Fer-De-Lance

"I’m sorry, Mr. Wolfe is busy. This is Goodwin."

He said he wanted Wolfe to come to White Plains. I laughed at him. He rang off. I didn’t like it, he struck me as a bad guy. After thinking it over a little I called up Henry H. Barber at his apartment and got all the dope on things like accessories and arrests of material witnesses. Then I went to the kitchen and told Wolfe about the two phone calls. He wiggled a spoon at me.

"Archie. This Anderson is a disease. Cleanse the telephone. Did I forbid mention of his name?"

I said, "I’m sorry, I should have known better. You know what I think, sir. A nut is always a nut even when it’s you. I want to talk to Fritz."

Wolfe wasn’t listening. I told Fritz that for dinner I would come and get sandwiches and take them to the office, and then I told him that when the buzzer rang, until further notice, he was not to go to the door, I would attend to it. Under no circumstances was he to open the door.

I knew it was probably uncalled-for precaution, but I was taking no chances on anyone busting in there with Wolfe in one of his Bloomingdale moods. I was glad he hadn’t tried to send me for anything and I hoped he wouldn’t, for I wouldn’t have gone. If it was a washout, all right, but I wasn’t going to let them make ninnies of us if I could help it. Nothing happened that night. The next morning I stayed out of Wolfe’s way, mostly in the front room, opening the door to a gas man and an expressman, and once to a slick youth that wanted to get helped through college. I helped him as far as the bottom of the stoop. It was around eleven when I obeyed the buzzer by opening the door again and found a big husky standing against it, coming in with it, his foot sliding along. I gave him a good solid stiff-arm and pushed him back, and went on out, shutting the door behind me.

I said, "Good morning. Who invited you?"

He said, "It wasn’t you anyhow. I want to see Nero Wolfe."

"You can’t. He’s sick. What do you want?"

He smiled, being smooth, and handed me a card. I looked at it.

"Sure. From Anderson’s office. His right-hand man? What do you want?"

"You know what I want," he smiled. "Let’s go in and talk it over."