“All right, ask me. Then I’ll say it wasn’t.” He made noises and spat again — another futile attack on the imaginary obstruction in the throat of a man with a constant craving for a drink. He looked at me and went on, “You know, brother — if you will pardon the argot, I’m sore at you for spotting Andy, but I admire you for it too because it was halfway smart. And anyway, Lorrie Burton was a pretty good guy. With him dead, and Mr. Paul Chapin in jail, the fun’s gone. It’s not funny any more, even to me, and Nero Wolfe’s right about my sense of humor. It is admirable. I’m a character. I’m sardonic.” He spat again. “But to hell with it. I didn’t drive Mrs. Chapin to Burton’s last night because she went in her own coupé.”
“Oh. She drives herself.”
“Sure. In the summertime she and her husband go to the country on picnics. Now that was funny, for instance, and I don’t suppose they’ll ever do that again. I don’t know why she’s using me today, unless it’s because she doesn’t want to park it in front of the Tombs — there she comes now.”
I got off the running-board and back a step. Dora Chapin had come out of the 203 entrance and was headed for the taxi. She had on another coat and another furpiece, but the face was the same, and so were the little gray eyes. She was carrying an oblong package about the size of a shoebox, and I supposed that was dainties for her husband’s Sunday dinner. She didn’t seem to have noticed me, let alone recognize me; then she stopped with one foot on the running-board and turned the eyes straight at me, and for the first time I saw an expression in them that I could give a name to, and it wasn’t fondness. You could call it an inviting expression if you went on to describe what she was inviting me to. I stepped into it anyway. I said:
“Mrs. Chapin. Could I ride with you? I’d like to tell you—”
She climbed inside and slammed the door to. Pitney Scott stepped on the starter, put the gear in, and started to roll. I stood and watched the taxi go, not very jubilant, because it was her I had come down there to see.
I walked to the corner and phoned Wolfe I wouldn’t be home to lunch, which I didn’t mind much because the eggs and cream and sausages I had shipped on at ten o’clock were still undecided what to do about it; bought a Times and went to the roadster and made myself comfortable. Unless she had some kind of pull that Inspector Cramer didn’t know about, they wouldn’t let her stay very long at the Tombs.
At that I had to wait close to an hour and a half. It was nearly two o’clock, and I was thinking of hitting up the delicatessen where Fred Durkin had been a tenant for most of the week, when I looked up for the eightieth time at the sound of a car and saw the taxi slowing down. I had decided what to do. With all that animosity in Dora’s eyes I calculated it wouldn’t pay to try to join her downstairs and go up with her; I would wait till she was inside and then persuade Pitney Scott to take me up. With him along she might let me in. But again I didn’t get the break. Instead of stopping at the entrance Scott rolled down a few yards, and then they both got out and both went in. I stared at them and did a little cussing, and decided not to do any more waiting. I got out and entered 203 for the first and last time, and went to the elevator and said fifth floor. The man looked at me with the usual mild and weary suspicion but didn’t bother with questions. I got out at the fifth and rang the bell at 5C.
I can’t very well pretend to be proud of what happened that afternoon at Paul Chapin’s apartment. I pulled a boner, no doubt of that, and it wasn’t my fault that it didn’t have a result that ended a good deal more than the Chapin case, but the opinion you have of it depends entirely on how you use it. I can’t honestly agree that it was quite as dumb as one or two subsequent remarks of Wolfe’s might seem to indicate. Anyway, this is how it happened.
Dora Chapin came to the door and opened it, and I got my foot inside the sill. She asked me what I wanted, and I said I had something to ask Pitney Scott. She said he would be down in half an hour and I could wait downstairs, and started to shut the door, and got it as far as my foot. I said: