of a table.'
'I noticed that too.'
'So I figure he's due to lose a bigger--' He stopped short. He slapped the saddle. 'Now, damn it, that's me every time. Now you know who she is. I was going to leave that out.'
Til keep it in. She told you about it?'
'Yes, sir, she did. This morning.'
'Did she tell anyone else?'
'No, sir, she wouldn't. I got no brand on her, nobody has, but maybe some day when she quiets down a little and I've got my own corral . . . You've seen her on a bronc.'
I nodded. 'I sure have. I was looking forward to seeing her off of one, closer up, but now of course I'll keep my distance. I don't want to lose any hide.'
His hand left the saddle. 'I guess you just say things. I got no claim. I'm a friend of hers and she knows it, that's all. A couple of years ago I was wrangling dudes down in Arizona and she was snapping sheets at the hotel, and we kinda made out together and I guess I come in handy now and then. I don't mind coming in handy as long as I can look ahead. Right now I'm a friend of hers and that suits me fine. She might be surprised to know how I--'
The Rodeo Murder 129
His eyes left me and I turned. Nero Wolfe was there, entering from the terrace. Somehow he always looks bigger away from home, I suppose because my eyes are so used to fitting his dimensions into the interiors of the old brownstone on West 35th. There he was, a mountain coming at us. As he approached he spoke. 'If I may interrupt?' He allowed two seconds for objections, got none, and went on. 'My apologies, Mr. Barrow.' To me: 'I have thanked Miss Rowan for a memorable meal and explained to her. To watch the performance I would have to stretch across that parapet and I am not built for it. If you drive me home now you can be back before four o'clock.'
I glanced at my wrist. Ten after three. 'More people are coming, and Lily has told them you'll be here. They'll be disappointed.'
'Pfui. I have nothing to contribute to this frolic.'
I wasn't surprised; in fact, I had been expecting it. He had got what he came for, so why stick around? What had brought him was the grouse. When, two years back, I had returned from a month's visit to Lily Rowan on a ranch she had bought in Montana, (where, incidentally, I had met Harvey Greve, Cal Barrow's friend), the only detail of my trip that had really interested Wolfe was one of the meals I described. At that time of year, late August, the young blue grouse are around ten weeks old and their main item of diet has been mountain huckleberries, and I had told Wolfe they were tastier than any bird Fritz had ever cooked, even quail or woodcock. Of course, since they're protected by law, they can cost up to five dollars a bite if you get caught.
Lily Rowan doesn't treat laws as her father did while he was piling up the seventeen million dollars he left her, but she can take them or leave them. So when she learned that Harvey Greve was coming to New York for the rodeo, and she decided to throw a party for some of the cast, and she thought it would be nice to feed {tern young blue grouse, the law was merely a hurdle to hop over. Since I'm a friend of hers and she knows it, that will do for that I will add only a brief report of a scene in the office on the ground floor of the old brownstone. It was Wednesday noon. Wolfe, at his desk, was reading the Times. I, at my desk, finished a phone call, hung up, and swiveled.
130 3 at Wolfe's Door
'That's interesting,' I said. 'That was Lily Rowan. As I told you, I'm going to a roping contest at her place Monday afternoon. A cowboy is going to ride a horse along Sixty-third Street, and other cowboys are going to try to rope him from the terrace of her penthouse, a hundred feet up. Never done before. First prize will be a saddle with silver trimmings.'
He grunted. 'Interesting?'
'Not that. That's just games. But a few of them are coming earlier for lunch, at one o'clock, and I'm invited, and she just had a phone call from Montana. Twenty young blue grouse, maybe more, will arrive by plane Saturday afternoon, and Felix is going to come and cook them. I'm glad I'm going. It's too bad you and Lily don't get along-- ever since she squirted perfume on you.'
He put the paper down to glare. 'She didn't squirt perfume on me.'
I flipped a hand. 'It was her perfume.'
He picked up the paper, pretended to read a paragraph, and dropped it again. He passed his tongue over his lips. 'I have no animus for Miss Rowan. But I will not solicit an invitation.'
'Of course not. You wouldn't stoop. I don't--'
'But you may ask if I would accept one.'
'Would you?'
'Yes.'
'Good. She asked me to invite you, but I was afraid you'd decline and I'd hate to hurt her feelings. I'll tell her.' I reached for the phone.
I report that incident so you'll understand why he got up and left after coffee. I not only wasn't surprised when he came and interrupted Cal Barrow and me, I was pleased, because Lily had bet me a sawbuck he wouldn't stay for coffee. Leaving him there with Cal, I went to the terrace.
In the early fall Lily's front terrace is usually sporting annual flowers along the parapet and by the wall of the penthouse, and a few evergreens in tubs scattered around, but for that day the parapet was bare, and instead of the evergreens, which would have interfered with rope whirling, there were clumps of sagebrush two feet high in pots. The sagebrush had come by rail, not by air, but
The Rodeo Murder
