look things over. I'll want to see most of-'
'Tomorrow morning?' Perry was frowning. 'Why not now?'
'I have another appointment.'
'Cancel it.' The color topped his cheekbones again. 'This is urgent. I am one of Wolfe's oldest clients. I took the trouble to come here personally-'
'Sorry, Mr. Perry. Won't tomorrow do? My appointment can't very well be postponed.'
'Send someone else.'
'There's no one available who could handle it.'
This is outrageous!' Perry jerked up in his chair. 'I insist on seeing Wolfel'
I shook my head. 'You know you can't. You know darned well he's eccentric.' But then I thought, after all, I've seen worse guys, and he's a client, and maybe he can't help it if he gets on Mayors* Committees, perhaps they nag him. So I got out of my chair and said, 'I'll go upstairs and put it up to Wolfe, he's the boss. If he says-'
The door of the office opened. I turned- Fritz came in, walking formal as he always did to announce a caller. But he didn't get to announce this one. The caller came right along, two steps behind Fritz, and I grinned when I saw he was stepping so soft that Fritz didn't know he was there.
Fritz started, 'A gentleman to-'
'Yeah, I see him. Okay.'
Fritz turned and saw he had been stalked, blinked, and beat it. I went on observing the caller, because he was a specimen. He was about six feet three inches tall, wearing an old blue serge suit with no vest and the sleeves a mile short, carrying a cream-colored ten-gallon hat, with a face that looked as if it had been left out on the fire escape for over half a century, and walking like a combination of a rodeo cowboy and a panther in the zoo.
He announced in a smooth low voice, 'My name's Harlan Scovil.' He went up to Anthony D. Perry and stared at him with half-shut eyes. Perry moved in his chair and looked annoyed. The caller said, 'Are you Mr. Nero Wolfe?'
I butted in, suavely. 'Mr. Wolfe is not here. I'm his assistant. I'm engaged with this gentleman. If you'll excuse us…'
The caller nodded, and turned to stare again at Perry. 'Then who- you ain't Mike Walsh? Hell no, Mike was a runt.' He gave Perry up, and glanced around the room, then looked at me. 'What do I do now, sit down and hang my hat on my ear?'
I grinned. 'Yeah. Try that leather one over there.' He panthered for it, and I started For the door, throwing over my shoulder to Perry, 'I won't keep you waiting long.'
Upstairs, in the plant rooms on the roof, glazed in, where Wolfe kept his ten thousand orchids, I found him in the middle room turning some off-season Oncidiums that were about to bud, while Horstmann fussed around with a pot of charcoal and osmundine. Wolfe, of course, didn't look at me or halt operations; whenever I interrupted him in the plant rooms he pretended he was Joe Louis in his training camp and I was a boy peeking through the fence.
I said, loud so he couldn't also pretend he didn't hear me, 'That millionaire downstairs says I've got to go to his office right now and begin looking under the rugs for his thirty grand, and there's an appointment here for six o'clock. I expressed a preference to go tomorrow morning.'
Wolfe said, 'And if your pencil fell to the floor and you were presented with the alternative of either picking it up or leaving it there, would you also need to consult me about that?'
'He's exasperated.'
'So am I.'
'He says it's urgent, I'm outrageous, and he's an old client.'
'He is probably correct all around. I like particularly the second of his conclusions. Leave me.'
'Very well. Another caller just arrived. Name of Harlan Scovil. A weather-beaten plainsman who stared at Anthony D. Perry and said he wasn't Mike Walsh.'
Wolfe looked at me. 'You expect, I presume, to draw your salary at the end of the month.'
'Okay.' I wanted to reach out and tip over one of the Oncidiums, but decided it wouldn't be diplomatic, so I faded.
When I got back downstairs Perry was standing in the door of the office with his hat on and his stick in his hand. I told him, 'Sorry to keep you waiting.'
'Well?'
'It'll have to be tomorrow, Mr. Perry. The appointment can't be postponed. Anyhow, the day's nearly gone, and I couldn't do much. Mr. Wolfe sincerely regrets-'
'All right,' Perry snapped. 'At nine o'clock, you said?'
'I'll be there on the dot.'
'Come to my office.'
'Right.'
I went and opened the front door for him.
