frank with you. I'm out of my depth. That's not for publication, Ben, but it's a fact anyhow. I'm clear out of my depth. Good Lord, don't you know what it would mean-an exhumation and autopsy on Peter Oliver Barstow?'
I put in, 'Rot. Any of a dozen excuses is enough.'
'Well, maybe I'm not good at excuses. Anyway, I know that family. I can't do it. I've telephoned Anderson at Lake Placid and couldn't get him. I'll have him before six o'clock, before seven sure. He can take a sleeper and be here tomorrow morning. He can decide it then.'
'That lets today out,' I said.
'Yes. Not a chance. I won't do it.'
'All right.' I got up. 'I'll go down to the corner and phone Wolfe and see if he'll wait that long, and if he says okay I'll head south away from the hayseeds. I might as well have that check.'
Derwin took it from his pocket and handed it to me.
I grinned at Ben Cook. 'Shall I give you a lift as far as the station, Chief?'
'Run along, sonny, run along.'
CHAPTER 5
Wolfe was as nice as pie that evening. I got home in time to eat dinner with him. He wouldn't let me say anything about White Plains until the meal was over; in fact, there wasn't any conversation to speak of about anything, for he had the radio going. He was accustomed to say that this was the perfect era for the sedentary man; formerly such a man could satisfy any amount of curiosity regarding bygone times by sitting down with Gibbon or Ranke or Tacitus or Greene but if he wanted to meet his contemporaries he had to take to the highways, whereas the man of today, tiring for the moment of Galba or Vitellius, had only to turn on the radio and resume his chair. One program Wolfe rarely missed was the Joy Boys. I never knew why. He would side with his fingers interlaced on his belly, his eyes half-closed, and his mouth screwed up as if there was something in it he would spit out any minute. Frequently I went for a walk at that time, but of course when dinner was a little early so that it came then I was caught. I have my radio favorites all right, but the Joy Boys seem to me pretty damn vulgar.
In the office after dinner it didn't take me long to report. I hated apologizing to Wolfe because he was so invariably nice about it; he always took it for granted that I had done everything possible and that there was nothing to criticize but the contrariety of the environment, as he put it. He made no comments and didn't seem much interested in the report or the apology either. I tried to get him started, tried for instance to find out if he had really had some sort of wild idea that I might kid a District Attorney into covering a bet of ten thousand dollars just like that, but he only stayed nice and quiet. I asked him if he thought it likely that I could have taken any line at all that would have persuaded Derwin to start the digging that afternoon. He said probably not.
'Frogs don't fly.' He was sitting at his desk examining with a magnifying glass the rostellum from a Cymbidium Alexanderi that Horstmann had brought down wilty on the stem. 'He would have needed a touch of imagination, just a touch, but I would judge from your description that he lacks it. I beg you not to reproach yourself. This affair may prove unprofitable in the end. With Fletcher M. Anderson it might have been different. He is a rich man with professional ambitions, and no fool. He might easily have reflected that if a quiet and unadvertised autopsy proved me wrong he would win ten thousand dollars; if it proved me right he would have to pay me, but he would get a remarkable and sensational case in return, and he might also infer that having pocketed his money I would have further information to be placed at his disposal. Your errand at White Plains was in essence a primitive business enterprise: an offer to exchange something for something else. If Mr. Anderson had only been there he would probably have seen it so. It may yet materialize; it is still worth some small effort. I believe though it is getting ready to rain.'
'What are you doing now, changing the subject?' I stuck to the chair near his desk, though I saw that I was being regarded as a mild nuisance, for I had some questions to ask. 'It was clouding up as I came in. Is it going to rain all over your clues?'
He was placid, still bent over the magnifying glass. 'Some day, Archie, when I decide you are no longer worth tolerating, you will have to marry a woman of very modest mental capacity to get an appropriate audience for your wretched sarcasms. When I mentioned the rain I had your own convenience and comfort in mind. This afternoon it struck me as desirable that you should visit Sullivan Street, but tomorrow will do as well.'
It was hard to believe unless you were as well acquainted with him as I was; I knew that he was really serious, he thought that leaving the house at any time was an unpleasant venture, but to go out in the rain was next to foolhardy. I said, 'What do you think I am, the Chinese army? Of course I'll go. That was one of my questions. Why do you suppose Anna Fiore closed up so hard on O'Grady? Because he wasn't all grace and charm like you and me?'
'Likely. Excellent conjecture, Archie. The more so because when I sent Panzer for her today she confessed only reluctantly to her name and she would not budge. So your grace and charm will be needed. If it would be convenient have her here in the morning at eleven. It's not of great importance but can do no harm for passing the time, and such stubbornness deserves a siege.'
'I'll go get her now.'
'No. Really. Tomorrow. Sit down. I would prefer to have you here, idle and useless, while I purposelessly inspect this futile flower. Futile and sterile apparently. As I have remarked before, to have you with me like this is always refreshing because it constantly reminds me how distressing it would be to have someone present-a wife, for instance-whom I could not dismiss at will.'
'Yes, sir.' I grinned. 'Go on with the rest of it.'
'Not just now. Not with the rain falling. I dislike it.'
'All right, then tell me a few things. How did you know Carlo Maffei had been murdered? How do you know Barstow was poisoned? How do you know he's got a needle in him? Of course I see how it got there since you had the boy from Corliss Holmes show us, but how did you get that far?'
Wolfe laid down his magnifying glass and sighed. I knew I was making him uncomfortable, but aside from curiosity it was a matter of business. He never seemed to realize that while it was all very well for me to feel in my bones that he would never get us committed to a mistake, I could do my part with a little more intelligence if
