'Then that's settled. Let's go get a drink.' She headed for the cabin door, and I followed.
Inside, she went left, to the door to the long hall, but I stayed in the big room long enough to see Dawson join Jessup in the car and take the wheel. When the car had disappeared around a bend in the lane I proceeded to the hall and on to the kitchen. Lily was putting ice cubes in a pitcher, and Mimi was at the centre table, slicing tomatoes brought by me from Vawter's.
'I'm trying to remember,' Lily said, 'if I was ever as mad as I am now.'
'Oh, sure,' I said. 'More than once.' I got out my wallet and produced two singles and offered them. 'You win, damn it.'
'Win what?'
Mimi's round blue eyes, which fitted her round face, which fitted all her other roundnesses, darted a glance at the bills and returned to the tomatoes. We talked as freely in her presence as Wolfe and I did in Fritz's. 'I said,' I told Lily, 'that one would get you two that there was going to be some kind of a break. Here's the two. There will be no break.'
'But I didn't take the bet. How do you know? If a high state official is interested-'
'Yeah, the Attorney General.' I stuck the bills in a pocket and brought gin and vermouth from a shelf. 'He almost said it once. Haven't you guessed who that report was for?'
'No.' She cocked her head at me. 'So you have approached somebody.'
'No, not me. But one will get you ten that I know who did. I'm a detective, I figure things. I mailed that letter Saturday. He got it yesterday morning, and when he went up to the orchids he was harder for Theodore to take than usual. His appetite was off at lunch. Actually I am not absolutely essential to his convenience and comfort and welfare, nobody is, but he comes close to thinking I am. My letter left it wide open when he could expect me back-a week, a month, two months, no telling-and he hates uncertainty.'
'So he phoned the Attorney General of Montana and demanded a complete detailed report pronto.'
'No, but he phoned somebody.' The ingredients were in and I started stirring. 'There are a lot of people who are grateful for something he did, even after paying the bill, and a few of them are the kind who might phone a governor or even a president, let alone an attorney general. He phoned one of them, maybe more than one, and he phoned Helena. It wasn't any great favour to ask, just a report. The gist of it will probably be that the evidence against Harvey is all wool, from Montana sheep and two yards wide. If by phone he may have it already, and his appetite for dinner will be even worse.' I looked at my wrist. 'He's at the table now. It's seven-thirty-two in New York.'
I put the glass rod down, picked up the pitcher, and poured. As she picked up her glass she said, 'I admit that's good guessing, but you're not sure. Anyway I'm not. There could be a break.' She raised the glass high. 'To Harvey.'
'One will get you ten. To Harvey.'
If she had taken my ten-to-one offer, whether I had made a bad bet or not would have depended on whether what happened twenty-six hours later, around eight o'clock Wednesday evening, should be regarded as a break, and that would have depended on who did the regarding. I had spent the day scouting around making useless motions, trying to find a stone with something under it, and it was getting me down. At the supper table I had certainly contributed nothing to help to make it a jolly meal, and when the coffee was finished I had said I had a letter to write and gone to my room. I did want to write something, but not a letter. I was going to do something desperate, something I had never done before: write down every damned fact I had collected in ten days, at least every fact that could conceivably mean anything, and try to find connections or contradictions that would point somewhere. I was at the table by an open window, with a pad and a supply of pencils, considering where to start, when I heard a car coming up the lane. I couldn't see it because my room was on the creek side. The others were closer than I was, and the fact that I jumped up instantly and scooted to the big room showed what shape I was in. Pitiful. Diana was at the piano and Lily was at the screen door looking out, and I joined her. The car was there, a taxi from Timberburg. It would soon be dusk, but there was light enough to see the man at the wheel stick his head out of the window and call, 'Is this Lily Rowan's place?'
I opened the door and stepped out and said yes, and the rear door of the taxi opened and a man climbed out, backwards. His big broad behind was Nero Wolfe's, and when he straightened up and turned around, so was his big broad front. Lily, at my elbow, said, 'The mountain comes to Mohammed,' and we crossed the terrace to meet him.
Chapter 4
Wolfe never shakes hands with a woman, and rarely with a man, but out in God's country people loosen up more, and when his hand left mine he actually offered it to Lily as he said, 'My apologies. I should have telephoned. You probably resent unexpected callers, as I do, but I dislike the telephone and I have used it too much these two days. I'll not disturb you. I had to see Mr Goodwin.'
'I make allowances,' Lily said, 'for callers who have come two thousand miles. Your luggage is in the car?'
'It is in Timberburg. Near there. At a place called Shafer Creek Motel.' To me: 'I have a suggestion. That man is foolhardy and his vehicle may collapse at any moment. If one is available here, I'll send him off and you can drive me back after we have conferred.'
I turned to Lily. 'As you know, he thinks all machinery acts on whim. If you won't need the car-'
'This is silly,' she said. To Wolfe: 'Of course you'll sleep here. There's a room with a bed. After a day in airplanes and cars, you must be about to collapse. Archie will tell the man to go and bring your luggage, and I'll show you your room. It has a bath. Have you had dinner?'
