If Death Ever Slept

distinctly.

“What is?” I demanded. “It’s not preposterous that he’s dead, with that hole in his skull.”

“This whole affair. You shouldn’t have gone there in the first place.”

“Maybe not. You suggested it.”

“I did not suggest it. I raised difficulties.”

I crossed my legs. “If you want to try to settle that now,” I said, “okay, but you know how things like that drag on, and I need instructions. I should have called headquarters and told them where to find something interesting, but didn’t, because I thought you might possibly have a notion.”

“I have no notion and don’t intend to have one,” Wolfe said.

“Then I’ll call. From a booth. They say they can’t trace a local dial call, but there might be a miracle. Next, do I get back up there quick, I mean to Jarrell’s, and if so what’s my line?”

I said I have no notion. Why should you go back there at all?”

I uncrossed my legs. “Look,” I said, “you might as well come on down. I could go back just to return his ten grand and tell him we’re bowing out, if that’s what you want, but it’s not quite so simple and you know it. When the cops learn that Eber was Jarrell’s secretary and got fired, they’ll be there asking questions. If they learn that Jarrell hired you and you sent me to take his place-don’t growl at me, they’ll think you sent me no matter what you think-you know what will happen, they’ll be on our necks. Even if they don’t learn that, we have a problem. We know that a thirty-eight revolver was taken from Jarrell’s desk yesterday afternoon, and we know that Eber was there yesterday morning and it made a stir, and if and when we also know that the bullet that killed him came from a thirty-eight, what do we do, file it and forget it?”

He grunted. “There is no obligation to report what may be merely a coincidence. If Mr. Jarrell’s gun is found and it is established that Eber was killed by a bullet from it, that will be different.”

“Meanwhile we ignore the coincidence?”

“We don’t proclaim it.”

“Then I assume we keep the ten grand and Jarrell is still your client. If he turns out to be a murderer, what the hell, many lawyers’ clients are murderers. And I’m back where I started, I need instructions. I’ll have to go-”

The phone rang. I swiveled and got it, and I noticed that Wolfe reached for his too, which he rarely does unless I give him a sign.

“Nero Wolfe’s residence, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

“Where the hell are you? This is Jarrell.”

“You know what number you dialed, Mr. Jarrell. I’m with Mr. Wolfe, reporting and getting instructions about your job.”

“I’ve got instructions for you myself. Nora says you left at five-thirty. You’ve been gone over four hours. How soon can you be here?”

“Oh, say in an hour.”

“I’ll be in the library.”

He hung up. I cradled it and turned.

“He reminds me of you a little,” I said-just an interesting fact, nothing personal. “I was about to say, I’ll have to go back up there and I need to know what for. Just hang around or try to start something? For instance, it would be a cinch to put the bee on Jarrell. You couldn’t ask for a better setup for blackmail. I tell him that if he makes a sizable contribution in cash, say half a million, we’ll regard the stolen gun as a coincidence and forget it. If he doesn’t we’ll feel that we must report it. Of course I’ll have to wait until the news is out about Eber, but if-”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

He eyed me. “You understand the situation. You have expounded it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This may or may not affect the job you undertook for Mr. Jarrell-don’t interrupt me-very well, that we undertook. Murder sometimes creates only ripples, but more frequently high seas. Assuredly you are not going back there to take women to lunch at Rusterman’s or to taverns to dance. I offer no complaint for what has been done; I will concede that we blundered into this mess by a collaboration in mulishness; but if it was Mr. Jarrell’s gun that was used to kill Eber, and it isn’t too fanciful to suppose that it was, we are in it willy-nilly, and we should emerge, if not with profit, at least without discomfiture. That is our joint concern. You ask if you should start something up there. I doubt if you’ll need to; something has already started. It is most unlikely that the murder had no connection with that hive of predators and parasites. I can’t tell you how to proceed because you’ll have to wait on events. You will be guided by your intelligence and experience, and report to me as the occasion dictates. Mr. Jarrell said he has instructions for you. Have you any notion what they’ll be?”

“Not a glimmer.”

“Then we can’t anticipate them. You will call police headquarters?”

“Yes, on my way.”

“That will expedite matters. Otherwise there’s no telling when the body would be found.”

I was on my feet. “If you phone me there,” I told him, “keep it decent. He has four phones on his desk, and I suspect two of them.”