not to his oldest suit but his newest one-a soft light-brown with tiny yellow specks that you could see only under a strong light. He had paid Boynton $. for it only a month ago. The same shirt, yellow of course, but another tie, solid dark-brown silk. I couldn't see his shoes, but he had probably changed them too. As I went to my desk and sat, I was trying to prepare a suitable remark, but it didn't come because I knew I should have just learned something new about him, but what? 'The mail,' he said.
I hadn't opened it. I reached to my desk tray, a hollowed-out slab of green marble, for the opener and began to slit, and for the next twenty minutes you might have thought it was just a normal weekday. I had my notebook and Wolfe was starting on the third letter when Fritz came to announce lunch, and Wolfe got up and went without a glance at me. I don't know how he knew I had had mine.
I had typed the two letters and was doing (be en- velopes when the doorbell rang. My watch said:, and the clock agreed. Evidently Coggin knew that Wolfe's lunch hour was a quarter past one. I got up and went. But it wasn't Coggin. It was a pair I had never seen before, standing stiff-backed shoulder to shoulder, and each one had a folded paper in his hand. When I opened the door, the one on the right said, 'Warrants to take Nero Wolfe and Archie Good-win. You're Goodwin. You're under arrest.'
'Well,' I said, 'come in. While we get our coats on.'
They crossed the sill and I shut the door. They were feet, pounds, very erect. I say 'they' because they were twins, long narrow faces and big ears, but one was white and the other one black. 'I've had my lunch,' I said, 'but Mr. Wolfe has just started his. Could we let him finish? Half an hour?'
'Sure, why not?'
White said and started shedding his coat.
'No hurry at all,' Black said.
They took their time hanging up their coats. No hats. I showed them the door to the office and entered the dining room. Wolfe was opening his mouth for a forkful of something. 'Two from the Homicide Bureau,' I said. 'With warrants. I'm under arrest. I asked if you could finish your lunch, and they said sure, no hurry.'
He nodded. I turned and went, in no hurry, in case he wished to comment, but he didn't. In the office, White was in the red leather chair with Wolfe's copy of the Times, and Black was over at the bookshelves looking at titles. I went to my desk, finished the envelopes and put things away, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. Sometimes it takes ten minutes to get Lon Cohen, but that time it took only two.
'So you're still around,' he said.
'No. Here's that one little bean I said I would spill. Maybe in time for today. A scoop. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are under arrest as material witnesses. Just now. We are being taken down.'
'Then why are you making phone calls?'
'I don't know. See you in court.'
I hung up. Black said, 'You're not supposed to do that.'
He was on a yellow chair with a book.
'Of course not,' I said, 'and I wonder why. 'No hurry at all.'
I'm just curious. Do you feel sorry for me? Or for Nero Wolfe?'
'No. Why the hell should we?'
'Then you don't like the guy who sent you.'
'Oh, hell do. He's not the best but he's not the worst.'
'Look,' White said, 'we know about you. Yeah, you're curious, more ways than one. Just forget it. It's Saturday afternoon, and we're off at four o'clock, and if we don't get there too soon we'll be off. So there's no hurry. If you have no objection.'
He turned to another page of the Times. Black opened his book; I couldn't see the title. I got my nail file from the drawer and attended to a rough spot on my right thumbnail.
It was twenty-five minutes past two when we descended the seven steps of the stoop and climbed into the cars, Wolfe with White and me with Black.
'Stand mute' sounds simple, as if all you had to do is keep your mouth shut, but actually it's not simple at all. Assistant District Attorneys have had a lot of practice using words. For instance: 'Why did you compel, physically compel, Lucile Ducos to stay with you in her father's room while you searched the room?'
'In the signed statement you gave Sergeant Stebbins you said you included everything Pierre Ducos said to you. But you left out that he saw one of the men at that dinner hand Bassett a slip of paper. Why did you tell that lie?'
'If Ducos didn't tell you who had been at that dinner meeting, how did you learn about Benjamin Igoe?'
'If Ducos didn't tell you about that dinner meeting, who did?'
'Why did you tell Saul Panzer that Lucile Ducos must be kept from talking?'
'When did you learn that Nero Wolfe had persuaded Leon Ducos not to talk to the police?'
'What did you take from the pockets of Pierre Ducos before you reported your discovery of his body?'
'What did you find concealed in a book in the room of Lucile Ducos?'
That's just a few samples. I haven't included a sample of some asked by an assistant DA I had never seen before, a little squirt with gold-rimmed cheaters, because they were so damn ridiculous you wouldn't believe it- implying that Nero Wolfe had opened up. Implying that Saul and Fred and Orrie had talked, sure, that was routine. But Wolfe-now, really. As for me, I don't suppose I set a record for standing mute, but between three o'clock Saturday afternoon and eleven-thirty Monday morning I must have been asked at least two thousand questions by three assistant DAs and Joe Murphy, the head of the Homicide Bureau. Most of Murphy's questions had nothing to do with murder. He wanted to know exactly why it had taken so long for Wolfe and me to get our coats on Saturday afternoon, and how the Gazette had got the news in time for the late edition that day. It was a pleasure to stand
