"Hey, Uncle Dan! Where you going?"
Daniel stopped in his tracks and whirled. I twisted my neck, and through the leaves got a glimpse of Larry's head sticking out of an upper window, and Maryella's beside it.
Larry shouted, "We need you!"
"See you later!" Daniel yelled.
"But it's time for lunch!" Maryella called.
"See you later!" Daniel turned and was off.
"Now that's a performance," Maryella said to Larry.
"Cuckoo," Larry declared.
Their heads went in. But they might still have been looking out, so I scooted along the side of the house to the corner, and from there circled wide around evergreens and similar obstructions before swinging into the direction Daniel had taken. He wasn't in sight. This part of the premises was new to me, and the first thing I knew I ran smack into the fence in the middle of a thicket. I couldn't fight my way through on account of noise, so I doubled around, dashed along the edge of the thicket, and pretty soon hit a path. No sight of Daniel. The path took me to a series of stone steps up a steep bank, and up I went. Getting to the top, I saw him. A hundred feet ahead was a gate in the fence, and he was shutting the gate and starting down a lane between rows of little trees. The package was under his arm. In a way I was more interested in the package than I was in him. What if he threw it down a sewer? So I closed up more than I would have for an ordinary tailing job, and proceeding through the gate, followed him down the lane. At the end of the lane, not far ahead, he stopped, and I dived into the trees.
He had stopped at a curb, a paved street. The way cars were rolling by, apparently it was a main traffic street; and that point was settled when a double-decker bus jerked to a stop right square in front of Daniel, and he climbed on and-off the bus went.
I hotfooted it to the corner. It was Marble Avenue. Riverdale is like that. The bus was too far away to read its number, and no taxi was in sight in either direction. I stepped into the street, into the path of the first car coming, and held up a commanding palm. By bad luck it was occupied by the two women that Helen Hokinson used for models, but there was no time to pick and choose. I hopped into the back seat, gave the driver a fleeting glimpse of my detective license, and said briskly:
"Police business. Step on it and catch up with a bus that's ahead."
The one driving emitted a baby scream. The other one said, "You don't look like a policeman. You get out. If you don't we'll drive to a police station."
"Suit yourself, madam. While we sit and talk the most dangerous gangster in New York is escaping. He's on the bus."
"Oh! He'll shoot at us."
"No. He isn't armed."
"Then why is he dangerous?"
"For God's sake," I reached for the door latch, "I'll take a car with a man in it!"
But the car started forward. "You will not," the driver said fiercely. "I'm as good a driver as any man. My husband says so."
She was okay at that. Within a block she had it up to fifty, and she was good at passing, and it wasn't long before we caught up with the bus. At least, a bus. When it stopped at a corner I told her to get alongside, which she did neatly, and with my hand over my face I looked for him and there he was.
"I'm shadowing him," I told the ladies. "I think he's on his way to meet a crooked politician. The first empty taxi we see you can let me out if you want to, but of course he might suspect a taxi, whereas he never would suspect a car like this with two good-looking well-dressed women in it."
The driver looked grim. "In that case," she declared, "it is our duty."
And by gum she crawled along behind that bus for a good three-quarters of an hour, to Riverside Drive, the whole length of the Drive, over to Broadway, and on downtown. I thought the least I could do was furnish diversion, which I did with tales of my experiences with gangsters and kidnappers and so forth. When Daniel was still on the bus after crossing 42nd Street I decided in disgust that he was probably bound for Headquarters, and I was so deeply considering the feasibility of intercepting him before he got there that I nearly missed it when he hopped to the sidewalk at 34th Street. Paying the ladies with thanks and a cordial smile, I jumped out and dodged through the midday shopping mob, and almost lost him. I picked him up going west on 34th.
At Eighth Avenue he turned uptown. I kept twenty yards behind.
At 35th he turned west again.
That was when I got suspicious. Naturally. On he went, straight as a bullet. When he kept on west of Ninth Avenue, there was no question about it. I closed up. He began looking at the numbers on buildings, and came to the stoop and started up. Boy, I'm telling you, they don't get away from me. I get my man. I had trailed this one the length of New York, hanging on like a bulldog, right to Nero Wolfe's door.
Chapter 5
I had been thinking fast the last two blocks. I had considered, and rejected, three different maneuvers to keep Wolfe from finding out. They all seemed good, but I knew damn well none of them was good enough. He would find out all right, no matter what I did. So I bounded up the steps past Daniel, greeted him, let us in with my key, and took him to the office.
Wolfe, at his desk, frowned at us. "How do you do, Mr. Huddleston. Archie. Where have you been?"
"I know," I said, "it's about lunch time, so I'll make it brief. First cast a glance at this." I took the knife, the trowel, and the paper bags from my pockets and put them on his desk.
Daniel stared and muttered something.
"What is this flummery?" Wolfe demanded.
"No flummery," I asserted. "Tools. It still didn't rain last night. So I went to Riverdale to get the piece of turf where the orangutan poured the iodine. Brother Daniel had the same idea. He was just ahead of me. He's got it in that newspaper. I thought he might be going to toss it in the river, so I tailed him and he led me here. So I look foolish but not dumb. Now you can laugh."
He didn't. He looked at Daniel. "Is that what you have in that package, Mr. Huddleston?"
"It is," Daniel said. "I want-"
"Why did you bring it to me? I'm not a chemist. You are."
"Because I want to authenticate it. I want-"
"Take it to the police."
"No." Daniel looked and sounded determined. "They think I'm nothing but a nuisance. Maybe I am. But if I analyze this myself, without someone to-"
"Don't analyze it yourself. You have colleagues, friends, haven't you?"
"None I would want to give this to."
"Are you sure you have the piece where the iodine was poured?"
"I am. A few drops were on the edge of the flagstone. I also have pieces taken from each side of that piece, for comparison."
"Naturally. Who suggested this step to you?"
"No one. It occurred to me this mornhtg, and I immediately went up there-"
"Indeed. I congratulate you. Take it to the Fisher Laboratories. You know them, don't you?"