my room, whither I carried the glass of milk I had got in the kitchen, the pilot light was a red spot on the wall, showing that Wolfe had turned on his switch so that if anyone disturbed one of his windows or stepped in the hall within eight feet of his door, a gong under my bed would start a hullabaloo that would wake even me. I hit the hay at 2:19.
Chapter Fourteen
I swiveled my chair to face Wolfe. “Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. This may strike a chord. That lawyer Collinger said that they are proceeding with
McNair's remains as instructed in his wilt Services are being held at nine o'clock this evening at the Belford Memorial Chapel on 73rd Street, and tomorrow he'll be cremated and the ashes sent to his sister in Scotland. Collinger seems to think that naturally the executor of McNair's estate will attend the services. Will we go in the sedan?”
Wolfe murmured, “Puerile. You are no better than a gadfly. You may represent me at the Belford Memorial Chapel.” He shuddered. “Black and white. Dreary and hushed obeisance to the grisly terror. His murderer will be there. Confound it, don't badger me.” He resumed with the atlas, doing the double page spread of
Arabia.
It was noon Friday. I had had less than six hours' sleep, having held my levee at eight in order to be ready, without skimping breakfast, to report to Wolfe at nine o'clock in the plant rooms. He had asked me first off if I had got the red box, and beyond that had listened with his back as he examined a bench of cattleya seedlings. The news about Gebert appeared to bore him, and he could always carry that off without my being able to tell whether it was a pose or on the level. When I reminded him that Collinger was due at ten to discuss the will and the estate, and asked if there were any special instructions, he merely shook his head without bothering to turn around. I left him and went down to the kitchen and ate a couple more pancakes so as to keep from taking a nap. Fritz was friendly again, forgiving and forgetting that I had jerked Wolfe back from the brink of the Wednesday relapse. He never toted a grudge.
Around 9:30 Fred Durkin phoned from Brewster. After my departure from Glennanne the night before the invaders had soon left, and our trio had had a restful night, but they had barely finished their stag breakfast when dicks and troopers had appeared again, armed with papers. I told Fred to tell Saul to keep an eye on the furniture and other portable objects.
At ten o'clock Henry H. Barber, our lawyer, came, and a little later Collinger.
I sat and listened to a lot of guff about probate and surrogate and so forth, and went upstairs and got Wolfe's signature to some papers, and did some typing for them. They were gone before Wolfe came down at eleven. He had arranged the orchids in the vase, rung for beer, tried his pen, looked through the morning mail, made a telephone call to Raymond Plehn, dictated a letter, and then gone to the bookshelves and returned with the atlas; and settled down with it. I had never been able to think of more than one possible advantage to be expected from
Wolfe's atlas work: If we ever got an international case we would certainly be on familiar ground, no matter where it took us to.
I went ahead with a lot of entries from Theodore Horstmann's slips into the plant records.
Around a quarter to one Fritz knocked on the door and followed it in with a cablegram in his hand. I opened it and read it:
SCOTLAND NEGATIVE NUGANT
GAMUT CARTAGENA
NEGATIVE DESTRUCTION RIOTS
DANNUM GAMUT
HITCHCOCK
I got out the code book and did some looking, and scribbled in my book. Wolfe stayed in Arabia. I cleared my throat like a lion and his eyes flickered at me.
I told him, “If no news is good news, here's a treat from Hitchcock. He says that in Scotland there are no results yet because the subject refuses to furnish help or information but that efforts are being continued. In Cartagena likewise no results on account of destruction in riots two years ago, and likewise efforts are being continued. I might add on my own hook that Scotland and
Cartagena have got it all over 35th Street in one respect anyhow. Gamut. Efforts are being continued.”
Wolfe grunted.
