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three minutes. If you don’t - Oh. You’re trying to -
    I see. I know what I said in my statement.”
    “Good. So do I.” I went to the door to the big room, on through, and to the table where the game had a couple of kibitzers. Neither they nor the players gave me a glance as I arrived. More than half of the men were still on the board. One of Black’s knights was attacked by a pawn, and I raised a brow when he picked up a rook to move it, but then I saw that the white pawn was pinned.
    Nash’s voice came from behind my shoulder. “This man is a police officer, Mr.
    Carruthers.” No eyes came to me, not an eye. White, evidently Mr. Carruthers,
    said without moving his head, “Don’t interrupt, Nash. You know better.”
    A fascinating game if it fascinates you. With nothing better to do, I stuck with it for half an hour, deciding for both White and Black what the next move should be, and made a perfect record. Wrong every time. When Black moved a rook to where a knight could take it, but with a discovered check by a bishop which I hadn’t seen, I conceded I would never be a Botvinnik or even a Paul Jerin and went to the hall for my hat and coat. The only words that had passed had been when White had pushed a pawn and Black had murmured, “I thought you would,” and White had murmured, “Obvious.”
    It was snowing harder, but there were still twenty minutes before six o’clock,
    so I walked some more. As for my mind, I told it that it now had some new data to work on, since I had shown it the scene of the crime and had even established the vital fact that it took seventy-eight seconds to go down to the kitchen and back up, but it wasn’t interested. Around Eighteenth Street I gave up and began to look at people going by. Girls are better looking in snowstorms, especially at night.
    When I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone and used my key I found that the bolt wasn’t on, so I didn’t have to push the button for Fritz. Shaking the snow off my coat and hat before entering, putting them on the hall rack, and proceeding to the office, the only greeting I got was a sidewise glance. Wolfe was at his desk with his current book, African Genesis, by Robert Ardrey.
    Crossing to my desk, I sat and picked up the late edition of the Gazette. We have three copies delivered, one for Wolfe, one for Fritz, and one for me. It was on the front page, the first item under LATE BULLETINS.
    Wolfe must have been on a long paragraph, for a full minute passed before he looked up and spoke. “It’s snowing?”
    “Yes. And blowing some.” His eyes went back to the book. “I hate to interrupt,”
    I said, “but I might forget to mention it later. I saw Lon Cohen. He got it in today, as you may have noticed.”
    “I haven’t looked. Did you get anything useful?”
    “Not useful to me. Possibly to you.” I got my notebook from my pocket.
    “Doubtful. You have a nose.” He went back to his book.
    I gave him time for another paragraph. “Also I went and had a look at the Gambit Club.” No comment.
    “I know,” I said, “that that book is extremely interesting. As you told me at lunch, it tells what happened in Africa a hundred thousand years ago, and I realize that that is more important than what is happening here now. My talk with Lon can wait, and all I did at the Gambit Club, besides taking a look at the couch Jerin sat on, was watch a game of chess, but you told Miss Blount you would let her know who you want to see first. If you expect her to get someone here this evening I ought to phone her now.”
    He grunted. “It isn’t urgent. It’s snowing.”
    “Yeah. It may clear up by the time the trial starts. Don’t you think?”
    “Confound it, don’t badger me!”
    So he was phutzing. Since one of my most important functions is needling him when his aversion to work takes control, it was up to me, but the trouble was my mind. Showing it the scene of the crime had accomplished nothing. If I couldn’t sick it