It was only eight-forty, but Wolfe was in the office with coffee, and that deserved a grin. Business was not to be mentioned at meals, so he had either started dinner early or speeded it up in order to be away from the table when I arrived. There was a hint of feeling in his look and voice as he greeted me, as there always is when I return safe and sound from a trip in long-distance machines. I stood in the middle of the rug and took a good stretch, and said, “My God, it’s cold around here, much colder than down on the Ohio River. The warmth in this room is wonderful, even if I had no personal connection with its production. I admit that the rapid advance of automation may result—”
“Sit down and report!”
I did so, verbatim. He didn’t lean back and shut his eyes; there was no need to, since it was only the happy ending. When I finished by saying that we might be stuck for a week in town by Lieutenant Sievers he didn’t bat an eye.
He picked up his coffee cup and emptied it and put it down. “Archie,” he said, “I tender my apologies. I noticed that confounded diphthong Monday evening, and I could have sent you to Evansville then. Three wretched days.”
“Yeah. Well, you finally got around to it. I accept the apology. It’s too bad it’s Friday night, the weekend, and some of them may not be available tomorrow, maybe none of them. I suggest that they deserve to be present, all the ROCC crowd, even Oster. Also Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Brooke. And why not Susan’s mother? In a way, her more than anyone else. She was there in the house with Susan when Richard Ault shot himself on the porch. According to Drucker, she helped Susan give him the boot. She ought to—”
I stopped short.
Wolfe asked, “What?”
“Nothing. But that’s what you thought about the diphthong: it wasn’t worth considering. What if she decided to get the mother too and picked tonight for it? That would be just great.”
I swiveled. I didn’t have Mrs. Matthew Brooke’s number on the card and had to look in the book. I got it, and dialed, and sat and listened to fourteen buzzes, two more than my usual allowance. I don’t dial wrong numbers, so I didn’t try again but dialed another number, one that was on the card, and that time got an answer, a voice that I recognized, saying, “Mrs. Brooke’s residence.”
“This is Archie Goodwin,” I said, “at Nero Wolfe’s office. Mr. Wolfe wants to ask Mrs. Matthew Brooke a question, and I just dialed her number and got no answer. I thought she might be with you. Is she?”
“No. What does he want to ask her?”
“Nothing very important, just a routine question, but it would help to have the answer now. Do you know where I can get her?”
“No, I don’t. But it’s odd...”
Silence. After five seconds of it I asked, “What’s odd?”
“I thought perhaps— Where are you?”
“Nero Wolfe’s office.”
“She isn’t there?”
“No.”
“I thought perhaps it was him she was going to see. She phoned about an hour ago and asked to use my car — she often does — and she said she was going to see someone who could tell her something about Susan, and I asked her if it was Nero Wolfe, and she wouldn’t say. She said she had promised not to. Are you sure—”
“And she took the car?”
“I suppose so, of course. Have you—”
“The blue sedan?”
“Yes. Have you—”
“Sorry, I’m being interrupted.” I hung up and turned. “As I said, just great. About an hour ago Mrs. Matthew Brooke took Mrs. Kenneth Brooke’s car to go to meet someone who had phoned her that she could tell her something about Susan. She may still be alive. Of all the lousy breaks. Do I talk to Cramer or do you?”
“What for?”
“For God’s sake! A stop-and-take on the goddam car!”
“It isn’t necessary. Saul.”
“What do you mean, Saul? He can’t—”
“He is covering Miss Jordan. As you know, he was told yesterday to inquire about her. He telephoned this morning shortly after you had reported from Evansville, and I told him to get Fred and Orrie and keep her under constant surveillance.”
I returned to my pocket the key ring I had got out. Its collection included the key to the locked drawer from which I had been going to get the license number of the blue sedan. “Damn it, you might have told me.”
“That’s querulous, Archie.”
“If that means peevish, I am. How would you feel or I feel or Cramer feel if she added another one to the list after we had her tagged? And you realize that any dimwit can lose a tail, even if it’s Saul Panzer. You’d like to deliver her wrapped up, sure, so would I. But it would be nearly as good and a lot safer to ring him now and say the woman who killed Susan Brooke and Peter Vaughn is now somewhere in your territory in a blue Heron sedan with Mrs. Matthew Brooke and is going to kill her. The car’s number is here in the drawer.”
He called me. He asked, merely wanting information, “Do you wish to do that?”
“Of course I don’t wish to!”
“Would Saul?”
“If he has lost her, yes. If he’s still on her, no.”
He turned a palm up. “Then it’s simple. We determine our action or inaction by the extent of our confidence in Saul’s craft and sagacity. Mine, though not infinite, is considerable, and he knows she has killed two people. Yours?”
“I don’t have to tell you. When did he last call in?”
“At twenty minutes past six, from a booth on Lexington Avenue. She was in the building where she lives. Fred and Orrie had followed her there from the building where she works, and Saul had relieved Fred at six o’clock. He had—”
The doorbell rang.
I went to the hall for a look, swallowed something that had been wanting to be swallowed for ten minutes, turned my head, and said, “Mr. Panzer and Miss Jordan. Have they an appointment?”
Chapter 15
As I approached I saw through the one-way glass that Saul had a hold on her right arm, so as I opened the door I was prepared to take her left one if necessary, but she crossed the sill without any help. Saul said, “Orrie’s in the car with Mrs. Brooke. Do you want her?” I said no, Orrie had better see her home, and he went to tell him. I mentioned somewhere that I don’t mind helping a murderer with a coat, but Maud Jordan shook her head when I offered. She was keeping it on. Thinking that Saul should have the honor of escorting her to the office, I waited until he came back in and then followed them. Saul moved up one of the yellow chairs for her and started for one for himself, but Wolfe told him to take the red leather. Before he did so he took an object from his pocket and put it on Wolfe’s desk, and Wolfe made a face at it and told me to take it. It was a snub-nosed Haskell .32, and I took a look to see if it was loaded. It was, and I dropped it in a drawer. Saul said, “It was in her coat pocket,” and sat.
She hadn’t opened her mouth. She did now, and spoke to the point. “I haven’t got a permit for that gun,” she said. “That’s against the law, having a gun without a permit, but it doesn’t justify this kind of treatment.” Her eyes darted to Saul and back to Wolfe. “I was getting into a car at the invitation of the woman driving it, and that man assaulted me.”