If Death Ever Slept

with the globe. Jarrell and Trella were still with Wolfe, but Corey Brigham had gone. Then they left too, ignoring me, and while Orrie was in the hall seeing them out I went and sat on one of the yellow chairs, the one Susan had occupied.

I cringed. “Very well, sir,” I said, “you want my record. I was born in the maternity ward of the Ohio State Penitentiary on Christmas Eve, eighteen sixty-five. After they branded me I was taken-”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.” I got up and went to my own chair as Orrie appeared. “Do you want my opinion?”

“No.”

“You’re quite welcome. One will get you twenty that the gun will not be found.”

He grunted.

I replied, “Lois has remembered who I am, and I had to tell her that her father knows. She won’t spread it. One will get you thirty that the gun will not be found.”

He grunted.

I replied, “To be practical about it, the only real question is how soon we call Cramer, and I’m involved in that as much as you are. More. One will get you fifty that the gun will not be found.”

He grunted.

Chapter 9

AT NINE-THIRTY Saturday morning, having breakfasted with Lois and Susan and Wyman, more or less-more or less, because we hadn’t synchronized-I made a tour of the lower floor of the duplex, all except the library and the kitchen. It wasn’t a search; I didn’t look under cushions or in drawers. Wolfe’s suggestion had been to put the gun at some spot where it would soon be seen, so I just covered the territory and used my eyes. I certainly didn’t expect to see it, having offered odds of fifty to one, and so wasn’t disappointed.

There was no good reason why I shouldn’t have slept in my own bed Friday night, but Wolfe had told Jarrell (with Trella there) that he would send his secretary back to him as soon as he was through asking him about his past. I hadn’t really minded, since even a fifty-to-one shot has been known to deliver, and if one of them sneaked the gun out into the open that very evening it would be a pleasure to be the one to discover it, or even to be there when someone else discovered it. So I made a tour before I went up to bed.

My second tour, Saturday morning, was more thorough, and when, having completed it, I entered the reception hall on my way to the front door, Steck was there.

He spoke. “Could I help you, sir? Were you looking for something?”

I regarded him. What if he was a loyal and devoted old retainer? What if he had been afraid his master was in a state of mind where he might plug somebody, and had pinched the gun to remove temptation? Should I take him up to my room for a confidential talk? Should I take him down to Wolfe? It would make a horse laugh if we unloaded to Cramer, and our client and his family were put through the wringer, and it turned out that the gun had been under Steck’s mattress all the time. I regarded him, decided it would have to be referred to a genius like Wolfe, and told him that I was beyond help, I was just fidgety, but thanked him all the same. When he saw I was going out he opened the door for me, trying not to look relieved.

Whenever possible I go out every morning, sometime between nine and eleven, when Wolfe is up in the plant rooms, to loosen up my legs and get a lungful of exhaust fumes, but it wasn’t just through force of habit that I was headed outdoors. An assistant district attorney, probably accompanied by a dick, was coming to see Jarrell at eleven o’clock, to get more facts about James L. Eber, deceased, and Jarrell and I had agreed that it was just as well for me to be off the premises.

Walking the thirty blocks to the Gazette building, I dropped in to ask Lon Cohen if the Giants were going to move to San Francisco. I also asked him for the latest dope on the Eber murder, and he asked me who Wolfe’s client was. Neither of us got much satisfaction. As far as he knew, the cops were making a strenuous effort to turn up a lead and serve the cause of justice, and as far as I knew, Wolfe was fresh out of clients but if and when I had anything good enough for the front page I would let him know. From there, having loosened up my legs, I took a taxi to 35th Street.

Wolfe had come down from the plant rooms and was at his desk, dictating to Orrie, at my desk. They took time out to greet me, which I appreciated, from two busy men with important matters to attend to like writing to Lewis Hewitt to tell him that a cross of Cochlioda noezliana with Odontoglossum armainvillierense was going to bloom and inviting him to come and look at it. Not having had my usual forty minutes with the morning Times at breakfast, I got it from the rack and went to the couch, and had finished the front-page headlines and the sports pages when the doorbell rang. The man seated at my desk should have answered it, but he was being told by Wolfe how to spell a word which should have been no problem, so I went.

One glance through the panel, at a husky specimen in a gray suit, a pair of broad shoulders, and a big red face, was sufficient. I went and put the chain bolt on, opened the door to the two inches allowed by the chain, and spoke through the crack. “Good morning. I haven’t seen you for months. You’re looking fine.”

“Come on, Goodwin, open up.”

“I’d like to, but you know how it is. Mr. Wolfe is engaged, teaching a man how to spell. What do I tell him?”

“Tell him I want to know why he changed your name to Alan Green and got you a job as secretary to Otis Jarrell.”

“I’ve been wondering about that myself. Make yourself comfortable while I go ask him. Of course if he doesn’t know, there’s no point in your bothering to come in.”