The Father Hunt

said that if anybody needed expert handling of his public image a private detective did, and he would like to create a presentation to propose to you. He also said that if we were working on a case and I would tell him about it, he could use that as a basis for the presentation. At that, naturally, I looked and listened, but decided he was just trying to find another sucker for his racket. I now sincerely hope I was wrong. Two comments. One, there are probably very few Floyd Vances around. Two, allowing for the twenty-three years, he fits Salvatore Manzoni's description just fine."

"I would like some beer," Wolfe said.

"You're already two bottles ahead and it's going on two o'clock."

"Satisfactory," he said, leaving it open whether he meant the beer or the nibble. He gripped the edge of the desk to push his chair back, rose, and headed for the hall. For a second I thought he was walking out, to go to bed with the nibble, but he turned left in the hall. He was going for beer. When he returned he had a bottle and a glass in one hand and a snifter in the other. He put the bottle and glass on his desk, got the cognac bottle from the stand and poured a couple of ounces in the snifter,

"You might easily have missed it," he said, and went around to his chair, opened the bottle, and poured.

I whirled the brandy around in the snifter and said, "I almost did. If it's only a coincidence I'm through with the detective business for good. We'll soon know, one way or another. The quickest and most obvious would be to have Salvatore Manzoni take a look at the public-relations Floyd Vance, but twenty-three years is a long time and it might not prove anything. Of course the receptionist at Thome's could settle it that it was the public-relations Floyd Vance that she shooed out that May day, but that would only prove that it's a real nibble."

I put the snifter to my lips and tilted my head back enough to get a good gulp. Wolfe, having waited until the bead was down to precisely the right level, raised bis glass.

"Fingerprints," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"We get his and give them to Cramer and they match or they don't."

"No." He licked foam from his lips. "If they matched we'd be in a fix. Mr. Cramer would have a murderer, but we would still need a father, and he would be locked up and inaccessible. You said he wanted to meet me."