affect his appetite. They cause him to accept a retainer of four dollars and thirty cents from-horrors!-a teary-eyed woman.
They do my heart good.
I have loved and read these books all my life, and yet I rub my hands in secret satisfaction.
Let the old misogynist suffer.
Linda Barnes
June 1994
Chapter 1
When the doorbell rings while Nero Wolfe and I are at dinner, in the old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street, ordinarily it is left to Fritz to answer it. But that evening I went myself, knowing that Fritz was in no mood to handle a caller, no matter who it was.
Fritz’s mood should be explained. Each year around the middle of May, by arrangement, a farmer who lives up near Brewster shoots eighteen or twenty starlings, puts them in a bag, and gets in his car and drives to New York. It is understood that they are to be delivered to our door within two hours after they were winged. Fritz dresses them and sprinkles them with salt, and, at the proper moment, brushes them with melted butter, wraps them in sage leaves, grills them, and arranges them on a platter of hot polenta, which is thick porridge of fine-ground yellow cornmeal with butter, grated cheese, and salt and pepper.
It is an expensive meal and a happy one, and Wolfe always looks forward to it, but that day he put on an exhibition. When the platter was brought in, steaming, and placed before him, he sniffed, ducked his head and sniffed again, and straightened to look up at Fritz.
“The sage?”
“No, sir.”
“What do you mean, no, sir?”
“I thought you might like it once in a style I have suggested, with saffron and tarragon. Much fresh tarragon, with just a touch of saffron, which is the way-”
“Remove it!”
Fritz went rigid and his lips tightened.
“You did not consult me,” Wolfe said coldly. “To find that without warning one of my favorite dishes has been radically altered is an unpleasant shock. It may possibly be edible, but I am in no humor to risk it. Please dispose of it and bring me four coddled eggs and a piece of toast.”
Fritz, knowing Wolfe as well as I did, aware that this was a stroke of discipline that hurt Wolfe more than it did him and that it would be useless to try to parley, reached for the platter, but I put in, “I’ll take some if you don’t mind. If the smell won’t keep you from enjoying your eggs?”
Wolfe glared at me.
That was how Fritz acquired the mood that made me think it advisable for me to answer the door. When the bell rang Wolfe had finished his eggs and was drinking coffee, really a pitiful sight, and I was toward the end of a second helping of the starlings and polenta, which was certainly edible. Going to the hall and the front, I didn’t bother to snap the light switch because there was still enough twilight for me to see, through the one-way glass panel, that the customer on the stoop was not our ship coming in.
I pulled the door open and told him politely, “Wrong number.”
I was polite by policy, my established policy of promoting the idea of peace on earth with the neighborhood kids. It made life smoother in that street, where there was a fair amount of ball throwing and other activities.
“Guess again,” he told me in a low nervous alto, not too rude. “You’re Archie Goodwin. I’ve gotta see Nero Wolfe.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pete.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“Drossos. Pete Drossos.”
“What do you want to see Mr. Wolfe about?”
“I gotta case. I’ll tell him.”
He was a wiry little specimen with black hair that needed a trim and sharp black eyes, the top of his head coming about level with the knot of my four-in-hand. I had seen him around the neighborhood but had nothing either for or against him. The thing was to ease him off without starting a feud, and ordinarily I would have gone at it, but after Wolfe’s childish performance with Fritz I thought it would do him good to have another child to play with. Naturally he would snarl and snap, but if Pete got scratched I could salve him afterward. So I invited him in and escorted him to the dining room.
Wolfe was refilling his coffee cup. He shot a glance at Pete, who I admit was not dressed up, put the pot down, looked straight at me, and spoke.
