Fer-De-Lance

"All right. That's all." I was fed up with the old pillar, moss and all. "If you get a rash from your curiosity itching don't blame us. We don't really need anything you're likely to have, we just like to clean up as we go along. My three minutes are up."

I turned to go. I didn't hurry, but I got to the door with my hand on the knob.

"Mr. Goodwin."

I kept my hand on the knob and looked around at him.

"I accept Mr. Wolfe's invitation. I shall be there at seven."

I said, "Okay, I'll give the girl the address," and went on out.

CHAPTER 12

I've sometimes wondered how many people there were in New York from whom Nero Wolfe could have borrowed money. I suppose more than a thousand. I made it a severe test to narrow it down. Of course there were more than that who felt grateful to him, and as many more who had reason to hate him, but there's a special kind of attitude a man has to have toward you before you can bump him for a loan and get something more substantial than a frown and a stammer for your trouble; a mixture of trust and goodwill, and gratitude without any feeling of obligation to make it unpleasant. At least a thousand. Not that Wolfe ever took advantage of it. I remember a couple of years ago we were really hard up for cash for a while, and I made a suggestion regarding a multimillionaire who didn't owe Wolfe much more than his life. Wolfe wouldn't consider it. "No, Archie, nature has arranged that when you overcome a given inertia the resulting momentum is proportionate. If I were to begin borrowing money I would end by devising means of persuading the Secretary of the Treasury to lend me the gold reserve." I told him that as things stood we could use it and more too, but he wasn't listening.

After that Wednesday evening dinner I could have added Dr. Nathaniel Bradford to the thousand. Wolfe got him completely, as he always got everyone when he cared to take the trouble. Between six and seven, before Bradford arrived, I had made a condensed report of the events of the day, and at the dinner table I had seen at once that Wolfe agreed with me in erasing Bradford right off the slate. He was easy and informal, and to my practiced eye he always kept on a formal basis with a man as long as there was a chance in his mind that the man was headed for the frying-pan at Sing Sing or a cell at Auburn, with Wolfe furnishing the ticket.