In the Best Families

Therefore I would be a dimwit to assume that this was merely time out to gather ammunition and make plans. Nor could I assume that it wasn't. I couldn't assume anything. Was he gone for good, or was he putting on a charade that would make all his other performances look like piker stuff in comparison? Presumably I was to answer that question, along with others, by the light of experience guided by intelligence, and I did not appreciate the compliment. If I was finally and permanently on my own, very well; I would make out. But apparently I was still drawing pay, so what? The result of my getting the whole picture into focus was that as I turned in at the entrance to Birchvale I was sorer than ever.

I was stopped at the entrance by one of Noonan's colleagues, there on guard, and was allowed to proceed up the curving drive only after I had shown him four documents. Parking in a space at the side of the house that was bordered by evergreens, I walked around to the front door and was admitted by a maid who looked pale and puffy. She didn't say anything, just held the door open, but a man was there too, one of the county boys whom I knew by sight but not by name.

He said, “This way, and led me to the right, to the same small room I had seen before.

Ben Dykes, sitting there at the table with a stack of papers, grunted at me, “So you finally got here.

“I told Archer two o'clock. It's one fifty-eight.

“Uh-huh. Sit down.

I sat. The door was standing open, but no sound of any kind came to my ears except the rustling of the papers Dykes was going through.

“Is the case solved? I inquired courteously. “It's so damn' quiet. In New York they make more noise. If you-

I stopped because I was being answered. A typewriter started clicking somewhere.

It was faint, from a distance, but unmistakably a typewriter, with a professional at it.

“I suppose Archer knows I'm here, I stated.

“Don't work up a lather, Dykes advised me without looking up.