Fer-De-Lance

His eyes opened. "I'm going to cut down to five quarts a day. Twelve bottles. A bottle doesn't hold a pint. I am now going to bed." He began the accustomed preparations for rising from his chair. He got up. "By the way, Archie, could you get out fairly early in the morning? You might reach the Green Meadow Club before the caddies depart with their babies. That is the only slang epithet you have brought me recently which seems to me entirely apt. Perhaps you could also kidnap the two who are attending school. It would be convenient if all four of them were here at eleven. Tell Fritz there will be guests at lunch. What do boys of that age eat?"

"They eat everything."

"Tell Fritz to have that."

As soon as I had made sure that he could still get into the elevator, I went on upstairs and set my alarm for six o'clock and hit the hay.

In the morning, rolling north along the Parkway again, I wasn't singing at the sunshine. I was always glad to be doing something, but I was not so liable to burst from joy when I suspected that my activity was going to turn out to be nothing but discarding from a bum hand. I didn't need anybody to tell me that Nero Wolfe was a wonder, but I knew this gathering in the caddies was just a wild stab, and I wasn't hopeful. As a matter of fact, it seemed to me more likely than ever that we were licked, because if this was the best Wolfe could do-

It was a motor cop. With the northbound half of the Parkway empty at that hour of the morning I had been going something above fifty without noticing, and this bicycle Cossack waved me over. I pulled alongside the curb and stopped. He asked for my license and I handed it to him, and he got out his book of tickets.

I said, "Sure I was going too fast. It may not interest you, I don't know, but I'm headed for Anderson's office in White Plains-the District Attorney- with some dope on the Barstow case. He's in a hurry for it."

The cop just had his pencil ready. "Got a badge?"

I handed him one of my cards. "I'm private. It was my boss, Nero Wolfe, that started the party."

He handed the card and the license back. "All right, but don't begin jumping over fences."

I felt better after that. Maybe luck was headed our way after all.