“Nuts,” Cramer objected to the sarcasm. “He was shot in the back. There’s a narrow passage ten paces away where the guy could have hid. Or the shots could have come from a passing car, or from across the street-though that would have taken some shooting, two right in the pump. We haven’t found anybody who heard the shots. The doorman was in the basement stoking the water heater, the excuse for that being that they’re short of men like everybody else. The elevator man was on his way to the tenth floor with a passenger, a tenant. The bodies were discovered by two women on their way home from a movie. It must have happened not more than a minute before they came by, but they had just got off a Madison Avenue bus at the corner.”
Wolfe got out of bed, which was an operation deserving an audience. He glanced at the clock on the bed table. It was eight-thirty-five.
“I know, I know,” Cramer growled. “You’ve got to get dressed and get upstairs to your goddam horticulture. The tenant going up in the elevator was a prominent doctor who barely knew Jensen by sight. The two women who found the bodies are Seventh Avenue models who never heard of Jensen. The elevator man has worked there over twenty years without displaying a grudge, and Jensen was a generous tipper and popular with the bunch. The doorman is a fat nitwit who was hired two weeks ago only because of the manpower situation and doesn’t know the tenants by name. Beyond those, all we have is the population of New York City and the guests who arrive and depart daily and nightly. That’s why I came to you, and for God’s sake, give me what you’ve got. You can see I need it.”
“Mr. Cramer.”
The mountain of yellow pajamas moved. “I repeat. I am not interested, not involved, and not curious.” Wolfe headed for the bathroom.
Two minutes later, downstairs, as I opened the front door for Inspector Cramer’s exit, he turned to me with his cigar tilted up from the corner of his mouth to about a quarter to one and observed, “One thing about that black silk bed cover, it can be used for his shroud when the time comes. Let me know, and I’ll come and help sew on it.”
I eyed him coldly. “You scold us when we lie, and you scold us when we tell the truth. What does the city pay you for anyhow?”
Back in the office there was the morning mail, which had been ignored on account of the interruption of the early visitor. I got busy with the opener. There was the usual collection of circulars, catalogues, appeals, requests for advice without enclosed check, and other items, fully up to the pre-war standard, and I was getting toward the bottom of the stack without encountering anything startling or promising when I slit another envelope and there it was.
I stared at it. I picked up the envelope and stared at that. I don’t often talk to myself, but I said loud enough for me to hear, “My goodness.” Then I left the rest of the mail for later and went and mounted the three flights to the plant rooms on the roof. Proceeding through the first three departments, past everything from rows of generating flasks to Cattleya hybrids covered with blooms, I found Wolfe in the potting room, with Theodore Horstmann, the orchid nurse, examining a crate of sphagnum that had just arrived.
“Well?” he demanded with no sign of friendliness. The general idea was that when he was up there I interrupted him at my peril.
“I suppose,” I said carelessly, “that I shouldn’t have bothered you, but I ran across something in the mail that I thought you’d find amusing,” and I put them on the bench before him, side by side: the envelope with his name and address printed on it by hand, in ink, and the piece of paper that had been clipped from something with scissors or a sharp knife, reading in large black script, printed but not by hand:
YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE-
AND I WILL WATCH YOU DIE!
“It sure is a coincidence,” I remarked, grinning at him.
III
I thought he would at least mutter “Indeed,” but he didn’t. He looked at the exhibits for a moment without touching them, sent me a sharp glance indicating an instantaneous suspicion that I was implicated, and said without any perceptible quiver, “I’ll look over the mail at eleven o’clock as usual.”
It was the grand manner all right. Seeing he was impervious, I retrieved the exhibits without a word, returned to the office, and busied myself with the chores-letters to write, vital statistics of orchids to enter on cards, and similar manly tasks. Nor did he fudge on the time. It was eleven on the dot when he came down, got into his oversized chair behind his desk, and began the routine-going through the mail I had not discarded, signing checks, inspecting the bank balance, dictating letters and memos, glancing down at his calendar pad, and ringing for beer. Not until Fritz had brought the beer and he had irrigated his interior did he lean back in his chair, let his eyes go half shut, and observe:
“Archie, you could easily have clipped that thing from the magazine, bought an envelope and printed my name and address on it, stamped it and mailed it. Nothing would have been simpler.”
I grinned at him and shook my head. “Not my style. Besides, what for? I never exert myself without a purpose. Besides again, would I be apt to infuriate and embitter you at this moment, when I know General Carpenter will phone for your opinion?”
“You will, of course, postpone your trip to Washington.”
I let my frank, open countenance betray surprise. “I can’t. I have an appointment with a lieutenant general; Anyhow, why?” I indicated the envelope and clipping on his desk. “That tomfoolery? No panic is called for. I doubt the urgency of your peril. A man planning a murder doesn’t spend his energy clipping pieces out of adver-”
“You are going to Washington?”
“Yes, sir. I have a date. Of course I could phone Carpenter and tell him your nerves are a little shaky on account of an anony-”
“When do you leave?”
“I have a seat on the six o’clock train, but I could take a later-”
“Very well. Then we have the day. Your notebook.” Wolfe leaned forward to pour beer and drink,
