“Who said you were?” I was sharp and urgent and thought I had loosened him. “Use your head, that’s all. We’ve either got you cornered or we haven’t. If we haven’t, what are you doing here? If we have, a little thing like your name signed to an IOU won’t make it any worse. He won’t press you too hard. Here, get my pen, right here.”
I still think I had loosened him. It was in his eyes and the way he stood, sagging a little. If my hands had been free, so I could have got the pen myself and uncapped it and put it between his fingers, I would have had him. I had him to the point of writing and signing, but not to the point of taking my pen out of my pocket. But of course if my hands had been free I wouldn’t have been bothering about an IOU and a pen.
So he slipped from under. He shook his head, and his shoulders stiffened. The hate that filled his eyes was in his voice too. “You said twenty-four hours. That gives me tomorrow. I’ll have to decide. Tell Nero Wolfe I’ll decide.”
He crossed to the door and pulled it open. He went out, closing the door, and I heard his steps descending the stairs; but he hadn’t taken his hat and coat, and I nearly cracked my temples trying to use my brain. I hadn’t got far when there were steps on the stairs again, coming up, and in they came, all three of them. W-J was blinking again; apparently there was a bed where they had been waiting. My host ignored him and spoke to Skinny.
“What time does your watch say?”
Skinny glanced at his wrist. “Nine-thirty-two.”
“At half-past ten, not before that, untie his left hand. If he has a knife where he can get at it with his left hand, take it and — no, keep it. Leave him like that and go. It will take him five minutes or more to get his other hand and his feet free. Have you any objection to that?”
“Hell no. He’s got nothing on us.”
“Will you do it that way?”
“Right. Ten-thirty on the nose.”