He shook his head. “These help a little.” He got the aspirin bottle from his pocket, jiggled a couple of tablets onto his palm, tossed them in his mouth, took the glass of water and gulped. He said to Wolfe, “You’re right. I’m going to feel better after this is over. I’ve been carrying too big a load of remorse and for too many years.”
Wolfe nodded. “And Dudley Frost went off drinking...”
“Yes. But that wasn’t important. Anyway, Edwin and Calida were married. Soon after that Dudley returned to America, where his son was. His wife had died like mine, in childbirth, some six years before. I don’t think he went back to France until more than three years later, when America entered the war. Edwin was dead; he had entered the British aviation corps and got killed in 1916. By that time I wasn’t in Paris any more. They wouldn’t take me in the army on account of my health. I didn’t have any money. I had gone down to Spain with my baby daughter—”
He stopped, and I looked up from my notebook. He was bending over a little, with both hands, the fingers spread out, pressed against his belly, and his face was enough to tell you that something had suddenly happened that was a lot worse than a headache.
I heard Wolfe’s voice like a whip: “Archie! Get him!”
I jumped up and across and reached for him. But I missed him, because he suddenly went into a spasm, a convulsion all over his body, and shot up out of his chair and stood there swaying.
He let out a scream: “Christ Jesus!” He put his hands, the fists doubled up, on Wolfe’s desk, and tried to push himself back up straight. He screamed again, “Oh, Christ!” Then another convulsion went over him and he gasped at Wolfe: “The red box — the number — God, let me tell him!” He let out a moan that came from his guts and went down.
I had hold of him, but I let him go to the floor because he was out. I knelt by him, and saw Wolfe’s shoes appear beyond him. I said, “Still breathing. No. I don’t think so. I think he’s gone.”
Wolfe said, “Get Doctor Vollmer. Get Mr. Cramer. First let me have that bottle from his pocket.”
As I moved for the phone I heard a mutter behind me, “I was wrong. Death did stalk him here. I’m an imbecile.”