“The pictures!”
“I suppose at the drugstore.” She fished in her handbag and got out a piece of cardboard. “Here’s the check. He said they’d be ready the next evening — that was yesterday—”
“May I have that, please?” Wolfe extended a hand. “Thank you. Archie, call Fred and Orrie.”
I went to the kitchen, where they were picking their teeth after a repast, and brought them in. Wolfe handed the check to Orrie and told him:
“That’s for some snapshots. The address is on it. Miss Dunn left the film Friday evening. Take the roadster; I want the pictures and the film as soon as possible. I think I do. I’ll know when I look at them.”
“Yes, sir.” They went.
Wolfe got up and stood scowling at Sara. “Would you mind removing your hat, Miss Dunn? I deduce the thing is a hat, because it’s on your head. Thank you. I don’t like restaurant conventions in my dining room.”
The occasions have been rare when I have known the pressure of business to cause Wolfe to accelerate the tempo of a meal, but it did that Sunday. For the first half hour, while the melon and cutlets and broccoli were being disposed of, he maintained the usual easy balance of consumption and conversation; but during the service of the salad Fred and Orrie returned, were admitted by Fritz, and left to wait in the office. I got two grins in a row, the first when Wolfe broke his rule excluding any reference to business from the dining room by asking Fritz to ask Orrie if he had got what he went for, and the second when the salad dressing was ready in six minutes instead of the usual eight. The peeling and slicing of peaches would have hung up a record, too, if I had clocked it; and while I couldn’t have called his step nimble as he led the way back into the office, it certainly didn’t drag any.
He took the envelope from Orrie and told him and Fred to wait in front, sat down and shook the pictures out onto the desk, and spoke to Sara:
“You’ll have to tell me what these are, Miss Dunn.”