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The landlady confirmed the girl's version of the phone call and said she had no idea who the caller was though she had tried on several occasions to find out. I asked her a few questions here and there, and then requested permission to take A
After taking my dollar, I told her, "I can make no promises, Mrs. Ricci, when my boss gets started asking questions nights and days are nothing. But she'll be back safe and sound as soon as possible."
I went upstairs and got A
I moseyed along uptown taking it easy, not wanting to reach Thirty-fifth Street too soon, since Wolfe was always upstairs with the plants from four to six and it wasn't a good idea to disturb him during those two hours unless you had to. A
A
I had reported to Wolfe up in the front plant-room, the sun-room, leaving A
"That was your dollar, Archie."
"No, sir, it was an expense dollar. It's down in the book."
I went with him to the elevator. If he had had to do his own lifting and lowering I don't think he would ever have gone upstairs, even for the plants.
He began on A
It seemed to me he got only one thing out of the girl, and that wasn't much, only an admission that she had removed something from Maffei's room that very morning. Wednesday. Little pieces of paper from his bureau drawer with mucilage on the back, and printed on the front S.S. LUCIA and S.S. FIORENZA. Of course they were steamship luggage stickers. From the newspaper file I learned that the Lucia had sailed on the 18th of May and the Fiorenza on the 3rd of June. Evidently Maffei had decided on Italy not once, but twice, and had given it up both times. A
Then all at once he hit it.
"So Mr. Maffei never gave you any presents?" "No, sir. Except the box of chalk I told you about. And the newspapers, if you call that a present." "Yes. You said he always gave you his morning paper. The Times."
"Yes, sir. He told me once he took the Times for the classified ads. You know, the job ads."
"Did he give you his paper Monday morning?" "He always gave it to me in the afternoon. Monday afternoon, yes, sir."
"There was nothing peculiar about it that morning, I suppose."
"No, sir."
Apparently Wolfe caught some faint flicker in her eye, some faint movement that I missed. Anyway he insisted.
"Nothing peculiar about it?"
"No, sir. Except--of course, the cut-out."
"The cut-out?"
"A piece cut out. A big piece."
"Did he often cut out pieces?"
"Yes, sir. Mostly the ads. Maybe always the ads. I used the papers to take the dirt up in and I had to watch for the holes."
"But this was a big piece."
"Yes, sir."
"Not an advertisement then. You will pardon me, Miss Fiore, if I do not say ad. I prefer not to. Then it wasn't an advertisement he cut out of Monday's paper."
"Oh no, it was on the front page." "Indeed. Had there ever been a piece cut out on the front page before?" "No, sir. I'm sure not." "Never anything but advertisements before?"
"Well, I'm not sure of that. Maybe only ads, I think it was."
Wolfe sat for a minute with his chin on his chest. Then he turned to me. "Archie, run up to Forty-second Street and get twenty copies of Monday's Times."
I was glad for something to wake me up. Not that it was anything to get excited about, for I could see that Wolfe was just taking a wink at the only crack that had shown any chance of light; I wasn't expecting anything and I didn't think he was. But it was a fine June night, cool but soft and pleasant, and I filled my lungs with good air snatched from the breeze I made as I rolled crosstown to Broadway and turned north. At Times Square I saw a cop I knew, Marve Doyle who used to pound the cement down on Fourteenth Street, and he let me leave the car against the Broadway curb while I ran across the street to the Times office. The theater and movie mob was slopping off the sidewalks into the street, deciding between two dollars at a speak and two nickles at a Nedick's.
When I got back to the office Wolfe was giving the girl a rest. He had had Fritz bring in some beer and she was sipping at a glass like it was hot tea, with a stripe of dried foam across her upper lip. He had finished three bottles, though I couldn't have been gone more than twenty minutes at the outside. As I came in he said: "I should have told you city edition."