before bedtime. It was finished when Fritz entered at eight o’clock to announce dinner, the main item of which was a dish called by Wolfe and Fritz “Cassoulettes Castelnaudary,” but by me boiled beans. I admit they were my favorite beans, which is saying something. The only thing that restrained me at all was my advance knowledge of the pumpkin pie to come. Back in the office, where the clock said nine-forty, I was just announcing my intention of catching a movie by the tail at the Rialto when the phone rang. It was Inspector Cramer, whose voice I hadn’t heard for weeks, asking for Wolfe. Wolfe picked up his receiver, and I stuck to mine so as to get it firsthand.
“Wolfe? Cramer. I’ve got a paper here, taken from the pocket of a dead man, a receipt for five thousand dollars, signed by you, dated today. It says you have information to give the police if he dies. All right, he’s dead. I don’t ask you to come up here, because I know you wouldn’t, and I’m too busy to go down there. What’s the information?”
Wolfe grunted. “What lolled him?”
“An explosion. Just give-”
“Did it kill his wife too?”
“Naw, she’s okay, only overcome, you know. Just give-”
“I haven’t got the information. Mr. Goodwin has it. Archie?”
I spoke up. “It would take quite a while, Inspector, and I’ve got it all typed. I can run up there-”
“All right, come ahead. The Poor apartment on Eighty-fourth Street. The number is-”
“I know the number. I know everything. Sit down and rest till I get there.”
II
In the living room of an apartment on the sixth floor, on Eighty-fourth near Amsterdam Avenue, I stood and looked down at what was left of Eugene Poor. All I really recognized was the gray herringbone suit and the shirt and tie, on account of what the explosion had done to his face, and also on that account I didn’t look much, for while I may not be a softy I see no point in prolonged staring at a face that has entirely stopped being a face.
I asked Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who was sticking close by me, apparently to see that I didn’t swipe Eugene’s shoes, “You say a cigar did that to him?”
Purley nodded. “Yeah, so the wife says. He lit a cigar and it blew up.”
“Huh. I don’t believe it. Yes, I guess I do too, if she says so. They make novelties. Now, that’s a novelty.” I looked around. The room was full of what you would expect, assorted snoops, all doing the chores, from print collectors up to inspectors, or at least one inspector, namely Cramer himself, who sat at a table near a wall reading the script I had brought him. Most of them I knew, at least by sight, but there was one complete stranger. She was in a chair in a far corner, being questioned by a homicide dick named Rowcliff. Being trained to observe details even when under a strain, I had caught at a glance some of her outstanding characteristics, such as youth, shapeliness, and shallow depressions at the temples, which happen to appeal to me.
I aimed a thumb in her direction and asked Purley, “Bystander, wife’s sister, or what?”
He shook his head. “God knows. She came to call just after we got here and we want to know what for.”
“I hope Rowcliff doesn’t abuse her. I would enjoy a murder where Rowcliff was the one that got it, and so would you.”
I strolled over to the corner and stopped against them, and the girl and the dick looked up. “Excuse me,” I told her, “when you get through here will you kindly call on Nero Wolfe at this address?” I handed her a card. The temples were even better close up. “Mr. Wolfe is going to solve this murder.”
Rowcliff snarled. He always snarled. “Get away from here and stay away.”
Actually he was helpless, because the inspector had sent for me and he knew it.
I ignored him and told the temples, “If this person takes that card away from you;, it’s in the phone book, Nero Wolfe,” I left them and crossed over to Cramer at the table, dodging photographers and other scientists on the way.
Cramer didn’t look up, so I asked the top of his head, “Where’s Mrs. Poor?”
He growled, “Bedroom.”
“I want to see her.”
“The hell you do.” He jiggled the sheets I had brought him to even the edges. “Sit down.”
I sat down and said, “I want to see our client.”
“So you’ve got a client?”
“Sure we have, didn’t you see that receipt?”
He grunted. “Give her a chance. I am. Let her get herself together. Don’t touch that!”
I was only moving a hand to point at a box of cigars there on the table, with the lid closed. I grinned at him. “The more the merrier. I mean fingerprints. But if that’s the box the loaded one came from, you ought to satisfy my curiosity. He smoked two cigars this afternoon at the office.”
He shot me a glance, then got out his penknife and opened the lid and lifted the paper flap. It was a box of twenty-five and twenty-four of them were still there. Only one gone. I inspected at close range, sat back, and nodded. “They’re the same. They not only look it, but the bands say Alta Vista. There would be two of those bands still in the ash tray down at the office if Fritz wasn’t so neat.” I squinted again at the array in the box. “They
