Wolfe skipped it and observed, “The deuce of it is that the probability that the police will catch the murderer seems somewhat thin. Not having studied the case thoroughly, I can’t qualify as an expert on it, but I must say it looks doubtful. Three days and nights have passed. That’s why I advise against your hiring me. I admit it would be worth almost any amount to your Association to have the murderer exposed, even if he proved to be one of you four gentlemen, but I would tackle the job, if at all, only with the greatest reluctance. I’m sorry you had your trip down here for nothing.-Archie?”
The implication being that I should show them what good manners we had by taking them to the front door, I stood up. They didn’t. Instead they exchanged glances.
Winterhoff said to Erskine, “I would go ahead, Frank.”
Breslow demanded, “What else can we do?”
Ed growled, “Oh, God, I wish he was alive again. That was better than this.”
I sat down.
Erskine said, “We are businessmen, Mr. Wolfe. We understand that you can’t guarantee anything. But if we persuade you to undertake this matter, exactly what would you engage to do?”
It took them nearly ten minutes to persuade him, and they all looked relieved, even Ed, when he finally gave in. It was more or less understood that the clinching argument was Breslow’s, that they must not let justice down. Unfortunately, since the NIA had a voucher system, the check-writing table did not get used. As a substitute I typed a letter, dictated by Wolfe, and Erskine signed it. The retainer was to be ten thousand dollars, and the ultimate charge, including expenses, was left open. They certainly were on the ropes.
“Now,” Erskine said, handing me back my fountain pen, “I suppose we had better tell you all we know about it.”
Wolfe shook his head. “Not right now. I have to get my mind adjusted to this confounded mess. It would be better for you to return this evening, say at nine o’clock.”
They all protested. Winterhoff said he had an appointment he couldn’t break.
“As you please, sir. If it is more important than this. We must get to work without delay.” Wolfe turned to me: “Archie, your notebook. A telegram. ‘You are invited to join in a discussion of the Boone murder at the office of Nero Wolfe at nine o’clock this evening Friday March twenty-ninth.’ Sign it with my name. Send it at once to Mr. Cramer, Mr. Spero, Mr. Kates, Miss Gunther, Mrs. Boone, Miss Nina Boone, Mr. Rohde, and perhaps to others, we’ll see later.– Will you gentlemen be here?”
“My God,” Ed grumbled, “with that mob, why don’t you hold it in the Grand Ballroom at the Waldorf?”
“It seems to me,” Erskine said in a grieved tone, “that this is a mistake. The first principle-”
“I,” Wolfe said, in a tone used by NIA men only to people whose names were never on the letterhead, “am handling the investigation.”
I started banging the typewriter, and since the telegrams were urgent, and since Wolfe took long walks only in emergencies, Fritz was sent for to escort them to the door. All I was typing was the text of the telegram and a list of the names and addresses, because the phone was the quickest way to send them. Some of the addresses were a problem. Wolfe was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, not to be bothered about trivialities, so I called Lon Cohen on the city desk at the
When I had that job done I asked Wolfe who else he wanted to invite. He said no one. I stood up and stretched, and looked at him.
“I presume,” I observed, “that the rest is merely routine collection of evidence. Ed Erskine has calluses on his hands. Will that help?”
“Confound it.” He sighed clear down. “I was going to finish that book this evening. Now this infernal mishmash.”
He heaved the bulk forward and rang for beer.
I, standing at the cabinet filing the germination records that Theodore had brought down from the plant rooms, was compelled to admit that he had earned my admiration. Not for his conception of the idea of digging up a paying customer; that was merely following precedent in times of drought. Not for the method he had adopted for the digging; I could have thought that up myself. Not for the execution, his handling of the NIA delegation; that was an obvious variation of the old hard-to-get finesse. Not for the gall of those telegrams; admiring Wolfe’s gall would be like admiring ice at the North Pole or green leaves in a tropical jungle. No. What I admired was his common sense. He wanted to get a look at those people. What do you do when you want to get a look at a man? You get your hat and go where he is. But what if the idea of getting your hat and going outdoors is abhorrent to you? You ask the man to come where you are. What makes you think he’ll come? That was where the common sense entered. Take Inspector Cramer. Why would he, the head of the Homicide Squad, come? Because he didn’t know how long Wolfe had been on the case or how deep he was in it, and therefore he couldn’t afford to stay away.
At four sharp Wolfe had downed the last of his beer and taken the elevator up to the plant rooms. I finished the filing and gathered up miscellaneous loose ends around the office, expecting to be otherwise engaged for at least a day or two, and then settled down at my desk with a stack of newspaper clippings to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important in my typed summary of the Boone situation. I was deep in that when the doorbell rang, and I went to the front and opened up, and found confronting me a vacuum cleaner salesman. Or anyhow he should have been. He had that bright, friendly, uninhibited look. But some of the details didn’t fit, as for example his clothes, which were the kind I would begin buying when my rich uncle died.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully. “I’ll bet you’re Archie Goodwin. You came to see Miss Harding yesterday. She told me about you. Aren’t you Archie Goodwin?”
“Yep,” I said. It was the easiest way out. If I had said no or tried to evade he would have cornered me sooner or later.
“I thought so,” he was gratified. “May I come in? I’d like to see Mr. Wolfe. I’m Don O’Neill, but of
