“Archie!”
It was a bellow from my right rear. I straightened and wheeled, and saw the upper half of Wolfe filling the space left by a window he had opened-the rear window of the front room.
He bellowed again, “What does Mr. Perrit want?”
“Nothing,” I called. “He just stopped by-”
“He wants to see you,” the face put in.
“Then confound it, Archie, bring him in here!”
“But I-”
“Bring him in!”
The window banged shut and Wolfe was gone. The face looked searchingly up and down the street, and across, then reached past me to open the door of the car, and Dazy Perrit climbed out.
II
I decided I didn’t know as much about underworld royalty as I thought I did.
Surely the thing would have been for the hired man to come along, watching for treachery in all directions at once, but Dazy Perrit told him to stay by the car and entered the house alone with me. Two paces inside the office he stopped to make a survey, probably merely through force of habit, like a veteran general playing golf on a strange course automatically picking out the best spots to place artillery units or hide his tanks. I walked on past him and sat down at my desk, warning myself not to underestimate his potentialities just because he was six inches shorter than me. I was too sore at Wolfe to speak. “Be seated, sir,” Wolfe said graciously.