Champange for One

I turned my head but kept the chequebook open. “How? Tell him we don’t like his explanations and we want new ones?”

“Nonsense. You are not so ingenuous. Survey him. Explore him.”

“I already have. You know what Laidlaw said. He has no visible means of support, but he has an apartment and a car and plays table-stakes poker and does not go naked. The apartment, by the way, hits my eye. If you hang this murder on him, and if our tolerance miracle runs out of gas, I’ll probably take it over. Are you working yourself up to saying that you want to see him?”

“No. I have no lever to use on him. I only feel that he has been neglected. If you approach him again you too will be without a lever. Perhaps the best course would be to put him under surveillance.”

“If I postpone writing this cheque is that an instruction?”

“Yes.”

At least I would get out in the air and away from the miracle for a while. I returned the chequebook to the safe, took twenty tens from the expense drawer, told Wolfe he would see me when he saw me, and went to the hall for my coat and hat.

When starting to tail a man it is desirable to know where he is, so I was a little handicapped. For all I knew, Byne might be in Jersey City or Brooklyn , or some other province, in a marathon poker game, or he might be at home in bed with a cold, or walking in the park. I got air by walking the two miles to Bowdoin Street , and at the corner of Bowdoin and Arbor I found a phone booth and dialled Byne’s number. No answer. So at least I knew where he wasn’t, and again I had to resist temptation. It is always a temptation to monkey with locks, and one of the best ways to test ears is to enter someone’s castle uninvited and, while you are looking here and there for something interesting, listen for footsteps on the stairs or the sound of an elevator. If you don’t hear them in time your hearing is defective, and you should try some other line of work when you are out and around again.

Having swallowed the temptation, I moved down the block to a place of business I had noticed Thursday afternoon, with an artistic sign bordered with sweet peas, I think, that said AMY’S NOOK. As I entered, my wristwatch said 4.12. Between then and a quarter past six, slightly over two hours, I ate five pieces of pie, two rhubarb and one each of apple, green tomato, and chocolate, and drank four glasses of milk and two cups of coffee, while seated at a table by the front window, from which I could see the entrance to 87, across the street and up a few doors. To keep from arousing curiosity by either my tenure or my diet, I had my notebook and pencil out and made sketches of a cat sleeping on a chair. In the Village that accounts for anything. The pie, incidentally, was more than satisfactory. I would have liked to take a piece home to Fritz. At six-fifteen the light outside was getting dim, and I asked for my check and was putting my notebook in a pocket when a taxi drew up in front of 87 and Dinky Byne piled out and headed for the entrance. When my change came I added a quarter to the tip, saying,” For the cat,” and vacated.

It was nothing like as comfortable in the doorway across from 87, the one I had patronized Thursday, but you have to be closer at night than in the daytime, no matter how good your eyes are. I could only hope that Dinky wasn’t set to spend the evening curled up with a book, or even without one, but that didn’t seem likely, since he would have to eat and I doubted if he did his own cooking. A light had shown at the fifth-floor windows, and that gave me something to do, bend my head back every half-minute or so to see if it had gone out. My neck was begi

Tailing a man solo in Manhattan , even if he isn’t wise, is a joke. If he suddenly decides to flag a taxi—There are a hundred ifs, and they are all on his side. But of course any game is more fun if the odds are against you, and if you win it’s good for the ego. Naturally it’s easier at night, especially if the subject knows you. On that occasion I claim no credit for keeping on Byne, for none of the ifs developed. It was merely a ten-minute walk. He turned left on Arbor, crossed Seventh Avenue , went three blocks west and one uptown, and entered a door where there was a sign on the window: TOM’S JOINT.

That’s the sort of situation where being known to the subject cramps you; I couldn’t go in. All I could do was hunt a post, and I found a perfect one: a narrow passage between two buildings almost directly across the street. I could go in a good ten feet from the building line, where no light came at all, and still see the front of Tom’s Joint. There was even an iron thing to sit on if my feet needed a rest.

They didn’t. I didn’t last long enough. I hadn’t been there more than five minutes when suddenly company came. I was alone, and then I wasn’t. A man had slid in, caught sight of me, and was peering in the darkness. A question that had arisen on various occasions, which of us had better eyesight, was settled when we spoke simultaneously. He said, “Archie” and I said, “Saul”.

“What the hell,” I said.

“Are you on her too?” he asked. “You might have told me.”

“I’m on a man. I’ll be damned. Where is yours?”

“Across the street. Tom’s Joint. She just came.”

“This is fate,” I said.” It is also a break in a thousand. Of course, it could be coincidence. Mr Wolfe says that in a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but not this one. Have you spoken with her? Does she know you?”

“No.”

“My man knows me. His name is Austin Byne. He is six-feet one, hundred and seventy pounds, lanky, loose-jointed, early thirties, brown hair and eyes, skin tight on his bones. Go in and take a look. If you want a bet, one will get you ten that they’re together.”

“I never bet against fate,” he said, and went. The five minutes that he was gone were five hours. I sat down on the iron thing and got up again three times, or maybe four.

He came, and said. “They’re together in a booth in a rear corner. No one is with them. He’s eating oysters.”

“He’ll soon be eating crow. What do you want for Christmas?”

“I have always wanted your autograph.”

“You’ll get it. I’ll tattoo it on you. Now we have a problem. She’s yours and he’s mine. Now they’re together. Who’s in command?”

“That’s easy, Archie. Mr Wolfe.”

“I suppose so, damn it. We could wrap it up by midnight . Take them to a basement, I know one, and peel their hides off. If he’s eating oysters there’s plenty of time to phone. You or me?”

“You. I’ll stick here.”

“Where’s Orrie?”

“Lost. When she came out he was for feet and I was for wheels, and she took a taxi.”

“I saw it pull up. Okay. Sit down and make yourself at home.”

At the bar and grill at the corner the phone booth was occupied and I had to wait, and I was tired of waiting, having done too much of it in the last four days. But in a few minutes the customer emerged, and I entered, pulled the door shut, and dialled the number I knew best. When Fritz answered I told him I wanted to speak to Mr Wolfe.

“But Archie! He’s at di

“I know. Tell him it’s urgent.” That was another unexpected pleasure, having a good excuse to call Wolfe from the table. He has too many rules. His voice came, or rather his roar.

“Well?”

“I have a report. Saul and I are having an argument. He thought—”

“What the devil are you doing with Saul?”

“I’m telling you. He thought I should phone you. We have a problem of protocol. I tailed Byne to a restaurant, a joint, and Saul tailed Mrs Usher to the same restaurant, and our two subjects are in there together in a booth. Byne is eating oysters. So the question is, who is in charge, Saul or me? The only way to settle it without violence was to call you.”