I telephoned the Barstow place from uptown, and when I got there around nine-thirty Sarah Barstow was expecting me. In the four days since I had last seen her she had made some changes in her color scheme; her cheeks would have made good pinching; her shoulders sat straight with all the sag gone. I got up from my seat in the sun-room, a drizzle-room that day, when she came in, and she came over and shook hands. She told me her mother was well again, and this time Dr. Bradford said more likely than not she was well for good. Then she asked if I wanted a glass of milk!

I grinned. "I guess not, thanks. As I told you on the phone, Miss Barstow, this time it’s a business call. Remember, the last time I said it was social? Today, business." I pulled an envelope from my pocket and got out the ten dollar bill and handed it to her. "Nero Wolfe put it this way: what excuse did you have for mutilating United States currency?"

She looked at it puzzled for a second, then smiled, and then a shadow went over her face, the shadow of her dead father. "Where did you ever--where did you get it?"

"Oh, a hoarder turned it in. But how did those names get on there? Did you write yours?"

She nodded. "Yes, we all did. I think I told you-- didn’t I?--That one day last summer Larry and Manuel Kimball played a match of tennis and my father and I acted as umpire and linesman. They had a bet on it, and Larry paid Mr. Kimball with a ten dollar bill and Mr. Kimball wanted us to write our names on it as a souvenir. We were sitting--on the side terrace-"

"And Manuel Kimball took the bill?"

"Of course. He won it."

"And this is it?"

"Certainly, there are our signatures. Mr. Goodwin, I suppose it’s just vulgar curiosity, but where did you ever get it?"

I took the bill and replaced it carefully in the envelope--not Carlo Maffei’s envelope, a patent one with a clip on it so the signatures wouldn’t rub any more than they had already--and put it in my pocket.

"I’m sorry, Miss Barstow. Since it’s just vulgar curiosity you can wait. Not long, I hope. And may I say without offense, you’re looking swell. I was thinking when you came in, I’d like to pinch your cheeks."

"What!" She stared, then she laughed. "That’s a compliment?"

"It sure is. If you know how many cheeks there are I wouldn’t bother to pinch. Good day, Miss Barstow."

We shook hands while she still laughed.

Headed south again through the drizzle, I considered that the ten-dollar bill clinched it. The other three items in Carlo Maffei’s envelope were good evidence, but this was something that no one but Manual Kimball could have had, and it had got to Carlo Maffei. How, I wondered. Well: Manuel Kimball had kept it in his wallet as a souvenir. His payments of money, one or more, to Maffei for making the driver, had been made not in a well-lighted room but in places dark enough to defeat the idle curiosity of observers; and in the darkness the souvenir had been included in a payment. Probably Manuel had later discovered his carelessness and demanded the souvenir back, and Maffei had claimed it had been spent unnoticed. That might have aroused Manuel’s early suspicions of Maffei, and certainly it accounted for Maffei’s recognition of the significance of the death, and its manner, of Peter Oliver Barstow; for that name, and two other Barstow names, had been signed on the ten-dollar bill he was preserving.

Yes, Manuel Kimball would live long enough to be sorry he had won that tennis match.

At White Plains, on a last-minute decision, I slowed down and turned off the Parkway. It looked to me as if it was all over and the only thing left was a brief call at the District Attorney’s office to explain the facts of life to him; and in that case there was no point in my driving through the rain all the way down to Thirty-fifth Street and clear back again. So I found a telephone booth and called Wolfe and told him what I had learned from Sarah Barstow, and asked him what next. He told me to come on home. I mentioned that I was right there in White Plains with plenty of time and inclination to do any errands he might have in r mind. He said, "Come home. Your errand will be here waiting for you."

I got back onto the Parkway.

It was a little after eleven when I arrived. I couldn’t park right in front of the house as usual, because another car was there, a big black limousine. After turning off my engine I sat for a minute staring at the limousine, particularly at the official plate hanging alongside the license plate. I allowed myself the pleasure of a beautiful grin, and I got out and just for fun went to the front of the limousine and spoke to the chauffeur.

"Mr. Anderson is in the house?"

He looked at me a couple of seconds before he could make up his mind to nod. I turned and ran up the steps with the grin still on.

Anderson was with Wolfe in the office. When I went in I pretended not to see him; I went across to Wolfe’s desk and took the envelope out of my pocket and handed it to him. "Okay," I said, "I’ve written the date of the match on the envelope." He nodded and told me to put it in the safe. I opened the heavy door and took my time about finding the drawer where the rest of Anna’s briefcase was stowed away. Then I turned, and let my eyes fall on the visitor and looked surprised.

"Oh," I said, "it’s you! Good morning, Mr. Anderson."

He mumbled back at me.

"If you ever get your notebook, Archie, we shall proceed." Wolfe was using his drawly voice, and when I heard it I knew that one lawyer was in for a lot of irritation. "No, not at your desk, pull a chair around and be one of us… Good. I have just been explaining to Mr. Anderson that the ingenious theory of the Barstow case which he is trying to embrace is an offense to truth and an outrage on justice, and since I cherish the one and am on speaking terms with the other, it is my duty to demonstrate to him its inadequacy. I shall be glad of your support. Mr. Anderson is a little put out at the urgency of my invitation to him to call, but as I was just remarking to him, I think we should be grateful that the telephone permits the arrangement on short notice of these little informal conferences. On reflection, Mr. Anderson, I’m sure you will agree."

Anderson’s neck was swelling. There was never anything very lovely about him, but now he was trying to keep his meanness down because he knew he had to, and it kept choking him trying to come up. His face was red and his neck bulged. He said to Wolfe, "You can tell your man to put his notebook away. You’re a bigger ass than I thought you were, Wolfe, if you imagine you can put over this sort of thing."

"Take it down, Archie." Wolfe’s drawl was swell. "It is irrelevant, being merely an opinion, but get it down.

"Mr. Anderson, I see that you misapprehend the situation; I had not supposed you were so obtuse. I gave you a free choice of alternatives on the telephone, and you chose to come here. Being here, in my house, you will permit me to direct the activity of its inmates; should you become annoyed beyond endurance, you may depart without ceremony or restraint. Should you depart, the procedure will be as I have indicated: within twenty-four hours Mr. Goodwin will drive in my car to your office in White Plains. Behind him, in another car, will be an assortment of newspaper reporters; beside him will be the murderer of Peter Oliver Barstow and Carlo Maffei; in his pocket will be the indubitable proof of the murderer’s guilt. I was minded to proceed-"

Anderson broke in, "Carlo Maffei? Who the devil is that?"

"Was, Mr. Anderson. Not is. Carlo Maffei was an Italian craftsman who was murdered in your county on Monday evening, June fifth--stabbed in the back. Surely the case is in your office."

"What if it is? What has that got to do with Barstow?"

"They were murdered by the same man."