'You have had no word of him?'
'Nothing.' The female Hibbard's voice caught. 'Nothing at all.'
'Indeed.' I saw Wolfe's eyes shift to take in the clock – it was four minutes past one – and shift again towards the *See Fer-de-Lance, by Rex Stout. door to the hall, where Fritz stood on the threshold, straight for announcing. 'Since ninety hours have passed, another one may be risked. At a quarter past two?
Will that be convenient?'
'If you can't… allright. I'll be there.'
Two receivers were returned simultaneously to their racks. Fritz spoke as usual:
'Luncheon, sir.'
3
I'm funny about women. I've seen dozens of them I wouldn't mind marrying, but I've never been pulled so hard I lost my balance. I don't know whether any of them would have married me or not, that's the truth, since I never gave one a chance to collect enough data to form an intelligent opinion. When I meet a new one there's no doubt that I'm interested and I'm fully alive to all the possibilities, and I've never dodged the issue as far as I can tell, but I never seem to get infatuated. For instance, take the women I meet in my line of business – that is, Nero Wolfe's business. I never run into one, provided she's not just an item for the cleaners, without letting my eyes do the best they can for my judgment, and more than that, it puts a tickle in my blood. I can feel the nudge on the accelerator. But then of course the business gets started, whatever it may happen to be, and I guess the trouble is I'm too conscientious. I love to do a good job more than anything else I can think of, and I suppose that's what shorts the line.
This Evelyn Hibbard was little and dark and smart. Her nose was too pointed and she took too much advantage of her eyelashes, but nobody that knew merchandise would have put her on a bargain counter. She had on a slick gray twill suit, with a fur piece, and a little red hat with a narrow brim on the side of her head. She sat straight without crossing her legs, and her ankles and halfway to her knees«was well trimmed but without promise of any plumpness.
I was at my desk of course with my pad, and after the first couple of minutes got only glances at her in between. If worry about her uncle was eating her, and I suppose it was, she was following what Wolfe called the Anglo-Saxon theory of the treatment of emotions and desserts: freeze them and hide them in your belly.
She sat straight in the chair I had shoved up for her, keeping her handsome dark eyes level on Wolfe but once in a while flapping her lashes in my direction. She had brought with her a package wrapped in brown paper and held it on her lap.
Wolfe leaned back in his seat with his chin down and his forearms laid out on the arms of the chair; it was his custom to make no effort to join his fingers at the high point of his middle mound sooner than a full hour after a meal. r She said that she and her younger sister lived with their uncle in an apartment on One Hundred Thirteenth Street. Their mother had died when they were young.
Their father was remarried and lived in
California. Their uncle was single. He,
Uncle Andrew, had gone out Tuesday evening around nine o'clock, and had not returned. There had been no word from him. He had gone out alone, remarking casually to Ruth, the younger sister, that he would get some air.
Wolfe asked, 'This has no precedent?'
'Precedent?'
'He has never done this before? You have no idea where he may be?'
'No. But I have an idea… I think … he has been killed.'
'I suppose so,' Wolfe opened his eyes a little. 'That would naturally occur to you. On the telephone you mentioned his visit to me. Do you know what its purpose was?'
'I know all about it. It was through my friend Sarah Bar stow that I heard of you.
I persuaded my uncle to come to see you.
I know what he told you and what you said to him. I told my uncle he was a sentimental romantic. He was.' She stopped, and kept her lips closed a moment to get them firm again; I looked up to see it. 'I'm not. I'm hard-boiled. I think my uncle has been murdered, and the man who killed him is Paul Chapin, the writer. I came here to tell you that.'
So here was the notion Wolfe had entertained, coming right to his office and sitting on a chair. But too late? The five hundred a week had gone out to get some air. n Wolfe said, 'Quite likely. Thank you for coming. But it might be possible, and more to the point, to engage the attention of the police and the District Attorney.'
She nodded. 'You are like Sarah
Barstow described you. The police have been engaged since Wednesday noon.
They have been willing so far, at the request of the president of the university, to keep the matter quiet. There has been no publicity. But the police – you might as well match me at chess against Capablanca. Mr. Wolfe…' The fingers of her clasped hands, resting on the package on her lap, twisted a closer knot, and her voice tightened. 'You don't know. Paul Chapin has the cunning and subtlety of all the things he mentioned in his first warning, the one he sent after he killed Judge Harrison. He is genuinely evil … all evil, all dangerous… you know he
