attendants or visitors who had access to the locker rooms.
But now that was out, since Barstow’s bag had not been in his locker since the September before. He had brought it down with him from the university. That changed the picture and made the members of the foursome a little more interesting than lots of other people.
Where we ate surely wasn’t the dining room because it wasn’t big enough, but it had a table and chairs and windows that you couldn’t see much through on account of a lot of shrubbery just outside. The tall skinny guy in the black suit-otherwise Small, the butler, as an established guest like myself was aware-waited on us, and while the meal seemed to me a little light it was nothing that Fritz would have been ashamed of. There was some stuff in tambour shells that was first class. The table was small. I sat across from Miss Barstow, with her brother on my right and Manuel Kimball on my left.
Lawrence Barstow didn’t resemble his sister any, but I could see traces of his mother. He was well put together and had the assurance that goes with his kind of life; his features were good and regular without anything noticeable about them. I’ve seen hundreds of him in the lunch restaurants in the Wall Street section and in the Forties. He had a trick of squinting when he decided to look at you, but I thought that was perhaps due to the blowing his eyes had got in the airplane breeze. The eyes were gray, like his mother’s, but they didn’t have the discipline behind them that hers had.
Manuel Kimball was quite different. He was dark and very neat and compact, with black hair brushed straight back and black restless eyes that kept darting around at us and seemed to find any degree of satisfaction or repose only when they were looking at Sarah Barstow. He made me nervous, and it seemed to me that he set Sarah Barstow a little on edge too, though that may have been only because he didn’t know where I came in on the family crisis and wasn’t supposed to know. That morning she had informed me that there had been no intimacy between the Kimballs and Barstows; the only points of contact had been propinquity in their summer residences and the fact that Manuel was a skilled amateur pilot and his offers to take Larry Barstow up and teach him to fly had been most convenient since Larry had developed an interest in airplane design. She herself had been up with Manuel Kimball two or three times the summer before, but aside from those occasions she had scarcely ever seen him except as the companion of her brother. The Kimballs were newcomers, having bought their place, two miles south, only three years previously. E.D. Kimball, Manuel’s father, was known to the Barstows only slightly, through chance and infrequent meetings at large social or public gatherings. Manuel’s mother was dead, long since, she had vaguely gathered. She could not remember that there had ever been more than a few casual words exchanged between her father and Manuel Kimball except one afternoon the preceding summer when Larry had brought Manuel to the Barstow place to settle a wager at tennis, and she and her father had acted as umpire and linesman.
In spite of which, I was interested in Manuel Kimball. He had at any rate been one of the foursome; and he looked like a foreigner and had a funny combination for a name, and he made me nervous.
At lunch the conversation was mostly about airplanes. Sarah Barstow kept it on that, when there was any sign of lagging, and once or twice when her brother started questions on affairs closer to her bosom she abruptly headed him off. I just ate. When Miss Barstow finally pushed her chair back, punching Small in the belly with it, we all stood up. Larry Barstow addressed me directly almost for the first time; I had seen indications of his idea that I might as well have been eating out back somewhere.
'You want to see me?'
I nodded. 'If you can spare a quarter of an hour.'
He turned to Manuel Kimball. 'If you don’t mind waiting, Manny. I promised Sis I’d have a talk with this man.
'Of course.' The other’s eyes darted to rest on Sarah Barstow. 'Perhaps Miss Barstow would be kind enough to help me wait.'
She said yes, without enthusiasm. But I got a word in: 'I’m sorry.' To Miss Barstow, 'May I remind you that you agreed to be present with your brother?' It hadn’t been mentioned, but I had taken it for granted, and I wanted her there.
'Oh.' I thought she looked relieved. 'Yes. I’m sorry, Mr. Kimball; shall we leave you here with the coffee?'
'No, thanks.' He bowed to her and turned to Larry. 'I’ll trot along and have a look at that gas line. If one of your cars can run me over? Thanks. I’ll be expecting you at the hangar any time. Thank you for a pleasant luncheon, Miss Barstow.'
One thing that had surprised me about him was his voice. I had expected him, on sight, to sound like a tenor, but the effect he produced was more like that of a murmuring bull. The voice was deep and had a rumble in it, but he kept it low and quite pleasant. Larry Barstow went out with him to tell someone to take him home. His sister and I waited for Larry to come back, and then all three of us went out to the garden, to the bench where I had been taken on my arrival. Larry sat at one side on the grass, and Miss Barstow and I on the bench.
I explained that I wanted Miss Barstow present because she had made the agreement with Nero Wolfe and I wanted her to be satisfied that nothing was said or done that went beyond the agreement. I had certain things I wanted to ask Lawrence Barstow and if there was any question about my being entitled to answers she was the one to question it.
She said, 'Very well, I’m here.' She looked about played out. In the morning she had sat with her shoulders straight, but now she let them sag down.
Her brother said, 'As far as I’m concerned-your name’s Goodwin, isn’t it?'
'That’s it.'
'Well, as far as I’m concerned, your agreement, as you call it, is nothing more than a piece of cheap insolence.'
'Anything else, Mr. Barstow?'
'Yes. If you want it. Blackmail.'
His sister had a flash left. 'Larry! What did I tell you?'
'Wait a minute, Miss Barstow.' I was flipping back the pages of my notebook. 'Maybe your brother ought to hear it. I’ll find it in a minute.' I found the page. 'Here it is.' I read it just as Wolfe had said it, not too fast. Then I closed the notebook. 'That’s the agreement, Mr. Barstow. I might as well say that my employer, Mr. Nero Wolfe, keeps his temper pretty well under control, but every once in a while I blow up. If you call him a
