I nodded. “To get him away from you.” I rubbed that in hoping to get a nice long argument started, but he didn’t bite.
“Does that excuse your bursting into my house and barricading a door?”
“No,” I conceded. “Andy invited me into the greenhouse, and I was standing there when I heard you knocking and calling him. He was busy with Mr. Wolfe, and I saw the door was bolted, and I thought it must be you and you certainly had a right to have the door of your own greenhouse opened, so I opened it. As for the barricading, that’s where we get to the point. I admit I’m not acting normal. Assuming that the reason is somehow connected with this Miss Lauer, whom I have never met, naturally I would like to know why you asked me if Miss Lauer is in there. Why did you?”
Joseph G. took one long stride, which was all he needed to reach me. “Get away,” he said, meaning it.
I shook my head, keeping my grin refined, and opened my mouth to speak just as he reached for me. I had already decided that it wouldn’t be tactful to let the cold war get hot, especially since he had Donald and Neil Imbrie in reserve, and that as a last resort I would release some facts, but it didn’t get that far. As my muscles tightened in reflex to the touch of his hand, the sound of a car’s engine came from outdoors. From where Imbrie stood he had to move only two steps to get a view through a window, and he did so, staring out. Then he turned to his employer.
“State police, Mr. Pitcairn,” he said. “Two cars.”
Evidently Wolfe’s talk with Andy had been short and sour, since he hadn’t waited long to do something that he never resorts to if he can help it: calling the cops.
IV
Five hours later, at three o’clock in the afternoon, seated in the one decent chair in the workroom of the greenhouse, Nero Wolfe was making a last frantic despairing try.
“The charge,” he urged, “can be anything you choose to make it, short of first degree murder. The bail can be any amount and it will be furnished. The risk will be minimal, and in the end you’ll thank me for it, when I’ve got the facts and you’ve got to take them.”