Finally he said, in the sweet tone that made me want to kick him, “So I am to change all my plans at the whim of a young woman who, to begin with, is a liar. Or at the least, postpone them.” He suddenly exploded ferociously, “Mr. Goodwin! Are you conscious?”
I said without looking up, “No.”
Silence. After a while I heard him sigh. “All right, Archie.” He had controlled himself back to his normal tone. “Tell me about it.”
It was up to me. It was the first time I had ever stopped a relapse after it had got as far as the menu stage, but it looked as if it might turn out to be something like curing a headache by chopping off my head. I had to go through with it, and the only way that occurred to me was to take a slender thread that had dangled in front of me up at McNair’s that morning, and try to sell it to Wolfe for a steel cable.
“Well,” I said, and swiveled. “We went and did it.”
“Go on.”
He had half-shut eyes on me. I knew he suspected me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had my number right then. But he wasn’t starting back for the kitchen.
“It was pretty close to a washout.” I picked up the slips. “Cramer’s as sore as a boil on your nose. Of course, he didn’t know I was keeping track of the kind of candy they picked; he thought we were just looking for a giveaway in their actions, and naturally that was a flop. A third of them were scared and half of them were nervous and some got mad and a few were just casual. That’s all there was to that. According to instructions, I watched their fingers while Cramer and Dixon looked at their faces, and put down symbols for their selections.” I flipped the slips. “Seven of them took Jordan almonds. One of them took two.”
Wolfe reached out and rang for beer. “And?”
“And so I put it down that way. I’ll tell you. I’m not slick enough for that sort of thing. You know it and I know it. Who is? It’s a waste of time to say you are, on account of inertia. Nevertheless, I am slicker than glue. Six of those people who took Jordan almonds, on account of their expressions and who they are and the way they did it — I don’t think it meant anything. But the seventh one — I don’t know. It’s true he’s going to have a nervous breakdown, he told you that himself. He was taken by surprise at the request to have a piece of candy, just as all the rest were. Cramer handled it right; he had men there to see that no one knew what was going on before they got inside the room. And Mr. Boyden McNair acted funny. When I stuck the box at him and asked him to take a piece he drew back a little, but lots of others did that. Then he pulled himself up and reached and looked in, and his fingers went straight to a Jordan almond and then jerked away, and he took a chocolate. I asked him quick to take another without giving him a chance to get it decided, and this time he touched two other pieces first and then took a Jordan almond, a white one. The third try he went straight to a gum drop and took it.”