The Father Hunt

'My God, no. Anyway it was just business. There couldn't possibly have been anything with any hint of what was going to happen to her that night. You know, I might be better at this if I knew why you think it was premeditated murder. Goodwin told me it was Amy's in-tution. Isn't a hit-and-run nearly always just a hit-and- run?'

'Yes. I would Eke to oblige you, Mr. Thorne, if only as a token of Miss Denovo's appreciation of your willingness to help, but I can't divulge information that the police are reserving. Only five hours ago a police officer of high rank, discussing that hit-and-run with Mr. Goodwin, said, 'He got a cigar out to light it while he was parked on Second Avenue waiting for her, and there she came.' If I were free to tell you more I would. Help yourself to brandy. If you please, Archie, beer?'

That was a fair example of how to lie while sticking to

the truth. It was perfectly true that he couldn't, or anyhow shouldn't, divulge information that the police were reserving. It was also true that a high-ranking police officer had said that to me. So a truth plus a truth equaled a bare-faced lie.

It was the only one he told during the four long hours that Thome sat in the red leather chair while downing a third of a bottle of marvelous cognac. I doubted if he knew how good it was; a man had once offered Wolfe fifty bucks for a bottle of it.

The four hours took us an hour and a half past midnight, into Friday morning, and the brandy took Thome into a kind of talking trance that made him forget about time, and also seemed to oil his memory, which was just luck. He remembered Thursday a little better than Friday, and by the time they got back to Monday he was remembering so much that I began to suspect him. He had remarked at one point that he had done some script-writing, so he had had practice making things up.

But he didn't make up the thing, the thing that hit. It wasn't a smack. I damned near let it slide by. I had been sitting there listening to irrelevant trivialities for more than three hours; it was well past midnight, I had covered at least a dozen yawns, and I had been drinking milk, not brandy. They had been on Monday for maybe twenty minutes, and had got to where Thorne and Elinor were on their way out to have lunch with somebody, and Thorne was telling how the receptionist had stopped Elinor to tell her that Floyd Vance had been there again and she had had to threaten to call in a policeman if he didn't leave. The receptionist said he might be out in the hall. Elinor had thanked her and they had left. Naturally Wolfe had asked who Floyd Vance was, but Thorne knew nothing about him; he said probably some nut who wanted to peddle an idea for a show that the networks would give a million for. They were a dime a dozen.

As I said, I nearly let it slide by. It hit me a little later as I was telling my jaw and cheek muscles to get set to hide another yawn, and I made a mistake. I forgot the yawn and my jaws opened wide for it. That led me into a second mistake, which often happens. Preferring not to let Thorne know that he had told us a fact which might

be significant, I tried to go on as I had been for an hour, looking more awake and alert than I was, and I overdid it. If he had been awake and alert he would have noticed it, but by that time his talking trance was in command and it would have made no impression on him if I had wiggled my ears.

But Wolfe noticed it, and that was what kept him from going on and on and making a night of it unless Thome ran down. So it was only half past one and they had only got to the middle of Monday afternoon when he looked at the clock and said he was too tired to continue, and Thome must be too. Miss Denovo would deeply appreciate Thome's cooperation, and he and Mr. Goodwin would see if they could find a hint in any of the items Thome had supplied. As Thome used both hands on the chair arm to get to his feet I was thinking that I would have to steer him out and down the stoop steps, and possibly even go and get the Heron to cart him home, but he did all right. Going down the hall he put a hand to the wall once to steady himself, and outside he stood and brought his shoulders up and took a couple of deep breaths, but he made it down to the sidewalk without any trouble. I stayed to watch him for about thirty paces. Okay.

As I entered the office Wolfe growled at me, 'You got something. What?'

I went to my desk and sat. 'Nothing would please me more than to catch one you should have caught and missed, but I can't claim it on this. I think we've got a nibble. I don't know whether it's the father or the murderer, or possibly both, but I think it's a nibble. Last Sunday afternoon at Miss Rowan's place in the country three people came who had not been invited and weren't expected. Two of them were friends of hers-well, acquaintances; I had met them there before-who have a place half an hour away. The third one was their weekend house guest, a man named Floyd Vance. They said they had mentioned to him that Archie Goodwin was often at Lily Rowan's for weekends, and he had got them to drive him over because he wanted to meet me. I gathered from what he said that what he really wanted was to meet you. He said he was a public-relations counselor. He

said that if anybody needed expert handling of his public image a private detective did, and he would like to create a presentation to propose to you. He also said that if we were working on a case and I would tell him about it, he could use that as a basis for the presentation. At that, naturally, I looked and listened, but decided he was just trying to find another sucker for his racket. I now sincerely hope I was wrong. Two comments. One, there are probably very few Floyd Vances around. Two, allowing for the twenty-three years, he fits Salvatore Manzoni's description just fine.'

'I would like some beer,' Wolfe said.

'You're already two bottles ahead and it's going on two o'clock.'

'Satisfactory,' he said, leaving it open whether he meant the beer or the nibble. He gripped the edge of the desk to push his chair back, rose, and headed for the hall. For a second I thought he was walking out, to go to bed with the nibble, but he turned left in the hall. He was going for beer. When he returned he had a bottle and a glass in one hand and a snifter in the other. He put the bottle and glass on his desk, got the cognac bottle from the stand and poured a couple of ounces in the snifter,

'You might easily have missed it,' he said, and went around to his chair, opened the bottle, and poured.

I whirled the brandy around in the snifter and said, 'I almost did. If it's only a coincidence I'm through with the detective business for good. We'll soon know, one way or another. The quickest and most obvious would be to have Salvatore Manzoni take a look at the public-relations Floyd Vance, but twenty-three years is a long time and it might not prove anything. Of course the receptionist at Thome's could settle it that it was the public-relations Floyd Vance that she shooed out that May day, but that would only prove that it's a real nibble.'