The Rubber Band

But it was Wolfe's off day; he was wrong again. A phone call from Horrocks, for Clara Fox, came within fifteen minutes. In the interim Wolfe and I had gone to the office and learned from Saul that he had talked to Hilda Lindquist and she was coming, and Wolfe had settled himself in his chair, disposed of a bottle of beer, and repudiated my advances. Horrocks didn't mention the predicament of his noble uncle; he just asked for Clara Fox, and I sent Saul up to tell her to take it in Wolfe's room, since there was no phone in hers. I should have listened in as a matter of business, but I didn't, and Wolfe didn't tell me to.

Finally Wolfe sighed and sat up. "Try for Mr. Cramer."

I did so. No result. They talked as if, for all they knew, Cramer might be up in Canada shooting moose-

Wolfe sighed again. "Archie. Have we ever encountered a greater jumble of nonsense?"

"No, sir. If only I had gone-"

"Don't say that again, or I'll send you upstairs with Miss Fox. Could that have ordered the chaos? The thing is completely ridiculous. It forces us to measures no less ridiculous. We shall have to investigate the movements of Mr. Muir since six o'clock this evening, to trust Mr. Cramer with at least a portion of our facts, to consider afresh the motivations and activities of Lord Clivers, to discover how a man can occupy two different spots of space at the same moment, and to make another long-distance call to Nebraska. I believe there is no small firearm that will shoot fifteen hundred miles, but we seem to be confronted with a determination and ingenuity capable of almost anything, and before we are through with this we may need Mr. Lindquist badly. Get that farm- the name is Donvaag?"

I nodded and got busy. At that time of night, going on ten o'clock, the lines were mostly free, and I had a connection with Plainview, Nebraska, in less than ten minutes. It was a peison-to-person call and a good clear connection; Ed Donvaag's husky voice, from his farmhouse out on the western prairie, was in my ear as plain as Francis Horrocks' had been from the Hotel Portland. Wolfe took his line.