mail could have been opened up at the NIA office. Hombert hadn’t arrived yet, nor had his secretary, but I described the situation to some gook and asked him to pass it on. An hour later Hombert himself called, and the conversation was almost verbatim what it would have been if I had written it down before it took place. He said he was sorry Wolfe had collapsed under the strain, and that the police official who would shortly be calling to see him would be instructed to conduct himself diplomatically and considerately. When I explained that it was doctor’s orders that no one at all should see him, not even an insurance salesman, Hombert got brusque and wanted Vollmer’s full name and address, which I obligingly furnished. He wanted to know if I had told the press that Wolfe was off the case, and I said no, and he said his office would attend to that to make sure they got it straight. Then he said that Wolfe’s action, dropping his client, put it beyond argument that he knew the identity of the murderer, and was probably in possession of evidence against him, and since I was Wolfe’s confidential assistant it was to be presumed that I shared the knowledge and the possession, and I was of course aware of the personal risk incurred by failing to communicate such information to the police immediately. I satisfied him on that point, I don’t think. Anyhow I was telling the truth, and since I’m not very good at telling the truth I couldn’t very well expect him to believe me.
In less than half an hour Lieutenant Rowcliffe and a detective sergeant showed up and I conducted them into the office. Rowcliffe read Doc Vollmer’s certificate thoroughly, three times, and I offered to type a copy for him to take along for further study. He was keeping himself under restraint, since it was obvious that thunder and lightning would be wasted. He tried to insist that it wouldn’t hurt a bit for him to tiptoe into Wolfe’s room just for a compassionate look at a prostrated fellow citizen, and indeed a professional colleague, but I explained that much as the idea appealed to me I didn’t dare because Doc Vollmer would never forgive me. He said he understood my position perfectly, and how about my getting wise to myself and spilling some beans? I was, I told him, fresh out of beans. He came about as close to believing me as Hombert had, but there was nothing he could do about it short of taking me downtown and using a piece of hose on me, and Rowcliffe knew me almost as well as he disliked me, so that didn’t strike him as feasible.
When they departed Rowcliffe climbed in the police car and rolled away, and the sergeant began strolling up and down the sidewalk in front of the house. That was sensible. There was no point in hiring a window across the street or some similar subtlety, since they knew that we knew there would be a constant eye on our door. From there on we had a sentry out front right up to the end.
I never did understand why they didn’t try quicker and harder to break it up, but I suspect it was on account of friction between Inspector Ash and the high command. Later, after it was all over, I tried to find out from Purley Stebbins what had gone on, but Purley never was willing to contribute more than a couple of grunts, probably because the Ash regime was something he wanted to erase from memory. Doc Vollmer got more of it than I did. He kept me informed when he came to pay visits to his patient. The first one, Thursday morning, I escorted him up to the bedroom, but when Wolfe started to enjoy himself by pointing a shaking finger at the wall and declaring that big black worms covered with dollar signs were crawling down from the ceiling, we both got out of there. Thereafter Vollmer never went near the patient, merely staying in the office chinning with me long enough to make it a call for the benefit of the sidewalk sentry. The police were pestering him, but he was getting a kick out of it. Thursday morning Rowcliffe had called on him right after leaving me, and that afternoon a police doctor had come to his office to get information about Wolfe on a professional level. Friday morning Ash himself had showed up, and twenty minutes with Ash had made Vollmer more enthusiastic than ever about the favor he was doing Wolfe. Later Friday afternoon another police doctor had come and had put Vollmer over some high hurdles. When Vollmer dropped in that evening he was, for the first time, not completely cocky about it.
Saturday noon the blow fell-the one I had been expecting ever since the charade started, and the one Vollmer was leery about. It landed via the telephone, a call from Rowcliffe at twenty past twelve. I was alone in the office when the bell rang, and I was even more alone when it was over and I hung up. I took the stairs two at a time, unlocked Wolfe’s door, entered and announced:
“Okay, Pagliaccio, luck is with us at last. You are booked for the big time. An eminent neurologist named Green, hired by the City of New York and equipped with a court order, will arrive to give you an audition at a quarter to six.” I glared down at him and demanded, “Now what? If you try to bull it through I resign as of sixteen minutes to six.”
“So.” Wolfe closed his book with a finger in it. “This is what we’ve been fearing.” He made the book do the split on the black coverlet. “Why must it be today? Why the devil did you agree on an hour?”
“Because I had to! Who do you think I am, Joshua? They wanted to make it right now, and I did the best I could. I told them your doctor had to be present and he couldn’t make it until after dinner this evening, nine o’clock. They said it had to be before six o’clock and they wouldn’t take no. Damn it, I got an extra five hours and I had to fight for it!”
“Quit yelling at me.” His head went back to the pillow. “Go back downstairs. I’m going to have to think.”
I stood my ground. “Do you actually mean you haven’t got it figured out what to do? When I’ve warned you it would come any minute ever since Thursday morning?”
“Archie. Get out of here. How can I put my mind on it with you standing there bellowing?”
“Very well. I’ll be in the office. Call me when you get around to it.”
I went out, shut the door and locked it, and descended. In the office the phone was ringing. It was only Winterhoff, inquiring after my employer’s health.
Chapter 33
I TRY, AS I go along, not to leave anything essential out of this record, and, since I’m telling it, I regard my own state of mind at various stages as one of the essentials. But for that two hours on Saturday, from twelve-thirty to two-thirty, my state of mind was really not fit to be recorded for family reading. I have a vague recollection that I ate lunch twice, though Fritz politely insists that he doesn’t remember it that way. He says that Wolfe’s lunch was completely normal as far as he knows-tray taken upstairs full at one o’clock and brought down empty an hour later-and that nothing struck him as abnormal except that Wolfe was too preoccupied to compliment him on the omelet. What made me use up a month’s supply of profanity in a measly two hours was not that all I could see ahead was ignominious surrender. That was a hard dose but by no means fatal. The hell of it was, as I saw it, that we were being bombed out of a position that no one but a maniac would ever have occupied in the first place. I had a right to assume, now that I was reading the reports from Bill Gore and Bascom’s men, that I knew exactly
