was escorted to the murder room, the escort, a member of the NIA, wheeling the baby carriage, which contained the other items, to the astonished amusement of the multitude as they passed through. Miss Gunther remained with Boone only a couple of minutes, delivering the exhibits, and then returned to the reception room for a cocktail. She reported that Boone had said he wanted to be alone.
At seven-thirty everybody in the reception room was herded out to the ballroom, to find their places on the dais and at the tables, where the fourteen hundred were settling down and the waiters were ready to hurl themselves into the fray. About seven forty-five Mr. Alger Kates arrived. He was from the Research Department of the BPR, and he had some last-minute statistics which were to be used in Boone’s speech. He came to the dais looking for Boone, and Mr. Frank Thomas Erskine, the President of NIA, had told a waiter to show him where Boone was. The waiter had led him through the door to backstage and pointed to the door of the murder room.
Alger Kates had discovered the body. It was on the floor, the head battered with one of the monkey wrenches, which was lying nearby. The implication of what Kates did next had been hinted at in some newspapers, and openly stated in others: namely, that no BPR man would trust any NIA man in connection with anything whatever, including murder. Anyhow, instead of returning to the ballroom and the dais to impart the news, Kates had looked around backstage until he found a phone, called the hotel manager, and told him to come at once and bring all the policemen he could find.
By Thursday evening, forty-eight hours after the event, something like a thousand other details had been accumulated, as for instance that nothing but smudges were found on the handle of the monkey wrench, no identifiable prints, and so forth and so forth, but that was the main picture as it had been painted when I was typing my report.
Chapter 7
FRIDAY WE GOT THE bite. Since Wolfe spends every morning from nine to eleven up in the plant rooms, I was in the office alone when the call came. The call took the regular routine in this Land of the Secretary.
“Miss Harding calling Mr. Wolfe. Put Mr. Wolfe on, please.”
If I put it all down it would take half a page to get me, not Mr. Wolfe, just me, connected with Miss Harding. Anyhow I made it, and got the idea across that Wolfe was engaged with orchids and I would have to do. She wanted to know how soon Wolfe could get up there to see Mr. Erskine, and I explained that he seldom left the house for any purpose whatever, and never merely on business.
“I know that!” she snapped. She must have missed another night’s sleep. “But this is
I knew we had him now, so I snooted her. “To you,” I agreed, “he is all of that. To Mr. Wolfe he is nothing but a pest. Mr. Wolfe hates to work, even at home.”
Instructed to hold the wire, I did so, for about ten minutes. Finally her voice came again:
“Mr. Goodwin?”
“Still here. Older and wiser, but still here.”
“Mr. Erskine will be at Mr. Wolfe’s office at four-thirty this afternoon.”
I was getting exasperated. “Listen, Public Relations,” I demanded, “why don’t you simplify it by connecting me with this Erksine? If he comes at four-thirty he’ll wait an hour and a half. Mr. Wolfe’s hours with orchids are from nine to eleven in the morning and from four to six in the afternoon, and nothing short of murder-I mean nothing-has ever changed it or ever will.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Sure it is. So is this ring-around-the-rosy method for a man communicating with another man, but I stand for it.”
“Hold the wire.”
I never got connected with Erskine, that was too much to expect, but in spite of everything we finally completed an arrangement, fighting our way through the obstacles, so that when Wolfe come downstairs at eleven o’clock I was able to announce to him:
“Mr. Frank Thomas Erskine, President of the National Industrial Association, with outriders, will be here at ten minutes past three.”
“Satisfactory, Archie,” he muttered.
Frankly, I wish I could make my heart quit doing an extra thump when Wolfe says satisfactory, Archie. It’s childish.
Chapter 8
WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG that afternoon right on the dot at three-ten and I left my chair to answer it, I remarked to Wolfe:
“These people are apt to be the kind that you often walk out on or, even worse, tell me to eject. It may be necessary to control yourself. Remember the payroll. There is much at stake. Remember Fritz, Theodore,
