“No. I was waiting to hear from you.”
“That’s wise, I think. I’m willing to discuss the matter. Are you free for this evening?”
“I can wiggle free.”
“With a car to drive?”
“Yeah, I have a car.”
“Drive to a lunchroom at the northeast corner of Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue. Get there at eight o’clock. Park your car on Fifty-first Street, but not at the corner. Got that?”
“Yes.”
“You will be alone, of course. Go in the lunchroom and order something to eat. I won’t be there, but you will get a message. You’ll be there at eight o’clock?”
“Yes. I still don’t recognize your voice. I don’t think you’re the person I sent the note to.”
“I am. It’s good, isn’t it?”
The connection went.
I hung up, told Fritz he could answer calls now, and hot-footed it to the stairs and up a flight. Saul was there on the landing.
“Whose voice was that?” I demanded.
“Search me. You heard all I did.” His eyes had a gleam in them, and I suppose mine did too.
“Whoever it was,” I said, “I’ve got a date. Let’s go up and tell the genius. I’ve got to admit he saved a lot of postage.”
We mounted the other two flights and found Wolfe in the cool room, inspecting a bench of dendrobiums for damage from the invasion of the day before. When I told him about the call he merely nodded, not even taking the trouble to smirk, as if picking a murderer first crack out of ten dozen men was the sort of thing he did between yawns.
“That call,” he said, “validates our assumptions and verifies our calculation, but that’s all. If it had done more than that it wouldn’t have been made. Has anyone come to take those seals off?”
I told him no. “I asked Stebbins about it and he said he’d ask Cramer.”
“Don’t ask again,” he snapped. “We’ll go down to my room.”
If the strangler had been in Wolfe’s house the rest of that day he would have felt honored — or anyway he should. Even during Wolfe’s afternoon hours in the plant rooms, from four to six, his mind was on my appointment, as was proved by the crop of new slants and ideas that poured out of him when he came down to the kitchen. Except for a trip to Leonard Street to answer an hour’s worth of questions by an assistant district attorney, my day was devoted to it too. My most useful errand, though at the time it struck me as a waste of time and money, was one made to Doc Vollmer for a prescription and then to a drugstore under instructions from Wolfe.
When I got back from the D.A.’s office Saul and I got in the sedan and went for a reconnaissance. We didn’t stop at Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue, but drove past it four times. The main idea was to find a place for Saul. He and Wolfe both insisted that he had to be there with his eyes and ears open, and I insisted that he had to be covered enough not to scare off my date, who could spot his big nose a mile off. We finally settled for a filling station across the street from the lunchroom. Saul was to have a taxi drive in there at eight o’clock, and stay in the passenger’s seat while the driver tried to get his carburetor adjusted. There were so many contingencies to be agreed on that if it had been anyone but Saul I wouldn’t have expected him to remember more than half. For instance, in case I left the lunchroom and got in my car and drove off Saul was not to follow unless I cranked my window down.
Trying to provide for contingencies was okay in a way, but at seven o’clock, as the three of us sat in the dining room, finishing the roast duck, I had the feeling that we might as well have spent the day playing pool. Actually it was strictly up to me, since I had to let the other guy make the rules until and unless it got to where I felt I could take over and win. And with the other guy making the rules no one gets very far, not even Nero Wolfe, arranging for contingencies ahead of time; you meet them as they come, and if you meet one wrong it’s too bad.
Saul left before I did, to find a taxi driver that he liked the looks of. When I went to the hall for my hat and raincoat, Wolfe came along, and I was really touched, since he wasn’t through yet with his afterdinner coffee.
“I still don’t like the idea,” he insisted, “of your having that thing in your pocket. I think you should slip it inside your sock.”
“I don’t.” I was putting the raincoat on. “If I get frisked, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket.”
“You’re sure that gun is loaded?”
“For God’s sake. I never saw you so anxious. Next you’ll be telling me to put on my rubbers.”
He even opened the door for me.
It wasn’t actually raining, merely trying to make up its mind whether to or not, but after a couple of blocks I reached to switch on the windshield wiper. As I turned uptown on Tenth Avenue the dash clock said 7:47; as I turned left on Fifty-first Street it had only got to 7:51. At that time of day in that district there was plenty of space, and I rolled to the curb and stopped about twenty yards short of the corner, stopped the engine and turned off the lights, and cranked my window down for a good view of the filling station across the street. There was no taxi there. I glanced at my wrist watch and relaxed. At 7:59 a taxi pulled in and stopped by the pumps, and the driver got out and lifted the hood and started peering. I put my window up, locked three doors, pulled the key out, got myself out, locked the door, walked to the lunchroom, and entered.
There was one hash slinger behind the counter and five customers scattered along on the stools. I picked a stool that left me elbow room, sat, and ordered ice cream and coffee. That made me slightly conspicuous in those surroundings, but I refused to insult Fritz’s roast duck, which I could still taste. The counterman served me and I took my time. At 8:12 the ice cream was gone and my cup empty, and I ordered a refill. I had about got to the end of that too when a male entered, looked along the line, came straight to me, and asked me what my name was. I told him, and he handed me a folded piece of paper and turned to go.
He was barely old enough for high school, and I made no effort to hold him, thinking that the bird I had a date with was not likely to be an absolute sap. Unfolding the paper, I saw neatly printed in penciclass="underline"
Go to your car and get a note under the windshield wiper. Sit in the car to read it.
I paid what I owed, walked to my car and got the note as I was told, unlocked the car and got in, turned on the light, and read in the same print:
Make no signal of any kind. Follow instructions precisely. Turn right on 11th Ave. and go slowly to 56th St. Turn right on 56th and go to 9th Ave. Turn right on 9th Ave. Right again on 45th. Left on 11th Ave. Left on 38th. Right on 7th Ave. Right on 27th St. Park on 27th between 9th and 10th Aves. Go to No. 814 and tap five times on the door. Give the man who opens the door this note and the other one. He will tell you where to go.
I didn’t like it much, but I had to admit it was a handy arrangement for seeing to it that I went to the conference unattached or there wouldn’t be any conference. It had now decided to rain. Starting the engine, I could see dimly through the misty window that Saul’s taxi driver was still monkeying with his carburetor, but of course I had to resist the impulse to crank the window down to wave so long. Keeping the instructions in my left hand, I rolled to the corner, waited for the light to change, and turned right on Eleventh Avenue. Since I had not been forbidden to keep my eyes open I did so, and as I stopped at Fifty-second for the red light I saw a black or dark blue sedan pull away from the curb behind me and creep in my direction. I took it for granted that that was my chaperon, but even so I followed directions and kept to a crawl until I reached Fifty-sixth and turned right.
In spite of all the twistings and turnings and the lights we had to stop at, I didn’t get the license number of the black sedan for certain until the halt at Thirty-eighth Street and Seventh Avenue. Not that that raised my pulse any, license plates not being welded on, but what the hell, I was a detective, wasn’t I? It was at that same corner, seeing a flatfoot on the sidewalk, that I had half a notion to jump out, summon him, and tackle the driver of the sedan. If it was the strangler, I had the two printed notes in my possession, and I could at least have made it stick enough for an escorted trip to the Fourteenth Precinct Station for a chat. I voted it down, and was soon glad of it.