As on previous occasions when the group had met, a tape recorder was running.
"On the basis of the then-available information," Nim continued, "information which was sketchy at best, we hypothesized that one man -"X"-was the leader and brains of Friends of Freedom, that he was strongly masculine and vain, and that he had a woman confidante who worked closely with him. We also believed that X personally murdered those two guards at Millfield, and that the woman was present at the time. Furthermore, we concluded the woman might be a source of weakness and prove the undoing of 'X',"
"I'd forgotten some of that," Teresa Van Buren injected. "By God, we were right on target!"
The PR director, appearing as if she had come unchanged from a lazy weekend at home, was wearing a rumpled green caftan over her ample figure. Her hair, as usual, was untidy, probably because she ran her fingers through it whenever she was thinking. Her feet were bare; the pair of dilapidated sandals she had slipped off were beside her chair.
"Yes," Nim acknowledged, "I know. And I'll admit to you all, it was my fault we failed to continue. I guess I lost faith, and I was wrong." He decided to say nothing about the influence of Mr. Justice Yale, who, after all, had done no more than express an opinion.
Nim proceeded, "Now that we know the identity of 'X,' and a good deal more about him, perhaps we can use the same mental process in helping track him down."
He stopped, conscious that three pairs of eyes were focused on him intently, then added, "Perhaps not. But the chairman believes we should try."
Oscar O'Brien grunted and removed from between his thick lips the cigar be had been smoking. The air was already thick with smoke, a condition distasteful to Nim, but it was O'Brien's home and objecting seemed unreasonable.
"I'm willing to give it a whirl," the lawyer said. "Where do we start?"
He was wearing old gray slacks, loosely belted below his bulging belly, a baggy sweater, and loafers without socks.
"I've prepared a memo," Nim said. Opening a briefcase, be produced copies and passed them around. The memo contained a summary of all information, published since the NEI convention, about Friends of Freedom and Georgos Archambault. The bulk of it was from Nancy Molineaux's reports. Nim waited until the others had finished reading, then asked, "Is there anything additional, which any of you know, that isn't in there?"
"I might have an item or two," Harry London volunteered.
The Property Protection chief had been cool today when meeting Nim, probably remembering their sharp words two days ago. But his tone was normal as he said, "I have friends in the law enforcement agencies. As Nim knows, they sometimes tell me things."
In contrast to the others-including Nim, who was also dressed casually-London was impeccable in beige slacks with a knife-edge crease, and a starched bush jacket. He wore socks which matched the ensemble. His leather shoes were gleaming.
“The newspapers mentioned that Archambault kept a journal," London said, "and it was found among his other papers. That's in here." He tapped Nim's memo with a fingernail. "What isn't here, and wasn't let out because the D.A. hopes to use it in evidence at Archambault's trial, is what was in the journal."
Van Buren asked, "Have you seen the journal?"
"No. But I was shown a Xerox copy."
As usual, Nim thought, Harry London was moving at his own pedantic pace.
O'Brien asked impatiently, "Okay, what was in the damn thing?"
"I don't remember."
There was obvious disappointment, then revived interest as London added, "At least, not all of it." He paused, then continued, “There are two things, though, you can tell from reading what the guy put down. First, he's every bit as vain and conceited as we figured, maybe more so. Also-and you get this right away from reading all the garage that's in there-he has what you'd call a compulsion to write things."
"So have thousands of others," Van Buren said. "Is that all?"
"Yep."
London seemed deflated and Nim put in quickly, "Tess, don't knock that kind of information. Every detail helps."
"Tell us something, Harry," Oscar O'Brien said. "Do you remember anything about the handwriting in that journal?"
"What kind of thing?"
"Well, was it distinctive?"
The Property Protection chief considered. "I'd say, yes."
"What I'm getting at," the general counsel said, "is this: If you took a sample of the journal handwriting, and then another turned up from someplace else, would it be easy to match the two and know they were both from the same person?"
"I see what you mean," London said. "No doubt of it. Very easy."
"Um." O'Brien was stroking his chin, drifting off into a reverie of his own. He motioned to the others. "Carry on. I only have a half-baked idea that isn't ready yet."
"All right," Nim said, "let's go on to talk about North Castle, the part of town where that 'Fire Protection Service' truck was found abandoned."
"With the radiator still warm," Van Buren reminded them. "And he was seen to go on foot from there, which makes it likely he couldn't have gone far."
"Maybe not," Harry London said, "but that whole North Castle area is a rabbit warren. The police have combed it and got nothing. If anybody wanted to choose a place in this city where they could disappear, that's the district."
"And from what I've read or heard," Nim added, "it's a reasonable guess that Archambault had a second hideaway prepared, to fall back on, and is now in it. We know he wasn't short of money, so lie could have arranged everything well ahead of time."
"Using a pbony name, of course," Van Buren said. “The same way he did to buy the truck."
Nim smiled. "I doubt if the phone company has him listed in 'Directory Assistance."'
"About that truck registration," London said. "It's been checked on, and it's a dead end."
"Harry," O'Brien queried, "has anyone estimated the size of the area in which Archambault has apparently been swallowed up? In other words, if you drew a circle on a map, and stated 'the man is probably hiding somewhere in there, “how big would the circle be?"
"I believe the police have made an estimate," London said. "But of course it's only a guess."
"Tell us," Nim prompted.
"Well, the thinking goes something like this: When Archambault abandoned that truck, he was in one belluva burry. So, assuming be was heading for a hideaway, while he wouldn't have left the truck close to it, it would not have been too far either. Say a mile and a half at the most. So if you take the truck as the center, that means a circle with a one-and-a-half-mile radius."
"If I remember my high school geometry," O'Brien mused, "the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared." He crossed to a small desk and picked up an electronic calculator. After a moment he announced, "That's a bit over seven square miles."
Nim said, "Which means you're talking about roughly twelve thousand homes and small businesses, with probably thirty thousand people living within that circle."
"I know that's a lot of territory," O'Brien said, "and looking for Archambault in there would be like searching for the proverbial needle. Just the same, we might smoke him out, and here's a thought for the rest of you to kick around."
Nim, London and Van Buren were listening carefully. As all of them knew, it was the lawyer's ideas which had led to most of the conclusions at their earlier sessions.
O'Brien continued, "Harry says Archambault has a compulsion to write things. Taken with the other information we have about the man, it adds up to him being an exhibitionist with a need to 'sound off' constantly, even in small ways. So my thought is this: If we could get some kind of public questionnaire circulating in that seven -square-m ile areaI mean the kind of thing with a string of questions to which people write in answers-our man might not be able to resist answering too."