Fer-De-Lance

For an instant I imagined he meant I had lost the driver, and I thought he was crazy. Then as I straightened up and glanced at him and saw where he was looking, I jerked my eyes and my head up. It was Manuel Kimball’s plane directly overhead, a thousand feet up. It was twisting and whirling as if it had lost its senses, and coming down. It seemed to be jerking and coiling back and forth, it didn’t look as if it was falling straight, but I suppose it was. It was right above us-faster-I stared with my mouth open- "Look out!" Skinner was shouting. "For God’s sake!"

We ran for the hangar door. Anderson was out of the roadster and with us. We got inside the door and turned in time to see the crash. Black lightning split the air. A giant report, not thunderous like a big gun, an instantaneous ear-splitting snap. Pieces flew; splinters lay at our feet. It had landed at the edge of the concrete platform, not ten yards from Corbett’s car. We jumped out and ran for the wreckage, Skinner calling, "Look out for an explosion!"

What I saw first wasn’t pretty. The only way I knew it had been E.D. Kimball was that it was mixed up with a strap in the position of the back seat and Skinner had said that the old gentleman had gone up for a ride. Apparently it had landed in such a way that the front seat had got a different kind of a blow, for Manuel Kimball could have been recognized by anybody. His face was still together and even pretty well in shape. Skinner and I got him loose while the others worked at the old gentleman. We caned them away from there and inside the hangar and put them on some canvas on the floor.

Skinner said, "You’d better move your cars. An explosion might come yet."

I said, "When I move my car I’ll keep on moving it.

"Now’s a good time. Mr. Anderson. You may remember that Nero Wolfe promised I would be diffident. That’s me." I pulled the documents from my pocket and handed them to him. "Here’s your proof. And there’s your man on the floor, the one with the face."

I picked up Manuel Kimball’s envelope and the golf driver from the floor where I had dropped them, and beat it. It took me maybe four seconds to get the roadster started and out of there and sooting down the road.

At the entrance, turning onto the highway, I stopped long enough to call to Durkin, "Call your playmates and come on home. The show’s over."