“Good heavens,” Wolfe said enviously. “I must see it.”
So we neither went in and sat down nor went back to our car, which was just as well, since in either case we would have been minus a replacement for Theodore. Krasicki led the way along the path by which we had come, but as we approached the house and outbuildings he took a fork to the left which skirted shrubs and perennial borders, now mostly bare but all neat. As we passed a young man in a rainbow shirt who was scattering peat moss on a border, he said, “You owe me a dime, Andy. No snow,” and Krasicki grinned and told him, “See my lawyer, Gus.”
The greenhouse, on the south side of the house, had been hidden from our view as we had driven in. Approaching it even on this surly December day, it stole the show from the mansion. With stone base walls to match the house, and curving glass, it was certainly high, wide, and handsome. At its outer extremity it ended in a one-story stone building with a slate roof, and the path Krasicki took led to that, and around to its door. The whole end wall was covered with ivy, and the door was fancy, stained oak slabs decorated with black iron, and on it was hanging a big framed placard, with red lettering so big you could read it from twenty paces:
DANGER
DO NOT ENTER
DOOR TO DEATH
I muttered something about a cheerful welcome. Wolfe cocked an eye at the sign and asked, “Cyanogas G?”
Krasicki, lifting the sign from its hook and putting a key in the hole, shook his head. “Ciphogene. That’s all right; the vents have been open for several hours. This sign’s a little poetic, but it was here when I came. I understand Mrs. Pitcairn painted it herself.”
Inside with them, I took a good sniff of the air. Ciphogene is the fumigant Wolfe uses in his plant rooms, and I knew how deadly it was, but there was only a faint trace to my nose, so I went on breathing. The inside of the stone building was the storage and workroom, and right away Wolfe started looking things over.
Andy Krasicki said politely but briskly, “If you’ll excuse me, I’m always behind a morning after fumigating...”