He still stood, as if there was something else on his mind. There was, and he unloaded it.
“It happens in the best families, he stated distinctly and backed out, taking the door with him.
I closed my eyes but made no effort to empty my head. If I went to sleep there was no telling when I would wake up, and I intended to phone Wolfe at eight, fifteen minutes before the scheduled hour for Fritz to get to his room with his breakfast tray. Meanwhile I would think of something brilliant to do or to suggest. The trouble with that, I discovered after some poking around, was that
I had no in. Nobody would speak to me except Leeds, and he was far from loquacious.
I have a way of realising all of a sudden, as I suppose a lot of people do, that
I made a decision some time back without knowing it. It happened that morning at
6.25. Looking at my watch and seeing that that was where it had got to, I was suddenly aware that I was staying awake, not so I could phone Wolfe at eight o'clock, but so I could beat it the hell out of there as soon as I was sure
Leeds was asleep; and I was now as sure as I would ever be.
I got up and shed my pyjamas and dressed, not trying to set a record but wasting no time, and, with my bag in one hand and my shoes in the other, tiptoed to the hall, down the stairs, and out to the stone slab. While it wasn't Calvin Leeds I was escaping from, I thought it desirable to get out of Westchester County before anyone knew I wasn't upstairs asleep. Not a chance. I was seated on the stone slab tying the lace of the second shoe when a dog barked, and that was a signal for all the others. I scrambled up, grabbed the bag, ran to the car and unlocked it and climbed in, started the engine, swung around the gravelled space, and passed the house on my way out just as Leeds emerged through the side door. I stepped on the brake, stuck my head through the window, yelled at him,
“Got an errand to do, see you later! and rolled on through the gate and into the highway.
At that hour Sunday morning the roads were all mine, the bright new sun was at my left out of the way, and it would have been a pleasant drive if I had been in a mood to feel pleased. Which I wasn't. This was a totally different situation from the other two occasions when we had crossed Arnold Zeck's path and someone had got killed. Then the corpses had been Zeck's men, and Zeck, Wolfe, and the public interest had all been on the same side. This time Zeck's man, Barry
Rackham, was the number one suspect, and Wolfe had either to return his dead client's ten grand, keep it without doing anything to earn it, or meet Zeck head on. Knowing Wolfe as I did, I hit eighty-five that morning rolling south on the
Sawmill River Parkway.
The dash clock said 7.18 as I left the West Side Highway at Forty-sixth Street.
I had to cross to Ninth Avenue to turn south. It was as empty as the country roads had been. Turning right on Thirty-fifth Street, I went on across Tenth
Avenue, on nearly to Eleventh, and pulled to the curb in front of Wolfe's old brownstone house.
Even before I killed the engine I saw something that made me goggle-a sight thai had never greeted me before in the thousands of times I had braked a car to a stop there.
The front door was standing wide open.
Chapter Six
My heart came up. I swallowed it down, jumped out, ran across the sidewalk and up the seven steps to the stoop and on in. Fritz and Theodore were there in the hall, coming to me. Their faces were enough to make a guy's heart pop right out of his mouth.
“Airing the house? I demanded.
“He's gone, Fritz said.
“Gone where?
“I don't know. During the night. When I saw the door was open-
“What's that in your hand?
“He left them on the table in his room-for Theodore and me, and one for you-
I snatched the pieces of paper from his trembling hand and looked at the one on top. The writing on it was Wolfe's.
Dear Fritz:
Marko Vukcic will want your services. He should pay you at least $2000 a month.
My best regards…
Nero Wolfe
