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.”