II

FOR THE next day, Monday, October 7, my memo pad showed two appointments. Neither displayed any promise of being either lucrative or exciting. The first one, down for 3:30 in the afternoon, was with a guy named Anthony D. Perry. He was a tycoon, a director of the Metropolitan Trust Company, the bank we did business with, and president of the Seaboard Products Corporation- one of those vague firms occupying six floors of a big skyscraper and selling annually a billion dollars' worth of something nobody ever actually saw, like soy beans or powdered coconut shells or dried llama's hoofs. As I say. Perry was a tycoon; he presided at meetings and was appointed on Mayor's Committees and that kind of hooey. Wolfe had handled a couple of investigations for him in previous years-nothing of any importance. We didn't know what was on his mind this time; he had telephoned for an appointment.

The second appointment was for 6 P.M. It was a funny one, but we often had funny ones. Saturday morning, October 5, a female voice had phoned that she wanted to see Nero Wolfe. I said okay. She said, yes, but she wanted to bring someone with her who would not arrive in New York until Monday morning, and she would be busy all day, so could they come at 5:30. I said, no, but they could come at six, picking up a pencil to put down her name. But she wasn't divulging it; she said she would bring her name along with her, and they would arrive at six sharp, and it was very important. It wasn't much of a date, but I put it on the memo pad and hoped she would turn up, for she had the kind oЈ voice that makes you want to observe it in the Hesh.