“We can’t. That’s why I’m phoning. We’re being followed by two detectives and we don’t want them to know we’re seeing Wolfe. How can we shake them?”
It would have saved time and energy to tell him to come ahead, that a couple of official tails needn’t worry him, but I thought I’d better play along.
“For God’s sake,” I said, disgusted. “Cops give me a pain in the neck. Listen. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Go to the Feder Paper Company, Five-thirty-five West Seventeenth Street. In the office ask for Mr. Sol Feder. Tell him your name is Montgomery. He’ll conduct you along a passage that exits on Eighteenth Street. Right there, either at the curb or double-parked, will be a taxi with a handkerchief on the door handle. I’ll be in it. Don’t lose any time climbing in. Have you got it?”
“I think so. You’d better repeat the address.”
I did so, and told him to wait ten minutes before starting, to give me time to get there. Then, after hanging up, I phoned Sol Feder to instruct him, got Wolfe on the house phone to inform him, and beat it.
I should have told him to wait fifteen or twenty minutes instead of ten, because I got to my post on Eighteenth Street barely in time. My taxi had just stopped, and I was reaching out to tie my handkerchief on the door handle, when here they came across the sidewalk like a bat out of hell. I swung the door wide, and Fred practically threw Peggy in and dived in after her.
“Okay, driver,” I said sternly, “you know where,” and we rolled.
As we swung into Tenth Avenue I asked if they had had breakfast and they said yes, not with any enthusiasm. The fact is, they looked as if they were entirely out of enthusiasm. Peggy’s lightweight green jacket, which she had on over a tan cotton dress, was rumpled and not very clean, and her face looked neglected. Fred’s hair might not have been combed for a month, and his brown tropical worsted was anything but natty. They sat holding hands, and about once a minute Fred twisted around to look through the rear window.