As I walked, I kept asking myself questions, but I wasn’t getting any answers, and by the time I climbed the steps to the brownstone, I was good and mad.
“Is he still up in his room pouting?” I snapped at Fritz, who was sitting in the kitchen reading pieces of the Sunday paper. He took off his half-glasses and nodded. “But, Archie, he did come down to the office for a while. It was most unusual — he turned on the television set.”
“Interesting. What did he watch?”
“I don’t know. I took coffee to him just as he turned it on, and he had me shut the door when I left. It was closed the whole time he was there. Then he went back to his room, where he has been ever since.”
“When was this?”
“He came down about eleven and was in the office for at least an hour. I am worried about him, Archie. He is behaving very strangely.”
“I wouldn’t fret. You know I’m not much for giving orders — I usually take them. This is a special case, though. Am I correct in assuming that you want to see Mr. Wolfe snap out of this funk?”
“Of course, Archie.”
“Okay, take off. It’s a beautiful day, absolutely gorgeous. The air will do you good. I promise to maintain things here.”
Fritz set his glasses on the butcher’s block and frowned. “Archie, if I leave, are you going to pick a fight with him?”
“Me? Not a chance — my middle name is Peaceful. Now give yourself a break. See a movie. Eat a pizza. Smile at a pretty woman. It’s spring, and the Mets are in first place.”
Fritz shrugged and took off his apron, but he was still frowning and shaking his head as he headed for his basement apartment. He stopped in the doorway and turned back. “He will be ringing for beer again soon.”
“I know where to find it,” I answered, reaching for the Times “Week in Review” section he had left on the butcher’s block. I had read about a terrorist attack in the Occupied West Bank, a banking scandal in Arizona, and student riots in Paris when the buzzer from Wolfe’s bedroom sounded twice — his signal for beer. I got two chilled bottles of Remmers from the refrigerator, put them on the circular brass tray Fritz uses, and marched up the stairs, rapping twice on Wolfe’s door and opening it.
He was dressed in a brown suit, yellow shirt, and brown-and-gold silk tie and was parked at the small table near the window working the Times Sunday Magazine’s crossword puzzle. He scowled. “Where is Fritz?”
“I told him to enjoy the rest of the day,” I said lightly, taking the bottles from the tray and placing them in front of him. “He gets Sundays off, remember?”
“Thank you, Mr. Goodwin.” His voice had all the warmth of a glacier.
“My pleasure. Did you enjoy watching the services from the Silver Spire?”
If the question surprised Wolfe, he didn’t show it. He tilted his head and scowled. “That was not a service, it was a performance. And every ten minutes, the ritual was interrupted and Mr. Bay appeared on the screen making a tasteless appeal for money. If I had dialed a telephone number, I would have received a Bible with a hand-tooled cover that was autographed by Mr. Bay. Preposterous.”
“Yeah, I agree. Those of us in the church missed that particular bit of marketing. Could you spot me in the crowd?”
“I wasn’t searching for you.”
“Too bad. Well, now that you’ve had a chance to see Bay and Company in action on the tube, what’s the plan?”
Wolfe treated me to a world-class growl. “My plan is to continue with what I was doing when you interrupted me,” he snorted.
“All right,” I shot back, “I’ll leave you to your precious puzzle. But before I go, you should know it is my intention to turn in my resignation to you first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Twaddle.”
“No, sir, not twaddle. You see, I have this good friend — actually, he saved my life once, and I know he’d do it again, given the opportunity. He’s in a terrible jam now, accused of a crime that I know he did not commit. Anyway, nobody else seems interested in helping him, and as long as I’m working here, my duties prevent me from devoting full time to proving him innocent. I really have no choice.” I shrugged. “I am honor bound to do this. Because my weeks as your employee always end on Sundays, I will finish out the day. And I’ll even be here tomorrow morning at eleven — in the office — to go over with you the status of the orchid-germination records, the correspondence, and your other files. And I’ll show you where I keep the disks for the personal computer. If you do not choose to come down at eleven, I will leave a detailed memo on your desk.”
Wolfe glowered at me. “I know you’re probably angry,” I went on, “and I don’t blame you. After all these years, you have every right to expect at least two weeks’ notice from me, maybe even a month. Well, I can’t give you that — at least not now. My friend’s predicament is too grave. However, in lieu of notice, I will pay for two weeks’ salary for a first-rate temporary secretary. And while that person is here working, you can be interviewing my replacement. Fair enough?”
He glowered again, saying nothing. I nodded, did a snappy about-face, and left the room.
I have wondered since what would have happened if Wolfe had not come down to the office that Monday morning. As my watch hands inched toward the hour, I tried to busy myself with what paperwork there was. And yes, I was prepared to write that memo.
At eleven, I heard the elevator start. I kept working as it descended and then stopped. I heard the footsteps in the hall and then in the office. “Good morning, Archie, did you sleep well?” Wolfe asked as he skirted his desk and settled in behind it.
“Like a baby,” I responded, not looking up.
“Good. As Swinburne wrote, ‘Sleep, and be glad while the world endures,’” he said as he began going through the mail I had placed on his blotter. At least I assumed that’s what he was doing, because I refused to look up from typing my letter of resignation, although at one point I heard him leave his chair and walk to the bookshelves, then return. When I had finished the letter, I swiveled and saw that he was leaning over an open Bible reading, and three others were stacked on his left.
I kept typing, then shuffling papers, and glancing at Wolfe as he turned pages in first one Bible and then another, and another. This went on for a half-hour. I was running out of ways to look occupied when he exhaled loudly, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes. One of two things had happened: He had given up, or he found something. I froze and watched him. For ten minutes, he was as still as I was. Anyone peering in the window would have written both of us off as either dead or catatonic.
Then it happened. At first, there was just a twitch on his upper lip, but I knew what was coming. He gripped the chair arms tightly with both hands, and his lips began pushing out and in, out and in. Fritz, probably wondering why Wolfe hadn’t rung for beer by this time, appeared in the doorway, and I silenced him with an index finger to my mouth.
Fritz returned to the kitchen and Wolfe’s lip exercise continued for nineteen minutes, which is short-to-average for these things, and I should know; I’ve timed them for years. When he opened his eyes, he looked at me and growled. “Inexcusable,” he muttered.
“What is?”
“My utter lack of perspicacity. I should be publicly flayed.”
“I’ll try to arrange it,” I said, but got no reaction. He was hunched over one of the Bibles again, writing rapidly with a pen on a sheet of bond. When he finished, he pushed back and rang for beer.