The Father Hunt

Mien the three 'teers had phoned in with their usual reports, nothing, they had been told to call at nine in the morning. They were the three 'teers because once at a conference Orrie had said they were the three musketeers and we had tried to change it to fit. We tried snoopeteers, privateers (for private eyes), dicketeers, wolf steers, hawk-eteers, and others, and ended up by deciding that none of them was good enough and settling for the three 'teers. They had not been told that we were now looking for a murderer, not just a father; I saved that for morning so they would get a good night's sleep.

On the way back from Twentieth Street I had found a cigar counter with a box of Gold Label Bonitas, the third counter I tried, and had bought a couple-two for sixty-five cents-and Wolfe and I had given them a good look. A Gold Label Bonita is four and three-quarters inches long, medium thick, and medium blunt at both ends. It comes in a cellophane tube, and its label says Gold Label but not Bonita. The Bonita is only on the box. I lit one and took a few puffs, but neither Wolfe nor I would claim that if we entered a room where a man had recently smoked a cigar we could testify under oath that it had been a Gold Label Bonita. It did taste and smell like tobacco smoke, which is more than I can say for the-

but he may read this. I dropped the other one in a drawer and gave Wolfe a full account of my conversation with Raymond Thorne ten days earlier, which I had never reported verbatim.

Thome's first remark after a sip of brandy was that a close-up of Wolfe there in his chair, with sprays of orchids scattered over the desk, would make a marvelous shot for a one-minute commercial. He said that of course he didn't make many commercials, but a friend of his did, and what a picture! Wolfe had to rub his lips with a knuckle to stop the words that wanted out. Thorne was going to help him find a murderer, or he hoped he was.

"My friend would be glad to come and discuss it with you," Thorne said.

"That can wait," Wolfe said. "I'm fully occupied with the job I'm on. On behalf of Miss Denovo, I thank you for coming. I know you told Mr. Goodwin that you could supply no information that would help, but it is a common occurrence for a man to have knowledge of a fact and to be quite unaware of its significance. I once questioned a young woman for three days on what she regarded as irrelevant trivialities, and finally got a fact that exposed a murderer."