Wolfe was over at the side bench peering at a pseudo- bulb through a magnifying glass. Theodore Horstmann, the fourth member of the household, who was exactly half Wolfe's weight, 137 to 270, was opening a bag of osmundine. I crossed over and told Wolfe's back, 'Ex- cuse me for interrupting, but I have a problem.'
He took ten seconds to decide he had heard me, then
removed the glass from his eye and demanded, 'What time is it?'
'Nineteen minutes to six.'
'It can wait nineteen minutes.'
'I know, but there's a snag. If you came down and found her there in the office with no warning it would be hopeless.'
'Find whom?'
'A woman named Bertha Aaron. She came unin- vited. She's in a hole, and it's a new kind of hole. I came up to describe it to you so you can decide whether I go down and shoo her out or you come down and give it a look.'
'You have interrupted me. You have violated our understanding.'
'I know it, but I said excuse me, and since you're already interrupted I might as well tell you. She is the private secretary of LamontOtis, senior partner…'
I told him, and at least he didn't go back to the pseudo-bulb with the glass. At one point there was even a gleam in his eye. He has made the claim, to me, that the one and only thing that impels him to work is his desire to live in what he calls acceptable circum- stances in the old brownstone on West 35th Street, Manhattan, which he owns, with Fritz as chef and Theodore as orchid tender and me as goat (not his word), but the gleam in his eye was not at the prospect of a big fee, because I hadn't yet mentioned the name Sorell. The gleam was when he saw that, as I had said, it was a new kind of hole. We had never looked into one just like it.
Then came the ticklish part. 'By the way,' I said, 'there's one little detail you may not like, but it's only a side issue. In the case in question her firm's client is Morton Sorell. You know.'
'Of course.'
'And the opposing client she saw a member of the firm with is Mrs. Morton Sorell. You may remember that you made a comment about her a few weeks ago after you had read the morning paper. What the paper said was that she was suing him for thirty thousand a month for a separation allowance, but the talk around town is that he wants a divorce and her asking price is a flat thirty million bucks, and that's probably what Miss Aaron calls the case. However, that's only a detail. What Miss Aaron wants is merely-'
'No.' He was scowling at me. 'So that's why you pranced in here.'
'I didn't prance. I walked.'
'You knew quite well I would have nothing to do with it.'
'I knew you wouldn't get divorce evidence, and nei- ther would I. I knew you wouldn't work for a wife against a husband or vice versa, but what has that got to do with this? You wouldn't have to touch-'
'No! I will not. That marital squabble might be the central point of the matter. I will not! Send her away.'
I had flubbed it. Or maybe I hadn't; maybe it had been hopeless no matter how I handled it; but then it had been a flub to try, so in any case I had flubbed it. I don't like to flub, and it wouldn't make it any worse to try to talk him out of it, or rather into it, so I did, for a good ten minutes, but it neither changed the situation nor improved the atmosphere. He ended it by saying that he would go to his room to put on a necktie, and I would please ring him there on the house phone to tell him that she had gone.
Going down the three flights I was tempted. I could ring him not to say that she was gone but that we were going; that I was taking a leave of absence to haul her out of the hole. It wasn't a new temptation; I had had it before; and I had to admit that on other occasions it had been more attractive. To begin with, if I made the offer she might decline it, and I had done enough flubbing for one day. So as I crossed the hall to the office I was arranging my face so she would know the answer as soon as she looked at me. Then as I entered I rear- ranged it, or it rearranged itself, and I stopped and stood. Two objects were there on the rug which had been elsewhere when I left: a big hunk of jade which
Wolfe used for a paperweight, which had been on his desk, and Bertha Aaron, who had been in a chair.
She was on her side, with one leg straight and one bent at the knee. I went to her and squatted. Her lips were blue, her tongue was showing, and her eyes were open and popping; and around her neck, knotted at the side, was Wolfe's necktie. She was gone. But if you get a case of strangulation soon enough there may be a chance, and I got the scissors from my desk drawer. The tie was so tight that I had to poke hard to get my finger under. When I had the tie off I rolled her over on her back. Nuts, I thought, she's gone, but I picked pieces of fluff from the rug, put one across her nose and one on her mouth, and held my breath for twenty sec- onds. She wasn't breathing. I took her hand and pressed on a fingernail, and it stayed white when I removed the pressure. Her blood wasn't moving. Still there might be a chance if I got an expert quick enough, say in two minutes, and I went to my desk and dialed the number of Doc Vollmer, who lived down the street only a minute away. He was out. 'To hell with it,' I said, louder than necessary since there was no one but me to hear, and sat to take a breath.
I sat and stared at her a while, maybe a minute, just feeling, not thinking. I was too damn sore to think. I was sore at Wolfe, not at me, the idea being that it had been ten minutes past six when I found her, and if he had come down with me at six o'clock we might have been in time. I swiveled to the house phone and buzzed his room, and when he answered I said, 'Okay, come on down. She's gone,' and hung up.
He always uses the elevator to and from the plant rooms, but his room is only one flight up. When I heard his door open and close I got up and stood six inches from her head and folded my arms, facing the door to the hall. There was the sound of his steps, and then him. He crossed the threshold, stopped, glared at Bertha Aaron, shifted it to me, and bellowed, 'You said she was gone!'
'Yes, sir. She is. She's dead.'
