The Missing Chapter

Although I had told Wolfe otherwise, business actually did get touched on at Saul’s place that night, albeit briefly. We had finished playing and I had pocketed my modest winnings, thanks mainly to the last hand, where I held three tens to beat Fred Durkin’s two pair. As I said my good-nights to the others and started to leave, Saul collared me. “I’m still on this Clarice Wingfield business,” he said apologetically. “Nothing yet, but I’ve got an idea, or maybe it’s just a hunch. Tell Mr. Wolfe that if I don’t turn something up by the weekend, there’s no charge, and that includes expenses.” Vintage Saul Panzer; he takes his work seriously, and he hates to let Wolfe down — and Wolfe knows it. Which is why Saul will always get paid out of our coffers, whether he’s successful or not. Come to think of it, I can’t remember a time when he hasn’t been successful.

The next morning, Friday if you’re the type who likes to keep track, I was in the office balancing the checkbook and trying to ignore the pounding and drilling from the elevator shaft when the phone rang.

“Bingo!” It was Saul.

“I assume that means something positive,” I replied, trying to sound sedate.

“Damn right. The lady in question is. over in Hoboken, working in a small art gallery. She’s there right now.”

“You’re positive?” I asked unnecessarily.

“As positive as I am that I’m standing at a pay phone in the old Hoboken railroad station. I saw her not fifteen minutes ago.”

“Damn and double-damn. How’d you find her?”

“Long story, professional secret and all that. But I might just tell you some time during a gin rummy game. I didn’t talk to her, of course — I leave that to the pros like you. I assume you want the particulars?”

I told him I did, and while he unloaded, I took notes. We hung up at ten-fifty-two, leaving eight minutes before Wolfe’s descent from the plant rooms — assuming he had gone up there after having breakfast in his room. And during the current crisis, I wasn’t about to assume a thing.

Sure enough, at 11:03, he walked into the office, not even breathing hard, slipped an Oncidium truliferum into the vase on the desk, and eased into his chair. “Good morning, Archie. Were you successful at poker last night?”

At least it was a change from his usual “Did you sleep well?” I replied that I was a few pesos richer and then filled him in on Saul’s discovery.

He listened, dipping his head a fraction of an inch. “Hoboken. That is just across the river, I believe.”

“You’ll never get a medal for your knowledge of local geography, but this time you are on target. I can probably get there by train from Herald Square in twenty minutes or so.”

That brought a slight shudder, but he recovered nicely. “Very well. After lunch.”

In fact, the trip from Thirty-third Street on the PATH train — or the Hudson Tubes, as it’s known to longtime New Yorkers who aren’t big on acronyms — took only sixteen minutes, and that included several lurching stops in the dank old tunnels under the Hudson River. When I got off the train and emerged into bright sunshine on the Jersey side, I realized it was the second time I’d left the state on the same case. If that happened before, I couldn’t recall it.

I did recall the last time I’d been in Hoboken, though. Several years back, the husband of a friend of Lily Rowan’s started an Italian restaurant there, and we went to the grand opening. The food was well above average — Wolfe himself would have approved — and the atmosphere was pleasant, even festive. But the couple had a yearning to live in Italy, so they sold the place and, last I heard, the two of them were running a fancy eatery in Siena. Lily thinks we should visit them some time, and maybe we will.

Downtown Hoboken was about as I remembered it, although there were a few tall apartment buildings now, and many of the old brick office buildings and hotels in the business district had been spruced up and painted, some in pinks and light blues. All in all, the old burg on the river facing Lower Manhattan looked to be thriving.

I walked west from the depot along Hudson Place, passing the Italian restaurant we’d helped to christen that night years before. Judging by the facade, it was alive and well. When I got to Washington Street, the main drag, I turned right. The art gallery was in the second block, where Saul said it would be. I peered in through the plate glass and spotted her right away. She wore a navy blue dress with white trim and big white buttons the size of bar coasters, and she was standing next to a desk, talking on the telephone. Her hair was shorter than in the old picture, but otherwise she looked pretty much the same. And her cousin Belinda’s estimate that she was five-three and one-hundred-ten pounds seemed about on target.

After looking in at Clarice for a few more seconds, I went north to the next cross street and headed west. Hoboken’s business district quickly gave way to residential streets, and within three minutes, I found the one I wanted.