In between things happened a little. First was the telephone call from Harry Foster Friday around four. I’d been expecting it. He said they had dug Barstow up and done the autopsy but wouldn’t make any announcement. It wasn’t his story any more; others had got wind of it and were hanging around the coroner’s office.
A little after six the second phone call came. This time it was Anderson. I grinned when I heard his voice and glanced at my wrist; I could see him fuming around waiting for six o’clock. He said he wanted to talk to Wolfe.
'I’m sorry, Mr. Wolfe is busy. This is Goodwin.'
He said he wanted Wolfe to come to White Plains. I laughed at him. He rang off. I didn’t like it, he struck me as a bad guy. After thinking it over a little I called up Henry H. Barber at his apartment and got all the dope on things like accessories and arrests of material witnesses. Then I went to the kitchen and told Wolfe about the two phone calls. He wiggled a spoon at me.
'Archie. This Anderson is a disease. Cleanse the telephone. Did I forbid mention of his name?'
I said, 'I’m sorry, I should have known better. You know what I think, sir. A nut is always a nut even when it’s you. I want to talk to Fritz.'
Wolfe wasn’t listening. I told Fritz that for dinner I would come and get sandwiches and take them to the office, and then I told him that when the buzzer rang, until further notice, he was not to go to the door, I would attend to it. Under no circumstances was he to open the door.
I knew it was probably uncalled-for precaution, but I was taking no chances on anyone busting in there with Wolfe in one of his Bloomingdale moods. I was glad he hadn’t tried to send me for anything and I hoped he wouldn’t, for I wouldn’t have gone. If it was a washout, all right, but I wasn’t going to let them make ninnies of us if I could help it. Nothing happened that night. The next morning I stayed out of Wolfe’s way, mostly in the front room, opening the door to a gas man and an expressman, and once to a slick youth that wanted to get helped through college. I helped him as far as the bottom of the stoop. It was around eleven when I obeyed the buzzer by opening the door again and found a big husky standing against it, coming in with it, his foot sliding along. I gave him a good solid stiff-arm and pushed him back, and went on out, shutting the door behind me.
I said, 'Good morning. Who invited you?'
He said, 'It wasn’t you anyhow. I want to see Nero Wolfe.'
'You can’t. He’s sick. What do you want?'
He smiled, being smooth, and handed me a card. I looked at it.
'Sure. From Anderson’s office. His right-hand man? What do you want?'
'You know what I want,' he smiled. 'Let’s go in and talk it over.'
I didn’t see any sense in trying to be coy. Anyway I had no idea when Wolfe might kick out of it, and that made me sick. So I covered it all in as few words as possible. I told him that Wolfe didn’t know one thing that they didn’t know, at least nothing that applied to Barstow, and that what he did know came to him in a dream. I told him that if they wanted Wolfe on the case at a price to say so and name the price and he would take it or leave it. I told him that if they wanted to try any funny warrants they would be surprised how funny they’d turn out to be before Wolfe got through with them. Then I told him that I could see that he weighed twenty pounds more than I did and that therefore I wouldn’t attempt to go back in the house until he had departed, and that I would appreciate it if he would get a move on because I was reading an interesting book. He inserted a few remarks as I went along, but when I finished all he said was: 'Tell Wolfe he can’t get away with it.'
'Sure. Any other message?'
'Just 'go to hell' for you.'
I grinned, and stood on the stoop watching him as he walked off, headed east. I had never heard of him before, but I didn’t know Westchester very well. The name on the card was H. R. Corbett. I went back to the front room and sat and smoked cigarettes.
After lunch, some time around four, I heard a newsy out in the street calling an extra. I went out and called him and bought one. There it was taking up half of the front page: BARSTOW POISONED- DART FOUND IN BODY. I read it through. If ever I had a pain in the neck it was then. Of course Wolfe and I weren’t mentioned; I hadn’t expected that; but to think of what that piece might have meant to us! I kicked myself for bungling with Derwin, and again with Anderson, for I was sure it could have been handled somehow to let us in, though it was hard to see how. And I kicked Wolfe for his damn relapse. At least I wanted to. I read it again. It wasn’t a dart at all, it was a short steel needle, just as Wolfe had said, and it had been found below the stomach. Sore as I was at Wolfe, I handed it to him. There was his picture.
I went to the kitchen and laid the paper on the table in front of Wolfe without a word, and went out again. He called after me, 'Archie! Get the car, here’s a list for you.'
I pretended I didn’t hear. Later Fritz went.
Next day the Sunday papers were full of it. They had sent their packs running around sniffing all over Westchester County, but they hadn’t found a thing. I read all the articles through, and I learned a lot of details about the Green Meadow Club, the Barstow family, the Kimballs who had been in the foursome, the doctor who had pulled a boner, and a lot besides, but nobody really knew any more than Wolfe had known Wednesday evening when he had asked Anna Fiore if she had ever seen a golf club in Carlo Maffei’s room. Not as much, for there was no accepted theory as to how the needle got in Barstow’s belly. All the papers had pieces by experts on poisons and what they do to you.
Sunday evening I went to a movie, telling Fritz to open the door to no one. Not that I expected anything; it looked as if Anderson was playing his own hand. Possibly, through motive or discoveries he had made, he was really lining it up. I would have got drunk that evening if it hadn’t been Sunday. When I got back from the movie Wolfe had gone up to his room, but Fritz was still in the kitchen washing up. I fried a piece of ham to make myself a sandwich and poured a glass of milk, for I hadn’t had much dinner. I noticed that the Times I had put there in the morning for Wolfe was still on top of the refrigerator just as I had left it. It was ten-to-one he hadn’t looked at it.
I read in my room until after midnight and then had trouble going to sleep on account of my mind working. But apparently there was no trouble about it after I once got started, for when I pried my eyes open in the morning enough to glance at the clock on the stand it was after nine. I was sitting on the edge of the bed
