“I could, yes.” He drank and put the glass down. “But it would be a waste of Mr Sperling’s money. Even if that is Mr Rony’s card and he is a party member, as he well may be, I suspect that it is merely a masquerade.” He wiped his lips. “I have no complaint of your performance, Archie, which was in character, and I should know your character; and I can’t say you transgressed your instructions, since you had a free hand, but you might have phoned before assuming the risks of banditry.” “Really.” I was sarcastic. “Excuse me, but since when have you invited constant contact on a little job like tripping up a would-be bridegroom?” “I haven’t. But you were aware that another factor had entered, or at least been admitted as conjecture. It is no longer conjecture. You didn’t phone me, but someone else did. A man—a voice you are acquainted with. So am I.” “You mean Arnold Zeck?” “No name was pronounced. But it was that voice. As you know, it is unmistakable.” “What did he have to say?” “Neither was Mr Rony’s name pronounced, nor Mr Sperling’s. But he left no room for dubiety. In effect I was told to cease forthwith any inquiry into the activities or interests of Mr Rony or suffer penalties.” “What did you have to say?” “I—demurred.” Wolfe tried to pour beer, found the bottle was empty, and set it down. “His tone was more peremptory than it was the last time I heard it, and I didn’t fully conceal my resentment. I stated my position in fairly strong terms.
He ended with an ultimatum. He gave me twenty-four hours to recall you from your week-end.” “He knew I was up there?” “Yes.” “I’ll be damned.” I let out a whistle. “This Rony boy is really something. A party member and one of Mr Z’s little helpers—which isn’t such a surprising combination, at that. And not only have I laid hands on him, but Saul and Ruth have too. Goddam it! I’ll have to—when did this phone call come?” “Yesterday afternoon—” Wolfe glanced up at the clock. “Saturday, at ten minutes past six.” Then his ultimatum expired eight hours ago and we’re still breathing. Even so, it wouldn’t have hurt to get time out for changing our signals. Why didn’t you phone me and I could—” “Shut up!” I lifted the brows. Why?” “Because even if we are poltroons cowering in a corner, we might have the grace not to talk like it! I reproach you for not phoning. You reproach me for not phoning. It is only common prudence to keep the door bolted, but there is no possible—” That may not have been his last syllable, but if he got one more in I didn’t hear it. I have heard a lot of different noises here and there, and possibly one or two as loud as the one that interrupted Wolfe and made me jump out of my chair halfway across the room, but nothing much like it. To reproduce it you could take a hundred cops, scatter them along the block you live in, and have them start unanimously shooting windows with forty-fives.
Then complete silence.
Wolfe said something.
I grabbed a gun from a drawer, ran to the hall, flipped the switch for the stoop light, removed the chain bolt, opened the door, and stepped out. Across the street to the left two windows went up, and voices came and heads poked out, but the street was deserted. Then I saw that I wasn’t standing on the stone of the stoop but on a piece of glass, and if I didn’t like that piece there were plenty of others. They were all over the stoop, the steps, the area-way, and the sidewalk. I looked straight up, and another piece came flying down, missed me by a good inch, and crashed and tinkled at my feet. I backed across the sill, shut the door, and turned to face Wolfe, who was standing in the hall looking bewildered.
“He took it out on the orchids,” I stated. “You stay here. I’ll go up and look.”
As I went up the stairs three at a time I heard the sound of the elevator. He must have moved fast. Fritz was behind me but couldn’t keep up. The top landing, which was walled with concrete tile and plastered, was intact. I flipped the light switch and opened the door to the first plant room, the warm room, but I stopped after one step in because there was no light. I stood for five seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and by then Wolfe and Fritz were behind me.
“Let me get by,” Wolfe growled like a dog ready to spring.
“No.” I pushed back against him. “You’ll scalp yourself or cut your throat. Wait here till I get a light.” He bellowed past my shoulder. “Theodore! Theodore!” A voice came from the dim starlit ruins. “Yes, sir! What happened?” “Are you all right?” “No,sir! What—” “Are you hurt?” “No, I’m not hurt, but what happened?” I saw movement in the direction of the corner where Theodore’s room was, and a sound came of glass falling and breaking.
“You got a light?” I called.
“No, the doggone lights are all—” “Then stay still, damn it, while I get a light.” “Stand still!” Wolfe roared.
I beat it down to the office. By the time I got back up again there were noises from windows across the street, and also from down below. We ignored them. The sight disclosed by the flashlights was enough to make us ignore anything. Of a thousand panes of glass and ten thousand orchid plants some were in fact still whole, as we learned later, but it certainly didn’t look like it that first survey. Even with the lights, moving around through that jungle of jagged glass hanging down and protruding from Plants and benches and underfoot wasn’t really fun, but Wolfe had to see and so had Theodore, who was okay physically but got so damn mad I thought he was going to choke.
Finally Wolfe got to where a dozen Odontoglossum harryanum, his current pride and joy, were kept. He moved the light back and forth over the gashed and fallen stems and leaves and clusters, with fragments of glass everywhere, turned, and said quietly, “We might as well go downstairs.” “The sun will be up in two hours,” Theodore said through his teeth.
“I know. We need men.” When we got to the office we phoned Lewis Hewitt and G. M. Hoag for help before we called the police. Anyway by that time a prowl car had come.
CHAPTER Six
Six hours later I pushed my chair back from the dining-table, stretched all the way, and allowed myself a good thorough yawn without any apology, feeling that I had earned it. Ordinarily I have my breakfast in the kitchen with Fritzy, and Wolfe has his in his room, but that day wasn’t exactly ordinary.
A gang of fourteen men, not counting Theodore, was up on the roof cleaning up and salvaging, and an army of glaziers was due at noon. Andy Krasicki had come in from Long Island and was in charge. The street was roped off, because of the danger from falling glass. The cops were still nosing around out in front and across the street, and presumably in other quarters too, but none was left in our house except Captain Murdoch, who, with Wolfe, was seated at the table I was just leaving, eating griddle cakes and honey.
They knew all about it, back to a certain point. The people who lived in the house directly across the street were away for the summer. On its roof they had found a hundred and ninety-two shells from an SM and a tommy-gun, and they still had scientists up there collecting clues to support the theory that that was where the assault had come from, in case the lawyer for the defence should claim that the shells had been dropped by pigeons. Not that there was yet any call for a lawyer for the defence, since there were no defendants. So far there was no word as to how they had got to the roof of the unoccupied house. All they knew 34 Was that persons unknown had somehow got to that roof and from it, at 2.24 a.m., had shot hell out of our plant rooms, and had made a getaway through a passage into Thirty-sixth Street, and I could have told them that much without ever leaving our premises.
I admit we weren’t much help. Wolfe didn’t even mention the name of Sperling or Rony, let alone anything beginning with Z. He refused to offer a specific guess at the identity of the perpetrators, and it wasn’t too hard to get them to accept