Before Midnight

Returning the bill neatly to the wallet, he stated, with no change whatever in tone or manner, "At a better time and place I'll knock your goddam block off." You see why I wanted you to meet him. That ended the conversation. To pass the time as we weaved along with the traffic I thought of three or four things to say, but after all it was his taxi and it had been nice of him to make it a twenty. When the cab stopped at Thirty-fifth Street I only said, "See you at a better time and place," as I got out.

At the corner drugstore I went to the phone booth, dialed our number, got Wolfe, and was told that no company had come. It may have been a minor point, whether Homicide had tails on all five of them or was giving Miss Frazee special attention, but it wouldn't hurt to find out, so I went down the block to Doc Vollmer's place, thirty yards from Wolfe's, and stepped down into the areaway, from where I could see our stoop. My watch said ten past three. I was of course expecting a taxi and wasn't interested in pedestrians, until I happened to send a glance to the east and saw a figure approaching that I could name. I swiveled my head to look west, and saw a female mounting the seven steps to our stoop. So I moved up to the sidewalk into the path of the approaching figure--Art Whipple of Homicide West. He stopped on his heels, opened his mouth, and closed it.

"I won't tell her," I assured him. "Unless you want me to give her a message?"

"Go chin yourself," he suggested. "At a better time and place. She'll probably be with us nearly an hour. If you want to go to Tony's around the corner I'll give you a ring just before she leaves. Luck." I went on to our stoop, and as I was mounting the steps the door opened a crack and Fritz's voice came through it "Your name, please, madam?"

I said okay, and he slipped the bolt and opened up, and I told the visitor to enter. While Fritz attended to the door I offered to take her coat, a brown wool number that would have appreciated a little freshening up, but she said she would keep it and her name was Wheelock.

I ushered her to the office and told Wolfe, "Mrs. James R. Wheelock, of Richmond, Virginia." Then I went and opened the safe, took the four leaves from my notebook that I had written on, put them in the inner compartment, closed that door and twirled the knob of the combination, and closed the outer door. By the time I got to my desk Carol Wheelock was in the red leather chair, with her coat draped over the back.