“For God's sake.” The client sat back. “Well.” He looked at me as if I might suggest something, and then back at Wolfe. He spread out his hands, palms up.
“All right, you're an artist. You're it. I've told you, I haven't got ten thousand dollars. How about a check dated a week from today?”
Wolfe shook his head. “You could stop payment. I don't trust you; you are incensed; the flame of fear and resentment is burning in you. Besides, you should get more for your money, and I should do more to earn it. The only sensible course-”
The ring of the telephone interrupted him. I swung around to my desk and got it.
I acknowledged my identity to a gruff male inquiry, waited a minute, and heard the familiar tones of another male voice. What it said induced a grin.
I turned to Wolfe: “Inspector Cramer says that one of his men saw you up at
McNair's place this morning, and nearly died of the shock. So did he when he heard it. He says it would be a pleasure to discuss the case with you a while on the telephone.”
“Not for me. I am engaged.”
I returned to the wire and had more talk. Cramer was as amiable as a guy stopping you on a lonely hill because he's out of gas. I turned to Wolfe again:
“He'd like to stop in at six o'clock to smoke a cigar. He says, to compare notes. He means S O S.”
Wolfe nodded.
I told Cramer sure, come ahead, and rang off.
The client had stood up. He looked back and forth from me to Wolfe, and said with no belligerence at all, “Was that Inspector Cramer? He-he's coming here?”
“Yeah, a little later.” I answered because Wolfe had leaned back and closed his eyes. “He often drops around for a friendly chat when he has a case so easy it bores him.”
“But he…I…” Llewellyn was groggy. He straightened up. “Listen, goddam it. I want to use that phone.”
“Help yourself. Take my chair.”
I vacated and he moved in. He started dialing without having to look up the number. He was jerky about it, but seemed to know what he was doing. I stood and listened.
“Hello, hello! That you, Styce? This is Lew Frost. Is my father still there? Try
Mr. McNair's office. Yes, please… Hello, Dad? Lew… No… No, wait a minute.
Is Aunt Gallic still there? Waiting for me? Yeah, I know… No, listen, I'm talking from Nero Wolfe's office, 918 West 35th Street. I want you and Aunt
Callie to come down here right away… There's no use explaining on the phone, you'll have to come…I can't explain that… Well, bring her anyway… Now,
Dad, I'm doing the best I can… Right. You can make it in ten minutes… No, it's a private house…”
Wolfe's eyes were closed.
Chapter Four
That conference was a lulu. On several occasions I have run through pages of my notebook where I took it down, just for the entertainment. Dudley Frost was one of the very few people who have sat in that office and talked Nero Wolfe to a frazzle. Of course, he did it more by volume than by vigor, but he did it.
It was after three when they got there. Fritz ushered them in. Calida Frost,
Helen's mother, Lew's Aunt Callie-though I suppose it would be more genteel to introduce her as Mrs. Edwin Frost, since I never got to be cronies with her-she came first, and sure enough, she was the medium- sized woman with the straight back and proud mouth. She was good-looking and well made, with deep but direct eyes of an off color, something like the reddish brown of dark beer, and you wouldn't have thought she was old enough to be the mother of a grownup goddess.
Dudley Frost, Lew's father, weighed two hundred pounds, from size rather than fat. He had gray hair and a trimmed gray moustache. Some rude collision had pushed his nose slightly off center, but only a dose observer like me would have noticed it. He had on a beautiful gray pin-stripe suit and sported a red flower in his lapel.
Llewellyn went to the office door and brought them across and introduced them.
Dudley Frost rumbled at Wolfe, “How do you do.” He gave me one too. “How do you do.” I was getting chairs under them. He turned to our client: “What's all this, now? What's the trouble, son? Look out, Calida, your bag's going to fall. What's up here, Mr. Wolfe? I was hoping to get in some bridge this afternoon. What's the difficulty? My son has explained to me-and to Mrs. Frost-my sister-in-law-we thought it best for him to come straight down here-”
Llewellyn blurted at him, “Mr. Wolfe wants ten thousand dollars.”
He cackled. “God bless me, so do I. Though I've seen the time-but that's past.”
