The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

I wasn’t feeling jaunty, and that stung me. “Specimens like you,” I told him, “are not what has made this country great. The kid might have made it all up. He admitted he didn’t see the gun. Or the woman might have been pulling his leg. If I had told you yesterday who had told me what, you would have thought I was screwy to spend a dime on it for a phone call. And I did give you the license number. Did you check on it?”

“Yes. It was a floater. It was taken from a Plymouth that was stolen in Hartford two months ago.”

“No trace?”

“None so far. Now we’ll ask Connecticut to dig. I don’t know how many floater plates there are in New York this minute, but there are plenty.”

“How good a description have you got of the driver?”

“We’ve got four and no two alike. Three of them aren’t worth a damn and the other one may be-a man that had just come out of the drugstore and happened to notice the kid going to the car with his rag. He says the driver was a man about forty, dark brown suit, light complexion, regular features, felt hat pulled down nearly to his ears. He says he thinks he could identify him.” Purley got up. “I’ll be going. I’ll admit I’m disappointed. I fully expected either I’d get a lead from you or I’d find you covering for a client.”

Wolfe opened his eyes, “I wish you luck, Mr. Stebbins. That boy ate at my table yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Purley growled, “that makes it bad. People have no business running over boys that ate at your table.”

On that sociable note he marched out, and I went to the hall with him. As I put my hand on the doorknob a figure rose to view outside, coming up the steps to the stoop, and when I pulled the door open there she was-a skinny little woman in a neat dark blue dress, no jacket and no hat, with puffed red eyes and her mouth pressed so tight there were no lips.

Stebbins was just back of me as I addressed her. “Can I help you, madam?”

She squeezed words out. “Does Mr. Nero Wolfe live here?”

I told her yes.

“Do you think I could see him? I won’t be long. My name is Mrs. Anthea Drossos.”

She had been crying and looked as if she might resume any second, and a crying woman is one of the things Wolfe won’t even try to take. So I told her he was busy, and I was his confidential assistant, and wouldn’t she please tell me.

She raised her head to meet my eyes straight. “My boy Pete told me to see Mr. Nero Wolfe,” she said, “and I’ll just wait here till I can see him.” She propped herself against the railing of the stoop.