Triple Jeopardy by Rex Stout Page A

why didnt you stay put'You must have something in your heads or you wouldnt have stayed alive and got this far. Why didnt you use it'
    Carl smiled at me. He really did smile, but it didnt make me want to smile back. A policeman asking questions, he said in the level tone he had used before, has a different effect on different people. If you have a country like this one and you are innocent of crime, all the people of your country are saying it with you when you answer the questions. That is true even when you are away from home - especially when you are away from home. But Tina and I have no country at all. The country we had once, it is no longer a country, it is just a place to wait to die, only if we are sent back there we will not have to wait.
    Two people alone cannot answer a policemans questions anywhere in the world. It takes a whole country to speak to a policeman, and Tina and I - we do not have one.
    You see, Tina said. Here, take it. She got up and came to me, extending a hand with the money in it. Take it, Mr. Goodwin! Just tell us where to go, all the little facts that will help us -
    Or we thought, Carl suggested, not hopefully, that you might give us a letter to some friend, in this Ohio perhaps - not that we should expect too much for fifty dollars.
    I looked at them, with my lips pressed together. The morning was shot now anyway, with Wolfe sore and my chores not done. I swiveled to my desk and picked up the phone. Any one of three or four city employees would probably find out for me what kind of errand had taken a dick named Wallen to the Goldenrod Barber Shop, unless it was something very special. But with my finger in the dial hole I hesitated and then replaced the phone. If it was something hot I would be starting PD cars for our address, and Wolfe and I both have a prejudice against cops yanking people out of his office, no matter who they are, unless we ourselves have got them ready for delivery. So I swiveled again. Carl was frowning at me, his head moving from side to side. Tina was standing tense, the money clutched in her fist.
    This is silly, I said. If theyre really after you, youd be throwing your money away on carfare to Ohio or anywhere else. Save it for a lawyer. Ill have to go up there and see what its all about. I got up, crossed to the soundproof door to the front room, and opened it. You can wait here. In here, please.
    Well go, Tina said, back to her gasping whisper again. We wont bother you any more. Come, Carl -
    Skip it, I said curtly. If this amounts to anything more than petty larceny youd be nabbed sure as hell. This is my day for breaking a rule, and Ill be back soon. Come on, Ill put you in here, and I advise you to stay put.
    They looked at each other.
    I like him, Carl said.
    Tina moved. She came and passed through into the front room, and Carl was right behind her.
    I told them to sit down and relax and not get restless, shut the door, went to the kitchen, where Wolfe was seated at the far end of the long table, drinking beer, and told him, The check from Pendexter came and has been deposited. That pair of foreigners have got themselves in a mess. I put them in the front room and told them to stay there until I get back.
    Where are you going'he demanded.
    A little detective work, not in your class. I wont be gone long. You can dock me.
    I left.

Nero Wolfe 20 - Triple Jeopardy
    2
    The Goldenrod Barber Shop was in the basement of an office building on Lexington Avenue in the upper Thirties. I had been patronizing one of the staff, named Ed,
    for several years. Formerly, from away back, Wolfe had gone to an artist in a shop on Twenty-eighth Street, named Fletcher. When Fletcher had retired a couple of years ago Wolfe had switched to Goldenrod and tried my man, Ed, hadnt liked him, had experimented with the rest of the Goldenrod staff, and had settled on Jimmie. His position now, after two years, was that Jimmie was no Fletcher,
    especially with a shampoo, but that he was some