Miss Barish disappeared into her room. I said, 'I won't keep you now, Mr. Muir. I suppose you'll be here in the morning?'
'Where else would I be?'
That kind of childishness never riles me. I grinned at the old goat, said, 'Okay,' and left him.
Outside in the corridor, down a few paces toward the directors' room, a group of four or five men stood talking. I saw Perry was among them, and approached. He saw me and came to meet me.
I said, 'Nothing more tonight, Mr. Perry. Let's let Mr. Muir have a chance to cool off. I'll report to Nero Wolfe.'
Perry frowned. 'He can phone me at my home any time this evening. It's in the book.'
'Thanks. I'll tell him.'
As I passed Miss Vawter on my way out, still sitting in the corner with her magazine, I said to her out of the side of my mouth, 'See you at the Rainbow Room.'
IV
DOWN on the sidewalk the shades of night were not keeping the metropolitan bipeds from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Striding north toward 35th Street, I let the brain skip from this to that and back again, and decided that the spot Clara Fox was standing on was probably worse than hot, it was sizzling. Had she lit the fire herself? I left that in unfinished business.
I got home just at six o'clock and, knowing that Wolfe wouldn't be down for a few minutes yet, I went to the office to see if the Wyoming wonder had thought of any new suspicions and if his colleagues had shown up. The office was empty. I went through to the front room to see if he had moved his base there, but it was empty too. I beat it to the kitchen. Fritz was there, sitting with his slippers off, reading that newspaper in French. I asked him, 'What did you do with him?'
'Qui? A}i, Ie monsieur-' Fritz giggled. 'Excuse me, Archie. You mean the gentleman who was waiting.'
'Yeah, him.'
'He received a telephone call.' Fritz leaned over and began pulling on his slippers. 'Time already for Mr. Wolfe!'
'He got a phone call here?'
Fritz nodded. 'About half an hour after you left. More maybe. Wait till I look.' He went to the stand where the kitchen phone extension was kept, and glanced at his memo pad. 'That's right. Five-twenty-six. Twenty-six minutes past five.'
'Who was it?'
Fritz's brows went up. 'Should I know, Archie.' He thought he was using slang. 'A gentleman said he wished to speak to Mr. Scovil in case he was here, and I went to the office and asked if it was Mr. Scovil, and he talked from your desk, and then he got up and put on his hat and went out.'
'Leave any message?'
'No. I had come back to the kitchen, closing the office door for his privacy but leaving this one open as you said, and he came out and went in a hurry. He said nothing at all.'
I lifted the shoulders and let them drop. 'He'll be back. He wants to see a kind of a man named Nero Wolfe. What's on the menu?'
Fritz told me, and let me take a sniff at the sauce steaming on the simmer plate; then I heard the elevator and went back to the office. Wolfe entered, crossed to his chair and got himself lowered, rang for beer and took the opener out of the drawer, and then vouchsafed me a glance.
'Pleasant afternoon, Archie?'
'No, sir. Putrid. I went around to Perry's office.'
'Indeed. A man of action must expect such vexations. Tell me about it.'
'Well, Perry left here just after I came down, but about eight minutes after that he phoned and instructed me to come galloping. Having the best interests of my employer in mind I went.'
'Notwithstanding the physical law that the contents can be no larger than the container.' Fritz arrived with two bottles of beer; Wolfe opened and poured one, and drank. 'Go on.'
'Yes, sir. I disregard your wit, because I'd like to show you this picture before the company arrives, and they're already ten minutes late. By the way, the company we already had has departed. He claimed to be part of the six-o'clock appointment and said he would wait, but Fritz says he got a phone call and went in a hurry. Maybe the appointment is off. Anyhow, here's the Perry puzzle…'
I laid it out for him, in the way that he always liked to get a crop of facts, no matter how trivial or how crucial. I told him what everybody looked like, and what they did, and what they said fairly verbatim. He finished the first botde of beer meanwhile, and had the second well on its way when I got through. I ratded it off and then leaned back and took a sip from a glass of milk I had brought from the kitchen.
Wolfe pinched his nose. 'Ptui! Hyenas. And your conclusions?'
'Maybe hyenas. Yeah.' I took another sip. 'On principle I don't like Perry, but it's possible he's just
