The Rubber Band

It was merely a question of which would be less irritating, to let him go on and circle around it for a while, or cut the knot for him and hand him the pieces. Deciding for the latter, I said, "Wait here," and mounted the stairs again. They seemed to have quieted down in the south room.

I knocked and went in and told Clara Fox, "That young diplomat is down below and wants to see you and I'm going to send him up. Keep him in here. We're going to be busy in the office, and it gives me the spirit of seventy-six to look at him."

She made a dive for her vanity case, and I descended to the hall again and told Horrocks he knew the way.

It was ten after eleven. There was nothing for me to do but sit down and suck my finger. There was one thing I would have liked to remind Wolfe of before the party began, but I didn't myself know bow important it was, and anyway I had no idea how he intended to stage it. There was even a chance that this was to be only a dress rehearsal, a preliminary, to see what a litde panic would do, but that wouldn't be like him. The only hint he condescended to give me was to ring me on the house phone and tell me he would come down with Clivers after the others had arrived, and until then I was to say nothing of Clivers' presence. I went in to see if Saul was talking, but he wasn't, so I went back and sat down and felt my pulse.

The two contingents, official and Seaboard, showed up within three minutes of each other. I let them in. The official came first. I took them to the office, where I had chairs pulled up. Skinner looked bilious, Hombert harassed, and Cramer moderately grim. When they saw Wolfe wasn't in the office they started to get exasperated, but I silenced them with a few well chosen phrases, and then the bell rang again and I went for the second batch.

Muir and Perry were together. Perry smiled a tight smile at me and told me good morning, but Muir wasn't having any amenities; I saw his hand tremble a little as he hung his hat up, and he could have gone from that right on into permanent palsy without any tears wasted as far as I was concemed. I nodded them ahead.

They stopped dead inside the office door, at sight of the trio already there. Muir looked astonished and furious; Perry seemed surprised, looking from one to the other, and then turned to me. "I thought… Wolfe said eleven-thirty, so I understood from Muir… if these gentlemen…"