telephone how much he admires me, and I was flattered, but now I'll have to pay for it. He will know it is a mortal encounter, and he does not underrate me-I only wish he did.” Wolfe lifted his shoulders and let them down again. “I'm not whimpering-or perhaps I am. I shall expect to win, but there's no telling what the cost will be. It may take a year, or five years, or ten.” He gestured impatiently. “Not for finishing your Mr Rony; that will be the merest detail. It won't be long until you'll have to talk with him through the grill in the visitors' room, if you still want to see him. But X will never let it stop there, though he might want me to think he would. Once started, I'll have to go on to the end. So the cost in time can't be estimated.
“Neither can the cost in money. I certainly haven't got enough, nothing like it, and I won't be earning any, so your father will have to foot the bill, and he will have to commit himself in advance. If I stake my comfort, my freedom, and my life, he may properly be expected to stake his fortune. Whatever his resources may be-” Wolfe interrupted himself. “Bah!” he said scornfully. “You deserve complete candour. As I said, Mr Rony is a mere trifle; he'll be disposed of in no time, once I am established where I can be undisturbed. But I hope I have given you a clear idea of what X is like. He will know I can't go in without money and, when he finds he can't get at me, will try to stop the source of supply. He will try many expedients before he resorts to violence, for he is a man of sense and knows that murder should always be the last on the list, and of course the murder of a man of your father's position would be excessively dangerous; but if he thought it necessary he would risk it. I don't-” “You can leave that out,” Sperling cut in. “If she wants to consider the cost in money she can, but I'll not have her saving my life. That's up to me.” Wolfe looked at him. “A while ago you told me to go ahead. What about it now? Do you want to pay me off?” “No. You spoke about your vanity, but I've got more up than vanity. I'm not quitting and I don't intend to.” “Listen, Jim-” his wife began, but to cut her off he didn't even have to speak.
He only looked at her.
“In that case,” Wolfe told Gwenn, “there are only two alternatives. I won't drop it, and your father won't discharge me, so the decision rests with you, as I said it would. You may have proof if you insist on it. Do you?” “You said,” Madeline exploded at me, “it would be the best you could do for her!” “I still say it,” I fired back. “You'd better come down and look at the plant rooms too!” Gwenn sat gazing at Wolfe, not stubbornly-more as if she were trying to see through him to the other side.
“I have spoken,” Wolfe told her, “of what the proof, if you insist on it, will cost me and your father and family. I suppose I should mention what it will cost another person Mr Rony. It will get him a long term in jail. Perhaps that would enter into your decision. If you have any suspicion that it would be necessary to contrive a frame-up, reject it. He is pure scoundrel. I wouldn't go to the extreme of calling him a cheap filthy little worm, but he is in fact a shabby creature. Your sister thinks I'm putting it brutally, but how else can I put it?
Should I hint that he may be not quite worthy of you? I don't know that, for I don't know you. But I do know that I have told you the truth about him, and I'll prove it if you say I must.” Gwenn left her chair. Her eyes left Wolfe for the first time since her unsure glance at me. She looked around at her family.
“I'll let you know before bedtime,” she said firmly, and walked out of the room. Chapter Eight
More than four hours later, at nine o'clock in the evening, Wolfe yawned so wide I thought something was going to give.
We were up in the room where I had slept Saturday night, if it can be called sleep when a dose of dope has knocked you out. Immediately after Gwenn had ended the session in the library by beating it, Wolfe had asked where he could go to take a nap, and Mrs Sperling had suggested that room. When I steered him there he went straight to one of the three-quarter beds and tested it, pulled the coverlet off, removed his coat and vest and shoes, lay down, and in three minutes was breathing clear to China. I undressed the other bed to get a blanket to put over him, quit trying to fight temptation, and followed his example.
When we were called to dinner at seven o'clock I was conscripted for courier duty, to tell Mrs Sperling that under the circumstances Mr Wolfe and I would prefer either to have a sandwich upstairs or go without, and it was a pleasure to see how relieved she was. But even in the middle of that crisis she didn't let her household suffer shame, and instead of a sandwich we got jellied consomme, olives and cucumber rings, hot roast beef, three vegetables, lettuce and tomato salad, cold pudding with nuts in it, and plenty of coffee. It was nothing to put in your scrapbook, but was more than adequate, and except for the jellied consomme, which he hates, and the salad dressing, which he made a face at, Wolfe handled his share without comment.
I wouldn't have been surprised if he had had me take him home as soon as the library party was over, but neither was I surprised that he was staying. The show that he had put on for them hadn't been a show at all. He had meant every word of it, and I had meant it along with him. That being so, it was no wonder that he wanted the answer as soon as it was available, and besides, he would be needed if Gwenn had questions to ask or conditions to offer. Not only that, if Gwenn said nothing doing I don't think he would have gone home at all. There would have been a lot of arranging to do with Sperling, and when we finally got away from Stony Acres we wouldn't have been headed for Thirty-fifth Street but for a foxhole.
At nine o'clock, after admiring Wolfe's yawn, I looked around for an excuse to loosen up my muscles, saw the coffee tray, which had been left behind when the rest of the dinner remains had been called for, and decided that would do. I got it and took it downstairs. When I delivered it to the kitchen there was no one around and, feeling in need of a little social contact, I did a casual reconnoitre. I tried the library first. The door to it was open and Sperling was there, at his desk, looking over some papers. When I entered he honoured me with a glance but no words.
After I had stood a moment I informed him, “We're upstairs hanging on.” “I know it,” he said without looking up.
He seemed to think that completed the conversation, so I retired. The living-room was uninhabited, and when I stepped out to the west terrace no one was to be seen or heard. The gamesroom, which was down a flight, was dark, and the lights I turned on disclosed no fellow beings. So I went back upstairs and reported to Wolfe.
“The joint is deserted, except for Sperling, and I think he's going over his will. You scared 'em so that they all scrammed.” “What time is it?” “Nine twenty-two.” “She said before bedtime. Call Fritz.” We had talked with Fritz only an hour ago, but what the hell, it was on the house, so I went to the instrument on the table between the beds and got him.
There was nothing new. Andy Krasicki was up on the roof with five men, still working, and had reported that enough glass and slats were in place for the morning's weather, whatever it might be. Theodore was still far from cheerful, but had had a good appetite for dinner, and so on.
I hung up and relayed the report to Wolfe, and added, “It strikes me that all that fixing up may be a waste of our client's money. If Gwenn decides we've got to prove it and we make a dive for a foxhole, what do glass and slats matter?
It'll be years before you see the place again, if you ever do. Incidentally, I noticed you gave yourself a chance to call it off, and also Sperling, but not me. You merely said that your base of operations will be known
