"Pfui." Wolfe was disgusted. "I might have known it would make you ugly. Now how the devil am I going to convince you that my only concern is the welfare of my client?"
"I don't know. If I were you I wouldn't try." Barrett's voice had lost its squeak and assumed a tone that might have sold me on the idea he was really tough if I hadn't already caught a glimpse of the yellow. "I don't know how far you're in, but I presume you know what you're doing. If you do I don't need to tell you that it's too dangerous a game for anybody to try any private hijacking."
"I said blackmail."
"All right, blackmail. Who are you selling out and what's your price?"
I let it pass. If he was going to wholesale his insults, it would save trouble to wait till he was finished and then collect in a lump sum.
Wolfe leaned back and sighed, "Will you sit down, sir?"
"I'm all right standing."
"Then please back up. I'm not comfortable with my head tilted. Now listen. Get it out of your head that I represent any interest, either friendly or hostile to you, in your Balkan enterprise. I don't. Then, you wonder, how did I learn of it? What's the difference? I did. Next, you must somehow manage to believe that I do not want a slice of the loot. Incredible and even immoral as that must seem to a man of your instinct and training, I don't. I want just one thing. I want you to conduct Mr Goodwin to Madame Zorka, wherever you have put her, and he will bring her here. That's all. Unless you do that, I shall send information at once, to three different quarters, of your firm's projected raid on the property of the people of Yugoslavia. You know better than I do the sort of hullabaloo that would start. Don't complicate matters by assuming for me a cupidity and corruption beyond the limits I have set for myself. You're suffering from an occupational disease. When an international financier is confronted by a hold-up man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewellery, but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn't occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere. I beg you, understand that I want Madame Zorka and nothing else. Beyond that I do not and shall not represent any threat to you-unless, of course, it should turn out that it was you who murdered Percy Ludlow."
Wolfe shifted his eyes to me. "Archie, I'm afraid there's no help for it. Mr Barrett will take you to Madame Zorka. You will bring her here."
"What if she's skipped town?"
"I doubt it. She can't have got far. Take the roadster and go after her. Hang on to Mr Barrett."
"That's the part I don't like, hanging on to Barrett."
"I know. You'll have to put up with it. It may be only-" He switched to Barrett. "Where is she? How far away?"
The financier was standing there trying to concentrate, with his gaze fastened on Wolfe and his lips working. He made them function: "Damn you, if you let this out-"
Wolfe said curtly, "I've told you what I want, and that's all I want. Where is she?"
"She's-I think-not far away."
"In the city?"
"I think so."
"Good. Don't try any tricks with Mr Goodwin. They make him lose his temper."
"I'm coming back with them. I want to talk-"
"No. Not to-night. To-morrow, perhaps. Don't let him in, Archie."
"Okay." I was on my feet. "For God's sake, let's step on it, or my bed will think I'm having an affair with the couch. I only wish I was."
He didn't like going, leaving Wolfe there within three feet of a telephone and all that intimate knowledge of Bosnian forests buzzing in his head, but I eased him into the hall and on out into the November night.
I had rather expected to find a Minerva town car waiting at the kerb, considering his category, but there wasn't anything there at all, and we had to hoof it to Eighth Avenue before we could ambush a taxi at that ungodly hour. We piled in, me last, and he told the driver Times Square.
As we jolted off I surveyed him disapprovingly. "Don't tell me you left her standing on the sidewalk."
Disregarding that, he twisted himself on the cushion to face me in a confidential manner. "See here, Goodwin," he demanded, "you've got to help me. I'm in a bad hole. It wouldn't have done any good to try to persuade Wolfe that I don't know where Zorka is, because he was convinced that I do. But the fact is, I don't know."
"That's too bad."
"Yes. I'm in one hell of a fix. If you go back and say I told you I couldn't take you to her because I don't know where she is, he'll do what he threatened to do."
"He sure will. So I won't go back and say that."
"No, that wouldn't do. If I couldn't persuade him I don't know, I can't expect you to. But we could work it this way. We can drop in somewhere and have a couple of drinks. Then, say in half an hour or so, you go back and tell him I took you to an address-pick out any likely address-and we went in expecting to find Zorka and she wasn't there. You can describe how astonished and upset I was-you know, make it vivid."
"Sure, I'm good at that. But you haven't-"
"Wait a minute." The taxi swerved into 42nd Street, and he lurched against me and got straight again. "I know you'll get the devil for going back without Zorka, but you can't help that anyway, because I don't know where she is. I wouldn't expect you to help me out on this just for the hell of it. Why should you? You know? How about fifty dollars?"
I have never seen a worse case of briber's itch.
I made a scornful sound. "Now, brother! Fifty lousy bucks with a big deal in international finance trembling in the balance? A century at least."
The driver called back, "Which corner?"
Barrett told him to stop at the kerb and leave his meter on. Then he stretched out a leg to get into his trousers pocket, and extracted a modest roll. "I don't know if I happen to have that much with me." He peered and counted in the dim light. Glancing through the window, I saw an old woman in a shawl headed for us with a box of chewing gum. I wouldn't even have to leave the cab.
"I've got it," Barrett said.
"Good. Gimme, please. I can concentrate on the details better with a jack in my jeans."
He handed it over. Without bothering to count it, I shoved it through the window at the old woman and told her, "Here, grandma, two packets and keep the change." She passed them in, took the currency and gave it a look, gave me a swift startled glance from bleary old eyes and shuffled off double-quick. I offered a packet of gum to Barrett and said, "Here, one apiece."
Instead of taking it, he sputtered, "You goddam lunatic!"
I shook my head. "Nope, wrong again. You sure do make a lot of mistakes, mister. That little gesture I just made, that wasn't original-I first had the idea upstate in a cow barn and the beneficiary was a guy in overalls with a pitchfork." I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth. "Maybe this will keep me awake. That's enough horse-play; and, besides, Mr Wolfe is waiting. Lead me to Zorka."
"Why, you dirty, cheap-"
"Oh, can it! What's the address?"
"I don't know. I don't know where she is."
"Okay." I leaned forward to the driver. "Go to 48th Street, east of Lexington."
He nodded and got in gear.
Barrett demanded, "What are you going to do? What are you going to Miltan's for?"
"I left my car there. I'm going to get it and drive it home and tell Mr Wolfe the sad news, and then, I suppose, help him until dawn with phone calls and so on. He never puts off till to-morrow what I can do to-day."
"Do you mean to say that after taking my money and giving it to that hag-?"
"I mean to say exactly this: Either you quit stalling and squirming and take me to Zorka, or I go back to Nero Wolfe and watch him throw the switch. I ought to be asleep right now. You claim you don't know where Zorka is. My employer claims you do. I have no opinion. My mind is open, but I follow instructions blindly. Take me to Zorka or pop goes the weasel."