If they were too jealous for a mutual intelligence pact it must have been radar. When the door was shut again Huck spoke. "You asked some questions. I think it very unlikely that my wife made any such arrangement as you describe. She certainly never hinted at it to me. As far as I know, during the last year of her life she made no withdrawal of cash or securities not accounted for, but I'll be glad to tell the accountants to check it. Although I do not accuse my brother-in-law of fabrication, I strongly suspect that he grossly misunderstood something my wife said to him. However, since he has consulted Nero Wolfe and you are here, I'm willing to humor him, the I 23 poor devil. Do you want to see them separately or together?" "Together for a start." "How long will it take? You'll finish today?" "I hope to. I want to, but I don't know." He regarded me, started to say something, decided not to, and pressed a button. Instantly the shebang leaped forward like a bronco out of a chute, missing my feet by maybe eight inches with one of its big balloon tires as it swept by. Huck was steering with a lever. Stopping beside the door to the hall, he reached for the knob and pulled the door wide, and the chair circled and passed through. I was on my feet and following when his bellow came. "Herman! Come down here!" I know now what had put the whole household on the alert--Paul Thayer, Huck's nephew, had let it out that I was Nero Wolfe's Archie Goodwin--but I didn't know then, and it was a little spectacular to see them coming at us from all directions-- Dorothy Riff from a door on that floor, Mrs. O'Shea up the stairs from below, and Lewent and Sylvia Marcy down the stairs from above--none of them bothering with the elevator. They stopped flurrying when 24 they saw Huck sitting composed in his chair and me standing beside him at graceful ease, and approached in no apparent agitation. Lewent standing was exactly the same height as Huck sitting. He asked as he came, "You want me, Theodore?" The girls were closing in.