'Sooner than that or not at all.' He was tolerant. 'Commonly I take your badgering as a necessary evil; it has on occasion served a purpose; but this may go on for a while and I wish to be spared. I assure you, Archie--'
The phone rang. I answered it, and a trained female voice told me that Mr. O'Garro wanted to speak with Mr. Wolfe. Evidently they were reverting to type up at LBA. I told her Mr. Wolfe was engaged, but Mr. O'Garro could speak with Mr. Goodwin if he cared to. She said he wanted Mr. Wolfe, and I said I was sorry he couldn't have him. She told me to hold on, and after a wait resumed by asking me to put Mr. Goodwin on, and I said he was on. Then I got a male voice: 'Hello, Goodwin? This is Pat O'Garro. I want to speak to Wolfe!'
'So I understand, but I have strict instructions not to disturb him, and I don't dare to. When he's buried in a case, as he is right now in yours, it's not only bad for me if I interrupt him, it's bad for the case. You've given him a tough one to crack, and you'd better leave him alone with it.'
'My God, we've got to know what he's doing!'
'No, sir. Excuse me, but you're dead wrong. You either rely on him to get it or you don't. When he's working as hard as he is on this he never tells anybody what he's doing, and it's a big mistake to ask him. As soon as there's anything you'd like to know or need to know or can help with, you'll hear without delay. I told Mr. Hansen, and also Mr. Buff, about Inspector Cramer calling on us last night.'
'I know you did. What time this afternoon can I drop in?'
'Any time that suits you. I'll be here, and you can look at the transcripts of the talks with the contestants if you want to. Mr. Wolfe will be upstairs and not available. When he's sunk in a thing as he is in this it's a job to get him to eat.'
'But damn it, what's he doing?'
'He's using the brain you hired. Didn't you gentlemen decide you needed a special kind of brain? All right, you got one.'
'We certainly did. I'll see you this afternoon.'
I told him that would be fine, and hung up, and turned to ask Wolfe if that would do, but he had lifted his book and opened it and I didn't want to disturb him.
Chapter 12
Thank the Lord those next four days are behind me instead of ahead. I admit that there are operations and situations where the best you can do is set a trap and then wait patiently for the victim to spring it, and in such a case I can wait as patiently as the next one, but we had set no trap. Waiting for the victim to make the trap himself and then spring it called for more patience than I had in stock.
Wolfe had asked me what I would suggest, and I spent part of the time from Thursday noon to Friday noon, in between phone calls and personal appearances of LBA personnel and Talbott Heery, trying to hit on something. I had to agree with him that there was no point in tagging along after the cops on any of the routines. Altogether, while sitting at my desk or on the stool in the kitchen, or brushing my teeth, or shaving, or looking out the window, I conceived at least a dozen bright ideas, none of them worth a damn when you turned them over. I did submit one of them to Wolfe after dinner Thursday evening: to get the five contestants together in the office, and tell them it had been thought that Dahlmann had put the answers to the last five verses in a safe deposit box, but evidently he hadn't, since none could be found, and there was no authentic list of answers against which their solutions could be checked, and therefore other verses, not yet devised, would have to replace the ones they had. He asked what good it would do. I said we would get their reactions. He said we already had their reactions, and besides, LBA would properly reject a procedure that made them out a bunch of bungling boobies.
There was nothing in Friday's papers that struck a spark, but at least they didn't announce that Cramer had got his man and the case was solved. Just the contrary. No-one had been tapped even as a material witness, and it was plain, from the way the Gazette handled it, that the field was still wide open. Lon Cohen phoned again around noon to ask what Wolfe was waiting for, and I told him for a flash. He asked what kind of flash, and I told him to ask Miss Frazee.
The climax of the phone calls from the clients began soon after lunch Friday. Wolfe was up in his room to be away from the turmoil. He had finished Beauty for Ashes and started on Party of One, not in verse, by Clifton Fadiman. The climax was in three scenes, the hero of the first one being Patrick O'Garro. It was the third call from him in the twenty-four hours, and he made it short and to the point. He asked to speak to Wolfe and I gave him the usual dose. He asked if I had anything to report and I said no.
'All right,' he said, 'that's enough. This is formal notice that our agreement with him is canceled and he is no longer representing Lippert, Buff and Assa. This conversation is being recorded. He can Send a bill for services to date. Did you hear me?'
'Sure I hear you. I'd like to say more because my phone conversations don't get recorded very often, but there's nothing to say. Goodbye.'
I went to the hall, up the flight of stairs to Wolfe's room, tapped on the door, and entered. He was in the big chair by the window, in bis shirt sleeves with his vest unbuttoned, with his book.
'You look nice and comfortable,' I said approvingly, 'but you prefer the chair downstairs and you can come on down if you want to. O'Garro just phoned and canceled the order. We're fired. He said the conversation was being recorded. I wonder why it makes a man feel important to have what he says on the phone recorded? I don't mean him, I mean me.'
'Bosh,' he said.
'No, really, it did make me feel important.'
'Shut up.' He closed his eyes. In a minute he opened them. 'Very well. I'll be down shortly. It's a confounded nuisance.'
