If the strangler had been in Wolfe’s house the rest of that day he would have felt honored — or anyway he should. Even during Wolfe’s afternoon hours in the plant rooms, from four to six, his mind was on my appointment, as was proved by the crop of new slants and ideas that poured out of him when he came down to the kitchen. Except for a trip to Leonard Street to answer an hour’s worth of questions by an assistant district attorney, my day was devoted to it too. My most useful errand, though at the time it struck me as a waste of time and money, was one made to Doc Vollmer for a prescription and then to a drugstore under instructions from Wolfe.
When I got back from the D.A.’s office Saul and I got in the sedan and went for a reconnaissance. We didn’t stop at Fifty-first Street and Eleventh Avenue, but drove past it four times. The main idea was to find a place for Saul. He and Wolfe both insisted that he had to be there with his eyes and ears open, and I insisted that he had to be covered enough not to scare off my date, who could spot his big nose a mile off. We finally settled for a filling station across the street from the lunchroom. Saul was to have a taxi drive in there at eight o’clock, and stay in the passenger’s seat while the driver tried to get his carburetor adjusted. There were so many contingencies to be agreed on that if it had been anyone but Saul I wouldn’t have expected him to remember more than half. For instance, in case I left the lunchroom and got in my car and drove off Saul was not to follow unless I cranked my window down.
Trying to provide for contingencies was okay in a way, but at seven o’clock, as the three of us sat in the dining room, finishing the roast duck, I had the feeling that we might as well have spent the day playing pool. Actually it was strictly up to me, since I had to let the other guy make the rules until and unless it got to where I felt I could take over and win. And with the other guy making the rules no one gets very far, not even Nero Wolfe, arranging for contingencies ahead of time; you meet them as they come, and if you meet one wrong it’s too bad.
Saul left before I did, to find a taxi driver that he liked the looks of. When I went to the hall for my hat and raincoat, Wolfe came along, and I was really touched, since he wasn’t through yet with his afterdinner coffee.
“I still don’t like the idea,” he insisted, “of your having that thing in your pocket. I think you should slip it inside your sock.”
“I don’t.” I was putting the raincoat on. “If I get frisked, a sock is as easy to feel as a pocket.”
“You’re sure that gun is loaded?”
“For God’s sake. I never saw you so anxious. Next you’ll be telling me to put on my rubbers.”
He even opened the door for me.
It wasn’t actually raining, merely trying to make up its mind whether to or not, but after a couple of blocks I reached to switch on the windshield wiper. As I turned uptown on Tenth Avenue the dash clock said 7:47; as I turned left on Fifty-first Street it had only got to 7:51. At that time of day in that district there was plenty of space, and I rolled to the curb and stopped about twenty yards short of the corner, stopped the engine and turned off the lights, and cranked my window down for a good view of the filling station across the street. There was no taxi there. I glanced at my wrist watch and relaxed. At 7:59 a taxi pulled in and stopped by the pumps, and the driver got out and lifted the hood and started peering. I put my window up, locked three doors, pulled the key out, got myself out, locked the door, walked to the lunchroom, and entered.