The Father Hunt

Time was short, but it was quite possible that Cramer would phone while I was gone, and Wolfe didn't know about my call to Purley Stebbins. He is not to be disturbed short of an emergency when he is up in the plant rooms, but he had to be told, so I took the house phone and pushed a button, and after a wait his voice came.

"Yes?"

"Me in a hurry. Cramer was here just now, stopping on his way downtown. I haven't had a chance to tell you that Saturday afternoon I rang Stebbins and-"

"I'm busy!" he bellowed and hung up.

I assumed he had just found a thrip on a favorite plant or dry rot on a pseudobulb, but as I said, I do not like to be bellowed at. If Cramer called they could discuss crime. When the letters were in the envelopes and in my pocket I still had a chore left, ringing Mortimer M. Hotchkiss, the vice-president who bossed the Thirty-fourth Street branch of the Continental Bank and Trust Company. That didn't take long; he was always glad to

be of service to a depositor-not me, Nero Wolfe-whose balance never went below five figures and sometimes hit six. That done, I got the box from the safe and was off. Nothing was in it but the money; the letter was on a shelf with some other classified items.

At the Eighty-sixth Street branch I found that Hotchkiss had been prompt. I was only six steps inside when a man at a desk got up and motioned me over and asked if I was Mr. Goodwin, and then took me inside the rail and along an aisle to a door at the front. He opened it and bowed me in, and there was Amy Denovo on a chair facing a big glass-topped desk. Behind the desk was a middle-aged banker with a shiny dome and rimless cheaters. As I crossed he rose and offered a hand, saying that it was a pleasure, Mr. Goodwin, a real pleasure, which was par, since Hotchkiss was a vice-president and he wasn't. I said, "Mr. Atwood?" and he said yes and told me to sit, but after telling Amy good morning I put the box on the desk, fished the key from my pocket and used it, and opened the lid wide. Then I sat. Atwood had started to, but was up again, staring at the contents of the box. It rated a stare, even from a banker.