with Saul seemed to be comprehensive, since a full hour passed before the house phone in the potting room buzzed. Theodore answered it, and told me that I was wanted downstairs.
When I got there Saul was gone. I had a withering remark prepared, thinking to open up with it, but had to save it for some other time. Wolfe was seated behind his desk, leaning back with his eyes closed, and his lips were moving, pushing out and then in again, out and in…
So I sat down and kept my mouth shut. The brain had actually got on the job, and I knew better than make remarks, withering or not, during the performance of miracles. The first result, which came in ten or twelve minutes after I entered, did not however seem to be very miraculous. He opened his eyes halfway grunted, and muttered, “Archie. Yesterday you showed me an article in a paper about a man’s body found in an orchard near White Plains, but I didn’t look at it. Now I want it.”
“Yes, sir. There was more this morning-”
“Have they identified the body?”
“No, sir. The head was smashed-”
“Get it.”
I obeyed. Newspapers were kept in the office for three days. I opened it to the page and handed it to him. He would read a newspaper only one way, holding it out wide-open, no folding, with his arms stretched. I had never tried to get him to do it more intelligently because it was the only strenuous exercise he ever got and was therefore good for him. He finished the Thursday piece and asked for Friday’s, and finished that. Then he told me, “Get the district attorney of Westchester County. What’s his name? Fraser.”
“Right.” I got busy with the phone. I had no trouble getting the office, but then they gave me the usual line about Mr. Fraser being in conference and I had to put on pressure. Finally the elected person said hello.
Wolfe took it. “How do you do, Mr. Fraser. Nero Wolfe. I have something to give you. That body found in an orchard Wednesday evening with the head crushed-has it been identified?”
Fraser was brusque. “No. What-”
“Please. I’m giving you something. Put this down. Arthur Howell, nine one four West Seventy-eighth Street, New York. He worked for the Beck Products Corporation of Basston, New Jersey. They have an office at six two two East Forty-second Street, New York. His dentist was Lewis Marley, six nine nine Park Avenue, New York. That should help. Try that. In return for this, I would appreciate it very much if you will have me notified the moment the identification is made. Did you get it all down?”
“Yes. But what-”
“No, sir. That’s all. That’s all you’ll get from me until I get word of the identification.”
There was some sputtering protest from the White Plains end, but it accomplished nothing-Wolfe hung up with a self-satisfied smirk on his big face, cleared his throat importantly, and picked up a catalogue.
I growled at him, “So it’s in the bag. A complete stranger named Arthur Howell. After snitching the capsules from Beck Products and making the cigars and getting them into Poor’s home God knows how, he was overcome by remorse and went to an orchard and took his clothes off and lay down and ran a car over himself with radio control-”
“Archie. Shut up. We are ready to act in any case, but it will make things a little simpler if that corpse proves to be Mr. Howell, so it is worth waiting for a report on it.” He glanced at the clock, which said seven minutes to four, and put the catalogue down. “We might as well prepare it now. Get that capsule from the safe.” I thought to myself, this time it may not miss him, but as for me, I’m going outdoors. However, it appeared that he was going to try some new gag instead of repeating with the percolator. By the time I got the capsule from the safe and convoyed it to him, he had taken two articles from a drawer and put them on his desk. One was a roll of Scotch tape. The other was a medium-sized photograph of a man, mounted on gray cardboard. I gave it a glance, then picked it up and did a thorough job of looking. It was unquestionably Eugene R. Poor.
“Goody,” I said enthusiastically. “No wonder you’re pleased. Even if Saul had to pay two hundred bucks for it-”
“Archie. Let me have that. Here, hold this thing.” I helped. What I was to hold was the capsule, flat on the cardboard near a corner, while he tore off a piece of tape and fastened it there. When he lifted the photo and jiggled it to see if the fastening was firm, the thread dangled over Poor’s right eye.
“Put it in an envelope and in the safe,” he said, glanced at the clock, and made for the hall and the elevator.
That was all for the present. I sat at my desk and went over the case again, testing my logic point by point. The conclusion I reached an hour later was that there were two distinct kinds of logic, Wolfe’s and mine, and that they were destined to clash. I wasn’t dumb enough not to have a general idea of where his was headed for, but where he got the notion that we were ready to act was way beyond me. It looked to me as if we were barely ready to start wondering what to do. At six o’clock he returned to the office, rang for Fritz to bring beer, and took up where he had left off with the catalogues. At eight o’clock Fritz summoned us to dinner. At nine-thirty we returned to the office. At a quarter to ten a phone call came from District Attorney Fraser. The body had been identified. It was Arthur Howell. An assistant district attorney and a pair of detectives were on their way to Thirty- fifth Street to ask Wolfe, how come and would he please supply all necessary details, including the present address of the murderer.
Wolfe hung up, leaned back and sighed, and muttered at me, “Archie. You’ll have to pay a call on Mrs. Poor.”
I objected, “She’s probably in bed, tired out. The funeral was today.”
“It can’t be helped. Saul will go with you.”
I stared. “Saul?”
“Yes. He’s up in my room asleep. He didn’t get to bed last night. You will take her that photograph of her husband. You should leave as soon as possible, before that confounded Westchester lawyer gets here. I don’t want to see him. Tell Fritz to bolt the door after you go. Ring my room and tell Saul to come down at once. Then I’ll give you your instructions.”
