The Father Hunt

doubt if you want another casualty like Simon Jacobs on the record, and I certainly don't. I suggest that we'd better get her out of circulation.'

He made a face. 'Fritz.'

That was what he calls flummery. It was true that when, for security reasons, it had been necessary to have a female guest sleeping and eating in the South Room, which is above Wolfe's, Fritz hadn't been able to hide how he felt about it, but Wolfe hadn't even tried to hide how he felt.

'I'm aware,' I said, 'that if we did it again Fritz might leave and you might too. I don't mean here. She spends most of her days at Miss Rowan's, and she could spend her nights there too until we get him or drop him. Miss Rowan has two spare rooms. I'll suggest it. Anything else?'

He said no and I went back up a flight to do in ten minutes what usually takes me thirty. By the time I got down to the kitchen, having stopped in the office to tell Fred and Orrie that Saul and I were going to pick up a trail and might need them later, my fog was starting to clear.

A detective is supposed to get onto things and people,

but I gave up long ago trying to get onto Fritz all the way, so I didn't bother to try to guess how he had known Fred and Orrie would be leaving and Saul would be staying. He knows Saul loves his eggs au beurre noir, and there were two chairs and two places ready at my breakfast table. Saul went to the range to watch him baste, and said he had tried it a hundred times but it never tasted the same. As we ate I told Saul about Floyd Vance and the various angles, and we took our second cups of coffee to the office to consider ways and means. Wolfe had said that the first question was, Is he involved? but Saul agreed with me that it couldn't do any harm to regard that as answered and proceed accordingly. He also agreed that it would help if he had a look at him, and I got at the phone and dialed the number of Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer.

'Yes, Archie?' I like the way Parker says yes, Archie. He knows that handling something for Wolfe can be interesting but that it may be tough and ticklish, so the yes, Archie is half glad and half sad.

I told him it was nothing much this time. 'Just a little chore. A man named Floyd Vance has an office at Four-ninety Lexington Avenue. He's a counselor, but not at law, at public relations, which as you know is a much newer profession. The chore is to ring him and tell him you have a client who is thinking of engaging his services, and you would like to send a man to discuss it with him. The name of the man is Saul Panzer, whose qualifications you know about. He can go any time, the sooner the better. I'm going out, but Saul will be here to take your call. You have the name? Floyd Vance.'

'I have it. What if he wants particulars?'

'You're not prepared to give him any.'

'That's a good way to put it. I am certainly not prepared. Give the genius my regards.'

He meant it, but he knew I knew exactly what he would put in a long footnote. I dialed another familiar number to make another request and then went up to my room for a quick shave and change. The ten minutes before breakfast hadn't been enough.

It was too hot to walk the more than two miles to East Sixty-third Street, and anyway I had told Lily I

wouid be there by eleven-thirty. It was five minutes short of that when I pushed the button at the penthouse door and got a mild surprise when Mimi opened it. When I am expected at a certain hour it's nearly always Lily who comes, I think on account of some kind of a notion she has about a maid admitting a man who has a key. I have never tried to dope it. Other people's notions are none of my business unless they get in the way. Then I got a second mild surprise. I had told Lily on the phone that I wanted to see both her and Miss Denovo, but even so, why were they out on the terrace at that hour with a pitcher of iced tea when they should have been inside working? The penthouse was air-conditioned. Was Lily actually still… To hell with it. / was working. I moved another chair over, between them, sat, accepted an offer of tea with lime and mint, and said, 'Don't mind my manners, I have a busy day ahead.' I turned to Lily. 'We're working on a problem for Miss Denovo. We've been on it-' 'Archie! No.'

That was an example of a client's notion getting in the way. 'I'm talking,' I told her distinctly and returned to Lily. 'It's very personal and she doesn't want anyone to know about it, not even you, and I'm proud and happy that she trusts me so much that she calls me Archie, so about her problem I'll only say that she is not responsible for it. Other people created it; she merely wants to solve it. She came to see Nero Wolfe two weeks ago today.' 'Why do you-' Amy started, and stopped. Lily was smiling at me. 'Ole, Escamillo,' she said, and put a kiss on a fingertip and flipped it to me.

'Last night,' I told Amy, 'there was a development. With Miss Rowan here I can't give you the details, and I wouldn't anyhow at this stage. But it is now more than a wild guess that your mother's death wasn't just an accidental hit-and-run, that it was deliberate murder, and _ if so it's possible that he has ideas about you. We don't know-' 'He? Who?'

'You have probably never heard the name we're interested in, and you won't hear it now. We don't know what motive he might have had for your mother, or if

he has one for you, but once in a situation like this we made a bad mistake and once is enough.' I turned to Lily. 'Can she stay here? I mean stay. Not even go out in the hall. This terrace is okay; I doubt if he has a helicopter. Until we know more than we do now. Perhaps just a couple of days, but it could be a couple of weeks. You could get a lot of work done on the book.' 'Why not?' Lily said. 'Certainly.' Amy was squinting at me, squinting and frowning. 'But you can't expect me… You can't just tell me…' She looked at Lily. 'If you don't mind, Miss Rowan, I want to ask him something. I mean alone.'

'I don't mind,' Lily said, 'but I know him better than you do. He's working. When he's playing he's wonderful _s -usually-but when he's working he's impossible. He said he wouldn't give you any details, but if you want to try I don't mind.'

'I do,' I told Amy. 'I've got things to do, and anyway there's nothing I could or would teU you. This development may be a dud, and I've got to find out.' I stood up. 'You'll want to go to your apartment to bring things, but don't take all day.' To Lily: 'The standard rate for bodyguarding is six dollars an hour, but you shouldn't