'Not orangutan. Chimpanzee. It might have done it, yes. That's why you should have investigated. If the animal did not do it, there's something fishy about it. Highly unnatural. If Dr. Brady arrives by eight fifty-nine, I'll see him before I go up to the plant rooms. Good night.'
Chapter 4
That was Tuesday night, August 19th. On Friday the 22nd Bess Huddleston got tetanus. On Monday the 25th she died. To show how everything from war to picnics depends on the weather, as Wolfe remarked when he was discussing the case with a friend the other day, if there had been a heavy rainfall in Riverdale between the 19th and 26th it would have been impossible to prove it was murder, let alone catch the murderer. Not that he showed any great-oh, well.
On Wednesday the 20th Dr. Brady came to the office for an interview with Wolfe, and the next day brother Daniel and nephew Larry came. About all we got out of that was that among the men nobody liked anybody. In the meantime, upon instructions from Wolfe, I was wrapping my tentacles about Janet, coaxing her into my deadly embrace. It really wasn't an unpleasant job, because Wednesday afternoon I took her to a ball game and was agreeably surprised to find that she knew a bunt from a base on balls, and Friday evening we went to the Flamingo Roof and I learned that she could dance nearly as well as Lily Rowan. She was no cuddler and a little stiff, but she went with the music and always knew what we were going to do. Saturday morning I reported to Wolfe regarding her as follows:
1. If she was toting a grievance against Bess
Huddleston, it would take a smarter man than me
to find out what it was.
2. There was nothing fundamentally wrong
with her except that she would rather live in the
country than the city.
3. She had no definite suspicion about who had
sent the anonymous letters or anyone's motive for
sending them.
Wolfe said, 'Try Miss Timms for a change.'
I didn't try to date Maryella for Saturday or Sunday, because Janet had told me they were all going to Saratoga for the weekend. Monday morning, I thought, was no time to start a romance, so I waited until afternoon to phone, got Maryella, and got the news. I went up to the plant rooms, where Wolfe was a sight to behold in his undershirt, cutting the tops from a row of vandas for propagation, and told him:
'Bess Huddleston is dead.'
'Let me alone,' he said peevishly. 'I'm doing all I can. Someone will probably get another letter before long, and when-'
'No, sir. No more letters. I am stating facts. Friday evening tetanus set in from that cut on her toe, and about an hour ago she died. Maryella's voice was choked with emotion as she told me.'
Wolfe scowled at me. 'Tetanus?'
'Yes, sir.'
'That would have been a five thousand dollar fee.'
'It would have been if you had seen fit to do a little work instead of-'
'It was no good and you know it. I was waiting for another letter. File it away, including the letter to Mrs. Horrocks, to be delivered to her on request. I'm glad to be rid of it.'
I wasn't. Down in the office, as I checked over the folder, consisting of the Horrocks letter, the snapshot of Janet, a couple of reports I had made and some memos Wolfe had dictated, I felt as if I was leaving a ball game in the fourth inning with the score a tie. But it looked as if nothing could be done about it, and certainly there was no use trying to badger Wolfe. I phoned Janet to ask if there was anything I could do, and she told me in a weak tired voice that as far as she knew there wasn't.
According to the obit in the Times the next morning, the funeral service was to be Wednesday afternoon, at the Belford Memorial Chapel on 73rd Street, and of course there would be a big crowd, even in August, for Bess Huddleston's last party. Cordially invited to meet death. I decided to go. Not merely, if I know myself, for curiosity or another look at Janet. It is not my custom to frequent memorial chapels to look at girls even if they're good dancers. Call it a hunch. Not that I saw anything criminal, only something incredible. I filed past the casket with the throng because from a distance I had seen it and couldn't believe it. But when I got close there it was. Eight black orchids that could have come from nowhere else in the world, and a card with his initials the way he scribbled them, 'N.W.'
When I got home, and Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at six o'clock, I didn't mention it. I decided it wasn't advisable. I needed to devote some thought to it.
It was that evening, Wednesday evening after the funeral, that I answered the doorbell, and who should I see on the stoop but my old colleague Inspector Cramer of the Homicide Squad. I hailed him with false enthusiasm and ushered him into the office, where Wolfe was making more marks on the map of Russia. They exchanged greetings, and Cramer sat in the red leather chair, took out a handkerchief and wiped perspiration from his exposed surfaces, put a cigar between his lips and sank his teeth in it.
'Your hair's turning gray,' I observed. 'You look as if you weren't getting enough exercise. A brain- worker like you-'
'God knows why you keep him,' he said to Wolfe.
Wolfe grunted. 'He saved my life once.'
'Once!' I exclaimed indignantly. 'Beginning-'
