IV
We got back home at nine o’clock that evening, and we had not only the passports but also seats on a plane that would leave Idlewild for London at five the next afternoon, Saturday.
Wolfe was not taking it like a man. I had expected him to quit being eccentric about vehicles, since he had decided to cross an ocean and a good part of a continent, and relax, but there was no visible change in his reactions. In the taxis he sat on the front half of the seat and gripped the strap, and in the planes he kept his muscles tight. Apparently it was so deep in him that the only hope would be for him to get analyzed, and there wasn’t time for that. Analyzing him would take more like twenty years than twenty hours.
Washington had been simple. The VIP in the State Department, after keeping us waiting only ten minutes, had tried at first to explain that high-level interference with the Passport Division was against policy, but Wolfe interrupted him, not as diplomatically as he might have under that roof. Wolfe asserted that he wasn’t asking for interference, merely for speed; that he had come to Washington instead of handling it through New York because a professional emergency required his presence in London at the earliest possible moment; and that he had assumed the VIP’s professions of gratitude for certain services rendered, and expressions of willingness to reciprocate, could reasonably be expected to bear the strain of a request so moderate and innocent. That did it, but the technicalities took a while anyway.
Saturday was crowded with chores. There was no telling how long we would be away. We might be back in a few days, but Wolfe had to have things arranged for an indefinite absence, so I had my hands full. Fred and Orrie were paid off. Saul was signed up to hold down the office and sleep in the South Room. Nathaniel Parker, the lawyer, was given authority to sign checks, and Fritz was empowered to take charge at Rusterman’s. Theodore was given bales of instructions that he didn’t need about the orchids. The assistant manager of the Churchill Hotel obliged by cashing a check for ten grand, in tens and twenties and Cs, and I spent a good hour getting them satisfactorily stashed in a belt I bought at Abercrombie’s. The only squabble the whole day came at the last minute, as Wolfe stood in the office with his hat and coat on, and I opened a drawer of my desk and got out the Marley.32 and two boxes of cartridges.
“You’re not taking that,” he stated.
“Sure I am.” I slipped the gun into my shoulder holster and dropped the boxes into a pocket. “The registration for it is in my wallet.”
“No. It may make trouble at the customs. You can buy one at Bari before we go across. Take it off.”
It was a command, and he was boss. “Okay,” I said, and took the gun out and returned it to the drawer. Then I sat down in my chair. “I’m not going. As you know, I made a rule years ago never to leave on an errand connected with a murder case without a gun, and this is a super errand. I’m not going to try chasing a killer around a black mountain in a foreign land with nothing but some damn popgun I know nothing about.”
“Nonsense.” He looked up at the clock. “It’s time to go.”