Perry sounded flustered. “Well … precipitate … yes, it was. It was, yes. You see … you asked me yesterday if I am not the fount of justice in this organization. To a certain extent, yes. But there is always … well … the human element. I am not a czar, neither in fact nor by temperament. When you phoned me last evening you may have thought me irritable—as a matter of fact, I thought of calling you back to apologize. The truth is I was chagrined and deeply annoyed. I knew then that a warrant had been issued for the arrest at the instance of Mr. Muir. Surely you can appreciate my position. Mr. Muir is a high official of my corporation. When I learned later in the evening that the money had been found in Miss Fox’s car, I was astounded … I couldn’t believe it … but what could I do? I was amazed….”
“Indeed.” Wolte still snapped. “You’ve got your money back. Do you intend to proceed with the prosecution?”
“You don’t need to take that tone, Wolfe.” Perry sharpened a little. “I told you there is the human element. I’m noЈ a czar. Muir makes an issue of it. I’m being frank with you. I can’t talk him off. Granted that I could kick the first vice-president out of the company if I wanted to, which is a good deal to grant, do you think I should? After all, he has the law—”
“Then you’re with him on it?”
A pause. “No. No, I’m not. I… I have the strongest… sympathy for Clara—Miss Fox. I would like to see her get something … much more human than justice. For instance, if there is any difficulty about bail for her I would be glad to furnish it.”
“Thank you. We’ll manage bail. You asked me to be brief, Mr. Perry. First, I suggest that you arrange to have the charge against Miss Fox quashed immediately. Second, I wish to inform you of our intentions if that is not done. At ten o’clock tomorrow morning I shall have Miss Fox submit herself to arrest and shall have her at once released on bail. She will then start an action against Ramsey Muir and the Seaboard Products Corporation to recover one million dollars in damages for false arrest. We deal in millions here now. I think there is no question but that we shall have sufficient evidence to uphold our action. If they try her first, so much the better. She’ll be acquitted.”
“But how can … that’s absurd … if you have evidence …”
“That’s all, Mr. Perry. That’s my brevity. Good-by.”
I heard the click of Wolfe banging up. Perry was sputtering, but I hung up too. I tossed the notebook away and got up and stuck my hands in my pockets and walked around. Perhaps I was muttering. I was thinking to myself, if Wolfe takes that pot with nothing but a dirty deuce he’s a better man than he thinks he is, if that was possible. On the face of it, it certainly looked as if his cra2y conceit had invaded the higher centers of his brain and stopped his mental processes completely; but there was one thing that made such a supposition unlikely, namely, that he was spending money.
He had four expensive men riding around in taxis and he had got London on the phone as if it had been a delicatessen shop. It was a thousand to one he was going to get it back.
Still another expenditure was imminent, as I learned when the phone rang again. I sat down to get it, half hoping it was Perry calling back to offer a truce. But what I heard was Fred Durkin’s low growl, and he sounded peeved.
“That you, Archie?”
“Right. What have you got?”
“Nothing. Less than that. Look here. I’m talking from the Forty-seventh Street Station.”
“The … what? What for?”
“What the hell do you suppose for? I got arrested a little.”
I made a face and took a breath. “Good for you,” I said grimly. “That’s a big help. Men like you are the backbone of the country. Go on.”
His growl went plaintive. “Could I help it? They bopped me at the garage when I went there to ask questions. They say I committed something when I took that car last night. I think they’re getting ready to send me somewhere, I suppose Centre Street. What the hell could I do, run and let him tag me? I wouldn’t be phoning now if it hadn’t happened that a friend of mine is on the desk here.”
“Okay. If they take you to the DA’s office keep your ears open and stick to the little you know. We’ll get after it.”
Tou’d better. If I—hey! Will you phone the missis?”
I assured him he would see the missis as soon as she was expecting him, and hung up. I sat and scratched my nose a minute and then made for the stairs. It was looking as if being confined to the house wasn’t going to deprive me of my exercise.
Wolfe was still in the tropical room. He kept on snipping stems and listened without looking around. I reported the development. He said, “These interruptions are abominable.”
I said, “All right, let him rot in a dungeon.”
Wolfe sighed. “Phone Mr. Barber. Can you pick Keems up? No, you can’t. When you hear from him let me talk to him.”
I went back down and got Barber’s office and asked him to send someone out to make arrangements for Fred to sleep with his missis that night, and gave him the dope.
I had no idea when I might hear from Johnny Keems. They had all got their instructions direct from Wolfe, and as usual he was keeping my head clear of unnecessary obstructions. As I had let Orrie Gather out he had made some kind of a crack about being the only electrician in New York who understood directors’ rooms, and of course I knew Saul Panzer had a contact on with Hilda Lindquist, but beyond that their programs were outside my circle. I guessed Fred had gone back to the garage to see if he could get a line on a plant, which made it appear that Wolfe didn’t even have a dirty deuce, but of course he had talked with Clara Fox nearly an hour that morning, so that was all vague. But it did seem that Frisbie or someone around the District Attorney’s office was busting with ardor over an ordinary larceny on which they already had the evidence, leaving a dick at the garage; but that was probably part of the net they were holding for Clara Fox. It might even have been one of Cramer’s men.
I went on being a switchboard girl. A little before ten Saul Panzer called, and from upstairs Wolfe listened to him while I put down the details he had collected from Hilda Lindquist regarding her father in Nebraska. She thought that if riding in an airplane didn’t kill him it would scare him to death. Apparently Saul had further instructions, for Wolfe told him to proceed. A little later Orrie phoned in, and what he reported to Wolfe gave me my first view of a new slant that hadn’t occurred to me at all. Introducing himself to Sourface Vawter as an electrician, he had been admitted to the directors’ room of the Seaboard Products Corporation, and had learned that besides the double door at the end of the corridor it had another door leading into the public hall. It had been locked but could be opened from the inside, and Orrie had himself gone out that way and around the hall to the elevators.
Wolfe told Orrie to wait and talked to me. “Don’t type a note on that, Archie. Any that you do type, put them in the safe at once. Leave Orrie on with me and be sure the other line is open. A call I am expecting hasn’t come. When Keems calls I’ll talk to him, but I’ll give Orrie Fred’s assignment. Taking the hint that he didn’t want to burden my ears with Orrie’s schedule, I hung up. I filed some notes in the safe and loaded Wolfe’s pen and tested it, a chore that I hadn’t been able to get around to before—absentmindedly, because I was off on a new track. I had no idea what had started Wolfe in that direction. It had beautiful possibilities, no doubt of that, but a hundred-to-one shot in a big handicap is a beautiful possibility too, and how often would you collect on it? After taxing the brain a few minutes, this looked more like a million to one. I would probably have gone on to add more ciphers to that if I hadn’t been interrupted by the doorbell. Of course I was still on that job too. I went to the hall and pulled the curtain to see through the glass panel, and got a surprise. It was the first time Wolfe’s house had ever been taken for a church, but there wasn’t any other explanation, for either that specimen on the stoop was scheduled for best man at a wedding or Emily Post had been fooling me for years.