“A police inspector,” Wolfe told him. “You yourself suggested the possibility of murder. If there was a murder there is a corpse. If there is a corpse it should be found. Unless and until it is found, where’s your case? We have no idea where to look for it, so we’ll trick the police into finding it for us. I often make use of them that way. Archie. Of course you will not mention Pete’s name, since he doesn’t want to be marked.”
As I went across to the office, to my desk, and dialed the number of Manhattan Homicide West, I was reflecting that of all Wolfe’s thousand techniques for making himself obnoxious the worst was when he thought he was being funny. When I finished talking to Sergeant Purley Stebbins and hung up, I was tempted to just walk out and go up to watch Mosconi and Watrous handle their cues, but of course that wouldn’t do because it would have been admitting he had called me good, and he would merely have shooed Pete out and settled down with a book and a satisfied smirk.
So I marched back to the dining room, sat down and took up my pen, and said brightly, “All right, they’re alerted. Shoot the lecture on detection, and don’t leave anything out.”
Wolfe leaned back, put his elbows on the chair arms, and matched his fingertips. “You understand, Pete, that I shall confine myself to the problems and methods of the private detective who works at his profession for a living.”
“Yeah.” Pete had a fresh bottle of Coke. “That’s what I want, how to rake in the dough.”
“I had remarked that tendency in you. But you must not permit it to smother other considerations. It is desirable that you should earn your fees, but it is essential that you feel you have earned them, and that depends partly on your ego. If your ego is healthy and hardy, as mine is, you will seldom have difficulty—”
“What’s my ego?”
“There are various definitions, philosophical, metaphysical, psychological, and now psychoanalytical, but as I am using the term it means the ability to play up everything that raises your opinion of yourself and play down everything that lowers it. Is that clear?”
“I guess so.” Pete was frowning in concentration. “You mean, do you like yourself or don’t you.”
“Not precisely, but that’s close enough. With a robust ego, your feeling—”