The Rubber Band/The Red Box 2-In-1 Read Online Free

escape for over half a century, and walking like a combination of a rodeo cowboy and a panther in the zoo.
    He announced in a smooth low voice, “My name’s Harlan Scovil.” He went up to Anthony D. Perry and stared at him with half-shut eyes. Perry moved in his chair and looked annoyed. The caller said, “Are you Mr. Nero Wolfe?”
    I butted in, suavely. “Mr. Wolfe is not here. I’m his assistant. I’m engaged with this gentleman. If you’ll excuse us …”
    The caller nodded, and turned to stare again at Perry. “Then who—you ain’t Mike Walsh? Hell no, Mike was a runt.” He gave Perry up, and glanced around the room, then looked at me. “What do I do now, sit down and hang my hat on my ear?”
    I grinned. “Yeah. Try that leather one over there.” Hepanthered for it, and I started for the door, throwing over my shoulder to Perry, “I won’t keep you waiting long.”
    Upstairs, in the plant-rooms on the roof, glazed-in, where Wolfe kept his ten thousand orchids, I found him in the middle room turning some off-season Oncidiums that were about to bud, while Horstmann fussed around with a pot of charcoal and osmundine. Wolfe, of course, didn’t look at me or halt operations; whenever I interrupted him in the plant-rooms he pretended he was Joe Louis in his training camp and I was a boy peeking through the fence.
    I said, loud so he couldn’t also pretend he didn’t hear me, “That millionaire downstairs says I’ve got to go to his office right now and begin looking under the rugs for his thirty grand, and there’s an appointment here for six o’clock. I expressed a preference to go tomorrow morning.”
    Wolfe said, “And if your pencil fell to the floor and you were presented with the alternative of either picking it up or leaving it there, would you also need to consult me about that?”
    “He’s exasperated.”
    “So am I.”
    “He says it’s urgent, I’m outrageous, and he’s an old client.”
    “He is probably correct all around. I like particularly the second of his conclusions. Leave me.”
    “Very well. Another caller just arrived. Name of Harlan Scovil. A weather-beaten plainsman who stared at Anthony D. Perry and said he wasn’t Mike Walsh.”
    Wolfe looked at me. “You expect, I presume, to draw your salary at the end of the month.”
    “Okay.” I wanted to reach out and tip over one of the Oncidiums, but decided it wouldn’t be diplomatic, so I faded.
    When I got back downstairs Perry was standing in the door of the office with his hat on and his stick in his hand. I told him, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
    “Well?”
    “It’ll have to be tomorrow, Mr. Perry. The appointment can’t be postponed. Anyhow, the day’s nearly gone, and I couldn’t do much. Mr. Wolfe sincerely regrets—”
    “All right,” Perry snapped. “At nine o’clock, you said?”
    “I’ll be there on the dot.”
    “Come to my office.”
    “Right.”
    I went and opened the front door for him.
    In the office Harlan Scovil sat in the leather chair over by the bookshelves. As, entering, I lamped him from the door,I saw that his head was drooping and he looked tired and old and all in; but at the sound of me he jerked up and I caught the bright points of his eyes. I went over and wheeled my chair around to face him.
    “You want to see Nero Wolfe?”
    He nodded. “That was my idea. Yes, sir.”
    “Mr. Wolfe will be engaged until six o’clock, and at that time he has another appointment. My name’s Archie Goodwin. I’m Mr. Wolfe’s confidential assistant. Maybe I could help you?”
    “The hell you are.” He certainly had a smooth soft voice for his age and bulk and his used-up face. He had his half-shut eyes on me. “Listen, sonny. What sort of a man is this Nero Wolfe?”
    I grinned. “A fat man.”
    He shook his head in slow impatience. “It ain’t to the point to tease a steer. You see the kind of man I am. I’m out of my country.” His eyes twinkled a little. “Hell, I’m