He muttered testily without looking up, “Nonsense. Do your work.”
“No, sir. I’m going upstairs to pack. If you’re too lazy to wiggle a finger, very well, that’s not news. But you could at least send me to the public library to look up the genealogy—”
“Confound it!” He glared at me. “I engaged to give that information to the police and have done so. Also to take any further action that might seem to me advisable. I have done that.”
“Do you mean you’re through with the case?”
“Certainly not. I haven’t even started, because there’s nothing to start on. Mr. Cramer may do the job himself, or he may not. I hope he does. If you don’t want to work, go to a movie.”
I went upstairs to my room and tried to read a book, knowing it wouldn’t work because I can never settle down when a murder case is on. So I returned to the office and rattled papers, but even that didn’t faze him. At four o’clock, when he went up to the plant rooms, I went to the corner and got afternoon papers, but there was nothing in them but the usual crap. When he came down again at six it was more of the same, and I went out for a walk to keep from throwing a chair at him, and stayed until dinnertime. After dinner I went to a movie, and when I got home a little after eleven and found him sitting drinking beer and reading a magazine, I went upstairs to bed without saying good night.
Next morning, Thursday, there wasn’t a peep out of him before nine o’clock, the time he went up to the damn orchids. When Fritz came down with the breakfast tray from Wolfe’s room, with nothing left on the dishes to wash off, I asked him, “How’s the pet mammoth?”
“Very difficult,” Fritz said in a satisfied tone. “Refrogné. Always in the morning. Healthy.”
I read the papers and had more coffee.
When Wolfe came down to the office at eleven I greeted him with a friendly suggestion. “Look,” I said, “you’re an expert on murder. But this Poor murder bores you because you’ve already collected your fee. So how about this?” I spread the morning Gazette on his desk and indicated. “Absolutely Grade A. Man’s naked body found in an old orchard off a lonely lane four miles from White Plains, head crushed to a pancake, apparently by a car running square over him. It offers many advantages to a great detective like you. It might be Hitler, since his body has never been found. It is in a convenient neighborhood, easily reached by trains, bus, or auto, electric lights and city gas. The man has been dead at least thirty-six hours, counting from now, so it has the antique quality you like, with the clues all—”