Wolfe’s look stopped him. “Pfui,” Wolfe said. He hadn’t had as good a chance to show off for a month. “I am not a common cheat, Mr. Poor. Not that I am a saint. Given adequate provocation, I might conceivably cheat a man-or a woman or even a child. But you are suggesting that I cheat, not a man or woman or child, but a hundred and forty million of my fellow citizens. Bah.” We stared at his back as he left, as he knew we would, and in a moment we heard the sound of his elevator door opening.
I flipped to a fresh page in my notebook and turned to Eugene and Martha. “To refresh your memory,” I said, “the name is Archie Goodwin, and I’m the one that does the work around here. I am also, Mr. Poor, an admirer of your wife.”
He nearly dropped his cigar again. “You’re what?”
“I admire your wife as an advice-giver. She has learned one of the most important rules, that far as life falls short of perfection it is more fun outside the grave than in it. With over two hundred thousand bucks-”
“I’ve had enough advice,” he said as if he meant it. “My mind is made up.”
“Okay.” I got the notebook in position. “Give me everything you think we’ll need. First, basic facts. Home and business addresses?”
It took close to an hour, so it was nearly five o’clock when they left. I found him irritating and therefore kept my prejudice intact. I wondered later what difference it would have made in my attitude if I had known that in a few hours he would be dead. Even if you take the line that he had it coming to him, which would be easy to justify, at least it would have made the situation more interesting. But during that hour, as far as I knew, they were just a couple of white-livers, scared stiff by a false alarm named Blaney, so it was merely another job.
I was still typing from my notes when at six o’clock, after the regulation two hours in the plant rooms, Wolfe came down to the office. He got fixed in his chair, rang for Fritz to bring beer, and demanded, “Did you take that man’s money?”
I grinned at him. Up to his old tricks. I had been a civilian again for only a week, and here he was already treating me like a hireling just as he had for years, acting as if I had never been a colonel, as in fact I hadn’t, but anyway I had been a major.
I asked him, “What do you think? If I say I took it, you’ll claim that your attitude as you left plainly indicated that he had insulted you and you wouldn’t play. If I say I refused it, you’ll claim I’ve done you out of a fee. Which do you prefer?”
He abandoned it. “Did you word the receipt properly?”
“No, sir. I worded it the way you told me to. The loot is in the safe and I’ll deposit it tomorrow. I told him you’d prefer a check, but he said there it was, he had taken the trouble to get it, why not take it? He still thinks you’ll forget to report it to your hundred and forty million fellow citizens. By the way, if Blaney does perform I’m going to marry the widow. Something unforeseen has happened. I have an ironclad rule that if the ankles are more than half as big around as the calves that settles it, I am absolutely not interested. But you saw her legs, and in spite of them I would rate her-”
“I did not see her legs. Do your typing. I like to hear you typing. If you are typing you can’t talk.” To humor him I typed, which as it turned out was just as well, since that neat list of facts was going to be needed before bedtime. It was finished when Fritz entered at eight o’clock to announce dinner, the main item of which was a dish called by Wolfe and Fritz “Cassoulettes Castelnaudary,” but by me boiled beans. I admit they were my favorite beans, which is saying something. The only thing that restrained me at all was my advance knowledge of the pumpkin pie to come. Back in the office, where the clock said nine-forty, I was just announcing my intention of catching a movie by the tail at the Rialto when the phone rang. It was Inspector Cramer, whose voice I hadn’t heard for weeks, asking for Wolfe. Wolfe picked up his receiver, and I stuck to mine so as to get it firsthand.
“Wolfe? Cramer. I’ve got a paper here, taken from the pocket of a dead man, a receipt for five thousand dollars, signed by you, dated today. It says you have information to give the police if he dies. All right, he’s dead. I don’t ask you to come up here, because I know you wouldn’t, and I’m too busy to go down there. What’s the information?”
Wolfe grunted. “What lolled him?”
“An explosion. Just give-”
“Did it kill his wife too?”
“Naw, she’s okay, only overcome, you know. Just give-”
“I haven’t got the information. Mr. Goodwin has it. Archie?”
I spoke up. “It would take quite a while, Inspector, and I’ve got it all typed. I can run up there-”
“All right, come ahead. The Poor apartment on Eighty-fourth Street. The number is-”
“I know the number. I know everything. Sit down and rest till I get there.”
II
In the living room of an apartment on the sixth floor, on Eighty-fourth near Amsterdam Avenue, I stood and looked down at what was left of Eugene Poor. All I really recognized was the gray herringbone suit and the shirt and tie, on account of what the explosion had done to his face, and also on that account I didn’t look much, for while I may not be a softy I see no point in prolonged staring at a face that has entirely stopped being a face.
I asked Sergeant Purley Stebbins, who was sticking close by me, apparently to see that I didn’t swipe Eugene’s shoes, “You say a cigar did that to him?”
Purley nodded. “Yeah, so the wife says. He lit a cigar and it blew up.”
“Huh. I don’t believe it. Yes, I guess I do too, if she says so. They make novelties. Now, that’s a novelty.” I looked around. The room was full of what you would expect, assorted snoops, all doing the chores, from print collectors up to inspectors, or at least one inspector, namely Cramer himself, who sat at a table near a wall reading the script I had brought him. Most of them I knew, at least by sight, but there was one complete stranger. She was in a chair in a far corner, being questioned by a homicide dick named Rowcliff. Being trained to observe details even when under a strain, I had caught at a glance some of her outstanding characteristics, such as youth, shapeliness, and shallow depressions at the temples, which happen to appeal to me.
I aimed a thumb in her direction and asked Purley, “Bystander, wife’s sister, or what?”
He shook his head. “God knows. She came to call just after we got here and we want to know what for.”
“I hope Rowcliff doesn’t abuse her. I would enjoy a murder where Rowcliff was the one that got it, and so would you.”
I strolled over to the corner and stopped against them, and the girl and the dick looked up. “Excuse me,” I told her, “when you get through here will you kindly call on Nero Wolfe at this address?” I handed her a card. The temples were even better close up. “Mr. Wolfe is going to solve this murder.”
Rowcliff snarled. He always snarled. “Get away from here and stay away.”
Actually he was helpless, because the inspector had sent for me and he knew it.
I ignored him and told the temples, “If this person takes that card away from you;, it’s in the phone book, Nero Wolfe,” I left them and crossed over to Cramer at the table, dodging photographers and other scientists on the way.