“All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.—You had better run, Mr. Kommers, or you’ll miss your train. Another reason, and one of the best, for staying at home.—Gentlemen, so far as our business is concerned I need not further detain you. But in connection with my remark to Mr. Kommers it occurs to me that no publication either before or since the invention of printing, no theological treatise and no political or scientific creed, has ever been as narrowly dogmatic or as offensively arbitrary in its prejudices as a railway timetable. If any of you should care to remain half an hour or so to help me enlarge upon that...”
Byron the magazine editor, who had stuck in his shell all evening, suddenly woke up. He got up from his chair and slipped his head in between a couple of shoulders to see Wolfe. “You know, that idea could be developed into a first-rate little article. Six hundred to seven hundred words, about. The Tyranny of the Wheel, you could call it, with a colored margin of trains and airplanes and ocean liners at top speed — of course liners don’t have wheels, but you could do something about that — if I could persuade you, Mr. Wolfe—”
“I’m afraid you could only bewilder me, Mr. Byron.”
Cabot the lawyer smiled. “I never saw a man less likely to be bewildered, even by Eddie Byron. Good night, Mr. Wolfe.” He picked up the memorandum and folded it and put it in his pocket. “I’ll send you these in the morning.”
They got moving. Pratt and Farrell went and got Mike Ayers to his feet and slapped him around a little. Byron started trying to persuade Wolfe again and was pulled off by Adler. Kommers had gone. The others drifted to the hall, and I went out and stood around while they got their hats and coats on. Bowen and Burton went off together, as they had come. I held the door for Pratt and Farrell to get Mike Ayers through; they were the last out.
After I had shut the door and bolted it I went to the kitchen for a pitcher of milk. Fritz was sitting there reading that newspaper printed in French, with his butler shoes still on, in spite of how he loved to put on his slippers after dinner on account of things left on his toes and feet by the war to remember it by. We said what we always said under those circumstances. He said, “I could bring your milk, Archie, if you would just tell me,” and I said, “If I can drink it I can carry it.”
In the office, Wolfe sat back with his eyes closed. I took the milk to my desk and poured a glass and sat down and sipped at it. The room was full of smoke and the smell of different drinks and chairs were scattered around and cigar and cigarette ashes were all over the rugs. It annoyed me, and I got up and opened a window. Wolfe said, “Close it,” and I got up and closed it again. I poured another glass of milk.
I said, “This bird Chapin is a lunatic, and it’s long past midnight. I’m damn good and sleepy.”
Wolfe kept his eyes shut, and also ignored me in other ways. I said, “Do you realize we could earn all that jack and save a lot of trouble just by having a simple little accident happen to Paul Chapin? Depression prices on accidents like that run from fifty bucks up. It’s smart to be thrifty.”