I had rather expected to find a Minerva town car waiting at the kerb, considering his category, but there wasn't anything there at all, and we had to hoof it to Eighth Avenue before we could ambush a taxi at that ungodly hour. We piled in, me last, and he told the driver Times Square.

As we jolted off I surveyed him disapprovingly. "Don't tell me you left her standing on the sidewalk."

Disregarding that, he twisted himself on the cushion to face me in a confidential manner. "See here, Goodwin," he demanded, "you've got to help me. I'm in a bad hole. It wouldn't have done any good to try to persuade Wolfe that I don't know where Zorka is, because he was convinced that I do. But the fact is, I don't know."

"That's too bad."

"Yes. I'm in one hell of a fix. If you go back and say I told you I couldn't take you to her because I don't know where she is, he'll do what he threatened to do."

"He sure will. So I won't go back and say that."

"No, that wouldn't do. If I couldn't persuade him I don't know, I can't expect you to. But we could work it this way. We can drop in somewhere and have a couple of drinks. Then, say in half an hour or so, you go back and tell him I took you to an address-pick out any likely address-and we went in expecting to find Zorka and she wasn't there. You can describe how astonished and upset I was-you know, make it vivid."

"Sure, I'm good at that. But you haven't-"

"Wait a minute." The taxi swerved into 42nd Street, and he lurched against me and got straight again. "I know you'll get the devil for going back without Zorka, but you can't help that anyway, because I don't know where she is. I wouldn't expect you to help me out on this just for the hell of it. Why should you? You know? How about fifty dollars?"

I have never seen a worse case of briber's itch.

I made a scornful sound. "Now, brother! Fifty lousy bucks with a big deal in international finance trembling in the balance? A century at least."

The driver called back, "Which corner?"

Barrett told him to stop at the kerb and leave his meter on. Then he stretched out a leg to get into his trousers pocket, and extracted a modest roll. "I don't know if I happen to have that much with me." He peered and counted in the dim light. Glancing through the window, I saw an old woman in a shawl headed for us with a box of chewing gum. I wouldn't even have to leave the cab.

"I've got it," Barrett said.

"Good. Gimme, please. I can concentrate on the details better with a jack in my jeans."

He handed it over. Without bothering to count it, I shoved it through the window at the old woman and told her, "Here, grandma, two packets and keep the change." She passed them in, took the currency and gave it a look, gave me a swift startled glance from bleary old eyes and shuffled off double-quick. I offered a packet of gum to Barrett and said, "Here, one apiece."

Instead of taking it, he sputtered, "You goddam lunatic!"

I shook my head. "Nope, wrong again. You sure do make a lot of mistakes, mister. That little gesture I just made, that wasn't original-I first had the idea upstate in a cow barn and the beneficiary was a guy in overalls with a pitchfork." I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth. "Maybe this will keep me awake. That's enough horse-play; and, besides, Mr Wolfe is waiting. Lead me to Zorka."

"Why, you dirty, cheap-"

"Oh, can it! What's the address?"

"I don't know. I don't know where she is."

"Okay." I leaned forward to the driver. "Go to 48th Street, east of Lexington."

He nodded and got in gear.

Barrett demanded, "What are you going to do? What are you going to Miltan's for?"

"I left my car there. I'm going to get it and drive it home and tell Mr Wolfe the sad news, and then, I suppose, help him until dawn with phone calls and so on. He never puts off till to-morrow what I can do to-day."

"Do you mean to say that after taking my money and giving it to that hag-?"

"I mean to say exactly this: Either you quit stalling and squirming and take me to Zorka, or I go back to Nero Wolfe and watch him throw the switch. I ought to be asleep right now. You claim you don't know where Zorka is. My employer claims you do. I have no opinion. My mind is open, but I follow instructions blindly. Take me to Zorka or pop goes the weasel."

The taxi bumped across Sixth Avenue and scooted ahead for Fifth, along Bryant Park. Nearing the library, he called to the driver, "Stop at the kerb and leave the meter on." As we rolled to a standstill I said, "You'd better kept the rest of your dough to pay the fare with."

He sat and glared at me in silence. Finally he blurted, "Look here, I can't take you to her. I can't do that. I'll tell you what I'll do: You wait right here, and I'll take another cab and be back here with her inside of twenty minutes."

I stared at him. "The reason I don't talk," I told him, "is because I'm speechless. Holy heaven!"

"What's wrong with that? I give you my word-"

"I don't want it. Cut the comedy and let's go."

He glared some more. I permitted it for a full minute and then got impatient. "I'll count up to twenty-nine," I said, "one for each year of my life and one to grow on and one to get married on, and then-"

"Wait a minute." He was approaching the pleading stage. "The reason I can't take you to her is a personal reason. I don't intend to try any deception; I can't. You know damn well the hole I'm in. What about this? You go with me to a phone booth, and I'll call her up and tell her to meet us-"

I shook my head emphatically. "No. A thousand times no. Quit trying to wiggle off the hook. How do I know but what you've got a code with her to use in emergencies? Remember I'm ignorant. I don't even know but what Wolfe has got it figured out that she killed Ludlow and, in that case. " I shrugged. "I'm only a puppet and I'm under orders. For God's sake, shut up and let's go."

He curled his fingers to make fists. "I can just open this door and beat it. You know?"

"Go ahead. Don't let me stop you. Then I could phone Wolfe and go on home."

"But, goddam it, if you hear me phone-"

"Shut up! I'm bored stiff."

He gave me one more good long glare and then leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Madison Avenue, not ten blocks away. The driver nodded and got going again.

He had enough left to pay the fare. It wasn't a modern apartment house we stopped in front of, but an older building whose days of pride were in the past. The ground floor was a trinket shop, dark, of course. Barrett got out a key and unlocked a door that let us into a small public corridor, went to the rear of it, and with another key admitted us into a miniature elevator of the drive-it-yourself variety. That took us up five storeys, and then we had to climb a flight of stairs. The layout wasn't exactly shabby, though it was far from ostentatious. From the top of the stairs he preceded me through a sort of vestibule and used a third key on a wide, solid-looking door. I followed him in and he shut the door and turned to call out:

"Yoohoo!"

An answer came: "Back here, Donnybonny!"

I could already smell perfume, and the temperature even there in the foyer must have been close to ninety. I copied his example when he took off his coat, but when he scowled at me and said, "Wait here a minute," I disregarded it and went along behind him into a large and dazzling room full of heat, synthetic smells, thick rugs, divans and cushions, miscellaneous fluff, and a pair of damsels. They were sprawled out, one on a divan and the other on a chaise-longue.

Zorka, a loose red thing around her, started a wave of greeting at Barrett and then halted in mid-air as she saw me. Belinda Reade, nothing at all around her, called, "How's my Donny- Oh!" and grabbed for a pale blue neglig233;e that was draped over the back of the divan.