'Yes?'
'Me. I've had four hours' sleep and I need more, so I'll make it brief. If I talked for an hour you'd like every word of it. Wrapped up. Not a single snag. Reserve a room at the Churchill for Mr. George Sievers.' I spelled it. 'He'll arrive around eight-thirty this evening and so will I. Tell Fritz not to keep my dinner warm; I'll eat with Sievers on the plane.'
'Are there any relatives in Evansville?'
'No. She's alone in the world, as she told you.'
He grunted. 'Very satisfactory.' He hung up.
Sometimes I think he overdoes it. I admit everything had been said that needed saying, but he might at least have asked how the weather was or if my bed was all right. It was. I rolled over and went back to sleep.
It wasn't absolutely essential to see H. Ernest Littauer, and I don't know when I would have moved again if the phone hadn't rung. As I reached for it I glanced at my wrist: 10:42. It was Lieutenant Sievers. He said he had fixed it to go, and there was an hour's difference between Evansville and Louisville, so we should roll by one o'clock to make the five-o'clock plane. I made it to my feet with the help of a healthy groan and headed for the bathroom.
Perhaps the trouble with my experiences with lawyers is that I am never a prospective client, ready with a checkbook for a retainer. All I ever have is questions, usually questions they would prefer not to answer, and so it was with H. Ernest Littauer, in a big sunny room with a fine view of the Ohio River. I merely wanted to know if he had been in communication with Mrs. Marjorie Ault during the past year or so, and he merely didn't want to tell me. And he didn't, but I gathered that he had no idea where she was and didn't care.
When I got to the parking lot at a quarter to one, Sievers was already there, with a suitcase big enough to last at least a week, and I suspected I had been a little too hospitable. It wasn't going to be billed to a client. But he was going to help clean up the mess, so he was welcome. He was good enough company, though not in the class of Otto Drucker. By the time we touched concrete at Idlewild-I mean Kennedy International Airport-it was obvious that he was only a good working cop, which was why after twenty-six years he was still a lieutenant. He said he preferred to handle his evening himself if he wasn't needed, so I taxied him to the Churchill and proceeded to 35th Street.
It was only eight-forty, but Wolfe was in the office with coffee, and that deserved a grin. Business was not to be mentioned at meals, so he had either started dinner early or speeded it up in order to be away from the table when I arrived. There was a hint of feeling in his look and voice as he greeted me, as there always is when I return safe and sound from a trip in long-distance machines. I stood in the middle of the rug and took a good stretch, and said, 'My God, it's cold around here, much colder than down on the Ohio River. The warmth in this room is wonderful, even if I had no personal connection with its production. I admit that the rapid advance of automation may result-'
'Sit down and report!'
I did so, verbatim. He didn't lean back and shut his eyes; there was no need to, since it was only the happy ending. When I finished by saying that we might be stuck for a week in town by Lieutenant Sievers he didn't bat an eye.
He picked up his coffee cup and emptied it and put it down. 'Archie,' he said, 'I tender my apologies. I noticed that confounded diphthong Monday evening, and I could have sent you to Evansville then. Three wretched days.'
'Yeah. Well, you finally got around to it. I accept the apology. It's too bad it's Friday night, the weekend, and some of them may not be available tomorrow, maybe none of them. I suggest that they deserve to be present, all the ROCC crowd, even Oster. Also Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Brooke. And why not Susan's mother? In a way, her more than anyone else. She was there in the house with Susan when Richard Ault shot himself on the porch. According to Drucker, she helped Susan give him the boot. She ought to-'
I stopped short.
Wolfe asked, 'What?'
'Nothing. But that's what you thought about the diphthong: it wasn't worth considering. What if she decided to get the mother too and picked tonight for it? That would be just great.'
I swiveled. I didn't have Mrs. Matthew Brooke's number on the card and had to look in the book. I got it, and dialed, and sat and listened to fourteen buzzes, two more than my usual allowance. I don't dial wrong numbers, so I didn't try again but dialed another number, one that was on the card, and that time got an answer, a voice that I recognized, saying, 'Mrs. Brooke's residence.'
'This is Archie Goodwin,' I said, 'at Nero Wolfe's office. Mr. Wolfe wants to ask Mrs. Matthew Brooke a question, and I just dialed her number and got no answer. I thought she might be with you. Is she?'
'No. What does he want to ask her?'
'Nothing very important, just a routine question, but it would help to have the answer now. Do you know where I can get her?'
'No, I don't. But it's odd…'
Silence. After five seconds of it I asked, 'What's odd?'
'I thought perhaps- Where are you?'
'Nero Wolfe's office.'
'She isn't there?'
'No.'
'I thought perhaps it was him she was going to see. She phoned about an hour ago and asked to use my car-she often does-and she said she was going to see someone who could tell her something about Susan, and I asked her if it was Nero Wolfe, and she wouldn't say. She said she had promised not to. Are you sure-'
