Fritz had come with beer for Wolfe and a scowl for me, and Wolfe had opened a bottle and was pouring. He murmured, “It was you who saw it, Archie. Your conclusion?”
I tossed the slips onto my desk. “My conclusion is that McNair was Jordan almond-conscious. You know, the way a workingman like me is class-conscious or a guzzler like you is beer-conscious. I’ll admit it’s vague, but you sent me up there to see if any of that bunch would betray an idea that Jordan almonds are different from any other candy, and either Boyden McNair did just that or I’ve got the soul of a male stenographer. And I don’t even use all my fingers.”
“Mr. McNair. Indeed.” Wolfe had emptied one and was leaning back. “Miss Helen Frost, according to her cousin, our client, calls him Uncle Boyd. Did you know that I am an uncle, Archie?”
He knew perfectly well that I knew it, since I typed the monthly letters to Belgrade for him, but of course he wasn’t expecting an answer. He had shut his eyes and became motionless. His brain may have been working, but so was mine; I had to figure out some plausible way of getting out of there to hop in the roadster and run up to 52nd Street and kidnap Helen Frost. I wasn’t worrying about the McNair thing. It was the one nibble I had got uptown, and I really thought there was a good chance that we might hook a fish from it; besides, I had given it to Wolfe straight and now it was up to him. But the two o’clock appointment I had mentioned, God help me...
I got an idea. I knew that with Wolfe’s eyes shut for his genius to work, he was often beyond the reach of external stimuli. Several times I had even kicked over my wastebasket without getting a flicker from him. I sat and watched him a while, saw him breathing and that was all, and finally decided to risk it. I drew my feet in under me and lifted myself out of my chair without making it creak. I kept my eyes on Wolfe. Three short steps on the rubber tile took me to the first rug, and on that silence was a cinch. I tiptoed it, holding my breath, accelerating gradually as I approached the door. I made the threshold — a step in the hall — another—
Thunder rolled from the office behind me: “Mr. Goodwin!”
I had a notion to dash on out, snaring my hat on the fly, but an instant’s reflection showed that would have been disastrous. He would have relapsed again during my absence, out of pure damn meanness. I turned and went back in.
He roared, “Where were you going?”
I tried to grin at him. “Nowhere. Just upstairs a minute.”
“And why the furtive stealth?”