Inside, in the sitting room, she said, “I’ll bet my coat’s a mess,” and slid it off before I could move to help her.
“Yeah, rub it in,” I said. “Someday I’ll tell you what a fine brave plucky game girl you are, not a single squawk, but now I’m busy. If it had been two feet to the left and a foot higher, you would now be meat. Luck, that’s all, just pure luck, and I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. I’ll go down and see about Fred. When I come back up you will be packed.”
“Packed?”
“Right. What we call the South Room in Nero Wolfe’s house, the one above his, has three windows facing south. Very nice in winter. You’ll like it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t — I don’t want to hide.”
“Listen, snugglebunny. Kitten. Lamb. I have lost the right to give orders. Have I got to beg, for God’s sake?” I went.
On the sidewalk a small audience had collected, a dozen or so. Fred was flat on his back, and the bellboy was putting a cushion under his head. A woman was saying he’d get pneumonia. The cop and the doorman were across the street by the stone wall. I went and squatted by Fred and asked him which leg and where, and he said the left one a little above the knee and it probably got the bone, the way it felt. I asked what about blood, and he said there wasn’t much, he had put his hand in and felt it, and he asked, “Is she all right?”
I said yes. “When I get back from the hospital I’m going to take her home with me. I don’t want—”
“You’re not going to any hospital. Take her now. The cop asked questions, but I don’t know anything. Do I?”
“Sure you do. You know Nero Wolfe hired you to help me bodyguard her, and that’s all.”
“It’s enough. Ouch. Take her now. I’ve been in hospitals before. Don’t leave her alone. The sonofabitch nearly got her with us right here. I only wish—”
He stopped because the cop had come. He wanted names, and I gave him some, Fred’s and Julie’s and mine, and nothing else. All I knew was that someone had shot a gun. He thought he would get tough but decided not to, and the ambulance came. I watched them load Fred and then went into the Maidstone and up to the ninth floor.
When I knocked on the door, Julie’s voice came. “Is it you, Archie?”
“No. It’s a Boy Scout.”
She opened the door wide, and I stepped in. There on the floor were a big suitcase and a big bag. “I didn’t send for a boy to take them down,” she said, “because I thought you might change your mind.”
I picked them up.
Chapter 13
At nine o’clock Sunday morning I entered the kitchen, told Fritz good morning, got orange juice from the refrigerator, sat at my breakfast table, yawned, sneered at The New York Times, and rubbed my eyes. Fritz came with a piece of paper in his hand and demanded, “Were you drunk when you wrote this?”
I blinked at him. “No, just pooped. I’ve forgotten what I said. Please read it.”
He cleared his throat. “‘Three-twenty A.M. There’s a guest in the South Room. Tell him. I’ll cook her breakfast. AG.’” He dropped it on the table. “I told him, and he asked who, and what could I say? And you will cook her breakfast in my kitchen?”
I took an economy-size swallow of orange juice. “Let’s see if I can talk straight,” I suggested. “I had four hours’ sleep, exactly half what I need. As for telling him who she is, that is my function. I admit it’s your function to cook breakfast, but she likes fried eggs and you don’t fry eggs. Let’s get to the real issue. There is one man who is more allergic to a woman in this house than he is, and you are it. By God, I am talking straight.” I drank orange juice. “Don’t worry, this woman is allergic to a man in her house. As for the eggs, poach them — you know, in red wine and bouillon—”
“Burgundian.”
“That’s it. With Canadian back bacon. That will show her what men are for. Her usual hour for breakfast is half past twelve. I’m still willing to cook it if—”
He uttered a French sound, loud, maybe it was a word. He was at the range, with sausage. I reached for the Times.
Since Wolfe goes up to the plant rooms on Sunday morning only for a brief look, if at all, I supposed he would be down around ten o’clock. But it was still ten minutes short of ten when the sound of the elevator came, then his footsteps in the hall. I hadn’t seen him since bedtime Friday evening, nearly forty hours ago. Instead of stopping at the office, the footsteps kept coming, and the swing door opened and he appeared.
“Indeed,” he said. “You’re alive.”
I conceded it. “Just barely. Don’t count on me for much.”
“Who is the guest?”
“Miss Jaquette. Miss Jackson to you, Julie to me. She’s alive too, but it’s not my fault. She was shot at this morning, at half past one, in front of her hotel, from behind the Central Park wall. The sniper was not seen. Fred got it in the leg and is in Roosevelt Hospital. He was asleep when I phoned this morning. I phoned his wife when I got home last night. I also phoned Saul and told him to stand by. I brought Julie home with me because, with Orrie in the coop and Fred in the hospital, we’re short-handed, and anyway I got tired of hearing bullets go by. She eats breakfast in bed, and Fritz will cook it and I’ll take it up around half past twelve. That seems to cover it.”
“The sniper was not seen.”
“No, sir, but it was Barry Fleming. He reacted to the letter by coming to see her yesterday afternoon. That tagged him for blackmail, and the gunplay tagged him for murder. So all we need now is a little evidence. But I suppose you want a full report.”
He said yes, and we went to the office. The Saturday mail was on my desk, unopened. I don’t know why he does that, but I suspect that it’s because he wants to show me that he won’t butt in on my routine if I won’t butt in on his. Fritz hadn’t butted in either; my desk top was dustier than it gets in one day. I put my copy of the Sunday Times on it and sat, and proceeded to report. I gave it verbatim only in spots, the few that might have a bearing, thinking it unnecessary for him to know that she had asked me if I realized it was a bed, or that I had called her snugglebunny. Usually he opens his eyes and sits up when I finish, but that time he held it a full minute, and finally I spoke.