It has been years since I read Norboisin, and I haven't his books.”
I read the whole paragraph, beginning
“My dear Calida.”
I took the French on high and sailed right through it, ludicrous or not, having had three lessons in it altogether: one from Fritz in 1930, and two from a girl I met once when we were working on a forgery case.
“Want to hear it again?”
“No, thanks.” Wolfe's lips were pushing in and out. “And Mrs. Frost calls it babbling.
It would have been instructive to be there, for the tone and the eyes.
Mr. Gebert was indeed sardonic, to tell you in so many words who killed Mr. McNair.
Was it a lie, to be provoking?
Or the truth, to display his own alertness?
Or a conjecture, for a little subtlety of his own?
I think, the second.
I do indeed.
It runs with my surmises, but he could not know that.
And granted that we know the murderer, what the devil is to be done about it?
Probably no amount of patience would suffice.
If Mr. Cramer gets his hands on the red box and decides to act without me, he is apt to lose the spark entirely and leave both of us with fuel that will not ignite.” He drank his beer, put the glass down, and wiped his lips. “Archie. We need that confounded box.”
“Yeah.
I'll go get it in just a minute.
First, just to humor me, exactly when did Gebert tell us who killed McNair?
You wouldn't by any chance be talking just to hear yourself?”
“Of course not.
Isn't it obvious?
But I forget-you don't know French. Ardemment means ardently.
The quotation translates,
‘At least, I die ardently.’”
“Really?” I elevated the brows. “The hell you say.”
“Yes. And therefore-but I forget again. You don't know Latin.
Do you?”
“Not intimately.
I'm shy on Chinese too.” I aimed a Bronx cheer in a sort of general direction. “Maybe we ought to turn this case over to the Heinemann School of Languages.
Did Gebert's quotation fix us up on evidence too, or do we have to dig that out for ourselves?”
I overplayed it.
Wolfe compressed his lips and eyed me without favor.
He leaned back.
“Some day, Archie, I shall be constrained…but no.
I cannot remake the universe, and must therefore put up with this one. What is, is, including you.”
He sighed. “Let the Latin go.
Information for your records: this afternoon I telephoned Mr. Hitchcock in London; expect it on the bill.
I asked him to send a man to Scotland for a talk with Mr. McNair's sister, and to instruct his agent, either in Barcelona or in Madrid, to examine certain records in the town of Cartagena.
That means an expenditure of several hundred dollars.
There has been no further report from Saul Panzer.
We need that red box.
It was already apparent to me who killed Mr. NcNair, and why, before Mr. Gebert permitted himself the amusement of informing you; he really didn't help us any, and of course he didn't intend to. But what is known is not necessarily demonstrable. Pfui!
To sit here and wait upon the result of a game of hide-and-seek, when all the difficulties have in fact been surmounted!
Please type out a note of that statement of Mr. Gebert's while it is fresh; conceivably it will be needed.” He picked up his book again, got his elbows on the arms of his chair, opened to his page, and was gone.
He read until dinnertime, but even Seven Pillars of Wisdom did not restrain his promptness in responding to Fritz's summons to table.
During the meal he kindly explained to me the chief reason for Lawrence's amazing success in keeping the Arabian tribes together for the great revolt.
It was because Lawrence's personal attitude toward women was the same as the classic and traditional Arabian attitude.
The central fact about any man, in respect to his activities as a social animal, is his attitude toward women; hence the Arabs felt that essentially Lawrence was one of them, and so accepted him.