I wasn't invited to help, so I left to do the errand, which was merely a chauffeuring chore, driving the station wagon to the cabin to supply transportation for Lily and Diana and Wade Worthy. My expectation was that Lily and Wade would be in the big room, ready, but Diana wouldn't, and that was how I found it. Of course nine women out of ten are late leavers and arrivers, but with Diana it wasn't only that. She had to make entrances. She never just came to the kitchen at breakfast time; she entered. Without an audience, an entrance is merely an arrival, and the bigger the audience the better. The arrangement had been that I would come for them a little after nine. If Diana had been dressed and her face-work done at nine o'clock, she would have waited in her room until she heard the car, and in the hall until she heard me inside. So I was there telling Lily and Wade that the real Montana trout deal had gone down fine when Diana glided in, a treat for any audience in a red silky thing that started late at the top but nearly made it to her ankles at the bottom. Lily, who didn't sneer at audiences but had different ideas, was in a pale pink shirt and white slacks.
Back at Lame Horse there was no parking room left in front, so I circled around Vawter's to a secluded spot by the rear platform of the store, and we walked to the front through the passage between the two buildings. When we entered I wasn't expecting Wolfe to be visible. We had asked Woody for permission to use his living quarters in the back, and he had given it, with all respect, and the arrangement was that I would escort Sam Peacock there whenever I found, or made, an opportunity. But there he was, on a chair about half wide enough, by the rear wall, and he had company. The law was never much in evidence at the Hall of Culture's Saturday nights because the precautions Woody took never let anyone get out of hand. Now and then a uniformed state cop would drop in for a look, and that was all. But that evening not only was Sheriff Morley Haight there, on a chair some three steps to the right of Wolfe, but also one of his deputies, a well-weathered specimen with the kind of shoulders Haight wished he had, whose name was Ed Welch. He was standing over near the door at the right, where the man with the till was posted. Diana and Wade headed for that door, but Lily, beside me, looked at the deputy, then at the sheriff, and asked me, loud enough for him to hear, 'Haven't I seen that man somewhere?'
To save me the trouble of providing a fitting reply she made for the door, taking her purse from her slacks pocket. I crossed to Wolfe and asked him, 'Have you met Sheriff Haight?'
'No,' he said.
'That's him.' I pointed noticeably. 'Do you want to?'
'No.'
I turned to Haight. 'Good evening. Do you want to ask Mr Wolfe or me something? Or tell us something?'
'No,' he said.
Thinking that was enough noes for a while, I went and handed the man at the door two bucks and passed through. The musicians were taking a rest, but as I was winding through the mob across to where I knew Lily would be, they started up, something I couldn't name, and Lily came to meet me, and we were off. Also on. We had moved together so many hours to so many beats that on a dance floor we were practically a four-legged animal.
We don't usually talk much while we're dancing, but in a minute she said, 'He followed you in.'
'Who? Haight?'
'No, the other one.'
'I supposed he would. I didn't want to please him by looking back.'
After another minute: 'What does that ape think he's doing, sitting there?'
'Hoping. Hoping for an excuse to bounce us out of his county.'
After another minute, during which we saw Diana hopping with a guy in a purple shirt and Levi's, and Wade with a girl in a sweater and a mini: 'You said he was going to be in Woody's rooms.'
'So did he. Evidently he decided to watch the herd arrive and spot the murderer. He is capable of deciding absolutely anything.'
After two more minutes: 'What is it about Sam Peacock? No, I take it back. I will not ask questions. It's just that seeing him sitting there, if it goes on much longer he'll decide I have to be obliterated, and damn it, he's the only man on earth I could be afraid of. Do you want to tell me about Sam Peacock or not?'
'Not. It may get us a lead, but don't hold your breath. As for Nero Wolfe, forget it. This will do him good. He even ate some of Carol's mashed potatoes. You didn't involve him and neither did I; he involved himself, and he's fully aware of it. He's aware of everything.'
'I haven't seen Sam Peacock.'
'He's always late. Last week he didn't come until nearly eleven. I told you, remember, I heard him tell a girl that when he was a yearling they had to tie his mother up before she'd let him suck.'
When the band stopped for breath I took Lily to her favourite spot by an open window and went on a tour to see who was there, and to confer with myself. Deputy Sheriff Ed Welch was standing over by the band platform and I passed by with my elbow missing his by half an inch to show him how nonchalant I was. If Morley Haight was going to stay put on that chair in the Gallery, and he probably would when Wolfe went inside, I didn't like the program. Seeing me take Sam Peacock in to Wolfe, Haight would of course sit tight and collar Sam when he came out, and Sam was the one and only person from whom Wolfe might pry something to bite on. Not just his trying to slide past the Thursday morning when Brodell had gone for a look at Berry Creek; there was also all day Tuesday and all day Wednesday, when Brodell had been with him and no one else. And if Wolfe got a hint from Sam and Sam knew it, Haight would worm it out of him. I did not like the prospect that if we got a glimmer Haight would get it too, and I knew Wolfe wouldn't. As I moseyed past the door I took a look through at the Gallery. Haight was there, at Woody's desk, with a paperback, and Wolfe wasn't.
Moving around, and standing near a corner when the band was going, in the next half-hour I saw maybe 183 faces I had seen before, and I had names for about half of them, including most of the people you have met-everybody at Farnham's, and Pete Ingalls and Emmett Lake at the Bar JR. Pete was dancing with Lily, and she wiggled a finger at me as they went by. No Sam Peacock, but I saw a friend of his, the girl who had told him the week before that he looked awful. She had on the same cherry-coloured shirt, or one just like it. When the band stopped and she walked away from her partner, looking as if she hadn't enjoyed it much, I went and headed her off and said, 'I dance better than he does.'
