“Yeah. Napoleon’s been numb for over a century. I hope your ribs hurt. If so, think of me.”
I went to the door to the office, passed through, closed the door, and locked it. There in privacy I took a survey, physical and mental. It was no pleasure to move my head, especially backward, but it did move. My back was sore where his knees had hit it, but some assorted twisting and bending proved that all the joints worked without cracking. I sat at my desk for the mental part. Getting my neck broke, or damn near it, had cleared my brain. Being smart enough to get it in that neither Carl nor Tina could drive a car was all right as far as it went, but it proved nothing at all about the scissors in Jake Wallen’s back; it merely showed that there are motives and motives. The cops thought Wallen had been killed by a cornered hit-and-run driver, but what did I think? And even more important, what did Wolfe think? Was he up ahead of me as usual, or was he being too offhand, since no fee was involved, and maybe letting us in for a bloody nose?
I sat and surveyed and got so dissatisfied that I rang the plant rooms, told Wolfe about Carl’s attempt to numb me, and tried to go on from there, but he brushed me off and said it could wait until six o’clock. I sat some more, practiced moving my head in various directions, and then got up to do back exercises. I was bending to touch the floor with my fingers when the phone rang.
It was Sergeant Purley Stebbins. “Archie? Purley. I’m at the barber shop. We want you here quick.”
Two things told me it was no hostile mandate: his tone and the “Archie.” The nature of my encounters with him usually had him calling me Goodwin, but occasionally it was Archie.
I responded in kind. “I’m busy but I guess so. If you really want me. Do you care to specify?”
“When you get here. You’re needed, that’s all. Grab a cab.”
I buzzed Wolfe on the house phone and reported the development. Then I got a gun from the drawer, went to the kitchen and gave it to Fritz, described the status of the guests, and told him to keep his eyes and ears open. Then I hopped.
V
THE crowd of spectators ganged up in the corridor outside the Goldenrod Barber Shop was twice as big as it had been before, for two reasons. It was just past five o’clock, and home-goers were flocking through for the subway; and inside the shop there was a fine assortment of cops and dicks to look at. The corridor sported not one flatfoot, but three, keeping people away from the entrance and moving. I told one of them my name and errand and was ordered to wait, and in a minute Purley came and escorted me in.