I had lost sixty cents. At a quarter to four, a few minutes after Clivers had gone, Wolfe had suggested that since I hadn’t been out much a little exercise wouldn’t hurt me any. He had made no comments on the news from Clivers, and I thought he might if I went along with him, but I told him I couldn’t see it at two bits. He said, all right, a dime. So I mounted the stairs while he took the elevator and we met in his room. He took his coat and vest off, exhibiting about eighteen square feet of canary-yellow shirt, and chose the darts with yellow feathers, which were his favorites. The first hand he got an ace and two bull’s eyes, making three aces. By four o’clock, time for him to go to the plant rooms, it had cost me sixty cents and I bad got nothing out of it because he had been too concentrated on the game to talk.
I went on up to the south room and was in there nearly an hour. There were three reasons for it: first, Wolfe had instructed me to tell Clara Fox about the visits from Muir and Clivers; second, she was restless and needed a little discipline; and third, I had nothing else to do anyhow. She had her clothes on again. She said Fritz had given her an iron to press with, but her dress didn’t look as if she had used it much. I told her I supposed an adventuress wouldn’t be so hot at ironing. When I told her about Muir she just made a face and didn’t seem disposed to furnish any remarks, but she was articulate about Clivers. She thought he was lying. She said that she understood he was considered one of the ablest of British diplomats, and it was to be expected he would use his talents for private business as well as public.
I said that I hadn’t observed anything particularly able about him except that he could empty a glass of beer as fast as Nero Wolfe; that while he might not be quite as big a sap as his nephew Francis Horrocks he seemed fairly primitive to me, even for a guy who had spent most of his life on a little island.
She said it was just a difference in superficial mannerisms, that she too had thought Horrocks a sap at first, that I would change my mind when I knew him better, and that after all traditions weren’t necessarily silly just because they weren’t American. I said I wasn’t talking about traditions, I was talking about saps, and as far as I was concerned saps were out, regardless of race, nationality, or religion. It went on from there until she said she guessed she would go up and take advantage of Mr. Wolfe’s invitation to look at the orchids, and I went down to send Fred home.
When Wolfe came down I was at my desk working on some sandwiches and milk, for I didn’t know when I might get back from my trip uptown.
I told him about the phone call from Perry. He went into the front room to get reports from Saul and Orrie, which made me sore as usual, but when he came back and settled into his chair and rang for beer I made no effort to stimulate him into any choice remarks about straining my powers of dissimulation, because he didn’t give me a chance. Having sent Orrie home and Saul to the kitchen, he was ready for me, and he disclosed the nature of my mission with Mike Walsh. It wasn’t precisely what I had expected, but I pretended it was by keeping nonchalant and casual. He drank beer and wiped his lips and told me, “I’m sorry, Archie, if this bores you.”
I said, “Oh, I expect it. Just a matter of routine.”
He winked at me, and I turned and picked up my milk to keep from grinning back at him, and the telephone rang.
It was Inspector Cramer. He asked for Wolfe and I passed the signal, and of course kept my own line. Cramer said, “What about this Clara Eox? Are you going to bring her down here, or tell me where to send for her?”
Wolfe murmured into the transmitter, “What is this, Mr. Cramer? A new tacric? I don’t get it.”
“Now listen, Wolfe!” Cramer sounded hurt and angry. “First you tell me you’ve got her hid because we tried to snatch her on a phony larceny charge. Now that that’s out of the way, do you think you’re going to pull—”
“What?” Wolfe stopped him. “The larceny charge out of the way?”
“Certainly. Don’t pretend you didn’t know it, since of course you did it, though I don’t know how. You can put over the damnedest tricks.”
“No doubt. But please tell me how you learned this.”
“Frisbie over at the District Attorney’s office. It seems that a fellow named Muir, a vice-president up at that Seaboard thing where she worked, is a friend of Frisbie’s. He’s the one that swore out the warrant. Now he’s backed up, and it’s all off, and I want to see this Miss Fox and hear her tell me that she never heard of Harlan Scovil, like all the Mike Walshes we got.”
Cramer became sarcastic. “Of course this is all news to you.”
“It is indeed.” Wolfe sent a glance at me, with a lifted brow. “Quite pleasant news. Let’s see. I suspect it would be too difficult to persuade you that I know nothing of Miss Fox’s whereabouts, so I shan’t try. It is now six-thirty, and I shall have to make some inquiries. Where can I telephone you at eight?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cramer sounded disgusted. “I wish I’d let the Commissioner pull you in, as he wanted to. I don’t need to tell you why I hate to work against you, but have a heart. Send her down here, I won’t bite her. I was going to a show tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer.” Wolfe affected his sweet tone, which always made me want to kick him. “I must Erst verify your information about the larceny charge, and then I must get in touch with Miss Fox. You’ll be there until eight o’clock.”
Cramer grunted something profane, and we hung up.
“So.” I tossed down my notebook. “Mr. Muir is yellow after all, and Mr. Perry is probably coming to find out how you knew he would be. Shake-up in the Seaboard Products Corporation. But where the devil is Johnny—ah, see that? All I have to do is pronounce his name and he rings the doorbell.”
I went to the entrance and let him in. One look at his satisfied handsomeness was enough to show that he had been marvelous all over again. As a matter of fact, Johnny Keems unquestionably had an idea at the back of his head—and still has—that it would be a very fine thing for the detective business if he got my job. Which doesn’t bother me a bit, because I know Wolfe would never be able to stand him. He puts slick stuff on bis hair and he wears spats, and he would never get the knack of keeping Wolfe on the job by bawling him out properly. I know what I get paid high wages for, though I’ve never been able to decide whether Wolfe knows that I know.
I took Johnny to the office and he sat down and began pulling papers out of his pocket. He shuffled through them and announced, “I thought it would be better to make diagrams. Of course I could have furnished Archie with verbal descriptions, but along with my shorthand I’ve learned—”
Wolfe put in, “Is Mr. Walsh there now?”
Johnny nodded. “He came a few minutes before six. I was watching from the back of a restaurant that fronts on Fifty-sixth Street, because I knew he’d have a shadow and I didn’t want to run a risk of being seen, a lot of those city detectives know me. By the way, there’s only the one entrance to the boarding, on Fifty-fifth.” He handed the papers across to Wolfe. “I dug up nine other ways to get in. Some of them you couldn’t use, but with two of them, a restaurant and a pet shop that’s open until nine, it’s a cinch.”
Instead of taking the papers, Wolfe nodded at me. “Give them to Archie. Is there anyone in there besides Mr. Walsh?”
“I don’t think so. It’s mostly steel men on the job now, and they quit at five. Of course it was dark when I left, and it isn’t lit up much. There’s a wooden shed at one side with a couple of tables and a phone and so on, and a man was standing there talking to Walsh, a foreman, but he looked as if he was ready to leave. The reason I was a little late, after I got out of there I went around to Fifty-fifth to see if there was a shadow on the job, and there was. I spotted him easy. He was standing there across the street, talking to a taxi driver.”