Wolfe told him to show them up.
Chapter 9
I laid my pen down and looked at Wolfe in extreme disgust.
“By Jiminy,” I said, with the whine that I knew set his teeth on edge, “you sure are grilling them. Talk about ruthless. It gives me nervous prostration just to see them suffer. And squirm under your merciless thrusts. Lovin’ babe! I don’t think I ever saw you in better form—”
“Archie! Shut up!”
“But who the hell do you think you are, the inquiring reporter?”
“I do not, and I don’t need that. I’m trying to think. I’m trying to think about these people, and in the meantime having another look at them. There’s too many of them. If one of them sneaked through those woods and borrowed the shotgun from Noel Hawthorne and blew his head off, who is going to prove it and how? — Good afternoon, Saul. Good afternoon, Johnny. Come in. Sit down. — Am I a confounded Indian, to go up there and crawl around on my hands and knees, smelling footprints? And do you suppose any of this tribe is going to tell us anything?” He snorted. “Trying to get me interested in a family row about Andy being an actor! Bah!” He shook a finger at me menacingly. “You let me alone! One more whine out of you and — how the devil can I think if there’s nothing to think about?”
I elevated my shoulders and turned my palms up. “Then we might as well go home and look at the atlas.”
“I agree with you.”
He abandoned me. “Did Orrie find you, Saul?”