Also that you know who killed Harlan Scovil, like I know who put the salt in the ocean.
Also that we’re tied hand and foot with the Commissioner himself sore at us.” I yawned. “I guess I’ll prop myself up in bed tomorrow and read and knit.”
“Not tomorrow, Archie.
The day after, possibly.
Your notebook.”
I got it, and a pencil.
Wolfe began.
“Miss Fox to breakfast with me in my room at seven o’clock.
Delay would be dangerous.
Do not forget the gong.
You are not to leave the house.
Saul, Fred, Orrie, and Keems are to be sent to my room immediately upon arrival, but singly.
Arrange tonight for a long-distance connection with London at eight-thirty, Hitchcock’s office.
From Miss Fox, where does Walsh live and where is he employed as night watchman.
As early as possible, call Morley of the District Attorney’s office and I’ll talk to him.
Have Fritz bring me a copy of this when he wakes me at six-thirty.
From Saul, complete information from Miss Lindquist regarding her father, his state of health, could he travel in an airplane, his address and telephone number in Nebraska.
Phone Murger’s—they open at eight-thirty—for copies of Metropolitan Biographies, all years available.
Explain to Fritz and Theodore procedure regarding Miss Fox, as follows.. “
He went on, in the drawling murmur that he habitually used when giving me a set-up.
I was yawning, but I got it down.
Some of it sounded like he was having hallucinations or else trying to make me think he knew things I didn’t know.
I quit yawning for grinning while he was explaining the procedure regarding Miss Fox.
He went to bed.
After I finished the typing and giving a copy to Fritz and a few other chores, I went to the basement to take a look at the back door, and looked out the front to direct a Bronx cheer at the gumshoe on guard.
Up the stairs, I continued to the third Boor to take a look at the door of the south room, but I didn’t try it to see if it was locked, thinking it might disturb her.
Down again, in my room, I looked in the bottom drawer to see if Fritz had messed it up getting out the pajamas.
It was all right.
I hit the hay.
Chapter 10
When I leave my waking up in the morning to the vagaries of nature, it’s a good deal like other acts of God—you can’t tell much about it ahead of time.
So Tuesday at six-thirty I staggered out of bed and fought my way across the room to turn off the electric alarm clock on the table.
Then I proceeded to cleanse the form and the phiz and get the figure draped for the day.
By that time the bright October sun had a band across the top fronts of the houses across the street, and I thought to myself it would be a pity to have to go to jail on such a fine day.
At seven-thirty I was in my comer in the kitchen, with Canadian bacon, pancakes, and wild-thyme honey which Wolfe got from Syria.
And plenty of coffee.
The wheels had already started to turn.
Clara Fox, who had told Fritz she had slept like a log, was having breakfast with Wolfe in his room.
Johnny Keems had arrived early, and he and Saul Panzer were in the dining room punishing pancakes.
With the telephone I had pulled Dick Morley, of the District Attorney’s office, out of bed at his home, and Wolfe had talked with him.
It was Morley who would have lost his job, and maybe something more, but for Wolfe pulling him out of a hole in the BanisterSchurman business about three years before.
With my pancakes I went over the stories of Scovil’s murder in the morning papers.
They didn’t play it up much, but the accounts were fairly complete.
The tip-off was that he was a Chicago gangster, which gave me a grin, since he looked about as much like a gangster as a prima donna.
The essentials were there, provided they were straight: no gun had been found.
The car had been stolen from where some innocent perfume salesman had parked it on 29th Street.
The closest eyewitness had been a man who had been walking along about thirty feet behind Harlan Scovil, and it was he who had got the license number before he dived for cover when the bullets started flying.
In the dim light he hadn’t got a good view of the man in the car, but he was sure it was a man, with his hat pulled down and a dark overcoat collar turned up, and he was sure he had been alone in the car.
The car had speeded off across 3ist Street and turned at the comer.
No one had been found who had noticed it stopping on Ninth Avenue, where it had later been found.