The Father Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

had gone for it at ten o’clock Friday evening where she had parked it on West Eleventh Street, and it wasn’t there. A cop had spotted it Saturday afternoon parked on East 123rd Street, and by Monday the scientists had cinched it that it was the one that had got Elinor Denovo.
    By the time the Gazette went to press on Thursday, June first, the date of the last clipping, the police had got nowhere. They didn’t even claim that anyone had been invited in for questioning, let alone name a suspect; they only said that the investigation was being vigorously pursued, which was probably true, since they hate a hit-and-run and don’t quit until it’s absolutely hopeless, and even then they don’t forget it.
    There was nothing about Elinor Denovo that I didn’t already know, except that she was vice-president of Raymond Thome Productions, Inc. Miss Amy Denovo had been interviewed but hadn’t said much. Raymond Thome had said that Mrs. Denovo had made valuable contributions to the art of television production and her death was a great loss not only for his company but for the whole television industry and therefore for the country. I thought he should make up his mind whether television was an art or an industry.
    I put the file on Lon’s desk, waited until he had finished at a phone, and said, “Many thanks. I was curious about a detail. The latest item is June first. Would you know if there has been any progress since?”
    He got at a phone, the green one this time, pressed a button, and in a moment talked, and then waited. While he waited another phone buzzed, and stopped when he pushed a button. In a couple of minutes he told the green phone, “Yeah, sure.” In another couple of minutes he cradled it, turned to me and said, “Apparently it’s dead. Our last word, more than a month ago, was that we might as well cross it off. They had only one man still on it. But now of course, with Nero Wolfe horning in, it’s far from dead. So it was murder. I don’t expect you to name
    him, even oS the record, but I want enough for a page one box.”
    I was on my feet. “Journalists,” I said, “are the salt and pepper of the earth. I would enjoy discussing that with you, but I’m on my way to a rustic swimming pool in the middle of a tailor-made glade in the Westchester woods, and I’m twenty hours late. I said it was something trivial, but have it your way. Yes, it was murder, and the driver of the car was the skunk who topped my three aces with four deuces Thursday night. I hope they get him.”
    I turned and went.
    But down in the lobby I went to a phone booth, dialed a number I didn’t have to look up, gave my name, asked if Sergeant Stebbins was around, and after a long wait got his voice:
    “Stebbins. Something up, Archie?”
    He must have just won a bet or got a raise. He called me Archie only about once in two years, and sometimes he wouldn’t even say Goodwin but made it just you. I returned the compliment. “Nothing with a bite, Purley, just a routine question, but to answer it you may have to look at a file. You may have forgotten it, it was nearly three months ago-a hit-and-run on East Eighty-third Street, a woman named Elinor Denovo-“
    “We haven’t forgotten it. We don’t forget a hit-and-run.”
    “I know you don’t, I was just being impolite for practice. Someone asked me if you’ve dug up a lead on it, and of course I didn’t know. Have you?”
    “Who asked you?”
    “Oh, Mr. Wolfe and I were discussing crime and whether cops are as good as they ought to be, and he mentioned this Elinor Denovo. As you know, he misses nothing in the papers. I said you would probably get that one, and I was curious. Of course I’m not asking for any inside dope& “
    “There isn’t any dope, inside or outside. It’s hanging. But we’re not forgetting it.”
    “Right. I hope you get him. Nobody likes a hit-and-run.”
    Walking to Forty-third Street for the car, I had to concede that I had got no relief at