Free Death Of A Dude by Rex Stout Page B

work.
    When everything was unpacked and in place in drawers and the closet, I had made a suggestion. “If it’s to be a full report, it will take hours, and you’re used to a larger room. Mine is twice the size of this, or there’s the big room, or the terrace. You would probably-“
    “No,” he said.
    “No'No report?”
    “Not here. Last evening I was constantly aware that we might be overheard, outside through the window or inside through the door or wall. Our discussions of problems have always been in a soundproofed room, secure, no unwanted interruptions. Whereas here-there are three women on the premises, and one of them is a congenital pest. Confound it, can’t we go somewhere?”
    “If you mean somewhere under a roof, no. Outdoors, almost anywhere. I know dozens of nice spots for a picnic. The storeroom shelves aren’t as full as they were a month ago, but there’s sturgeon, ham, dried beef, four kinds of cheese-we can take our pick. There’s half a roast turkey in the kitchen refrigerator. The temperature of the creek is perfect for beer.”
    “How far?”
    “Anywhere from a hundred yards to a hundred miles. If we take horses& “
    He glared at me and asked where the storeroom was.
    It was nearly eleven o’clock when we hit the trail because he spent a good twenty minutes looking over the storeroom shelves and cupboards, and anyway I had to go and tell Lily and change my shoes and pack the knapsack with the grub. When we left, by the morning terrace, Diana, there in a chair, looked up at Wolfe and put on a pout and said she would have loved to come along, and he didn’t actually growl at her.
    So at a quarter past three there we were, on the rocks, with the lunch remains, including three empty beer cans, back in the knapsack, and the report delivered and questions answered. Of course the report had not been full, if “full” means nothing left out, but he had the picture, including names and connections and guesses that had fizzled-a thousand details that I haven’t put in this report. The trunks of three saplings were rubbing against the edge of his rock, and he had tried twenty times to use them for a back rest, but it made his feet leave the ground and dangle, so it was no go. Now he tried it again, said, “Grrrrh,” gave up, slid forward on the rock, stood up, and started to speak but didn’t because something behind me caught his eye. He raised an arm to aim a finger and asked, “What’s that?”
    I twisted around. A big gray bird had landed on a branch only twenty feet away and only six feet up. “Fool hen,” I said. “A kind of grouse that thinks everybody goes by its favourite saying, Peace on earth, good will to grouse. If I went slow and smooth, peaceful, I could walk over and pick it off.”
    “Are they palatable?”
    “Sure. Very tasty.”
    “Then why are there any left?”
    “I’ve asked about that, and apparently the feeling is that if a wild critter hasn’t got sense enough to act wild, to hell with it. So they call it fool hen. But you don’t see many of them.”
    He moved, and with his hand on a tree for balance shook his right leg and then his left, to get his pants legs down. “I’m going to try something,” he said. “A telephone call. You wrote that Miss Rowan’s line might be tapped. If so, by whom'The sheriff, or the county attorney?”
    “The sheriff.”
    “Then I can’t use it for this call. Is there one I can use with assurance?”
    I nodded. “At Lame Horse. A New York call'Saul?”
    “No. Mr Veale.”
    “I haven’t mentioned anyone named Veale.”
    “I have-not by name, by title. The Attorney General in Helena. I have his number. He knows I’m here. Mr McFarland telephoned him again yesterday, at my request, to tell him I was coming, and I went to see him when I got to Helena. I need to ask him something.”
    I was up, getting the knapsack strapped on. I said the car would probably be available, but if not I could borrow one at the ranch, and