He's an old friend of Aunt Callie's, Helen's mother.
Then there's this dope, Gebert-but I'd better start at the beginning and sketch it-hey!
You going now?”
Wolfe had pushed his chair back and elevated himself to his feet.
He moved around the end of his desk with his customary steady and not ungraceful deliberation.
“Keep your seat, Mr. Frost. It is four o'clock, and I now spend two hours with my plants upstairs.
Mr. Goodwin will take the details of the poisoning of Miss Molly Lauck-and of your family complications if they seem pertinent.
For the fourth time, I believe it is, good day, sir.”
He headed for the door.
Frost jumped up, sputtering.
“But you're coming uptown-”
Wolfe halted and ponderously turned.
“Confound you, you know perfectly well I ami But I'll tell you this, if Alec Martin's signature had been on that outlandish paper I would have thrown it in the wastebasket.
He splits bulbs. Splits them!-Archie.
We shall meet Mr. Frost at the McNair place tomorrow morning at ten minutes past eleven.”
He turned and went, disregarding the client's protest at the delay.
Through the open office door I heard, from the hall, the grunt of the elevator as he stepped in it, and the bang of its door.
Llewellyn Frost turned to me, and the color in his face may have been from gratification at his success, or from indignation at its postponement.
I looked him over as a client-his wavy light brown hair brushed back, his wide-open brown eyes that left the matter of intelligence to a guess, his big nose and broad jaw which made his face too heavy even for his six feet.
“Anyhow, I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Goodwin.” He sat down. “You were clever about it, too, keeping that Martin out of it.
It was a big favor you did me, and I assure you I won't forget-”
“Wrong number.” I waved him off. “I told you at the time, I keep all my favors for myself.
I suggested that round robin only to try to drum up some business, and for a scientific experiment to find out how many ergs it would take to jostle him loose. We haven't had a case that was worth anything for nearly three months.”
I got hold of a notebook and pencil, and swiveled around and pulled my desk-leaf out.
“And by the way, Mr. Frost, don't you forget that you thought of that round robin yourself.
I'm not supposed to think.”
“Certainly,” he nodded. “Strictly confidential.
I'll never mention it.”
“Okay.”
I flipped the notebook open to the next blank page.
“Now for this murder you want to buy a piece of.
Spill it.”
Chapter Two
So the next morning I had Nero Wolf e braving the elements-the chief element for that day being bright warm March sunshine.
I say I had him, because I had conceived the persuasion which was making him bust all precedents.
What pulled him out of his front door, enraged and grim, with overcoat, scarf, gloves, stick, something he called gaiters, and a black felt pirate's hat size 8 pulled down to his ears, was the name of Winold Glueckner heading the signatures on that letter- Glueckner, who had recently received from an agent in Sarawak four bulbs of a pink Coelogyne pandurata, never seen before, and had scorned Wolfe's offer of three thousand bucks for two of them.
Knowing what a tough old heinie Glueckner was, I had my doubts whether he would turn loose of the bulbs no matter how many murders Wolfe solved at his request, but anyhow I had lit the fuse.
Driving from the house on 35th Street near the Hudson River-where Wolfe had lived for over twenty years and I had lived with him for nearly half of them-to the address on 52nd Street, I handled the sedan so as to keep it as smooth as a dip's fingers.
Except for one I couldn't resist; on Fifth Avenue near Forty-third there was an ideal little hole about two feet across where I suppose someone had been prospecting for the twenty-six dollars they paid the Indians, and I maneuvered to hit it square at a good clip.
I glanced in the mirror for a glimpse of Wolfe in the back seat and saw he was looking bitter and infuriated.
I said,
“Sorry, sir, they're tearing up the streets.”
He didn't answer.
From what Llewellyn Frost had told me the day before about the place of business of Boyden McNair Incorporated -all of which had gone into my notebook and been read to Nero Wolfe Monday evening-I hadn't realized the extent of its aspirations in the way of class.
We met Llewellyn Frost downstairs, just inside the entrance.
One of the first things I saw and heard, as Frost led us to the elevator to take us to the second floor, where the offices and private showrooms were, was a saleswoman who looked like a cross between a countess and Texas
Guinan, telling a customer that in spite of the fact that the little green sport suit on the model was of High Meadow Loom hand-woven material and designed by Mr. McNair himself, it could be had for a paltry three hundred. I thought of the husband and shivered and crossed my fingers as I stepped into the elevator. And I remarked to myself,
“I'll say it's a sinister joint.”
The floor above was just as elegant, but quieter.
There was no merchandise at all in sight, no saleswomen and no. customers.