“Chin yourself,” he retorted. “I wasn’t chinning, he was. I chased him.”
“And what are you doing here? Got a date with a governess?”
“No, Colonel, I’m working. You baboon, what do you think I’m doing? She’s in there.”
“Where?”
“The house you came out of.”
“I’ll be damned. How long ago?”
“We arrived at 2:28. Twenty-seven minutes ago.”
“I am damned. Okay, sit on it.”
I trotted back the way I had come, pushed the button and was admitted by the butler. I stopped in the entrance hall to consider things, and he stood and looked at me until I waved him away. The point was that knowing Wolfe as I did, I was aware that if I went up to him and reported that Naomi Karn was somewhere in the house, he would immediately ask, “Where?” So I called the butler back and inquired, “Could you tell me where Miss Karn is? The lady who arrived about half an hour ago.”
“Yes, sir. She is in the living room with Mrs. Hawthorne.”