“I’d rather not.” Cramer looked at his wrist. “I had it in mind to have a word with Wolfe, but I know how he is about being disturbed up there about a little thing like a homicide, and I’d just as soon take it from you, so long as I get it.”
“You’ve got it all right.”
“I believe you, for a change.” He left his chair. “Especially since he has no client, and none in sight that I can see. He’ll be in one hell of a humor, and I don’t envy you. I’ll be going. You understand you’re a material and you’ll be around.”
I said I would.
When I went back down the hall after letting Cramer out I started to re-enter the office, but suddenly braked at the door, pivoted, and made for the stairs. Two flights up, I went into the south room, stood in its center, and looked around. Fritz hadn’t been in it yet, and the bed was turned down as Priscilla had left it, with the folded coverlet on the other bed. I went and lifted the coverlet to look under it and dropped it again. I raised the pillow on the turned-down bed and glanced under that. I crossed to the large bureau between the windows and started opening and closing drawers.
I was not being completely cuckoo. I was a trained and experienced detective, there had been a murder that I was interested in and wanted to know more about, and the closest I could get to it at the moment was this room in which Priscilla had expected to sleep and eat her breakfast. I hadn’t the slightest expectation of finding anything helpful, and so wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t; and I did find something at that. On a shelf in the bathroom was a toothbrush and a soiled handkerchief. I took them to my room and put them on my dresser, and I still have them, in a drawer where I keep a collection of assorted professional relics.
There was no point in going up to the plant rooms and starting a squabble, so I went down to the office and opened the morning mail and fiddled around with chores. Somewhat later, when I became aware that I was entering a germination date of Cymbidium holfordianum on the card of Cymbidium pauwelsi, I decided I wasn’t in the mood for clerical work, returned things to the files, and sat and stared at my toes. There were four thousand things I wanted to know, and there were people I might have started asking, like Sergeant Purley Stebbins or Lon Cohen of the Gazette, but after all this was Nero Wolfe’s office and phone.
At eleven o’clock he came down, entered and crossed to his desk, got himself settled in his chair, and glanced through the little stack of mail I had put there under a paperweight. There was nothing of much interest and certainly nothing urgent. He cocked his head, focused on me, and stated, “It would have been like you to come up at ten o’clock for instructions as arranged.”
I nodded. “I know, but Cramer didn’t leave until five after, and I knew how you would react. Do you care to hear the details?”
“Go ahead.”