Of course, he didn't know I was keeping track of die kind of candy they picked; he thought we were just looking for a giveaway in their actions, and naturally that was a flop.
A third of them were scared and half of them were nervous and some got mad and a few were just casual.
That's all there was to that.
According to instructions, I watched their fingers while Cramer and Dixon looked at their faces, and put down symbols for their selections.” I flipped the slips. “Seven of them took Jordan almonds.
One of them took two.”
Wolfe reached out and rang for beer.
“And?”
“And so I put it down that way. I'll tell you. I'm not slick enough for that sort of thing.
You know it and I know it. Who is? It's a waste of time to say you are, on account of inertia.
Nevertheless, I am slicker than glue.
Six of those people who took Jordan almonds, on account of their expressions and who they are and the way they did it-I don't think it meant anything.
But the seventh one-I don't know.
It's true he's going to have a nervous breakdown, he told you that himself.
He was taken by surprise at the request to have a piece of candy, just as all the rest were.
Cramer handled it right; he had men there to see that no one knew what was going on before they got inside the room.
And Mr. Boyden McNair acted funny.
When I stuck the box at him and asked him to take a piece he drew back a little, but lots of others did that. Then he pulled himself up and reached and looked in, and his fingers went straight to a Jordan almond and then jerked away, and he took a chocolate.
I asked him quick to take another without giving him a chance to get it decided, and this time he touched two other pieces first and then took a Jordan almond, a white one.
The third try he went straight to a gum drop and took it.”
Fritz had come with beer for Wolfe and a scowl for me, and Wolfe had opened a bottle and was pouring. He murmured,
“It was you who saw it, Archie. Your conclusion?”
I tossed the slips onto my desk.
“My conclusion is that McNair was Jordan almond-conscious.
You know, the way a workingman like me is class-conscious or a guzzler like you is beer-conscious. I'll admit it's vague, but you sent me up there to see if any of that bunch would betray an idea that Jordan almonds are different from any other candy, and either Boyden McNair did just that or I've got the soul of a male stenographer. And I don't even use all my fingers.”
“Mr. McNair. Indeed.” Wolfe had emptied one and was leaning back. “Miss Helen Frost, according to her cousin, our client, calls him Uncle Boyd. Did you know that I am an uncle, Archie?”
He knew perfectly well that I knew it, since I typed the monthly letters to Belgrade for him, but of course he wasn't expecting an answer.
He had shut his eyes and became motionless. His brain may have been working, but so was mine; I had to figure out some plausible way of getting out of there to hop in the roadster and run up to 52nd Street and kidnap Helen Frost.
I wasn't worrying about the McNair thing.
It was the one nibble I had got uptown, and I really thought there was a good chance that we might hook a fish from it; besides, I had given it to Wolfe straight and now it was up to him.
But the two o'clock appointment I had mentioned, God help me…
I got an idea.
I knew that with Wolfe's eyes shut for his genius to work, he was often beyond the reach of external stimuli.
Several times I had even kicked over my wastebasket without getting a flicker from him.
I sat and watched him a while, saw him breathing and that was all, and finally decided to risk it.
I drew my feet in under me and lifted myself out of my chair without making it creak.
I kept my eyes on Wolfe.
Three short steps on the rubber tile took me to the first rug, and on that silence was a cinch.
I tiptoed it, holding my breath, accelerating gradually as I approached the door.
I made the threshold-a step in the hall-another- Thunder rolled from the office behind me:
“Mr. Goodwin!”
I had a notion to dash on out, snaring my hat on the fly, but an instant's reflection showed that would have been disastrous.
He would have relapsed again during my absence, out of pure damn meanness.
I turned and went back in.
He roared,
“Where were you going?”
I tried to grin at him.
“Nowhere.
Just upstairs a minute.”
“And why the furtive stealth?”
“I…why…egad, sir, I didn't want to disturb you.”