on through. There was no taxi for me in sight, so I kept on running, but either he had told his driver to step on it or the driver liked to get places.” Saul shook his head. “I admit it looks as if he was on to me, but I don’t believe it. I think he took a sudden notion. I don’t especially mind losing one, we all lose them sometimes, but just three hours before he murdered! That’s what gets me. Even say it was bad luck, if my luck’s gone I might as well quit. At the time, of course, not knowing he would be dead before midnight, I wasn’t much upset. I tried some leads I had, his chess club and a couple of other places, but didn’t get a smell. I went home and went to bed, thinking to try him again this morning. As soon as I saw the morning paper I phoned you, and you told me-”
“Never mind what I told you,” Wolfe said crisply. So he was getting up another charade, I thought. He asked Saul, “What time was it?” “It was eight-thirty-four when I quit running, so it was eight-thirty, maybe one minute one way or the other, when he got his taxi.” “Get Mr. Cramer, Archie.” I tried to fill the order but couldn’t, because Cramer was not to be had. He was probably home asleep after a hard night and morning, though no one was indelicate enough to tell me so. I was offered a captain and my choice of lieutenants, but turned them down and got Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Wolfe took it.
“Mr. Stebbins? How are you? I have some information for Mr. Cramer. At half-past eight last evening, Friday, Mr. Kerr Naylor stopped a taxicab on Fifty-third Street between First and Second Avenues. He got in the cab and it proceeded westward, through Second Avenue and beyond. He was alone. – If you please, let me finish.” He consulted a slip of paper that Saul had handed him. “It was a Sealect cab, somewhat dilapidated, and its number was WX one-nine-seven-four-four-naught. That’s right. How the devil would I know the driver’s name? Isn’t that enough for you?-If you please. This information can be depended on, I guarantee it, but I have not, and shall not have, anything to add to it. Nonsense. If the driver denies it, bring him to me.” I was thinking that at least I was no longer the last one to see Naylor alive, though it was no great improvement since the honor had been transferred to Saul.
It would be nice when they hauled in the taxi driver and took it entirely out of the family.
“What happened,” Wolfe asked Saul, “before you lost him? You got him at William Street?” Saul nodded. “Yes, sir. He left the building at five-thirty-eight, walked to City Hall Park, bought an evening paper, and sat on a bench in the park and read it until a quarter past six. Then he went to Brooklyn Bridge, took the Third Avenue El, and got off at Fifty-third Street. He seemed now to be in a hurry, he walked faster. At First Avenue and Fifty- second Street he met a girl who was apparently expecting him. A young woman. They walked together west on Fifty-second Street, talking. At Second Avenue they turned right, and turned right again on Fifty-third Street and walked back to First Avenue. There they turned left, and again left on Fifty-fourth Street, and back to Second Avenue.
They were talking all the time. They kept that up for a solid hour, walking back and forth on different streets, talking. I couldn’t tell whether they were arguing or what. If they were, they never raised their voices enough for me to hear any words.” “You heard no words at all?” “No, sir. If I had got close enough I would have been spotted.” “Were they friends? Lovers? Enemies? Did they embrace or shake hands?” “No, sir. I don’t think they liked each other, from their manner, and that’s all I can say. They met at six-thirty-eight and parted at seven-forty- one, at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Second Avenue. The woman started downtown on Second Avenue. Naylor walked east on Fifty-seventh Street, stopped at a fruitstand around the corner on First Avenue and bought a bag of bananas, walked east to the Drive and sat on a bench, and ate nine bananas, one right after the other.” Wblfe shuddered. “Enough to kill a man.” “Yes, sir. He took his time at it, and then started walking again. He didn’t hurry, not much more than a stroll, and at Fifty-fifth Street he started the crosstown promenade again, over to Second Avenue, back on Fifty-fourth to First Avenue, and west again on Fifty-third. By that time I was expecting him to keep it up until he hit the Battery, and maybe I got careless. Anyhow, it was on Fifty-third that he suddenly flagged a taxi and I lost him.” Saul shook his head. “And he was on his way to get killed. Goddam the luck.” Saul never swore.
Wolfe heaved a sigh. “Not your fault. Satisfactory. The woman?” “Yes, sir. She was twenty-three or four, five-feet-five, hundred and eighteen pounds, wearing a light brown woolen coat over a tan woolen skirt or maybe dress, a dark brown hat with a white cloth flower, and brown pumps without open toes. Brown hair and I think brown eves, but I’m not sure. Good figure and good posture and walks with a swing but not exaggerated. Hair soft and fine. Face more long than round, with oval chin. Features regular, nothing to fasten on, light complexion, attractive. Her back was to me nearly all the time, so that’s as good as I can do with the face. What I could see of her legs curved down well to narrow ankles.” Wolfe turned to me. “Well, Archie?” Anywhere else, with anyone else, I would have stalled to get a little time for consideration, and would have had no difficulty. But this was Nero Wolfe and Saul Panzer.
“Yeah,” I said. “Her name is Hester Livsey.” “Good. Week-ending in Connecticut? Told the Westport police that she knows nothing of Mr. Naylor and her association with him was remote?” “Yes, sir.” “Get Mr. Cramer-or Mr. Stebbins.”
CHAPTER Twenty-Three
It is a simple thing to make a swivel-chair swivel a half-turn and to pick up a phone, but sometimes the simple things are the hardest. I did not perform that maneuver. Instead, I wet my upper lip with my tongue, then my lower lip, and then got the tip of the tongue between my teeth and experimented to see how hard I had to bite to produce pain.
“Well?” Wolfe demanded. “What’s the matter?” I gave the tongue its freedom. “I am reminded,” I said, “of the famous remark of Ferdinand Bowen up at Sing Sing when they told him to walk to the chair they had got ready for him. He muttered at them, ‘The idea is repugnant to me.’ Not that I regard the fix I’m in as identical, but I am strongly disinclined-” “What’s repugnant about it?” “I like the way the sun shines through Miss Livsey’s hair.” “Pfui. Phone Mr. Stebbins.” “Also, while it is true I pronounced her name, all I had was a description and I think it should be verified by having Saul look at her before we toss her into the fire.” “We’re not engaged to catch the murderer of Mr. Naylor. I’m not going to pay transportation to Westport for Saul and you.” “You don’t have to. He can see her Monday down at the office.” “It would be improper to withhold information-” “Listen to you! Will you please listen to you?” My voice was up without needing any instructions. “One of the main reasons you love to get information is so you can keep it from the cops, and you know it! You’re just being pigheaded, and if you phone Stebbins yourself, which you won’t because exercise is bad for you, I’ll withdraw my identification. From Saul’s description I would guess that it was the Duchess of Brimstone, who is in this country-” “Archie.” Wolfe was glaring. “Has that girl enravished you? Has she cajoled you into frenzy?” “Yes, sir.” That took the edge off him instantly. He leaned back, nodded to himself, made a circle with his lips, and exhaled with a sort of hiss that was the closest he ever got to a whistle.
“Monday will do,” he declared, as if no one but a fool could think otherwise. “I was impetuous.” He looked at the clock on the wall, which said two minutes to four, time for his afternoon session with the orchids. He
