Of course, since at that time I still had the case solved, and all I needed was evidence, there were about a dozen things I would have liked to ask her, but it seemed advisable to wait and let Wolfe do it. I reached that conclusion while I was sitting with my back to her, entering plant germination records, and that reminded me of a minor point I hadn’t covered. I went to the kitchen and asked Fritz if he had told Wolfe who had come to see him, and Fritz said he hadn’t, he had left that to me. So I returned to the office, buzzed the plant rooms, got Wolfe, and told him, “Returned from mission. I gave them to Cramer himself, and he says he’ll get the other one. Mrs. Poor is down here waiting to see you.”
“Confound that woman. Send her away.”
“But she—”
“No. I know what she wants. I studied her. She wants to know what I’m doing to earn that money. Tell her to go home and read that receipt.”
The line died. I swung my chair around and told Martha, “Mr. Wolfe says for you to go home and read the receipt.”
She stared. “What?”
“He thinks you came to complain because he isn’t earning the money your husband paid him, and the idea of having to earn money offends him. It always has.”
“But— that’s ridiculous. Isn’t it?”
“Certainly it is.” I fought back the impulse to step over and pat her on the shoulder. “But my advice is to humor him, much as I enjoy having you here. Nobody alive can handle him but me. If he came down and found you here he would turn around and walk out. If you have anything special to say, tell me and I’ll tell him. He’ll listen to me because he has to, or fire me, and he can’t fire me because then he would never do any work at all and would eventually starve to death.”
“I shouldn’t think—” She stopped and stood up. She took a step toward the door, then turned and said, “I shouldn’t think a cold-blooded murder is something to joke about.”