do it, after everything I've told you.'
Wolfe was slowly moving his head from side to side. 'Amazing,' he said. 'How old are you?'
'I'm not a minor, if that's what you're thinking. I'm twenty-one.'
'Amazing that a creature so obtuse could live so long without meeting disaster. I was at pains to make it clear that we were discussing a hypothesis, and the idea that you were being gulled never entered your mind. I don't know how a brain that is never used passes the time. It will be futile to try to browbeat your brother into deferring to you; I shall hold him to his engagement with me. I was not lying when I said that he anticipated you. He was here when you telephoned.'
I suppose her father, Harold F. Tedder, was responsible for the way she took it. Naturally a true gentleman would teach his children never to argue with underlings. Since she couldn't very well order him to leave, his office and his house, there was only one thing to do, and she did it. She got up and walked out, stiff hips and all. She did it all right too, no hurry and no prolonging it. I got to the hall ahead of her and had the door open when she reached the front, and she said thank you as she passed. Breeding will tell. I shut the door, bolted it for the night, returned to the office, and told Wolfe, 'Taking candy from a baby.'
He grunted and pushed his chair back. 'An insupportable day. I'm going to my bed.' He rose.
'What about Saul and Fred and Orrie?'
'The morning will do.' He moved.
CHAPTER 9
Saturday morning I heard the seven-o'clock news on the radio in my room, and the eight-o'clock news on the radio in the kitchen. Saul and Fred and Orrie had come and had gone up to Wolfe's room. I was listening to the nine-o'clock news on the radio in the office when they came down. Ordinarily two or three times a day is often enough, but ordinarily I am not curious as to whether some dick or state cop or FBI hero has found half a million bucks, with or without a Mr Knapp in illegal possession of it.
I had also read the morning paper. The DA's office was playing it safe on the death of Jimmy Vail. The cause of death had been Benjamin Franklin, definitely, and there was no evidence or information to indicate that it had not been an accident, but it was still under investigation. I doubted that last. The DA had to say it, to guard against the chance of something popping up, but I doubted if the five people who had last seen him alive were being pestered much.
There was no doubt at all that the kidnaping was being investigated. Since Jimmy had died before telling anyone how or where he had been snatched, or where and by whom he had been kept, or where he had been released, there was no lead at all. The caretaker of the country house near Katonah had been taken apart by a dozen experts, but he had stuck to it that Vail had left in his Thunderbird shortly after eight Sunday evening to drive back to town, and had returned in the Thunderbird about half past seven Wednesday morning, tired, mad, dirty, and hungry. He had told the caretaker nothing whatever. The theory was that the kidnapers had taken the Thunderbird and kept it wherever they had kept him, and, when they turned him loose, had let him have it to drive home in, which was a perfectly good theory, since they certainly wouldn't want to use it. It was being examined by a task force of scientists, for fingerprints, of course, and for where and how far it had been, and who and what had been in it. It was described both in the paper and on the radio, and shown on television, with the request that anyone who had seen it between Sunday evening and Wednesday morning should communicate immediately with the police, the Westchester DA, or the FBI.
Also described, but not shown on television, was the suitcase the money had been in: tan leather, 28 by 16 by 9, old and stained, scuffed a little, three brass clasps, one in the middle and one near each end. Mrs Vail had taken it to the bank, where the money had been put in it, and the description had been supplied by the bank's vice-president. It was the property of Jimmy Vail-or had been.
The best prospect of some kind of a lead was finding someone who had been at Fowler's Inn or The Fatted Calf Tuesday evening and had seen one of the kidnapers. The man Mrs Vail had given the suitcase to had had his face covered. It was assumed that a confederate had been present at both places to make sure that Mrs Vail didn't show anyone the notes she got from the phone books. People at both places remembered seeing Mrs Vail, and the cashier at Fowler's Inn had seen her go to the phone book and open it, but no one had been found who had seen anybody take a visible interest in her.
Funeral services for Jimmy Vail would be held at the Dunstan Chapel Saturday morning at eleven.
Thanks to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, though no one but Lon Cohen was thanking us, the murder of Dinah Utley was getting a big play both in print and on the air. Not only had her body been found at or near the spot where Mrs Vail had delivered the suitcase, but also someone had leaked it, either in White Plains or in Manhattan, that she had been an accomplice in the kidnaping. So Cramer had bought the deduction Wolfe had made from the notes and had passed it on to Westchester, and when Ben Dykes came at eleven-thirty there would be some fancy explaining to do.
As I said, I was in the office listening to the nine-o'clock news when Saul and Fred and Orrie came down from Wolfe's room. The kidnaping and murder items had been covered, so I switched it off and greeted them. If you wanted an operative for a tough job and were offered your pick of those three, never having seen or heard of them before, you would probably take Fred Durkin or Orrie Cather, and you would be wrong. Fred was big and broad, and looked solid and honest and was, but from the neck up he was a little too solid for situations that needed quick reactions. Orrie was tall and handsome and smart, and in any situation his reaction was speedy enough, but it might be the right reaction and it might not. Saul was small and wiry, with a long narrow face and a big nose. He always looked as if he would need a shave in another hour, he wore a cap instead of a hat, and his pants had always been pressed a week ago. But there wasn't an agency in New York that wouldn't have taken him on at the top figure if he hadn't preferred to free lance, and at ten dollars an hour he was a bargain for any job you could name.
'Six hundred three ways,' Orrie said. 'And I want a picture of Noel Tedder.'
'I'll take one of Ralph Purcell,' Fred said.
'So you're taking one apiece?' I went to the safe and squatted to twirl the knob. 'The very best way to waste time and money. Foolproof. As for pictures, I only have newspaper shots.'
'I'll get them from Lon,' Saul said. 'Mr Wolfe says your credit's good with him.'
'It sure is.' I swung the safe door open and got the cash box. 'Credit, hell. A truckload of pictures wouldn't make a dent in what he owes us. So you've got Andrew Frost?'
He said he had, and added that Wolfe had said that I would be in the office to receive reports. I had known that was coming. In a tough case it's nice to know that we have three good men on the job, even for chores as
