'Zat weel be a plaizhoore,' I said.
Chapter Sixteen
Wolfe looked up at the wall clock and said, 'Ten minutes to four. I'll have to leave you pretty soon to go up to my plants.'
We were comparatively peaceful again. The two dicks had departed with Miss Bupp, and Lieutenant Rowcliff had been phoned to expect her at headquarters for a little talk.
Cramer said, 'It could be a frame, you know. We've tried some of her friends and associates, too. We heard she was a Turk, a Hungarian, a Russian Jew, and maybe part Jap. It won't hurt any to check it up.'
Wolfe shook his head, grimaced and muttered, 'Ottumwa, Iowa.'
'I guess so,' the inspector admitted. 'Does that shove you off on to a siding?'
'No. It merely…' Wolfe shrugged.
'It merely leaves you still waiting at the station, huh?' Getting no answer, he regarded Wolfe a moment and then went on: 'As far as I'm concerned, I'm still playing these. If you go up to your plants, I go along. If you go to the kitchen to mix salad dressing-'
'You don't mix salad dressing in the kitchen. You do it at the table and use it immediately.'
'All right. No matter what you go to the kitchen for, I go too. It's plainer than ever that you know where the kernel is in this nut and I don't. Take the fact of Donald Barrett chasing this Zorka Bupp away so we couldn't get at her. I would get fat trying to put the screws on Donald Barrett, with both the commissioner and the district attorney having a bad attack of bashfulness. Wouldn't I? But you don't even waste time with Donald. You have his old man, John P. himself, coming right here and walking right into your office. That goes to show.'
Wolfe looked at me. 'Archie. Find out if Theodore failed to understand that when I sent a gentleman to look at orchids-'
Cramer snorted. 'Don't bother. I didn't sneak downstairs and take a peek. Rowcliff told me on the phone that he had received a report that John P. Barrett had been seen entering this address at 2.55 this p.m.'
'Were you having Mr Barrett followed?'
'No.'
'I see. You have a regiment watching this house.'
'I wouldn't say a regiment. But I've said, and I say again, that right now I'm more interested in this house than any other building in the borough of Manhattan. If you want me out of it you'll have to call the police. By the way, another thing Rowcliff told me: They've found Belinda Reade. She's at a matinee at the Lincoln Theatre. Do we want her in here?'
'I don't.'
'Then I don't either. The boys'll take care of her. If she can account satisfactorily for-is that for me?'
I nodded, and vacated my chair for him to take another phone call. This was a comparatively short one. He emitted a few grunts and made a few unilluminating remarks, and hung up and returned to his chair. No sooner had I got back into mine than the house phone buzzed. As I pulled it over to me I heard Wolfe asking Cramer if there was anything new and the inspector replying that there was nothing worth mentioning and then, over the house phone, in response to my hallo, Fred Durkin's voice was in my ear:
'Archie? Come up here.'
I said with irritation, 'Damn it, Fritz, I'm busy.' Then I waited a minute and said, 'Okay, okay, quit running off your face,' and got up and beat it to the hall, shutting the door behind me. I went quickly but noiselessly up one flight of stairs, opened the door of Wolfe's room and entered. Fred Durkin was there on a chair beside the bed, within reach of the phone, where he had been instructed to place himself two hours previously.
He started to grumble, 'This is one hell of a job-'
'Don't crab, my boy. From each according to his ability. What is it, Lovchen?'
He nodded. 'I didn't call you when he got the report on Zorka, because he told them to bring her here; but-'
'What about Lovchen?'
'Her tail phoned in to headquarters.' Fred looked at a pad of paper he had scribbled on. 'They followed her to Miltan's this morning, and she left there at ten fifty-three and went back to 404 East 38th Street-'
'The hell she did! Anyone with her?'
'No, she was alone. She stayed in there only about ten minutes. At eleven-fifteen she came out and went to Second Avenue and took a taxi. She got out at the Maidstone Building on 42nd Street. They were a little behind her as she entered the building, and she popped into an elevator just as the door was closing, and they missed it. They couldn't find out from the elevator boy what floor she got off at, and anyway, as you know and I know, that would be bad tailing, because she could have taken to the stairs and gone up or down. There are four
