Plot It Yourself

I was nervous. Fred Durkin had phoned at seven-thirty-nine to say that he was on his way to relieve Saul, and Dol Bonner was with him, and Saul should have phoned by eight-twenty to report, certainly not later than eight-thirty, and he hadn’t. He still hadn’t at eight-forty-five. If it had been Fred or Orrie I would have thought it was probably some little snag like a flat tire, but Saul has never had a flat tire and never will. At nine o’clock I was sure there was some kind of hell to pay. At nine-fifteen I was sure that Alice Porter was dead. At nine-twenty I was sure that Saul was dead too. When the phone rang at nine-twenty-five I grabbed it and barked at it, “Well?”-which is no way to answer a phone.

“Archie?”

“Yes.”

“Saul. We’ve got a circus up here.”

I was so relieved to hear that all he had was a circus that I grinned at him. “You don’t say. Did you get bit by a lion?”

“No. I got bit by a deputy sheriff and a state cop. Fred didn’t show, and at eight-fifteen I went to where my car was hid. He was there, refusing to answer questions being asked by a deputy sheriff of Putnam County. Standing by was an old friend of yours, Sergeant Purley Stebbins.”

“Oh. Ah.”

“Yeah. Stebbins told the DS that I was another one of Nero Wolfe’s operatives. That’s all Stebbins said the whole time. He was leaving it to the DS, who said plenty. Evidently Fred had shown his driving license and then clammed. I thought that was a little extreme, especially with Stebbins there, and I supplied some essential details, but that didn’t help any. The DS took both of us for trespassing and loitering, and then he added disturbing the peace. He used the radio in his car, and pretty soon a state cop came. On that dirt road it was a traffic jam. The state cop brought us to Carmel, and we are being held. This is my phone call to my lawyer. Apparently the DS is going to loiter near that house, and maybe Stebbins is too. On the way here we stopped for a couple of minutes on the blacktop where another state car was parked behind Dol Bonner’s car at the roadside. Where she had had it behind some trees I suppose she was trespassing. She and a state cop were standing there chatting. If they have brought her on to Carmel I haven’t seen her. I’m talking from a booth in the building where the sheriff’s office is. The number of the sheriff’s office is Carmel 53466.”

When Saul makes a report there is nothing left to ask about. I asked. “Have you had any breakfast?”