'Confound it.' Wolfe sighed. 'I know, the picture must be varnished. The can is empty, Archie. In fact, the can itself is gone. There is nothing.'
I nodded. 'If I may make a suggestion? There is a flying field at Armonk, which is only a few miles from Pleasantville. If I may drive up there and get curious?'
'You may. But I doubt if he used a public flying field. He would prefer privacy. So before you go, try this. Take this down.'
'Long?'
'Very short.'
I got a pad and pencil. Wolfe dictated:
I said, 'Good. Swell. But it might have been a golf links.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'Still too public, and too much loud objection. Leave it pasture; it will have to be definite.-No, do not phone it. Stop at the Times office on your way uptown; leave it, and make sure the answers will reach us. Also-yes, the other papers, morning and evening, with similar proper arrangements. Manuel Kimball is ingenious enough to be annoying; should he see the advertisement it might occur to him to acquire the answers.'
I got up. 'All right, I'm off.'
'Just a moment. Does White Plains come before Armonk?'
'Yes.'
'Then on your way see Anderson. Tell him everything except Carlo Maffei and the Argentine. Present it to him; a fine gesture. Also tell him that E.D. Kimball is in imminent and constant danger and should have protection. Kimball of course will deny it and the precaution will be futile; nevertheless, when men undertake to meddle in the affairs of violent persons as you and I do, certain duties are assumed and should not be neglected.'
I knew it had to be done, but I said, 'I'd just as soon give Anderson a piece of information as tip a subway guard.'
'Soon, now,' Wolfe replied, 'we may be in a position to send him a bill.'
CHAPTER 14
What with stopping to put the ads in and the Friday afternoon summer traffic, by the time I got to the District Attorney's office in White Plains it was nearly four o'clock. I hadn't bothered to telephone ahead to see if Anderson or Derwin would be in because I had to go through White Plains anyhow to get to Armonk.
They were both there. The girl at the desk threw me a smile when I went up to her, and I liked that; when the time comes that they stop remembering you it means that your pan is losing its shine. Instead of asking my name or who I wanted to see, she nodded and pressed down a key on the switchboard. I said, 'Who do you think I am, the prodigal son?' She said, 'They'll kill you instead of the calf.' After she had talked into the phone a couple of seconds one of the doors snapped open and Derwin came out.
He came up to me. 'What do you want?'
I grinned. 'This is hot. Can you get Ben Cook here in a hurry?' Because I didn't like fits I went right on, 'I want to tell Mr. Anderson something. Or you, or both of you.'
I never did find out, I don't know to this day, what that White Plains bunch thought they had been doing during the six days that had passed since the autopsy. There was a hint or two, of course; that Friday afternoon Anderson told me that Corbett had spent two days at Holland University. Probably they got hold of a rumor that there was a student there whom Barstow had kept in school an extra hour or some such sizzler. I know they hadn't come within a mile of anything warm. Though it was hard to believe, it was a fact that Anderson didn't even know that Barstow had been using a new bag of golf clubs that had been given to him by his wife as a birthday present, until I told him. I only got one piece of news that afternoon; a New York chemist had said definitely that Barstow's blood showed snake venom. It was that report that had got Anderson and Derwin's minds off the golf clubs and dwelling fondly on copperheads; and though I hate like the devil to admit it, it gave me a few bad hours, too. Although it left the needle unexplained, I had seen odder things than a needle in a man's stomach accounted for by coincidence. Copperheads were not unknown in Westchester; what if one had been visiting the Green Meadow Club that Sunday and bit Barstow? On the foot or anywhere. It was about good enough for a headache. The snake venom report hadn't been given to the newspapers, and it wasn't given to me until after Anderson and Derwin had my tale, so it didn't cramp my style.
And of course even if the Green Meadow fairway had been carpeted with copperheads a foot deep, Anderson and Derwin couldn't get around the fact that Nero Wolfe had told them exactly what the autopsy would show them.
Derwin took me into Anderson's room. Anderson was there with another man, not a dick, he looked like a lawyer. I sat down and hooked my panama on my knee.
Anderson said, 'What's on your mind?'
I just simply didn't like that man. I couldn't even have any fun with him, to speak of, because whatever it was disagreeable about him, his face and his manner, was so deep and primitive that the only possible way to get any real satisfaction would have been to haul off and plug him in the nose. Derwin was different; he certainly wasn't my favorite uncle, but he would take a lot of kidding.
I said, 'Information from Nero Wolfe. Maybe you'd better call a stenographer.'
He had to pass a few remarks first, but I went patient and forbearing on him. What was the use of thinking up a lot of snappy comebacks when I couldn't use the one I wanted to? So pretty soon he saw he wasn't getting anywhere, and called a stenographer, and I spieled it off. I told about the birthday present, and the whereabouts of Barstow's golf bag and who had put it there, and the loan of Kimball's driver on the first tee. I
