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members had told a Gazette reporter that he had been surprised that Kalmus had been a messenger instead of playing, because he thought that Kalmus, the club’s best player, could have beaten Jerin.
    And so forth. While I was going through the files Lon made a couple of phone calls and received a couple, but he kept me in a corner of his eye. Presumably the idea was that if Wolfe was particularly interested in one of that quartet I might show it by a flicker of the eye or a twist of the lip. Not wanting to disappoint him, I eased a slip of paper out and slipped it up my cuff, and later, when I put the folders back on his desk, he asked, “Would you like a copy of the item in your sleeve?”
    “All right, I tried,” I said, and fingered it out and forked it over. All it had on it, scribbled in pencil, was 2/8 11:40 a.m. LC says MJN says too much chess A.R. I said, “If LC means Lon Cohen that may settle it.”
    “Go climb a tree.” He dropped it in the wastebasket. “Anything else?”
    “A few little details. What’s Sally Blount like?”
    “I thought Blount was out of it.”
    “He is, but she may have some facts we need, and it’ll help to know what to expect when I see her. Is she a man-eater?”
    “No. Of course she’s still an angle with us, and presumably with the cops. With most girls of her age and class you’ll find a little dirt, sometimes a lot, if you dig, but apparently not with her. She seems to be clean, which should be newsworthy but isn’t. We have nothing on her, even with Paul Jerin, and I doubt if the cops have.”
    “College?”
    “Bennington. Graduated last year.”
    “How about her mother'Of course she’s not an angle, but she may have some facts too. Know anything about her?”
    “I sure do. I’ve told my wife that she needn’t wonder what I’ll do if she dies.
    I’ll get Anna Blount. I don’t know how, but I’ll get her.”
    “So you know her?”
    “I’ve never met her, but I’ve seen her a few times, and once is enough. Don’t ask me why. It’s not just looks or the call of the glands. She’s probably a witch and doesn’t know it. If she knew it it would show, and that would spoil it. As you say, she’s not an angle, but, with her husband arrested for murder,
    she’s news, and it appears that I’m not the only one. She attracts. She pulls.”
    “And?”
    “Apparently there is no and. Apparently she’s clean too. It’s hard to believe,
    but I’d like to believe it. As you know, I’m happily married, and my wife is healthy, and I hope she lives forever, but it’s nice to know that such a one as Anna Blount is around just in case. I can’t understand why I don’t dream about her. What the hell, a man’s dreams are private. If you see her be sure to tell me how you take it.”
    “Glad to.” I rose. “I’m not thanking you this time because I gave more than I got.”
    “I want more. Damn it, Archie, just a little something for tomorrow?”
    I told him he would get more if and when there was more, got my coat and hat from the other chair, and went.
    I walked downtown. That would have been ideal for arranging my mind, my legs working, my lungs taking in plenty of good cold air, and a few snow-flakes coming at me and then away from me, if there had been anything in my mind to arrange. Even worse, my mind was refusing to cooperate on the main point. I had bought the assumption that Matthew Blount was innocent, but my mind hadn’t. It kept trying to call my attention to the known facts, which was subversive.
    Headed south on Sixth Avenue, my watch said 4:30 as I approached Thirty-fifth Street, and instead of turning I continued downtown. Wolfe wouldn’t come down from the plant rooms until six o’clock, and there was no point in going home just to sit at my desk and try to get my mind on something useful when there was nothing useful to get it on. So I kept going, clear to Twelfth Street, turned left, stopped halfway down the long block, and focused on a