I looked up at the airplanes again. Manuel Kimball and his father having a ride together, up there in the sun, the wind and the roar. No conversation probably. just a morning ride.
I started toward the roadster, to speak to Anderson. Corbett had left his car and came to meet me. I stopped to listen to him: 'Well, we’ve come to your party, where’s your guest of honor?'
I brushed past him and went on to the roadster. Seeing no point in giving the mechanic an earful, I lowered my voice. 'You’ll have to wait, Mr. Anderson. Barstow’s murderer is taking an airplane ride. I’m sorry you won’t get him on time, but you’ll get him.'
Anderson said, 'Get in here. I want a showdown.'
I shook my head. Maybe it was just contrariness, but I was set on carrying it out exactly as Wolfe had ordered. 'That’s not next on the program.'
Corbett had come up, around on the other side of the roadster, and now he stuck his face in at the window and said to Anderson, 'If he’s got anything you want I’d be glad to get it for you.'
I had my mouth open to invite him formally when I heard my name called. I turned. Skinner had left the hangar and was approaching me; in one hand he had a golf driver and in the other an envelope. I stared at him. He was saying, 'I forgot. You’re Mr. Goodwin? Mr. Kimball left these for you.'
I got to him and grabbed. The driver! I looked at it, but there was nothing to see; in outward appearance it was just a golf club. But of course it was it. Lovin’ babe! I tucked it under my arm and looked at the envelope; on the outside was written, Mr. Nero Wolfe. It was unsealed, and I pulled out the contents, and had in my hand the set of photostats I had missed from the safe. They were fastened with a paper clip, and slipped under the clip was a piece of paper on which I read:
I looked up at the sky. The red and blue airplane of the leading character in Wolfe’s charade was still there, higher I thought, circling, with the other plane above. I put the photostats back into the envelope.
Corbett was in front of me. 'Here, I’ll take that.'
'Oh no. Thanks, I can manage.'
He sprang like a cat and I wasn’t expecting it. It was neat. He got the envelope with one hand and the driver with the other. He started for the roadster. Two jumps put me in front of him, and he stopped. I wasn’t monkeying. I said, 'Look out, here it comes,' and plugged him on the jaw with plenty behind it. He wobbled and dropped his loot, and I let him get his hands up, and then feinted with my left and plugged him again. That time he went down. His boy friend came running up, and Skinner from his side. I turned to meet the boy friend, but Anderson’s voice, with more snap in it than I knew he had, came from the roadster: 'Curry! Lay off! Cut it!'
Curry stopped. I stepped back. Corbett got up, glaring wild. Anderson again: 'Corbett, you too! Lay off!'
I said, 'Not on my account, Mr. Anderson. If they want to play snatch-and-run I’ll take them both on. They need to be taught a little respect for private property.'
I stooped to pick up the driver and the envelope. It was while I was bent over, reaching down, that I heard Skinner’s yell.
'Good God! He’s lost it!'
For an instant I imagined he meant I had lost the driver, and I thought he was crazy. Then as I straightened up and glanced at him and saw where he was looking, I jerked my eyes and my head up. It was Manuel Kimball’s plane directly overhead, a thousand feet up. It was twisting and whirling as if it had lost its senses, and coming down. It seemed to be jerking and coiling back and forth, it didn’t look as if it was falling straight, but I suppose it was. It was right above us-faster-I stared with my mouth open- 'Look out!' Skinner was shouting. 'For God’s sake!'
We ran for the hangar door. Anderson was out of the roadster and with us. We got inside the door and turned in time to see the crash. Black lightning split the air. A giant report, not thunderous like a big gun, an instantaneous ear-splitting snap. Pieces flew; splinters lay at our feet. It had landed at the edge of the concrete platform, not ten yards from Corbett’s car. We jumped out and ran for the wreckage, Skinner calling, 'Look out for an explosion!'
What I saw first wasn’t pretty. The only way I knew it had been E.D. Kimball was that it was mixed up with a strap in the position of the back seat and Skinner had said that the old gentleman had gone up for a ride. Apparently it had landed in such a way that the front seat had got a different kind of a blow, for Manuel Kimball could have been recognized by anybody. His face was still together and even pretty well in shape. Skinner and I got him loose while the others worked at the old gentleman. We caned them away from there and inside the hangar and put them on some canvas on the floor.
Skinner said, 'You’d better move your cars. An explosion might come yet.'
I said, 'When I move my car I’ll keep on moving it.
'Now’s a good time. Mr. Anderson. You may remember that Nero Wolfe promised I would be diffident. That’s me.' I pulled the documents from my pocket and handed them to him. 'Here’s your proof. And there’s your man on the floor, the one with the face.'
I picked up Manuel Kimball’s envelope and the golf driver from the floor where I had dropped them, and beat it. It took me maybe four seconds to get the roadster started and out of there and sooting down the road.
At the entrance, turning onto the highway, I stopped long enough to call to Durkin, 'Call your playmates and come on home. The show’s over.'
I got to White Plains in twenty-two minutes. The roadster never did run nicer. I telephoned Wolfe at the same drugstore where two weeks before I had phoned him that Anderson had gone to the Adirondacks and I had only Derwin to bet with. He answered right off, and I gave him the story, brief but complete.
He said, 'Good. I hope I haven’t offended you, Archie. I thought it best that your mind should not be cluttered with the lesser details. Fritz is preparing to please your palate.
