'After it's gone? If he took it, it's not there.'
'All the better. If he took only what he needed of it well find the residue. If he took it all yesterday or has removed the residue since, we'll find where it was--or we won't. There must be a list of the contents of those cases. There's no point in our trying to intrude before office hours, so there's plenty of time. Now for the details. I'll be with you, but you should know what I have in mind for the various eventualities--all of you. Fritz! Coffee!'
He gave us details.
If anyone considers this incident an exception to Wolfe's rule never to leave the house on business, I say no. It was not business. He was after the man who had abused his hospitality, which was unforgivable, and made him eat crow in front of Cramer, which was outrageous. I have evidence. On a later day, when he was going over the expense account I had prepared for LBA, he left in the fare for one taxi that morning, the one that Fred and Orrie and Bill took, but took out the other, the one that had carried him and Saul and me.
It lacked a minute of nine-thirty when the six of us entered an elevator in the modern midtown skyscraper, but when we got out at the twenty-second floor the aristocratic brunette with nice little ears was there on the job behind her eight-foot desk. The sudden appearance of a gang of half a dozen males startled her a little, but as I approached and she recognized me she recovered.
I told her good morning. 'I'm afraid we'll be making a little disturbance, but we've got a job to do. This is Mr. Nero Wolfe.'
Wolfe, at my elbow, nodded. 'We have to inventory the contents of the cabinets. The death of Mr. Assa--of course you know of it.'
'Yes, I… I know.'
'That makes it necessary to proceed without delay.'
She looked beyond us, and I turned to do likewise. The squad was certainly proceeding without delay. Saul Panzer had slid open the glass front of the end cabinet at the left wall and had his notebook out. Fred Durkin was at the end cabinet at the right wall, and Bill and Orrie were at the far wall, which was solid with cabinets, a stretch of some fifty feet. It was a relief to see that they all had doors open. I had seen no locks on my former visit, but there could have been tricky ones. We had brought along an assortment of keys, but using them would have made it complicated.
'I know nothing about this,' the brunette said. 'Who told you to do it?'
'It's part of a job,' Wolfe told her, 'that was given me by Messers Buff, O'Garro, and Assa last Wednesday. I refer you to them. – -Come, Archie.'
We headed for the cabinets at the right wall, those nearest the elevators, and as we reached them Fred left and went to join Saul at the left wall. That was according to the plan of battle as outlined at headquarters. I didn't bother to get out my notebook, wanting both hands free for moving things when necessary. For the first cabinet it wasn't necessary. It held a picture of an ocean liner, some miniature bags of a line of fertilizers, cartons of cigarettes, a vacuum cleaner, and various other items. The bottom shelf of the second cabinet was no more promising, with an outboard motor, soaps and detergents, canned soup, and beer in both bottles and cans, but the second shelf had packaged goods and got more attention. It didn't seem likely that cyanide would have fitted in with cereals and cake mixes and noodles, but the program said to look at each and every package. I was doing so, with Wolfe standing behind me, when an authoritative voice sounded.
'Are you Nero Wolfe? What's going on?'
I straightened and turned. A six-foot executive with a jutting jaw was facing Wolfe and wanted no nonsense. Since he hadn't emerged from an elevator, he must have been inside and the brunette had summoned him.
'I've explained,' Wolfe said, 'to the woman at the desk.'
'I know what you told her and it sounds fishy. Get away from these cabinets and stay away until I can check.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'I'm sorry, Mr…'
'My name's Falk.'
'I'm sorry we can't oblige you, Mr. Falk. I was hired by Mr. Bufi and Mr. O'Garro-and Mr. Assa, who is dead. We've started and we're going to finish. You look truculent, but I advise you to consult Mr. Buff or Mr. O'Garro. Where are they?'
'They're not here.'
'You must know where they are. Phone them.'
'I'm going to, and you're going to stay away from these cabinets until I do.'
'No, sir.' Wolfe was firm but unruffled. 'I make allowances for your state of mind, Mr. Falk, after what happened last night, but you must know I'm not a bandit and these men are working for me. It shouldn't take long to get Mr. Buff or Mr. O'Garro. Do so by all means.'
One test of a good executive is how long it takes him to realize he has lost an argument, and Falk passed it. He turned on his heel and left, striding across the carpet to the door leading to the inside corridor. Wolfe and I resumed, finishing with the shelf of packages and going on to the next one-buckets and cans of paint, electric irons, and so forth.
During the next half hour the elevators delivered eight or nine people, not more than that, and took most of them away again, but nobody bothered us. On the whole it was a nice quiet place to work. Once Wolfe and I thought we might be getting hot, when we came to the display of Jonas Hibben & Co., Pharmaceuticals, but it seemed to be intact, with no vacant spot, and there was no box or bottle from which someone could have removed a dose of cyanide. We gave it up finally, and moved on, and were at the last cabinet on that wall when Saul called to us to come and look at something, and we crossed the room to him, where he and Fred were focusing on the second shelf of the last cabinet in their battery.
The dignified little card-they were all dignified and little-identified it as the exhibit of the Allcoran Laboratories, Inc. There were a couple of dozen boxes, small and large, with the small ones in front and the large ones in the rear, and three rows of brown bottles, all the same size, I would say about a pint.
