In the office at noon, Wolfe was drinking beer and making random remarks as they occurred to him. He observed that since Inspector Cramer was sufficiently aroused to be willing to insult Nero Wolfe by having his house invaded with a search warrant, it was quite possible that he had also seen fit to proceed to other indefensible measures, such as tapping telephone wires, and that therefore we should take precautions. He stated that it had been a piece of outrageous stupidity on his part to let Mike Walsh go Monday evening before asking him a certain question, since he had then already formed a surmise which, if proven correct, would solve the problem completely. He said he was sorry that there was no telephone at the Lindquist prairie home in Nebraska, since it meant that the old gentleman would have to endure the rigors of a nine-mile trip to a village in order to talk over long distance; and he hoped that the connection with him would be made at one o'clock as arranged. He also hoped that Johnny Keems would be able to find Mike Walsh and escort him to the office without interference, fairly soon, since a few words with Walsh and a talk with Victor Lindquist should put him in a position where he could proceed with arrangements to dean up the whole affair. More beer. And so forth.
I let him rave on, thinking he might fill in a couple of gaps by accident, but he didn't.
The phone rang. I took it, and heard Keems' voice. I stopped him before he got started: "1 can't hear you, Johnny. Don't talk so close."
"What?"
"I said, don't talk so close."
"Oh. Is this better?"
"Yeah."
"Well… I'm reporting progress backwards. I found the old lady in good health and took care of her for a couple of hours, and then she got hit by a brown taxi and they took her to the hospital."
"That's too bad. Hold the wire a minute." I covered the transmitter and turned to Wolfe. "Johnny found Mike Walsh and tailed him for two hours, and a dick picked him up and took him to headquarters."
"Picked up Johnny?"
"No. Walsh."
Wolfe frowned, and his lips went out and in, and again. He sighed. "The confounded meddlers. Call him in."
I told the phone, "Come on in, and hurry," and hung up.
