I had to fight back the impulse again. “I’m not joking,” I declared. “Plain facts. What did you want to say to him?”
“I just wanted to talk with him. He hasn’t come to see me. Neither have you.” She tried to smile, but all she accomplished was to start her lip quivering. She stopped it. “You haven’t even phoned me. I don’t know what’s happening. The police asked me about two of my hairs being in that box of cigars, and I suppose they have told Mr. Wolfe about it, and I don’t even know what he thinks or what he told the police...”
I grinned at her. “That’s easy. He made a speech to the jury, demonstrating that those hairs in the box were evidence that you did not kill your husband.” I went to her and put a hand on her arm, like a brother. “Listen, lady. Isn’t the funeral this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, go and have the funeral, that’s enough for you for one day. Leave the rest to me. I mean, if anything occurs that it would help you to know about, I’ll see that you know. Right?” She didn’t pull anything corny like grasping my hand with hers firm and warm or gazing at me with moist eyes filled with trust. She did meet my eyes, but only long enough to say, “Thank you, Mr. Goodwin,” and turned to go. I went to the front door and let her out.
After Wolfe came down the relations between us were nothing to brag about. Apparently he had nothing to offer, and I was too sore to start in on him. I had brought him Helen and Joe, and except for having fun with that capsule like a kid with a firecracker, he hadn’t bothered to disturb one cell of his celebrated brain. Martha had come on her own, and he wouldn’t even see her. As for Blaney, I had to admit I couldn’t blame him much on that, but the fact remained that he had walked out without doing a lick of work.
He passed the time until lunch going through catalogues, and at two-thirty P.M., with a veal cutlet and half a bushel of Fritz’s best mixed salad stowed in the hold, he returned to the office and resumed with catalogues. That got interrupted before long, but not by me. The bell rang, and I went to the front and it was Saul Panzer. I took him to the office.
Wolfe greeted him and then told me, “Archie. Go up and help Theodore with the pollen lists.”
There was nothing new about it, but that didn’t make me like it any better. When the day finally comes that I tie Wolfe to a stake and shoot him, one of the fundamental reasons will be his theory that the less I know the more I can help, or to put it another way, that everything inside my head shows on my face. It only makes it worse that he doesn’t really believe it. He merely can’t stand it to have anybody keep up with him at any time on any track. I am being fair about it. I admit that even under ideal circumstances it wouldn’t happen very often, but it would ruin a good meal for him if it ever happened at all.
I did my best with Theodore and the pollen lists, not wanting to take it out on them. The conference with Saul seemed to be comprehensive, since a full hour passed before the house phone in the potting room buzzed. Theodore answered it, and told me that I was wanted downstairs.