Anna said next to nothing with her tongue, but her eyes kept asking me one question all the time, from the minute I entered the room. When I got up to go I answered it. I patted her on the shoulder and said, "Soon, Anna. I’ll get your money real soon, and bring it right to you. Don’t you worry."

She just nodded and said, "Mr. Archie."

After I got the photostats from the studio I saw no point in leaving the roadster out ready for action if there wasn’t going to be any, so I garaged it and walked home. Until dinner time I was busy checking up the Cortez shipment and writing letters to the shippers about the casualties. Wolfe was pottering around most of the time while I was upstairs with Horstmann, but at six o’clock he left us and Horstmann and I went on checking.

It was after eight o’clock by the time dinner was over. I was getting the fidgets. Seven years with Nero Wolfe had taught me not to bite my nails waiting for the world to come to an end, but there were times when I was convinced that an eccentric was a man who ought to have his nose pulled. That evening he kept the radio going all through dinner. As soon as it was over and he nodded to Fritz to pull his chair back, I got up and said: "I guess I won’t sit in the office and watch you yawn. I’ll try a movie.

Wolfe said, "Good. No man should neglect his cultural side."

"What!" I exploded. "You mean--damn it all, you would let me go and sit in a movie while maybe Manuel Kimball is finishing his packing for a nice little trip to his native land? Then I can go to the Argentine and buy a horse and ride all over the damn pampa, whatever that is, looking for him? Do you think all it takes to catch a murderer is to sit in your damn office and let your genius work? That maybe most of it, but it also takes a pair of eyes and a pair of legs and sometimes a gun or two. And the best thing you can think of is to tell me to go to a movie, while you-"

He showed me the palm of his hand to stop me. Fritz had pulled his chair back and he was up, a mountain on its feet. "Archie," he said. "Spare me. A typical man of violence; the placidity of a hummingbird. I did not suggest the movie, you did. Even were Manuel Kimball a man to tremble at shadows, there has been no shadow to disturb him. Why should Manuel Kimball take a trip, to his native land or anywhere else? There is nothing he is likely to take at this moment, I should say. If it will set your mind at rest, I can tell you that he is at his home, but not packing for a trip. I was speaking to him on the telephone only two hours ago.--Fritz, the buzzer, attend the front door, please.--He will receive another telephone call from me in the morning at eight o’clock, and I assure you he will wait for it."

"I hope he does." I wasn’t satisfied. "I tell you, monkeying around at this stage is dangerous. You’ve done your part, a part no other living man could do, and now it’s simple but it’s damn important. I just go there and wrap myself around him, and stay wrapped until you tell Anderson to go and get him. Why not?"

Wolfe shook his head. "No, Archie. I understand your contention: that a point arrives when finesse must retire and leave the coup de grace for naked force. I understand it, and I deny it vehemently.--But come; guests are arriving; will you stop in the office a moment before you proceed to your entertainment?"

He turned and went to the office, and I followed him, wondering what the devil kind of a charade he was getting up. Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

Fritz had gone to the door, and the guests had been shown into the office ahead of us. I had no definite ideas as to who it might be, but certainly I didn’t expect that bunch. I stared around at them. It was Fred Durkin and Bill Gore and Orrie Cather. My first thought was that Wolfe had got the funny notion that I needed all that army to subdue the fer-de-lance, as I had decided to call Manuel Kimball instead of the spiggoty, but of course Wolfe knew me too well for that. I tossed a nod around to them, and grinned when I saw a gauze bandage on Ornie’s left wrist. Anna Fiore had got under his skin all right.

After Wolfe got into his chair he asked me to get a pencil and a large piece of paper and make a rough map of the Kimball estate. With the guests there I asked no questions; I did as he said. I told him that I was acquainted with the ground only immediately around the house and the landing field, and he said that would do. While I made the map, sitting at my desk, Wolfe was telling Ornie how to get the sedan from the garage at six-thirty in the morning, and instructing the other two to meet him there at that hour.

I took the map to Wolfe at his desk. He looked it over a minute and said, "Good. Now tell me, if you were sending three men to that place to make sure that Manuel Kimball did not leave without being seen, and to follow him if seen, how would you dispose of them?"

I asked, "Under cover?"

"No. Exposed would do."

"How long?"

"Three hours."

I considered a minute. "Easy. Durkin on the highway, across from the entrance to the drive, with the sedan backed into a gate so it could start quick either way. Bill Gore in the bushes--about here--where he could cover all approaches to the house except the back. Orrie on top of a hill back here, about a third of a mile off, with field glasses, and a motorcycle down on the road. But they might as well stay home and play pinochle, since they can’t fly."

Wolfe’s cheeks folded. "Saul Panzer can. The clouds will have eyes. Thank you, Archie. That is all. We will not keep you longer from your entertainment."

I knew from his tone that I was to go, but I didn’t want to. If there had to be a charade I wanted to help make it up. I said, "The movies have all been closed. Raided by the Society for the Suppression of Vice."

Wolfe said, "Then try a harlot’s den. When gathering eggs you must look in every nest."

Bill Gore snickered. I gave Wolfe as dirty a look as I cold manage, and went to the hall for my hat.

CHAPTER 18

I was awake Wedneslay morning before seven o’clock, but I didn’t get up. I watched the sun slanting against the windows, and listened to the noises from the street and the boats and ferries on the river, and figured that since Bill and Fred and Orrie had been instructed to meet at the garage at six-thirty they must already be as far as the Grand Concourse. My part hadn’t been handed to me. When I had got home the night before Wolfe had gone up to bed, and there had been no note for me.

I finally tumbled out and shaved and dressed, taking my time, and went downstairs. Fritz was in the kitchen, buzzing around contented. I passed him some kind of a cutting remark, but realizing that it wasn’t fair to take it out on him I made up for it by eating an extra egg and reading aloud to him a piece from the morning paper about a vampire bat that had had a baby in the zoo. Fritz came from the part of Switzerland where they talk French. He had a paper of his own every morning, but it was in French and it never seemed very likely to me that there was much in it. I was always surprised when I saw a word in it that meant anything up-to-date; for instance, the word Barstow which had been prominent in the headlines for a week.

I was starting the second cup of coffee when the phone rang. I went to the office and got the receiver to my ear, but Wolfe had answered from his room. I listened. It was Orrie Cather reporting that they had arrived and that everything was set. That was all. I went back to my coffee in the kitchen.

After a third cup and a cigarette I moseyed into the office. Sooner or later, I thought, genius will impart its secrets; sooner or later, compose yourself; just straighten things around and dust off the desk and fill the fountain pen and make everything nice for teacher. Sooner or later, honey--you damn fool. I wasn’t getting the fidgets, I had them. A couple of times I took off the receiver and listened, but I didn’t catch Wolfe making any calls. I got the mail and put it on his desk, and opened the safe. I pulled out the drawer where the Maffei stuff was just to make sure it hadn’t walked off. The envelope into which I had put the photostats felt thin, and I took them out. One set was gone. I had had two sets made, and only one was there. That gave me my first hint about Wolfe’s charade, but I didn’t follow it up very far, because as I was sticking the envelope back into the drawer Fritz came in and said that Wolfe wanted to see me in his room.