Fourth of July Picnic

Time has been set aside during the afternoon for a few speeches from prominent figures in the restaurant business, and also one from Nero Wolfe.

Wolfe and Archie arrive at the meadow and work their way through a tent to a raised platform from which the speakers will address the thousands of union members.

He is shivering and Wolfe tells Archie to tie the tent flap closed, to help stop the draft blowing through.

It is Wolfe's habit, when he is away from home and confronted by a murder, to tell Archie to take him back to the brownstone immediately, before the police arrive.

He knows of his wife's discussion with Archie on the prior afternoon, and cannot understand why the papers report that the police are proceeding on the assumption that the murderer entered the tent from the rear.

But when the principal suspects arrive at Saul's, Wolfe finds it important that he and Archie share autobiographical sketches with them.