He stopped because Groom had turned his head. Groom had turned his head because the door had opened and a man was approaching, a colleague in uniform. The cop came to him, said, “For you, Captain,” and handed him a folded paper. Groom unfolded the paper, gave it a look, taking his time, told the cop to stick around, glanced at the paper again, and lifted his eyes to Wolfe and me.
“This is a warrant,” he said, “for your arrest as material witnesses in a murder case. I hereby serve it. Do you want to see it?”
I turned my head to Wolfe. I can testify that through a full ten-second silence his lids didn’t blink once. Then he spoke, but all he said was, “No.”
“I do,” I said, and put out a hand, and Groom handed it over. It looked kosher, and even had our names spelled right. The signature of the judge looked like Bymnyomr. “I guess it’s real,” I told Wolfe.
He was regarding Groom. “I hardly know,” he said icily, “the word to use. High-handed? Bumptious? Headstrong?”
“You’re not in New York now, Wolfe.” Groom was trying not to show how much he liked himself. “This is the City of Albany. I’ll ask you once more, do you want to change your statement or add to it?”
“You actually mean to serve this thing?”
“I have served it. You’re under arrest.”
Wolfe turned to me. “What’s Mr. Parker’s number?”
“Eastwood six two-six-oh-five.”
He arose, circled around the desk to the chair Hyatt had vacated, sat, and took the phone from the cradle. Groom got to his feet, took a step, stopped, stood, and stuck his hands in his pockets. Wolfe took the phone. “A New York City call, please. Eastwood six two-six-oh-five.”
IV
FOUR HOURS LATER, at six o’clock, we were still in the coop. Of course I had been behind bars before, but never together with Wolfe. For him it was a first, since I had known him.
Actually we weren’t behind bars, or at least none were visible. It was a detention room at police headquarters, and wasn’t bad at all, except that it smelled like a hospital in the middle of the Jersey marshes and the chairs were greasy. There was even a private john in a closet in a corner. A cop was there with us, presumably to see that we didn’t cheat the chair by making a suicide pact and carrying it out. When I told him an evening paper would be worth a buck to us he opened the door and yelled down the hall to someone, sticking to his post. Taking no chances.
Soon after our incarceration we had been told we could send out for grub, and I had ordered two corned-beef sandwiches on white toast and a quart of milk. Wolfe, who had swallowed nothing but coffee since ten o’clock, declined the offer. Whether he was staging a hunger strike or was just too mad to eat, I couldn’t say. When my corned beef on white toast arrived it turned out to be ham on rye, and the ham was only so-so, but the milk was okay.
Not only was Wolfe not eating in captivity, also he wasn’t talking. Keeping his hat on, he sat on his overcoat spread on an old wooden bench against the wall, mostly leaning back with his eyes closed and his fingers interlaced at the summit of his central mound. Looking at him, and I had seen a lot of him, I would say that instead of calming down he kept getting madder. His only real try at communication, after a couple of hours had passed, was when he opened his eyes and told me he wanted my true opinion about something. I said he could have my true opinion about everything, and apparently we’d have plenty of time for it.
He grunted. “I foresee that in the future, if you and I continue to be associated, as we probably shall, this episode will be frequently mentioned, in one context or another. Do you agree?”
“I do. Provided it’s not our last episode. You’re assuming we’ll have a future.”
“Pfui. We’ll see to that. Answer this. If you had not been seduced by your itch to have a hand in a wiretapping operation and to observe the procedure and technique, do you think I would have undertaken that job for that man? I’m merely asking for your opinion.”
“Well, you won’t get it.” I stood looking down at him. “If I say no, the future mentions would be too one-sided. If I say yes, it would pile one more provocation on the load you’re already carrying, and it might be too much for you. You can’t think us out of this if you’re boiling too high to think. So I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll split it.”
“Split what?”
“The blame. Fifty-fifty. We both ought to be larruped. But not fried.”
“We’ll leave it to the future,” he growled, and shut his eyes on me.
At six o’clock I was deep in the second section of the evening paper, reading how to repair nylon brassieres that had got torn somehow, having covered other matters, when the door was flung open. Our guard whirled on his heels, ready to repel an attempt at armed rescue, but it was only a cop conducting a visitor. The visitor, a red-faced guy in a brown cashmere overcoat, stopped for a glance around and then came on and put out a hand.
“Mr. Wolfe? I’m Stanley Rogers. I’m terribly sorry. I suppose you thought I’d fallen in a hole and pulled the hole in, but Nat Parker didn’t get me until nearly three o’clock, and the judge was in the middle of a case and I had to pull some strings. We’re not being very hospitable up here, are we? This is Mr. Goodwin? It’s a pleasure.” He offered a hand, and I took it. “I asked the judge to make the bail figure five thousand, but he wouldn’t settle for less than twenty. Twenty thousand each. Anyhow, you’re free men, as I have no doubt you deserve to be, only you can’t leave the jurisdiction without permission of the court. I’ve reserved a room for you at the Latham Hotel, but of course it can be canceled if you want to make other arrangements.”
He had some papers for us to sign. He said that Parker, phoning from New York, had told him to do everything possible for us, and he would cancel a dinner appointment if we wanted him, but Wolfe said that at the moment all he wanted was to get out of there and find something to eat. One offer we took. He had his car out front, and after telling the guard good-by, no tip, and going to an office to check out and claim some personal articles we had been relieved of, he led us out to it and drove us to the garage where we had left the sedan. With Wolfe in back again, I drove to the hotel, got the bags from the trunk, and turned the car over to a lackey.
About the bags, I could have told Wolfe I had told him so, but decided he was in no shape for it. The evening before, pigheaded as usual, he had refused to admit the possibility of spending a night away from home and insisted that we would need no luggage, but I had packed his bag myself, with some help from Fritz, on the theory that man proposes but some other specimen may dispose. Now, as the bellboy followed us into room 902 and put the bags on the rack, it was a fine opportunity for a casual cutting remark, but I thought it advisable to save it.
His overcoat hung in the closet, along with mine, Wolfe removed his coat, vest, tie, and shirt, and went to the bathroom and washed his hands and face. Emerging, he put on his dressing gown, a yellow wool number with fine black stripes, got his slippers, sat on a chair to take off his shoes, and told me to phone room service to send up a menu. I reminded him that Rogers had told us the Latham grub was only fair and that the best restaurant in town was only two blocks away.