“But I can tell Turner, I can persuade him—”
“No, sir. There are about nine things the cops won’t find out from me, but that isn’t one of them. Take my advice and never conspire with a butler.”
He grabbed my lapel. “But I tell you, if they learn Davis was here, if they once get started after him—”
“I can’t help it, Mr. Prescott. Sorry. No one likes to keep a secret from a cop any more than I do, but that would be just begging for trouble. I’ll do this much, I’ll make them ask for it, I won’t volunteer it—”
Footsteps from above, on the next flight of stairs, interrupted me. It was Andy Dunn coming down. He caught sight of us, and told Prescott his father would like to see him in Mrs. Hawthorne’s room. Prescott looked at me half angrily and half pleadingly, and I shook my head. Andy addressed me:
“Dad would like to see Nero Wolfe too. Where is he?”
I answered that one, and they went off, and I moseyed to the end of the corridor and sat on a bench. After a while I started down to the main floor to look over fresh arrivals, but got shooed back up before I touched bottom, and went to the library and appropriated a comfortable chair. It was while I was there that a maid came around with sandwiches and milk and ginger ale, and I took enough to last a while. The next scene I had any part in was when a squad man appeared and said that Mr. Dunn himself had suggested that everyone in the house submit to having their fingerprints taken, and the others had agreed, and he was prepared to oblige me. Having just wasted a lot of breath trying to persuade the dick on guard in the library that it would be conducive to the interest of law and order to let me use the phone, I was sore. I refused, and said my prints were on file downtown, since I was a licensed detective. He said he knew that, but it would be more convenient to take them with the others. I said it would be more convenient for me to go home and go to bed, since it was after dark, and he could go sit on a trylon. I admit I was churlish, but so were they. All I wanted to do was phone the house and ask Fritz how he was.
I got tired of the library and wandered out to the hall again. The three kids were there, Celia and Sara sitting on a bench and Andy standing in front of them, talking in whispers. They looked at me and stopped whispering, but had nothing to say to me. Not wanting to interfere with any childish secrets, I went on up to the next floor. The third door on the left was standing wide open, and a glance through as I passed by revealed May and June seated side by side on a sofa. I noted that May had exchanged the old faded gown for something fresher, a white dress with pink spots. At the street end of the hall was a window, and I went there and stood a while, looking down at the confusion outdoors. Parked cars were solid at the curb on both sides, and streams of both pedestrian and vehicle traffic were being kept moving by a scattering of cops. The radio certainly is a blessing for people who like their meat fresh. Standing there surveying the bustling scene, I turned from time to time at the sound of footsteps behind me, but it was never anything more exciting than one of the inmates en route to or from the stairs, a dick who was obviously a messenger from the ground floor.
On two occasions, however, the footsteps kept coming until they got me. The first time it was Osric Stauffer. He gazed at me from ten paces off, evidently decided I was the customer he was calling on, and came clear up to me before he spoke.
“I understand Nero Wolfe isn’t around. If you—”