world I am good at. Trading. I am a good trader, and that is surprising when you consider how soft I am really. Soft-hearted. With the more personal aspects of life I do not know how to deal.' He was moving back and forth behind his desk. 'Yes, this appears to be more than a nuisance. Goodness gracious. What would you do, Blaine?'
I glared at the secretary. He hesitated. 'If you care to go to see this Nero Wolfe, I could go with you. If I were you I would take a lawyer.'
'What appointments have I?'
'The usual sort of thing, nothing important. At eleven-thirty the man from the Westchester District Attorney.'
'Oh, I would miss him. Well, tell him anything. How's the ticker?'
'Firm at the opening. Cotton easing off.'
Kimball turned to me. 'Where is this Nero Wolfe? Bring him here.'
'Impossible, Mr. Kimball. He is-' But Wolfe had once found out that I had told a man he was infirm, and I didn't want that to happen again. 'He is an eccentric genius. It's only up on Thirty-fifth Street. I've got my car down below and I'd be glad to run you up.'
Kimball said, 'I've only met one genius in my life; he was an Argentine cowboy. A gaucho. All right. Wait for me in the front office.'
Back in the front room I had first entered, I sat on the edge of a chair. Meeting E.D. Kimball and looking at him and talking with him had somehow cleared my mind. I saw plainly what I should have realized the night before, that the minute it came out that it was Kimball's driver that had been turned into what Wolfe called a lethal toy, and the minute Kimball himself arrived on the scene, we were probably turning into the homestretch. It was the same as if you found a man murdered and by some kind of hocus-pocus were able to bring him back to life long enough to ask him who killed him, and get his answer. That's what E.D. Kimball was, a man who had been murdered and was still living. I had to get him up to Wolfe's place and lock the door, and get him there quick, before Corbett got a chance at him-or, as far as that was concerned, anyone else. Anyone at all. How did I know but what it was the secretary, Square-jaw Blaine, who had had that driver made and found opportunity to get it into Kimball's bag? At that moment, as I sat there on the edge of the chair, Blaine might be sticking a knife into Kimball as he had into Carlo Maffei…
It was ten-fifty. I got up and began walking up and down the linoleium. Anderson's man-I was sure it would be Corbett-was due at half past eleven, and he might take it into his thick head to come early and wait. I had just decided to ask the girl at the desk to phone into Blaine for me, when the inner door opened and Kimball appeared with his hat on. I was pretty glad to see him. He nodded at me and I jumped to the entrance door to open it for him.
As we got into the elevator I observed, 'Mr. Blaine isn't coming.'
Kimball shook his head. 'He's needed here more than I need him. I like your face. I find I usually do like a man's face, and it pays every time. Trust is one of the finest things in the world, trust in your fellow man.'
Yes, I thought to myself, I'll bet a successful trader like you can use up lots of trust.
It was only half a block to where I had parked the roadster. I cut across as far west as I could get to avoid the traffic, and it was still short of eleven-fifteen when I was ushering Kimball in ahead of me at Wolfe's door.
I took Kimball to the front room and asked him to wait there a minute, then returned to the entrance and made sure the latch was caught. Then I went to the kitchen. Fritz was making cherry tarts; a pan was just out of the oven and I nabbed one and stuffed it in and darned near burned my tongue off. I told Fritz, 'One guest for lunch and don't put any poison in it. And be careful who you let in; if there's any doubt, call me.'
In the office, Wolfe was at his desk. As soon as I saw him I stopped, exasperated, for he was cleaning house. He had only one drawer in his desk, a wide shallow one in the middle, and since he had begun having his beer in bottles instead of brought up from the basement in a pitcher, he had formed the habit, every time he opened a bottle, of pulling the drawer out and dropping the bottle cap in there. Fritz wasn't supposed to open any drawers in the office, and I knew Wolfe had some sort of a nutty notion that he was saving the bottle caps for something so I had let them alone. Now, when I entered, he had the drawer half out and was scattering the caps all over the desk, arranging them in piles.
I said, 'Mr. E.D. Kimball is in the front room. Do you want him to come in and help you?'
'The devil.' Wolfe looked around at his piles, and at me helplessly. He sighed. 'Can't he wait a while?'
'Of course, sure. How would next week do?'
He sighed again. 'Confound it. Bring him in.'
'With that junk scattered all over the desk?-Oh, all right, I told him you're eccentric.' I had kept my voice lowered; now I lowered it some more to let him know how Kimball had shaped up and what I had said to him. He nodded, and I went to get Kimball.
Kimball had his worried-amused look back on again. I introduced him and pulled a chair around for him, and after they had exchanged a few words I said to Wolfe, 'If you won't need me, sir, I'll get on to those reports.' He nodded, and I got fixed at my desk with papers all around and half underneath a pad which I used for a notebook on such occasions. I had got my signs so abbreviated that I could get down every word of some pretty fast talk and still give the impression to a careless eye that I was just shuffling around looking for last week's delicatessen bill.
Wolfe was saying, 'You are perfectly correct, Mr. Kimball. A man's time is his own only by sufferance. There are many ways in which he may be dispossessed: flood, famine, war, marriage-not to speak of death, which is the most satisfactory of all because it closes the question finally.'
'Goodness gracious.' Kimball was fidgety. 'I do not see why that should make it satisfactory.'
'You came very near finding out, a week ago last Sunday.' Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. 'You are a busy man, Mr. Kimball, and you have just returned to your office after a week's absence. Why, under those
