The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

“There’s no animus. Here’s the complication. The car that killed the boy was found yesterday morning, with that floater Connecticut plate still on it, parked up on One hundred and eighty-sixth Street. Laboratory men worked on it all day. They cinched it that it killed the boy, but not only that, underneath it, caught tight where an axle joins a rod, they found a piece of cloth the size of a man’s hand. That piece of cloth was the flap torn from the jacket which was on the body of Matthew Birch when it was found. The laboratory is looking for further evidence that it was that car that killed Birch, but I’m no hog and I don’t need it. Do you?”

Wolfe was patient. “For a working hypothesis, if I were working on it, no.”

“That’s the point. You are working on it. You put that ad in.”

Wolfe’s head wagged slowly from side to side to punctuate his civilized forbearance. “I’ll stipulate,” he conceded, “that I am capable of flummery, that I have on occasion gulled and hoaxed you, but you know I eschew the crudeness of an explicit lie. I tell you that the facts we have given you in this matter are guileless and complete, that I have no client connected with it in any way, and that I am not engaged in it and do not intend to be. I certainly agree-”

The phone ringing stopped him. I got it at my desk. “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“May I speak to Mr. Wolfe, please?” The voice was low, nervous, and feminine.

“I’ll see if he’s available. Your name?”

“He wouldn’t know my name. I want to see him-it’s about his advertisement in the Times this morning. I want to make an appointment with him.”

I kept it casual. “I handle his appointments. May I have your name, please?”

“I’d rather-when I come. Could I come at twelve o’clock?”

“Hold the wire a minute.” I consulted my desk calendar, turning to a page for next week. “Yes, that’ll be all right if you’re punctual. You have the address?”

She said she did. I hung up and turned to report to Wolfe. “A character who probably wants to look at the orchids. I’ll handle it as usual.”

He resumed to Cramer. “I certainly agree that the evidence that the boy and Matthew Birch were killed by the same car is a noteworthy complication, but actually that should make it simpler for you. Even though the license plate is useless, surely you can trace the car itself.”