Arriving, I mounted the seven steps to the stoop and pushed the bell button. My key isn't enough when the chain bolt is on, as it usually is when I'm out. When Fritz opened the door and I entered, he tried not to look a question at me but couldn't keep it out of his eyes - the same question he hadn't asked that afternoon: Did we have a client? I told him it was still possible, and I was empty, and could he spare a hunk of bread and a glass of milk? He said but of course, he would bring it, and I went to the office.
Wolfe was at his desk with a book, leaning back in the only chair in the world that he can sit down in without making a face, made to order by his design and under his supervision. The reading light in the wall above and behind his left shoulder was the only one on in the room, and like that, with the light at that angle, he looks even bigger than he is. Like a mountain with the sun rising behind it. As I entered and flipped the wall switch to cut him down to size, he spoke. He said, "Umph." As I crossed to my desk he asked, "Have you eaten?"
"No." I sat. "Fritz is bringing something."
"Bringing?"
Surprise with a touch of annoyance. Ordinarily, when an errand has made me miss a meal and I come home hungry, I go to the kitchen to eat. The exceptions are when I have something to report that shouldn't wait, and when he is settled down for the evening with a book he is in no mood to listen to a report, no matter what.
I nodded. "I have something on my chest."
His lips tightened. The book, a big thick one, was spread open, held with both hands. He closed it on a finger to keep his place, heaved a sigh, and demanded, "What?"
I decided it was useless to try circling around. With him you have to fit the tactics to the atmosphere. "That slip I put on your desk," I said. "The bank balance after drawing those checks. The June tax payment will be due in thirty-seven days. Of course we could file an amended declaration if someone doesn't turn up with a major problem and a retainer to match."
He was scowling at me. "Must you harp on the obvious?''
"I'm not harping. I haven't mentioned it for three days. I refer to it now because I would like to have permission to take a stab at digging up a client instead of sitting here on my fanny waiting for one to turn up. I'm getting calluses on my rump."
"And your modus? A sandwich board?"
"No, sir. I have a possible target, just barely possible. About that man who came to hire me to spot a tail, Thomas G. Yeager. I got two cabs and had them waiting at seven o'clock, one for him to take and one for me to follow in. He didn't show up. I got tired waiting and rang his house, and Purley Stebbins answered the phone. I went around a corner and there was a car with Purley's driver in it, in front of Yeager's house. I rang Lon Cohen and he wanted to know why I had phoned him to ask about Thomas G. Yeager two hours before Yeager's body was found in a hole on West Eighty-second Street. With a hole in his head. So our client was gone, but it occurred to me that his going might possibly get us another one. He was a big shot in his field, with a big title and a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and it could be that no one but me knew of his suspicion that he was being tailed or was going to be. Also the address that he thought he was going to be tailed to was One-fifty-six West Eighty-second Street, and it was in that block on that street that his body had been found. So I spent some of your money. Besides paying the two hackies for their time, I gave them an extra forty bucks to forget where they had been - that is, I gave it to Mike Collins. Al Goller preferred to do his forgetting for personal reasons."
Wolfe grunted. ''Your initiative. They may already have the murderer."
"Then you're out forty dollars in addition to the fifty-three dollars and sixty cents spent on behalf of a client from whom we won't collect because he's dead. But it's not as simple as that. Actually our client is not dead. Or, putting it another way, we didn't have a client. On my way home I stopped in at the Gazette to ask Lon Cohen to forget that I had phoned to ask him about Thomas G. Yeager, and there was a folder on his desk with some items about Yeager, including three pictures of him, which I looked at. The man who came this afternoon to hire me to spot his tail was not Yeager. No resemblance. So I suppose it's more accurate to say we didn't have a client.''
3
Naturally I expected to get a strong reaction, and I did. Wolfe straightened up to reach to the desk for his bookmark, a thin strip of gold which he used only for books he considered worthy of a place on the shelves in the office. As he inserted it in the book Fritz appeared with a tray and brought it to my desk. Seeing that Wolfe was putting his book down, he winked at me approvingly, and I swiveled to get at the tray. There was a bowl of chestnut soup, a cucumber-and-shrimp sandwich on toast, a roast-beef sandwich on a hard roll, home-baked, a pile of watercress, an apple baked in white wine, and a glass of milk.
A question of etiquette. When we are at table in the dining room for lunch or dinner, any mention of business is taboo. The rule has never been formally extended to fill-ins, but Wolfe feels strongly that when a man is feeding nothing should interfere with his concentration on his palate. Having disposed of the book, he leaned back and shut his eyes. After a few spoonfuls of soup I said, "I'm too hungry to taste anyway. Go right ahead." His eyes opened. "Beyond all doubt?"
"Yes, sir." I took in a spoonful and swallowed. "His name was typed on the pictures. Also there was a picture of him in a magazine. A face like a squirrel with a pointed nose and not much chin. The man this afternoon had a long bony face and broad forehead."
"And, calling himself Yeager, he said that he expected to be followed to a specified address on West Eighty-second Street, and Yeager's body was found near that address. How long had he been dead?"
"I don't know. Give them time. Besides what I've told you, all Lon knew was that the body was in a hole in the street dug by Con Edison men, it was covered with a tarp, and it was found by boys whose ball rolled in."
"If I approve of your proposal to explore the possibility of getting a client and earning a fee, how do you intend to proceed?"
I swallowed soup. "First I finish these sandwiches and the apple and milk. Then I go to Eighty-second Street. Since the body was found in a hole in the street, it's quite possible that there is nothing to connect it with that neighborhood or that particular address. He could have been killed anywhere and taken there and dumped. The blocks in the Eighties between Columbus and Amsterdam are no place for a big shot in a big corporation. The Puerto Ricans and Cubans average three or four to a room. I want to find out what business Yeager had there, if any."
"You would go now? Tonight?"
"Sure. As soon as I empty this tray."
"Pfui. How often have I told you that impetuosity is a virtue only when delay is dangerous?"
"Oh, six thousand."
"But you are still headlong. In the morning we shall get many details that are lacking now. There may be no problem left, except the identity of the man who came here in masquerade, and that may no longer be of interest. Now, of course, it is. How long was he with you?"
"Twenty-five minutes."
"We may need a record of what he said. Instead of dashing up to Eighty-second Street you will spend the evening at the typewriter. The conversation verbatim, and include a complete description.'' He picked up the book and shifted to his reading position.