presented me with two orchids, remarkably beautiful. I am daring to be cheeky enough to ask if you can send me six or eight more of them? They were so lovely. The messenger will wait for them, if you do decide to be generous. I shall be so grateful!

Sarah Barstow I said, "It don’t sound like her."

"Perhaps not. You know her better than I do. I of course remembered the Brassocattlaelias Truffautianas in her hand when she came downstairs with you. Theodore and I cut a dozen and boxed them, and Fritz took them down. When I came to the office at eleven o'clock and sat at my desk there was a smell of a stranger in the air. I am too sensitive to strangers, that is why I keep these layers over my nerves. I knew of course of the stranger who had called, but I was uncomfortable. I sent for Fritz. He told me that the young man who had brought the note and waited for the orchids had had with him a fiber box, an oblong box with a handle. On departing he had taken the box with him; Fritz saw it in his hand as he left the house. But for at least ten minutes the young man was alone in the front room; the door between that room and the office was unlocked; the door from the hail to the office was closed."

Wolfe sighed. "Alas, Miss Barstow did not write the note."

I was on my feet and going toward him, saying, "You get out of here." He shook his head. "Come on, I demanded, "I can jump and you can’t. Damn it, come on, quick! I’m used to playing with bombs. Fritz! Fritz!" Fritz came running. "Fill up the sink with water. To the top. Mr. Wolfe, for God’s sake get out of here, it may go off any second. I’ll find it."

I heard Fritz back in the kitchen starting the water. Wolfe wouldn’t budge, and the Lord knows I couldn’t budge him. He shook his head and wiggled a finger at me.

"Archie, please. Stop that! Don’t touch anything. There is no bomb. They tick or they sizzle, and I have good ears and have listened. Besides, Mr. Kimball has not had time since his call to construct a good one, and he would use no other. It is not a bomb.--I beg you, no trepidation; drama, but not trepidation. I have reflected, and I have felt. Consider: when Mr. Kimball was in this room he saw me make no movement worthy the name but one. He saw me open the drawer of my desk and put my hand in it. If that suggests nothing to you, I am sure it did to him. We shall see.

I jumped at him, for I thought he was going to open the drawer, but he waved me back; he was merely getting ready to leave his chair. He said, "Get my red thorn walking stick.--Confound it, will you do as I say?"

I ran to the hall and got the stick from the stand and ran back. Wolfe was moving around the desk. He came clear around to the side opposite his chair, and reached over for the tray and pulled it across to him, with the glass and bottles still on it.

"Now," he said, "please do it this way.--No, first close the door to the hall." I went and closed the door and returned. "Thank you. Grasp the stick by its other end. Reach across the desk and catch the tip of the handle on the lower edge of the drawer-front. Push, and the drawer will open.--Wait. Open it, if you can, quite slowly; and be ready to free the stick quickly should it occur to you to use it for any other purpose. Proceed."

I proceeded. The tip of the handle’s curve caught nicely under the edge of the drawer, but on account of the angle I had to keep the drawer wouldn’t start. I tried to push so as to open the drawer gradually, but I had to push harder, and suddenly the drawer popped out half a foot and I nearly dropped the stick. I lifted up to get the stick loose, and yelled: "Look out!"

Wolfe had a beer bottle in each hand, by the neck, and he brought one of them crashing onto the desk but missed the thing that had come out of the drawer. It was coming fast and its head was nearly to the edge of the desk where we were while its tail was still in the drawer. I had got the stick loose and was pounding at its head but it kept slashing around and I couldn’t hit it, and the desk was covered with beer and the pieces of the broken bottle. I was ready to jump back and was grabbing Wolfe to pull him back with me when he came down with the second bottle right square on the ugly head and smashed it flat as a piece of tripe. The long brown body writhed all over the desk, but it was done for.

The second bottle had busted too, and we were splattered all over. Wolfe stepped back and pulled out his handkerchief and began to wipe his face. I held on to the stick.

"Nom de Diem!"

It was Fritz, horrified.

Wolfe nodded. "Yes. Fritz, here’s a mess for you. I’m sorry. Get things."