'I'm sorry. I shall be engaged.'
B 'Friday?'
He shook his head. 'No. Not any day.
You are in error regarding me, Mr.
Eoodwin. I am not a knot to be untangled -* a nut to be cracked. Give up your hope •^hat I am deceptive, as most men are; I am really as simple as I seem. Give up your hope, too, to demonstrate the guilt of Paul Chapin in the death of Eugene Dreyer. It is not feasible. I know it isn't;
I was there.'
'Could you make it Saturday?'
He shook his head and smiled, still sad.
I got up from my chair and picked up my hat, and thanked him. But before I started for the door I said:
'By the way, you know that second warning Paul Chapin wrote – anyhow, somebody wrote it. Is nitroglycerin oily and sweet-burning?'' ‹I am a surgeon, not a pharmacologist.'
'Well, try one guess.'
He smiled. 'Nitroglycerin is unquestionably oily. It is said to have a sweet, burning taste. I have never tried it.'
I thanked him again and went out, and down to the street, and got in the roadster and stepped on the starter. As I rolled off downtown I was thinking that Dr.
Leopold Elkus was exactly the kind of man that so often makes life a damn nuisance. I never yet have had any serious trouble with an out-and-out liar, but a man that might be telling the truth is an unqualified pain in the rumpus. And what with the Harrison line-up, and now this, I suspected that I began to perceive dimly that the memorandum Wolfe had concocted was going to turn out to be just a sheet of paper to be used for any purpose that might occur to you, unless we managed somehow to bust Elkus's story wide open.
I had intended to stop off again at Fifty-sixth Street for another look at the Dreyer gallery, but after listening to Elkus I decided it would be a waste of time, considering how the place had been done over. I kept on downtown, headed for home. The best bet I could think of at the moment was a try at Santini. The police had only questioned him once on account of his sailing for Italy that Thursday night, and of course the warnings hadn*t been received yet and they had no particular suspicions. Wolfe had connections in several cities in Europe, and there was a smart guy in Rome who had turned in a good one on the Whittemore bonds. We could cable him and set him on Santini and maybe get a B wedge started. I'd have to persuade Wolfe it was worth about ninety-nine dollars in transatlantic words.
It was a quarter to eleven when I got there. In the office the phone was ringing, | so I went on in with my hat and coat on. I knew Wolfe would eventually answer it from upstairs, but I thought I might as well get it. It was Saul Panzer. I asked him what he wanted and he said he wanted to report. I asked him report what, and he said, nothing, just report. I was sore at everything anyway, so I got sarcastic. I said if he couldn't find Hibbard alive or dead, maybe he could rig up a dummy that would do. I said I had just got a smack in the eye on another angle of the case, and if he was no better • than I was he'd better come on down to the office with a pinochle deck, and I hung up on him, which alone is enough to aggravate a nun.
It took me five minutes to dig the address of the Roman snoop out of the „ file. Wolfe came down on time, right at | eleven. He said good morning, sniffed at • the air, and got seated at his desk. I was impatient, but I knew I'd have to wait until he had glanced through the mail, fixed the orchids in the vase, tried his pen to see if it was working, and rung for beer. After that was all over he murmured at me:
'Had you thought of venturing forth?'
'I tiptoed out at eight-thirty and just got back. Saul just telephoned. Another nickel wasted. If you want to get puckered up, here's a nice pickle to chew on.'
Fritz brought his beer and he poured a glass. I told him all about Elkus, every word of it, even that nitroglycerin was oily and sweet-burning. I thought if I gave him all of Elkus I could, he might get a notion. Then I handed him my own notion about the Roman. Right away, as I expected, he got restive. He blinked, and drank some more beer. He said:
'You can cable four thousand miles for a fact or an object, but not for a subtlety like this. As a last resort you or Saul Panzer might go to call on Mr. Santini in Florence; it might in the end be worth that chance.'
I tried an argument on him, tor 1 couldn't see any other move. I didn't seem to be making much impression, but I kept on anyway, getting stubborn, because my main point was that it was only a matter of a hundred bucks. I was forgetting that I still had to tell him about the three Metropolitan men I had ordered for Eleventh Street. I got good and stubborn.
I was stopped in the middle of my stride by the sound of Fritz going down the hall to answer the doorbell. I didn't try to pick it up again, but waited to see who it was.
Fritz stepped in and closed the door behind him. He said there was a lady there to see Wolfe. No card. T 'Her name?' • Fritz shook his head; usually he was | more correct. He looked uncertain.
'Show her in, Fritz.'.
I felt uncertain too, when I saw her.
They don't come any uglier. She came in and stood looking straight at Wolfe, as if she was deciding how to do him over. At • that she wasn't really ugly, I mean she wasn't hideous. Wolfe said it right the – next day: it was more subtle than plain ugliness, to look at her made you despair of ever seeing a pretty woman again. Her eyes were rather small, gray, and looked as if they'd never move again when they got fixed. She had on a dark gray woolen coat with a hat to match, and an enormous gray furpiece was fastened around her neck. She sat down on the chair I pulled up for her and said in a strong voice:? ‹I had a hard time getting here. I think I'm going to faint.',;
Wolfe said, 'I hope not. A little brandy.' rl,
