was bom in an old shack on the spot where his new house
stands.”
“Yes. His father worked as a stablehand for Osgood’s
father. Clyde told me about it. A farmer had a beautiful
daughter named Marcia and young Pratt got himself engaged
to her and Frederick Osgood came back from college and saw
her and married her. So she became Clyde Osgood’s mother,
and Nancy’s. Pratt went to New York and soon began to
make money; He didn’t marry, and as soon as he had time to
spare he started to find ways to annoy Osgood. When he
bought land up here and started to build, it looked as if
the annoyance might become really serious.”
“And Clyde read up on family feuds and found that the
best way to cure it would be for him to marry Pratt’s niece.
A daughter is better in such cases, but a niece will do.”
“No, it wasn’t Clyde’s idea, it was his sister’s. Nancy’s.”
Lily closed her compact. “She was staying in New York for
the winter, studying rhythm at the best night clubs, and met
Jimmy and Caroline, and thought it might be helpful for the
four of them to know each other, and when Clyde came down
for a visit she arranged it. It made a sort of a situation, and
she and Jimmy got really friendly, and so did Clyde and Caro-
line. Then Clyde happened to get interested in me, and
I guess that reacted on Nancy and Jimmy.”
“Did you and Clyde -get engaged?”
“No.” She looked at me, and the comer of her mouth
turned up, and I saw her breasts gently putting the weave of
the jersey to more strain as she breathed a deep one. “No,
Escamillo.” She peeled her potato again, “I don’t suppose
I’ll marry. Because marriage is really nothing but an economic
arrangement, and I’m lucky because I don’t have to let the
economic part enter into it. The man would be lucky too—I
mean if a man attracted me and I attracted him.”
“He sure would.” I was wondering which would be
more satisfactory, to slap her and then kiss her, or to kiss
her and then slap her. “Did Clyde attract you much?”
“He did for a while.” She shivered delicately. “You know
how tiresome it is when someone you found exciting gets to
be nothing but a nuisance? He wanted me to marry him, too.
You mustn’t think I’m heartless, because I’m not. Caroline
would have been a swell wife for him, and I told him so. I
rather thought they would make it up, and I hoped they
would, and that’s why I said he would have been more apt
to come to see Caroline than me last night.”
“Maybe he did. Have you asked her?”
“Good lord no. Me ask Caroline anything about Clyde?
I wouldn’t dare mention his name to her. She hates me.”
“She invited you up for the barbecue, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but that was because she was being clever. Her
brother Jimmy and I were beginning to be friendly, and
she thought if he saw me out here in the country, a lot of
me, he would realize how superficial and unhealthy I am.”
“Oh. So you’re unhealthy?”
“Terribly.” The comer of her mouth went up another
sixteenth of an inch. “Because I’m frank and simple. Because
I never offer anything I don’t give, and I never give any-
thing and then expect to get paid for it. I’m frightfully un-
healthy. But I guess I was wrong to say superficial. I doubt if
Caroline thinks I’m superficial.”
“Excuse me a minute,” I said, and stood up.
Even in the midst of being ruined I had had Wolfe’s table
across the tent in the corner of my eye, partly to note his
reaction to the fricassee, which had appeared to be satis-
factory since he had ordered a second portion, and my in-
terrupting my despoiler was on account of a sign from him.
A man was standing by Wolfe’s chair talking to him, and
Wolfe had glanced in my direction with a lift to his brow
which I considered significant. So I excused myself to Lily
and got up and ambled over. As I arrived the man turned his
head and I saw it was Lew Bennett, the secretary of the
National Guernsey League.
“Archie, I must thank you.” Wolfe put his napkin down.
“For suggesting the fricassee. It is superb. Only female
Americans can make good dumplings, and not many of them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have met Mr. Bennett.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you conveniently extricate yourself from that …”
He turned a thumb in the direction I had come from.
“You mean right now?”
“As soon as may be. Now if you are not too involved.
Mr. Bennett has been looking for me at the request of Mr.
Osgood, who is waiting in the exposition office and wishes
to see me. Mr. Shanks and I shall have finished our lunch
in ten minutes.”
“Okay. I’m badly involved but I’ll manage it.”
I went back to my table and told Lily we must part,
and summoned the Methodist to give me a check. The damage
proved to be $1.60, and, having relinquished a pair of dimes
for the missionaries, I reflected with pride that the firm had
cleaned up 20 cents net on the deal.
Lily said in a tone of real disappointment without any
petulance that I could detect, “I had supposed we would
spend the afternoon together, watching the races and riding
on the merry-go-round and throwing balls at things …”
“Not ever,” I said firmly. “Not the afternoon. Whatever
the future may have in store for us, whatever may betide,
I work afternoons. Understand once and for all that I am a
workingman and I only play with toys at odd moments. I
am working when you would least expect it. Throughout this
delightful lunch with you, I have been working and earning
money.”
“I suppose while you were paying me all those charming
compliments one part of your brain, the most important part,
was busy on some difficult problem.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Dear Escamillo. Darling Escamillo. But the afternoon
comes to an end, doesn’t it? What will you be doing this
evening?”
“God knows. I work for Nero Wolfe.”
THE BOOM in die exposition offices, to which
Bennett led us, on a kind of mezzanine in the’
Administration Building, was large and lofty, with two dusty
windows in the board wall and plain board partitions for the
other three sides. The only furniture were three big rough
tables and a dozen wooden chairs. On one table were a pile
of faded bunting and a bushel basket half-full of apples;
the other two were bare. Three of the chairs were occupied.
Sidney Darth, Chairman of the North Atlantic Exposition
Board, was on the edge of one but jumped up as we entered;
Frederick Osgood, the upstate duke, had sagging shoulders
and a tired and bitter but determined expression; and Nancy
Osgood sat with her spine curved and looked miserable
all over.
Bennett did the introductions. Darth mumbled something
about people waiting for him and loped off. Wolfe’s eyes
traveled over the furniture with a hopeless look, ending at
me, meaning couldn’t I for God’s sake rustle a chair some-
where that would hold all of him, but I shook my head in-
flexibly, knowing how useless it was. He compressed his lips,
heaved a sigh, and sat down.
Bennett said,. “I can stay if you want … if I can be
of any help . . ,” Wolfe looked at Osgood and Osgood shook
his head: “No thanks. Lew. You run along.” Bennett hesitated
a second, looking as if he wouldn’t mind staying a bit, and
then beat it. After the door had closed behind him I re-
quisitioned a chair for myself and sat down.
Osgood surveyed Wolfe with an aristocratic scowl. “So
you’re Nero Wolfe. I understand you came to Crowfield to
exhibit orchids.”
Wolfe snapped at him, “Who told you so?”
The scowl got half startled away, but came right back
again. “Does it matter who told me?”
“No. Nor does it matter why I came to Crowfield. Mr.
Bennett said you wished to consult me, but surely not about
orchids.”
I restrained a grin, knowing that Wolfe was not only
establishing control, which was practical and desirable, but
was also relieving his resentment at having been sent for and
having come, even if it was on his way anyhow.
“I don’t give a damn about the orchids.” Osgood preserved
the scowl. “The purpose of your presence here is relevant
because I need to know if you are a friend of Tom Pratt’s,
or are being employed by him, or have been. You were at
his house last night.”
“Relevant to what, sir?” Wolfe sounded patient with dis-
tress. “Either you want to consult me or you don’t. If you do,