I got out and climbed into the other car, open with the top down, a state police chariot. I heard, and saw dimly in the dark, a couple of guys leave the porch and come down the short path. They jumped the low palings. The front one was in uniform and I made out the other one for my old friend Lieutenant Rowcliff. The trooper was stern enough to scare me silly:
“Come out of that, buddie. Move that car and I’ll tie you in a knot.”
I said, “You will not. Get it? It’s a pun. My name is Archie Goodwin, I represent Mr. Nero Wolfe, I belong in there and you don’t. If a man finds a car blocking his own gate he has plenty of right to move it, which is what I’m going to do, and if you try to stop me it will be too bad because I’m mad as hell and I mean it.”
Rowcliff growled, “All right, get out, we’ll move the damn thing.” He muttered at the cossack. “You might as well. This bird’s never been tamed yet.”
The trooper opened the door. “Get out.”
“You going to move it?”
“Why the hell shouldn’t I move it? Get out.”
I descended and climbed back in the roaster. The trooper started his car and eased it ahead, into the road, and off again beyond the entrance. My lights were on him. I put my gear in, circled through the gate onto the driveway, stopped back of a car there which I recognized for the convertible Gebert had parked in front of Wolfe’s house the day before, and got out and started for the porch. There was a mob there sitting along the edge of it. One of them got smart and turned on a flash and spotted it on my face as I approached. Rowcliff and the trooper came up and stood at the foot of the steps.
I demanded, “Who’s in charge of this gang? I know you’re not, Rowcliff, we’re outside the city limits. Who’s got any right to be here on private property?”
They looked at each other. The trooper stuck out his chin at me, and asked, “Have you?”