It was a quarter past five by the time I got the car put away and made it back to the brownstone.  Since we were keeping the chain bolt on, I had to ring to get Fritz to let me in.  He gave me an once-over, and I said, “Yes, I know.  I’m headed upstairs for a change of clothing.”  I rubbed my chin, it rasped, and I grimaced.  “And maybe a shave.”

Fritz nodded and said, with a hint of apology in his voice, “We are having a guest this evening, you see.”

“Not me.  I’m out with Miss Rowan, tonight.”

“Miss Rowan called after you left, Archie.  A friend, who is now in the Navy, has unexpected leave and she wished to know if you desired to accompany them to dinner.  Mr. Wolfe said no, you had a family emergency.”

I pulled up short.  I’d been counting on that date to---“The great ape!”  I met Fritz’s eyes, and stopped.  “I need a shower, too.  How’s De Blieu?”

Fritz shrugged.  “He rests.”  As I went by, he patted my shoulder, once.  He knew it was all I was in a mood to take.

By the time I was back in the office at a quarter to six, I had cooled off.  I polished up the ring, put it on Wolfe’s desk, and deep-sixed my handkerchief.

Wolfe came in and got his vastness comfortably arranged in his custom-built chair.  He rang for beer, looked at the ring, looked at me, and let out a sigh.  “It was unpleasant?”

“I’m glad dinner is at seven this evening.  After meeting the De Blieus, I need to give my digestion a break.  Do you want it all?”

He made a face.  Anything that interferes with digestion fits his definition of unpleasant.  “Yes, confound it.”  He poured himself some beer and took a long drink before the foam went down.  As was his custom, he started to lick his lips, caught my speaking gaze, and, for a miracle, stopped.

I pulled out my notebook although I didn’t really need it since the day’s events felt like they were engraved on my brain.  When I finished, Wolfe’s chin dipped slightly.  “We may now awaken M. De Blieu and question him.”

“If you still remember how, and I wouldn’t blame you if you’d forgotten.  Seems like we’ve done everything in this case, so far, but detect.”

Wolfe’s tone was as peevish as I felt.  “When enemies can attack whenever they so desire, it becomes very difficult to get anything accomplished.”

“I’ve known you long enough, sir, to assume that the accomplishment you’re referring to is the pumpkin soup that Fritz is experimenting with, even as we speak.  It’s also difficult to get any detecting done.”

“Then why are you sitting around blathering?  Fetch M. De Blieu.”

I got him and put De Blieu back in the office chair, and put his shoes down on the floor next to him.  Once again, Wolfe got up from his chair.  If this trend kept up, he’d soon be taking exercise, and I’d be out of a job.  He picked up the ring, came around the desk, and examined De Blieu critically.

“Going to send him a separate bill?”

He snorted.  “Perhaps I should.  It might remind him to proceed with greater caution in the future.”   He picked up De Blieu’s left hand and took his pulse, then flipped it over and examined the palm.  “Although, to be fair, I do not think he anticipated the arrival of his relatives in this country.  Events associated with the war must have driven them out of Europe.”

I thought about what it would take to shift a gang like the De Blieus, decided I didn’t like the answer, and shook my head.  “They can’t have been the only ones.  I assume there will be more of this kind of crap in the next few years.”

Wolfe looked up from De Blieu’s palm.  He didn’t bother commenting on my language.  Instead, for a second, I thought I saw a fleck of purple in the dark at the center of his eyes.  “I would imagine there will be some immigration of malfeasants.  Miss Amdahl and Mr. Hancock-Skinner will be busy.”

It was nice to know that someone took care of such jobs, and that the someone wasn’t me.

Wolfe picked up the ring from his desk and slid it onto De Blieu’s thumb.  A shudder went over the figure in the chair, and it looked like De Blieu was going to have a fit.  But instead, his eyes flew wide open, and he screamed.  Then he started.  Then he looked around wildly.  Then he got sheepish.

Wolfe had ignored it all in favor of getting back into his chair.  By the time De Blieu had made it to the flush and the truculent expression, Wolfe was regarding him with his eyes slightly narrowed.  “M. De Blieu.”

“Mr. Wolfe.”

“I have your answers from the other evening in this office.  I doubt you were lying, given the company and circumstances during that session, but I will, none the less, ask you again.  Did you tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything you neglected to add?”

“No.” He hesitated.  “Lord of---”

“Shut up.  It can hardly be a coincidence that your family is here in Manhattan.  What did your relatives say to you before Mr. Goodwin arrived?”

De Blieu licked his lips.  “They said I should come back home.  I said, I did not need to because I was of your family, and Giles laughed and said that wouldn’t matter for long.  I should come now, of my own free will.  It would be better for me.”

Wolfe snorted but didn’t otherwise interrupt.

“I told him he was mad, but he only laughed some more.  He started to say something about a mountain, but Bette made him be quiet.  So, then he took the electric cord and came over, and was going to---it does not matter.  Mr. Goodwin arrived just then.”

“Again, how fortunate for you.  What were his exact words about the mountain?”

“It was in the old tongue.”

“Translate.”

De Blieu paused, probably to juggle the words in his head.  “He said, ‘The fire blooms on the iron mountain.  It will breach the wall.  Do you believe---’ That is when Bette silenced him.”

“Blooms? Did he use ‘kuothax’?”

“No, ‘parthax’. ”

“Do not allow aesthetics to batten on accuracy, M. De Blieu.  That word is closer to ‘sprouts’ in English,” Wolfe said, but with only half his attention.  His eyes had narrowed to slits. 

He took De Blieu back through it, this time with the emphasis on Bette’s reactions.  They were just getting to the electric cord again, when the doorbell rang.

I answered the door and had to throw up a hand in front of my eyes.  Then I blinked back the tears and said, “Could you turn that down, please?”

“Certainly.”  Okay, I obviously needed more training from Saul and Wolfe.  The voice told me I’d been right about who was standing on the stoop, but I had no idea how I’d known.  The brightness radiating from the form, as intense and painful as the light of a noon sun reflected off of stainless steel, dimmed, and I was able to see our visitor.

“If you’ll wait, Princess,” I said politely, “I’ll tell Mr. Wolfe you’re here.”  I shut the front door.  Five years ago, I would have brought her inside for her own sake.  A year ago, I’d have taken her to the office just to see what Wolfe would do.  Now I went back into the office and said to Wolfe, “It’s the lady about the book.”

I guess he’s a genius, all right.  His eyebrows went down, he growled, and then he said to De Blieu, “Go back into the front room and wait there.  I am not done with you.”

I shut the doors behind De Blieu and looked at Wolfe inquiringly.  “Do you want me to get the gun out? Of course, I may shoot you by mistake if you growl at her too loud, but---”

“Your sense of timing is as primitive as your sense of humor.  Let her in.”

When I took her black merino coat, the Principessa wore blue satin with cut-crystal beads.  Even knowing what I did now, even though she didn’t seem to have aged a day, I still caught myself pulling in a little extra air.  It should have made me mad but it didn’t.  Her smile at me was friendly, and her eyes were interested.  “Mr. Goodwin.  It is pleasant to see you doing so well.”

“Thank you, Princess.”  I gestured towards the office.  “Would you come this way? Mr. Wolfe is waiting.”

Wolfe, standing, held out his hand.  She took it and once again kissed his knuckles.  To my astonishment, he kept her hand and said, “I am sorry.”

“Evil days come quickly now.”  For a moment she looked as fierce as a mother cougar.  “We knew there would be a price to be paid, and that we would not always be the ones to pay it.”

“Yes.”  Wolfe let go of her hand, and looked over to where I stood.  He said, his voice dry, “Mr. Goodwin will be joining the military soon.”

I was surprised but didn’t bother to waste time showing it.  “That’s right.  I want to catch a Nazi, poke him in the chest with a forefinger, and ask him where he got the silly name.”

She nodded thoughtfully as if I had just come up with the inarguable reason for America to enter the war.  “It is a rather silly name, when you think about it.”  She sat down and Wolfe did, too.  For some reason, I didn’t.  I leaned against the corner of Wolfe’s desk.  He glanced at me and his lips quirked, but he kept his peace.

The ball was in the Princess’s court, and she took a good swing at it.  She said to Wolfe, “I read in the papers of Miss Tremayne’s death.”

“It was a hunter, but of no type with which I am familiar.  Someone has turned pact-breaker.”

She went very still.  “Are you sure?”

Wolfe said, “Archie, describe what you saw in my room when I was attacked and what you heard and saw in Miss Tremayne’s office.”

I gave her what I would have given Wolfe when it really mattered:  every detail, every sound, every expression, just as it had happened.  Her grave, gray eyes were fixed on me through the entire recital.  When I was done, I raised an inquiring eyebrow at Wolfe.  Once again, his lips quirked slightly.  “Satisfactory, Archie.” He inclined his head about a sixteenth of an inch to the Princess.  “Do you have any questions?”

The Princess laughed.  “You claimed there would be no more bound men, Cousin.  I see you lied.  Your doom has come upon you.”

I grinned incredulously and pivoted my head to see how Wolfe would return that particular serve.

“Pah.”  He leaned back and laced his hands across his stomach.  “You are no kin of this body.  I assure you, it is all together enough to have a daughter.” He freed one hand to waggle a finger at her.  “You drift from the problem, which is not like you.”

“No, I do not.  Perhaps I approach it from an angle, but I still speak to the point.  What reason would one of us have to turn coat now? We have given up so much, come so far, gambled everything for the sake of our charges.”

“Ah.  You believe that someone can no longer bear the risk of losing everything if they fail.”

“You yourself were the one to point out the dangers of forsaking perspective for leverage, when I made my own choice to become intimately entangled with my work.”

“I was right.  Filling a barrel with beer does not seal the bunghole.  If I could have thought of any other way, I would not have resorted to your method for completing my own task.  I find I have merely exchanged one set of chains for another, but, in my own defense, I needed the additional length.”

“All of this,” she made a gesture that encompassed the office, “has not changed your mind?”

“I am stubborn.” His gaze darted to me, but I had kept a straight face.  “Mr. Goodwin would be willing to attest to that.”

I nodded brightly.

“He knows more than he should about risking everything himself.  He once informed me, during a discussion over dinner, that undying fame does not substitute for a decent paycheck.  Mr.Goodwin has never seen any reason that his labors should go unremunerated and neither have I.”  Wolfe’s eyes almost closed.  “I shall have a large bill to present at the end of all this farrago of nonsense.  A very large bill, indeed.”

“Not large enough.”

“Of course not,” Wolfe snapped.  His voice was cold.  “Nothing I could ask for is enough.  It will not even be enough to compensate me for my own time and trouble.  Do you take me for a witling? I know you suspect that I, myself, am the pact-breaker, driven to it by the burden I now carry.  I am not.  I may be sorely tried, exasperated to the point of madness, entangled near to strangulation, watching all that I have come to care for put into even more danger than this foolish world can normally provide, but I will not yield.”  He slapped one hand down flat on his desk, his equivalent to throwing something and breaking it.

The Princess stirred, and I stood up.  She tilted her head up to consider me.  When she spoke, for the first time she had a trace of an accent in her voice.  “Be calm, young man.  I understand who signs that paycheck you so value, and I am no threat to your employer.”

“Sorry if I seemed a little jumpy, but it’s almost time for dinner.  If Mr. Wolfe busts a vein because he’s upset, he’ll miss his braised wild turkey.”

She asked thoughtfully, “Would this be such a tragedy?”

Wolfe snorted.  “You have not sampled Mr. Brenner’s cooking, so I can only assume your usual perspicuity is not sufficiently fueled to be functioning at its peak.  You will join us at table?”

“Oh, yes.”

Wolfe dipped his chin.  “Good.  Archie, I will ask Fritz if he can put himself out enough to provide for two additional diners.  Will you speak with M. De Blieu?  There is no need to inform him we have another guest.”

When I took De Blieu into the dining room and he saw the Princess, he fainted again. 

After I’d splashed some water onto his face, he came to and took his place at the table, acting subdued but otherwise pretty much the same as before.  Wolfe and the Princess ignored him in favor of discussing Schliemann’s expedition to Troy.  Even in this situation, Wolfe was holding tight to his rule of no business at the dinner table.

I ignored the conversation in favor of keeping an eye on De Blieu and on watching the Princess as she talked.  There was a fascination to her that went way past her looks, which, like I’ve written, were top drawer.  It somehow seemed as if nothing else could be quite as important as watching her, listening for her next words, doing whatever would please her.  I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that made me respond to her the way I did.  Wolfe waggled a fat finger at her, making a point, and she laughed.  Whatever it was, though---I forced myself to finish the thought---whatever it was, Wolfe had it, too.  He kept it turned down, most of the time, but…  All of the sudden, the pumpkin soup, Fritz’s latest masterpiece, sat in my stomach like so much mud.

He must have noticed something, because he changed the topic of the conversation and scooped me up into it.  “As an interesting example of the persistence of the mythology of treasure, I am particularly taken with the Cargo Cults of New Guinea.  Do you remember Professor Andersen’s discourse on the subject, Archie?”

“Yes, sir.” Fritz took my bowl and gave me a concerned glance.  I shivered an eyelid at him to let him know I was okay.  “The locals thought they’d short-cut their way to the goodies of the gods by building their own ships to transport the sacred cargo that they believed the Europeans were pirating away from them.  They built them out of logs, vines, and whatever they could find in their own villages, didn’t they?  It was supposed to be handier for unloading the cargo.”

“A fair précis.  Now, imagine I was a foreign resident and you were a native.  You begin to suspect that some element is missing from your plan to obtain cargo.” Fritz brought in the turkey, and there was a pause for dissection before Wolfe resumed his little parable.  “You approach me and enquire if I can help.  I, perhaps educated as a missionary by a denomination rich in theology but impoverished in practicalities, try to explain the true situation to you.  What is your reaction to my explanation?”

I had a suspicion I knew where he was going, so I played the straight man.  “You’re lying to me.  You want to keep all the cargo for you and your white buddies.”

“Could you ever understand my explanations?”

“Sure.  If I’m smart enough, ship me off to mission school in Ohio for a few years, then on to University.  After that, I can build my own tramp steamer if someone will back me with the money and goods.”

The Princess smiled.  “But, would your knowledge do your fellows of the cult any good?”

“Maybe not.  They still think all they need is another coat of paint over the palm wood.  Besides, by then I’m probably more interested in the benefits of civilization, like having to sit in the restricted balcony of the local movie palace in order to watch Hedy Lamarr be menaced by what are supposed to be the residents of my old home town, than I am in cargo.”

Suddenly, De Blieu spoke up.  “Why bother to explain? The natives will all die anyhow, of parasites, starvation, and warfare, and of the syphilis the merchant marines gave to them.  If you aren’t going to help them, why not allow them to be happy with their wooden ships and their plywood automobiles?”

It didn’t mean much to me, but both Wolfe and the Princess examined him.  De Blieu set his jaw firmly and glared back at them.  So, the little story wasn’t meant for me.

“Do you wish to accompany me when I leave this evening?” the Princess asked him.  It wasn’t really a question.

He deflated and nodded, mutely.  Wolfe changed the subject, again.  We had baked pears for dessert.

Before De Blieu left the dining room, he took off the ring and gave it back to Wolfe.  “Thank you.  I will not need this any more, but I am very grateful.”

Wolfe snorted.  “It was, as I informed you at the time, a necessary action.”  The Princess put one hand on De Blieu’s shoulder and smiled.  Wolfe raised his eyebrows at her.  “We are not done, Madam.  I still have questions as to exactly why you blackmailed Miss Tremayne into setting up that first appointment.  I will also wish to speak again with Mr. De Blieu.”

She nodded, graciously.  “I will call Mr. Goodwin for another appointment.”

“Make it soon.” Abruptly, Wolfe pushed himself up onto his feet, and stalked out of the room, heading for the office and coffee.

As I helped her on with her coat, I said, “It was messy, what happened to Fay.”  She looked up at me and her grey eyes were shuttered.  I added, “I told Fay I would take care of it, no matter what the police intended to do.  There weren’t any specifics about what kind of cops I was referring to.”  She smiled politely, but De Blieu started, then stilled when I glanced at him.  Neither one of them said good night, and I locked and bolted the front door behind them.

When I went back into the office, Wolfe was holding the ring in his fingers, twisting it around and around, glaring at it.  I marched up to him and held out a hand.  His chin came up and he shifted the glare to me, but he dropped it onto my palm.  Before he could say anything, I put it on.

I had been half-expecting it, but when the memory came, it still drove me to my knees. 

Wolfe’s warmth, his scent, his hand on my face, bracing me against the jostling of the taxicab.  Wolfe’s voice, complaining bitterly about the road, the driving, the other drivers.  Sprawled out on the rear seat of the taxi with my head in his lap, only skimming the borders of consciousness, still fogged with the drugs and the crack to my forehead I’d taken when I’d finally passed out.  The gentle touch of his thumb against my lips, just barely stroking, as if it and my lips led a life together of their own, entirely apart from anything else the two of us knew.

His strong hands were on me, hauling me back up onto my feet.  “Archie, even for you that was grossly impulsive.”

“Maybe.”  I wanted to knock his hands off of me, but that would mean admitting, yet again, what his touch was doing to me.  It was worse this time, too, probably because of the ring.  “You’re the one who wants my intuition in the driver’s seat, sir.  It’s a little late to complain about that now.”

“I accept your argument, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it.”  He let go and backed slowly away and then retreated around his desk.  I don’t think retreat is too strong a word to use, either.

“Do you want it back?”  I waggled my finger at him.  It was on the middle finger of my left hand, so there was a satisfying bonus included in the gesture.

“Are you aware that the middle digit was identified, in certain European traditions, as the finger of the Fool?”  I screwed off the ring and offered it to him.  He waved it away with one flipper.  “No, that would be pointless.  This is all too complicated for the mere removal of a token to mitigate any of the effects.  You may also find it useful in your new avocation.”  I put it back, on the fourth finger this time, where it would fit better.  He grimaced. 

“Okay, I have a souvenir.  Are you aware that the Princess is hiding something? She didn’t scoop up De Blieu just because she’s the local cop on the beat, you know.”

He frowned.  “Are you sure?” So, even when dealing with his own kind, I was still the acknowledged expert on women.

“Four to one.  It took me a while to work past that certain special something, but she’s definitely stonewalling.”

The phone rang.  I stepped over to my desk and picked it up.  “Nero Wolfe’s residence, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“It’s Saul.  I got Hewitt’s tooth back.  Put on Mr. Wolfe, would you?” I nodded at Wolfe and he picked up the receiver, and then gestured for me to hang up.  I didn’t bother with being upset.  They were probably going to discuss post-mortem skull reconstruction, and I wasn’t ready to learn about that branch of forensics yet.  I was more interested in the chance to drink my coffee and work on my composure.

Wolfe seemed to be driven by the same urge.  He and I spent the rest of that evening, when we might have discussing the case or he could have been tutoring me, chatting about Greek mythology and Frazier’s Golden Bough.  I was tired when I went up to my bedroom after doing the office chores, and it didn’t take me long to put it all aside and sleep.

Two hours later, I woke up and stayed up.  I tried putting what was bothering me out of my mind, and that didn’t work.  I tried reading a magazine, I tried hot milk.  Finally, I tried the direct method of coping with my problem.  When that didn’t work, I showered and got dressed.  It was stupid, I knew.  I don’t usually suffer from insomnia because, if I can’t sleep, I get up and deal with my difficulties.  On that night, though, my feet refused to go to where I knew the real solution to my problem lay.  Instead, I let myself out by the kitchen door and went through the garden and the passage to Thirty-Sixth Street.  What I probably meant to do was catch a taxi and join a female friend, one who might still be up at such a late hour on a weeknight.  What I actually did was walk.

Once again, I pulled my hat down low and shoved my hands deep into my overcoat pockets against the late autumn chill.  Once again, I was almost alone as I walked through the pools of streetlight and the darkness between them.  I kept my distance from the other pedestrians.  But, although I held my pace to this side of brisk, I knew I was running away. 

I was avoiding the raucous crowd spilling out of a bar by cutting through an alley when he called my name.  “Archie.”

I turned.  He had on the Homburg, the gray overcoat with the fur collar, and was carrying his heavy applewood, probably to repel boarders.  I couldn’t see any glow.  I could see the breath puff out from his lips when he said my name the second time.  “Archie.”

Suddenly, I was furious.  “What the hell are you doing?  He’s probably after you already, with you outside and wide open!”  It was maddening.  I knew what his presence meant, and it rasped my temper. 

“I might say the same to you.  Have you lost such wits as you have?  If you must pursue distraction on a night such as this, can you not do it in the company of one of your usual companions?”

“My ‘usual companions’ wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good tonight, and you know it.  None of them is my difficulty.  You are.”  I paced towards him.  “I’m your difficulty, too, which is why your brains are so gummed up on this case.  It’s not the cast of characters or the attacks distracting you, it’s me.  Too bad I’m your equivalent of the faithful cowpony.”

His head went back and he snarled, “I am a man:  mortal, as you are!”

“Really?  So, what exactly does a man do when the difficulty’s another man, Mr. Merely-a-Genius-and-Magician, sir?”

Yeah, I was begging for it, and I got just what I was begging for.  I heard the clatter of his stick on the pavement as he grabbed me and pushed me back against that alley wall.  His bulk jammed me hard into the rough bricks and his hands seized my own and held them up above my head.  And there he stopped, his body pressed against me, his leg between my legs, his face buried in the nape of my neck.

“Flummery.”  His voice was a deep, ragged rumble in the dark.

“I damn well wish it was.”  I twisted my hands around to grip his hands, hard.  It was strange, dealing with someone as strong as I was under those circumstances.  If you had asked me, I would have said it would be like having a bucket of ice water tossed on me.  It wasn’t.  His lips found flesh between my jaw and my ear.  Even through two suits and two overcoats, I could tell he shared my problem. 

I hadn't ever felt so out of control in this kind of situation, not even that first time in the barn at her parent’s farm, back in Chillicothe.  The lips moved, very slightly, on my skin.  His hands flexed against my own.  I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth.  We weren’t even doing anything.  We weren’t even---his hips worked against mine.

“If you do that again, we are in real trouble,” I said, hoarsely, trying to keep the volume down.

“It is not an entirely voluntary action.”

“Okay.  Let go of my hands, then.”

“Will you touch me?  I will not be able to endure it if you touch me.”

He had me there.  “How about you?  You’re the one with the busy lips, in case you hadn't noticed.”  I felt a point of heat against the cord of my neck:  the tip of his tongue.  “Damn it!  Don’t!”

He nipped me, lightly.  He said my name, for the third time.  I growled and turned my head.

There are long-odds-against possibilities you still fear, and this was one of them.  When our lips finally parted and stayed apart, I had a new answer to a question I’d thought was settled long ago, even if I had still worried it over, every now and then.  To be fair, Wolfe was probably as upset as I was, given how much he disdained such matters.  He wasn’t disdaining that night, though.  Our bodies were moving together in a dance as frustrating as it was pleasurable, right there in that alley, where any beat cop could stroll by and ruin both our lives.

“Not smart.”  I worked my hands free and dropped them to his hips, to try and hold him still.  It should not have been at all inspiring, but it was.  “Come on, stop, would you?  If you ever had anyone to thank besides your own palm, you’d know this won’t help.  When the thirst is this strong, it doesn’t even blow the foam off the brew.”

Wolfe went quiet against me, his breath still warming my ear.  I made myself stop moving, too, since it had been my suggestion.  “Of course,” he said, pitching it low.  “This is a form of sexual infatuation, generated by the sensitivity imposed by our new bond.  Archie, you have direct experience in such matters.  What is the best way to resolve this kind of obsession?”

I would twist away very soon now, I told myself.  “The two best solutions are one of us leaving or both of us locking ourselves into a beach house somewhere and working on it until we’re ready to die of exhaustion and reality seeps back in.  I don’t think I can last until I ship out, and you hate sand fleas, so the next best solution is to go home, where at least we won’t get interrupted by spectators.”

Although I couldn’t see his face, Wolfe sounded disgruntled.  “There are no better antidotes than those?”

“Look, do you want the expert opinion or not?  All I know is that we thought we could manage but we can’t, and the result is that we’re fitter for the bughouse than for detection.  To put it mildly, I’m not looking forward to breaking the criminal code of New York State with you, but I am fond of living.  If we don’t pull ourselves together, we’ll have to give up on that.”

He grumbled, but he backed away.  Then we had the joy of finding his applewood walking stick in a cold, dirty alley in the dark.  Then, on the street, I got to persuade a loitering drunk that we weren’t his taxi drivers.

When we got back to the brownstone, all the lights were on.