“I’m telling you. Ash’s personal attitude toward Wolfe is such that he would rather slice his wrists than slash his throat because it would prolong the agony. Today he got a material witness warrant and Wolfe had to go to Centre Street, me taking him. Hombert had the warrant killed, for various reasons, but the main one was that Wolfe was working for the NIA, and if the NIA gets offended any worse than it is now it will probably fire the Mayor and everyone else and declare New York a monarchy. But. Wolfe no sooner gets home than he breaks off relations with the NIA. They’ll get his letter, with check enclosed, in the morning mail. Whereupon hell will pop wide open. What the NIA will do we don’t know and maybe we don’t care-I should say maybe Wolfe doesn’t care. But we know damn well what the cops will do. First, with Wolfe no longer sleeping with the NIA, that motive for tenderness will be gone. Second, they know that Wolfe has never yet had a murderer for a client, and they know what a job it is to pry him loose from money, especially thirty thousand bucks and up, and they will therefore deduce that one of the NIA boys is guilty, and that Wolfe knows it and knows who it is.”
“Who is it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, and since Wolfe’s a raving lunatic you can’t ask him. With that setup, it’s a cinch to read the future. The wagon will be at the door ready for him, with the papers all in order, any time after ten o’clock, possibly earlier. It’s a shame to disappoint them, but all I can do is meet them with another kind of paper, signed by a reputable physician, certifying that in Wolfe’s present condition it would be dangerous either to move him from his bed or to permit anyone to converse with him.”
I waved a hand. “That’s how it stands. Five years ago, the time Wolfe did you a little favor when that crook-what was his name? Griffin-tried to frame you on a malpractice suit, and you told Wolfe if he ever wanted anything all he had to do was ask for it, I warned you you might regret it some day. Brother, this is the day.”
Vollmer was rubbing his chin. He didn’t really look reluctant, merely thoughtful. He looked at Wolfe, saying nothing, and then returned to me and spoke:
“Naturally I have an uncontrollable itch to ask a lot of questions. This is absolutely fascinating. I suppose the questions wouldn’t be answered?”
“I’m afraid not. Not by me anyhow, because I don’t know the answers. You might try the patient.”
“How long will the certificate have to function?”
“I have no idea. Damn it, I tell you I’m ignorant.”
“If he’s bad enough to prohibit visitors I’ll have to insist on calling on him at least twice a day. And to make it good there ought to be nurses.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I grant there ought to be, but he would run a fever. Nurses are out. As for you, call as often as you want to. I may get lonely. And make that certificate as strong as they come. Say it would kill him if anybody whose name begins with A even looked at him.”
“It will be so worded as to serve its purpose. I’ll bring it over in ten minutes or so.” Vollmer stood up with his toolbox in his hand. “I did say that time, though, that Wolfe would get anything
Wolfe groaned. “They come in hordes,” he said distinctly, but in a phony voice. “In chariots with spiked wheels, waving the insolent banners of inflation! Five dollars for a pound of corned beef! Ten dollars for a squab! Sixty cents-”
“I’d better be going,” Vollmer said, and moved.
Chapter 32
I DIDN’T GET LONELY during the two and a half days- Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday-that the certificate worked. Newspapermen, cops, FBI’s, NIA’s-they all appreciated that I was holding the fort under trying circumstances and did their best to keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t fret. If ordinarily I earn twice as much as I get, which is a conservative estimate, during those sixty-some hours it was ten times as much at a minimum.
Throughout the siege Wolfe stayed put in his room, with the door locked and one of the keys in my pocket and one in Fritz’s. Keeping away from the office, dining room, and kitchen for that length of time was of course a hardship, but the real sacrifice, the one that hurt, was giving up his two-a-day trips to the plant rooms. I had to bully him into it, explaining that if a surprise detachment shoved a search warrant at me I might or might not be able to get him back into bed in time, and besides, Theodore slept out, and while he was no traitor he might inadvertently spill it that his afflicted employer did not seem to be goofy among the orchids. For the same reason I refused to let Theodore come down to the bedroom for consultations. I told Wolfe Thursday or Friday, I forget which:
“You’re putting on an act. Okay. Applause. Since it requires you to be out of circulation that leaves it strictly up to me and I make the rules. I am already handicapped enough by not knowing one single goddam thing about what you’re up to. We had a-”
“Nonsense,” he growled. “You know all about it. I have twenty men looking for that cylinder. Nothing can be done without that cylinder. It must be found and it will be. I simply prefer to wait here in my room instead of in jail.”
“Nuts.” I was upset because I had just spent a hot half hour with another NIA delegation down in the office. “Why did you have to break with the NIA before you went to bed to wait? Granting that one of them did it and you know all about it, which everybody is now sure of but you’ll have to show me, that was no reason to return their money in order to keep from having a murderer for a client, because you said yourself that no man was your client, the NIA was. Why in the name of God did you return their dough? And if this cylinder gag is not merely a stall, if it’s really it and all the it there is, as you say, what if it never is found? What are you going to do, stay in bed the rest of your life, with Doc Vollmer renewing the certificate on a monthly basis?”
“It will be found,” he said meekly. “It was not destroyed, it exists, and therefore it will be
