"Maybe. I hope so, Mr. Kimball. Anyway we won’t answer that last one first… No, thanks, none for me. With another of your elegant highballs I might answer almost anything. They won’t come any better than that even after repeal."

"Then by all means have one. Naturally, like everybody else, I’m curious. Nero Wolfe must be an extraordinary man."

"Well, I’ll tell you." I threw my head back to get the end of the highball, and with the slick ice-lumps sliding across my upper lip let the last rare drops tickle in, then suddenly came down with the glass and my chin at the same time. It was just one of my little tricks. All I saw was Manuel Kimball looking curious, and he had just said he was curious, so it couldn’t be said that I had made any subtle discovery. I said, "If Nero Wolfe isn’t extraordinary Napoleon never got higher than top-sergeant. I’m sorry I can’t tell you his secrets, but I’ve got to earn what he pays me somehow even if it’s only by keeping my mouth shut. Which reminds me." I glanced at my wrist. "It must be about your dinner time. You’re been very hospitable, Mr. Kimball. I appreciate it, and so will Nero Wolfe."

"You’re quite welcome. Don’t hurry on my account. My father won’t be home and I dislike eating alone. I’ll run over to the club for dinner later."

"Oh," I said. "Your father won’t be home? That throws me out a little. I had figured on finding a bite to eat in Pleasantville or White Plains and coming back for a little talk with him. In fact, I was just about to ask you for a favor: to tell him I was coming."

"Sorry."

"He won’t be back tonight?"

"No. He went to Chicago on business last week. Your disappointment isn’t the first one. Anderson and that detective have been wiring him every day, I don’t exactly see why. After all, he barely knew Barstow. I imagine their telegrams won’t start him back till he’s through with his business. My father is like that. He finishes things.

"When do you expect him?"

"I hardly know. Around the fifteenth, he thought when he left."

"Well. That’s too bad. It’s just routine, of course, but any detective would want to complete the foursome, and since you can’t do me the favor with your father that I wanted to ask, maybe you will do me another one. More routine. Tell me where you were between seven o’clock and midnight Monday evening, June fifth. That was the evening before the Barstow funeral. Did you go to the funeral? This was the evening before.

Manuel Kimball’s black eyes were straight at me, concentrated, like a man trying to remember. "I went to the funeral," he said. "Yes, that was Tuesday. A week ago today. Oh yes. I think it was; yes, I’m sure. Skinner would know. I was in the clouds."

"In the clouds?"

He nodded. "I’ve been trying flying and landing at night. A couple of times in May, and again that Monday. Skinner would know; he helped me off and I had him wait till I got back to make sure the lights would be in order. It’s quite a trick, very different from the daytime."

"What time did you go up?"

"Around six o’clock. Of course it wasn’t dark until nearly nine, but I wanted to be ahead of the twilight."

"You got well ahead of it all right. When did you get back?"

"Ten or a little after. Skinner would know that too; we fooled around with the timer till midnight."

"Did you go up alone?"

"Completely." Manuel Kimball smiled at me with his lips, but it appeared to me that his eyes weren’t co-operating. "You must admit, Mr. Goodwin, that I’m being pretty tolerant. What the devil has my flying Monday night or any other night got to do with you? If I wasn’t so curious I might have reason to be a little irritated. Don’t you think?"

"Sure." I grinned. "I’d be irritated if I was you. But anyway I’m much obliged. Routine, Mr. Kimball, just the damn routine." I got up and shook a leg to get the cuff of my trousers down. "And I am much obliged and I appreciate it. I should think it would be more fun flying at night than in the daytime."

He was on his feet too, polite. "It is. But do not feel obliged. It is going to distinguish me around here to have talked to Nero Wolfe’s man."

He called the fat butler to bring my hat.

Half an hour later, headed south around the curves of the Bronx River Parkway, I was still rolling him over on my mind’s tongue. Since there was no connection at all between him and Barstow or the driver or anything else, it could have been for no other reason than because he made me nervous. And yet Wolfe said that I had no feeling for phenomena! The next time he threw that at me I would remind him of my mysterious misgivings about Manuel Kimball, I decided. Granted, of course, that it turned out that Manuel had murdered Barstow, which I had to confess didn’t seem very likely at that moment.

When I got home, around half-past eight, Wolfe had finished dinner. I had phoned from the drugstore on the Urand Concourse, and Fritz had a dish of flounder with his best cheese sauce hot in the oven, with a platter of lettuce and tomatoes and plenty of good cold milk. Considering mv thin lunch at the Barstows’ and the hour I was getting my knees under the table, it wasn’t any too much. I cleaned it up. Fritz said it seemed good to have me busy and out working again.

I said. "You’re darned right it. does. This dump would be about ready for the sheriff if it wasn’t for me.

Fritz giggled. He’s the only man I’ve ever known who could giggle without giving you doubts about his fundamentals.

Wolfe was in his chair in the office, playing with flies. He hated flies and very few ever got in there, but two had somehow made it and were fooling around on his desk. Much as he hated them, he couldn’t kill them; he said that while a live fly irritated him to the point of hatred, a killed one outraged his respect for the dignity of death, which was worse. My opinion was it just made him sick. Anyway, he was in his chair with the swatter in his hand, seeing how close to the fly he could lower it without the fly taking off. When I went in he handed me the swatter and I let them have it and raked them into the wastebasket.

"Thank you," Wolfe said. "Those confounded insects were trying to make me forget that one of the Dendrobiums chlorostele is showing two buds."

"No! Really?"

He nodded. "That one in half sunlight. The others have been moved over."

"One for Horstmann."

"Yes. Who killed Barstow?"

I grinned. "Give me a chance. The name just escapes me--I’ll remember it in a minute."

"You should have written it down… No, just your light. That’s better. Did you get enough to eat? Proceed."

That report was an in-between; I wasn’t proud of it or ashamed of it either. Wolfe scarcely interrupted once throughout; he sat as he always did when I had a long story; leaning back, his chin on his chest, his elbows on the arms of the chair with his fingers interlaced on his belly, his eyes half closed but always on my face. Halfway through he stopped me to have Fritz bring some beer, then with two bottles and a glass within reach at the edge of the table he resumed his position. I went on to the end. It was midnight.

He sighed. I went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. When I got back he was pinching the top of his ear and looking sleepy.

"Perhaps you had an impression," he said.

I sat down again. "Vague. Pretty watery. Mrs. Barstow is just some kind of a nut. She might have killed her husband or she might not, but of course she didn’t kill Carlo Maffei. For Miss Barstow you can use your own impression. Out. Her brother is out too, I mean on Maffei, his alibi for the fifth is so tight you could use it for a vacuum. Dr. Bradford must be a very interesting person, I would like to meet him some time. As for Manuel Kimball, I suppose there’s no chance he killed Barstow, but I’ll bet he runs river angels with his airplane."