Wolfe.' ^ I admitted it. I exposed my identity. He didn't offer to shake hands. He said: ‹I know I'm early for the party. I'm Mike Ayers, I'm in the city room at the Tribune. I told Oggie Reid I had to have the evening off to get my life saved. I stopped off somewhere to get a pair of drinks, and after a while it occurred to me I was a damn fool, there was no reason why there shouldn't be a drink here. I am not referring to beer.'
I said, 'Gin or gin?'
He grinned. 'Good for you. Scotch.
Don't bother to dilute it.'
I went over to the table Fritz and I had fixed up in the alcove, and poured it. I was thinking, hurrah for Harvard and bright college days and so on. I was also thinking, if he gets too loud he'll be a I nuisance but if I refuse to pander to his vile habit he'll beat it. And having learned the bank reports practically by heart, I knew he had been on the Post four years and the Tribune three, and was pulling down ninety bucks a week. Newspapermen are one of my weak spots anyhow; Pve never been able to get rid of a feeling that they know things I don't know.
I poured him another drink and he sat down and held onto it and crossed his legs. 'Tell me,' he said, 'is it true that Nero Wolfe was a eunuch in a Cairo harem and got his start in life by collecting testimonials from the girls for Pyramid Dental Cream?' ^ Like an ass, for half a second I was sore. 'Listen,' I said, 'Nero Wolfe is exactly -' Then I stopped and laughed.
'Sure,' I said. 'Except that he wasn't a eunuch, he was a camel.'
Mike Ayers nodded. 'That explains it. I mean it explains why it's hard for a camel to go through a needle's eye. I've never seen Nero Wolfe, but I've heard about him, and I've seen a needle. You got any other facts?' |›i I had to pour him another drink before the next customer arrived. This time it was a pair, Ferdinand Bowen, the stockbroker, and Dr. Loring A. Burton. I went to the hall for them to get away from Mike Ayers. Burton was a big fine-looking guy, straight but not stiff, well-dressed and not needing any favors, with dark hair and black eyes and a tired mouth. Bowen was medium-sized, and he was tired all over.
He was trim in black and white, and if I'd wanted to see him any evening, which I felt I wouldn't, I'd have gone to the theater where there was a first night and waited in the lobby. He had little feet in neat pumps, and neat little lady-hands in neat little gray gloves. When he was taking his coat off I had to stand back so as not to get socked in the eye with his arms •swinging around, and I don't cotton to a guy with that sort of an attitude toward his fellowmen in confined spaces.
Particularly I think they ought to be kept out of elevators, but I'm not fond of them anywhere.
I took Burton and Bowen to the office | and explained that Wolfe would be down soon and showed them Mike Ayers. He called Bowen Ferdie and offered him a drink, and he called Burton Lorelei. Fritz brought in another one, Alexander Drummond the florist, a neat little duck with a thin mustache. He was the only one on the list who had ever been to Wolfe's house before, he having come a couple of years back with a bunch from an association meeting to look at the plants. I remembered him. After that they came more or less all together: Pratt the Tammany assemblyman, Adier and Cabot, lawyers, Kommers, sales manager from Philadelphia, Edwin Robert Byron, all of that, magazine editor, Augustus Farrell, architect, and a bird named Lee Mitchell, from Boston, who said he represented both Collard and Gaines the banker. He had a letter from Gaines.
That made twelve accounted for, figuring both Collard and Gaines in, at ten minutes past nine. Of course they all knew each other, but it couldn't be said they were getting much gaiety out of it, not even Mike Ayers, who was going around with an empty glass in his hand, scowling. The others were mostly sitting with their funeral manners on. I went to Wolfe's desk and gave Fritz's button three short pokes. In a couple of minutes I heard the faint hum of the elevator.
The door of the office opened and everybody turned their heads. Wolfe came in; Fritz pulled the door to behind him.
He waddled halfway to his desk, stopped, turned, and said, 'Good evening, gentlemen.' He went to his chair, got the edge of the seat up against the back of his knees and his grip on the arms^ and lowered himself. ' ^ Mike Ayers demanded my attention by waving his glass at me and calling, 'Hey!
A eunuch and a camel!'
Wolfe raised his head a little and said in one of his best tones, 'Are you suggesting those additions to Mr. Chapin's catalogue | of his internal menagerie?'
'Huh? Oh. I'm suggesting -'
H George Pratt said, 'Shut up, Mike,' and Farrell the architect grabbed him and pulled him into a chair.
I had handed Wolfe a list showing those who were present, and he had glanced • over it. He looked up and spoke. 'I am glad to see that Mr. Cabot and Mr. Adier are here. Both, I believe, attorneys. Their knowledge and their trained minds will restrain us from vulgar errors. I note also the presence of Mr. Michael Ayers, a journalist. He is one of your number, so I merely remark that the risk of publicity, should you wish to avoid it -'
Mike Ayers growled, 'I'm not a journalist, I'm a newshound. I interviewed Einstein -'
'How drunk are you?';
'Hell, how do I know?'
Wolfe's brow lifted. 'Gentlemen?'
Farrell said, 'Mike's all right. Forget him. He's all right.'
Julius Adier the lawyer, about the build of a lead-pencil stub, looking like a necktie clerk except for his eyes and the way he was dressed, put in, 'I would say yes. We realize that this is your house, Mr. Wolfe, and that Mr. Ayers is lit, but after all we don't suppose that you invited us here to censor our private habits. You Jiave something to say to us?'
B 'Oh, yes…' _
'My name is Adier.'
