Fer-De-Lance

I didn’t take Maria Maffei upstairs to see the orchids that day; it was nearly five o’clock when I had finished with her, and I had something else to do. She didn’t balk at all, but it took a lot of explaining, and then I went over the details three times to make sure she wouldn’t get excited and ball it up. We decided it would be better for her to make a preliminary call on Anna and get it arranged, so I took her out and put her in a taxi and saw her headed for Sullivan Street.

Then I started on my own details. I had to get the knife and the masks and the guns ready, and arrange with the garage for hiring a car, since we couldn’t take a chance on Anna recognizing the roadster, and get hold of Bill Gore and Orrie Cather. I had suggested them, and Wolfe said okay. He had already told Durkin to report at seven o’clock.

I got it all done, but without any time to spare. At six-thirty I ate a hurry-up dinner in the kitchen, while Wolfe was in the office with Saul Panzer. On his way out Saul looked in at the kitchen to make a face at me, as if his ugly mug wasn’t good enough without any embroidery. He called in to me, "Enjoy it, Arch, it may be your last meal, you’re not dealing with a quitter this night!"

I had my mouth full, so I only said, "Shrivel, shrimp."

Bill Gore and Durkin were there on time, and Orrie wasn’t late enough to matter. I gave them the story, and rehearsed Orrie several times because a lot depended on him. We hadn’t been together on anything for over two years, and it seemed like old times to see him again twisting his thin lips and looking around for a place to squirt his tobacco juice.

Wolfe was still in at his dinner when we got away a little before eight o’clock. The garage had given me a black Buick sedan, and it had four wheels and an engine but it wasn’t the roadster. Orrie got in front with me and Bill Gore and Durkin in the back. I thought to myself that it was too bad it was only a set-up, because with those three birds I would have contracted to stop anything from a Jersey bus to a truck of hooch. Orrie said I should have hung a sign on the radiator, Highwaymen’s Special. I grinned, but only with my mouth. I knew everything had to go exactly right and it was up to me. What Wolfe had said about Anna Fiore was true: her mental vision was limited, but within its limits she might see things that a broader vision would miss entirely.