"You wouldn't lie to me just for practice?"
"I don't need any practice, thanks."
"All right. If you don't mind, I'll try one of these chairs. It was awful in there all alone."
I sat down within three feet of the entrance door, and I had no sooner got disposed than the door opened and a man came in, a husky, busy-looking man in a blue suit and black shoes, with a stiff straw hat. From where I sat, as he went toward the girl with his back to me, it was easy to see that he had a gun on his hip. The girl said, "Howdedo, Mr. Cook, Mr. Derwin's in Mr. Anderson's room." When the man had gone on through another door I said to the girl, "Ben Cook maybe?" She nodded without looking at me, and I grinned, and sat and waited.
It was all of fifteen minutes more before the door of Anderson's room opened again and Derwin appeared and called to me, "Come in here, Goodwin."
I went. When I got inside and saw that they had actually staged me it was too funny not to laugh. Ben Cook was in a chair that had been drawn alongside the one by the desk--that one of course for Derwin--and one had been placed just right for me, quite close and facing them and the light.
"Amused, huh," the husky man grunted. Derwin waited till he was back in his chair to inform me. "This is the chief of police."
I was pretending to blink at the light. "Don't tell me," I said. "Do you think Ben Cook's reputation stops at Bronx Park?"
Derwin went stern on me. Lord, it was funny. He even went so far as to shake a finger at me. "Goodwin, I've been pretty busy for half an hour, and now I'm ready to tell you what comes next. You'll tell us what you know, if anything, while we're waiting for Wolfe. What reason have you-"
I hated to interrupt the show, but I couldn't help it. It was involuntary. "Waiting for Wolfe? Here?"
"Certainly, here. If he knows what's good for him, and I think I made that plain on the telephone."
I didn't laugh. I just said, "Listen, Mr. Derwin. This is one of your bad days. You never had a chance at so many rotten bets in your life. Nero Wolfe is about as apt to come here as I am to tell you who killed Barstow."
"Yeah?" It was Ben Cook. "You'll tell us plenty. Plenty."
"Maybe. But I won't tell you who killed Barstow, because I don't know. Now if you want to ask about roads, for instance-"
"Cut it out." Derwin got sterner. "Goodwin, you have made a most startling accusation in a most sensational manner. I won't pretend that I have a lot of questions ready for you, because I obviously have nothing to base them on. I have just one question, and I want a prompt and complete answer. For what reason and for what purpose did your employer send you here today?"
I sighed and looked solemn. "I've told you, Mr. Derwin, to get a bet down."
"Come on, act as if you had some sense. You can't get away with that, you know damn well you can't. Come on. Let's hear it."
Ben Cook said, "Don't try to be bright. You'd be surprised how we treat bright boys up here sometimes."
I could have kept it going all night, I suppose, if I had wanted to, but time was passing and they gave me a pain. I said, "Listen a minute, gentlemen. Of course you're peeved and that's too bad, but I can't help it. Let's say I tell you to go to hell and get up and walk out, what are you going to do-? Yes, Chief, I know it's only a short distance to the station, but I'm not going that way. Honest, you're acting like a pair of dumb flatfeet. I'm surprised at you, Mr. Derwin. Nero Wolfe offers to let you in right at the beginning of a big thing, and the first thing you do is spill it to Ben Cook and the next is to drive me to take it away from both of you and toss it to the wolves. You can't touch me, don't be silly. Nero Wolfe would love a suit for false arrest, and I never go to police stations except to visit friends unless you can show me a warrant, and think how funny it would be after the reporters got my story and then the proof followed of Barstow's murder. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to get a little bit sore and I've got half a mind to demand that check back and walk out on you. Get this: I'll tell you exactly nothing. You understand that maybe? Now you can give me that check or talk sense yourself."
Derwin sat with his arms folded and looked at me without making any effort to open his mouth. Ben Cook said, "So you've come out to the country to show the hayseeds how it's done. Sonny, I'm plenty big enough to take you to the station with nothing at all but the inclination. That's all I need."
"You can afford to be breezy," I told him. "Derwin has handed you a firecracker that he might have to set off himself, and you know it." I turned to Derwin. "Who did you telephone to in New York? Headquarters?"
"No. The District Attorney."
"Did you get him?"
Derwin unfolded his arms, pulled himself back in his chair and looked at me helplessly. "I got Morley."
I nodded. "Dick Morley. What did he tell you?"
He told me that if Nero Wolfe was offering to bet ten thousand dollars on anything whatever he would appreciate it if I'd take him on for another thousand, only he would give me ten to one."
I was too sore to grin. I said, "And still you invite me in here to tea instead of getting a spade and beating it to Agawalk Cemetery. I repeat that I'll tell you nothing and Wolfe will tell you nothing, but if ever you had a sure thing to go on it's right now. The next thing to do is to give me back that check, and then what?"
Derwin let out a sigh and cleared his throat, but he had to clear it again. "Goodwin," he said, "I'll be frank with you. I'm out of my depth. That's not for publication, Ben, but it's a fact anyhow. I'm clear out of my depth. Good Lord, don't you know what it would mean--an exhumation and autopsy on Peter Oliver Barstow?"
I put in, "Rot. Any of a dozen excuses is enough."
"Well, maybe I'm not good at excuses. Anyway, I know that family. I can't do it. I've telephoned Anderson at Lake Placid and couldn't get him. I'll have him before six o'clock, before seven sure. He can take a sleeper and be here tomorrow morning. He can decide it then."
"That lets today out," I said.
"Yes. Not a chance. I won't do it."
"All right." I got up. "I'll go down to the corner and phone Wolfe and see if he'll wait that long, and if he says okay I'll head south away from the hayseeds. I might as well have that check."
Derwin took it from his pocket and handed it to me.
I grinned at Ben Cook. "Shall I give you a lift as far as the station, Chief?"
"Run along, sonny, run along."
CHAPTER 5
Wolfe was as nice as pie that evening. I got home in time to eat dinner with him. He wouldn't let me say anything about White Plains until the meal was over; in fact, there wasn't any conversation to speak of about anything, for he had the radio going. He was accustomed to say that this was the perfect era for the sedentary man; formerly such a man could satisfy any amount of curiosity regarding bygone times by sitting down with Gibbon or Ranke or Tacitus or Greene but if he wanted to meet his contemporaries he had to take to the highways, whereas the man of today, tiring for the moment of Galba or Vitellius, had only to turn on the radio and resume his chair. One program Wolfe rarely missed was the Joy Boys. I never knew why. He would side with his fingers interlaced on his belly, his eyes half-closed, and his mouth screwed up as if there was something in it he would spit out any minute. Frequently I went for a walk at that time, but of course when dinner was a little early so that it came then I was caught. I have my radio favorites all right, but the Joy Boys seem to me pretty damn vulgar.
In the office after dinner it didn't take me long to report. I hated apologizing to Wolfe because he was so invariably nice about it; he always took it for granted that I had done everything possible and that there was nothing to criticize but the contrariety of the environment, as he put it. He made no comments and didn't seem much interested in the report or the apology either. I tried to get him started, tried for instance to find out if he had really had some sort of wild idea that I might kid a District Attorney into covering a bet of ten thousand dollars just like that, but he only stayed nice and quiet. I asked him if he thought it likely that I could have taken any line at all that would have persuaded Derwin to start the digging that afternoon. He said probably not.