I perched on the bench. After some minutes he growled again. “I can’t. Confound this chair.”
“Yeah. The only one I know of that meets the requirements is fifty miles away. By the way, whose guests are we, now that he who invited us in here has been stuck in the coop?”
I got an answer of a kind, though not from Wolfe. The door to the warm room opened, and Joseph G. was with us. His daughter Sybil was with him. By that time I was well acquainted with his listed nose, and with her darting green eyes and pointed chin.
He stopped in the middle of the room and inquired frostily, “Were you waiting for someone?”
Wolfe opened his eyes halfway and regarded him glumly. “Yes,” he said.
“Yes? Who?”
“Anyone. You. Anyone.”
“He’s eccentric,” Sybil explained. “He’s being eccentric.”
“Be quiet, Sybil,” Father ordered her, without removing his eyes from Wolfe. “Before Lieutenant Noonan left he told me he would leave a man at the entrance to my grounds to keep people from entering. He thought we might be annoyed by newspapermen or curious and morbid strangers. But there will be no trouble about leaving. The man has orders not to prevent anyone’s departure.”
“That’s, sensible,” Wolfe approved. “Mr. Noonan is to be commended.” He heaved a deep sigh. “So you’re ordering me off the place. That’s sensible too, from your standpoint.” He didn’t move.