“That’s understanding it. I have known you to take chances that have given me nightmares.”
“They were nothing to this. I have devised a stratagem and spent fifteen thousand dollars on it. But if I can think of a better way I’m not going to risk it.” He sighed again, leaned back, closed his eyes, and muttered, “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
That was the last of him for more than nine hours. I don’t think he uttered more than eighty words between 11:09 in the morning and 8:20 in the evening. While he was in the office he sat with eyes closed, his lips pushing out and in from time to time, and his chest expanding every now and then, I would say five inches, with a deep sigh. At the table, during lunch and dinner, there was nothing wrong with his appetite, but he had nothing to offer in the way of conversation. At four o’clock he went up to the plant rooms for his customary two hours, but when I had occasion to ascend to check on a few items with Theodore, Wolfe was planted in his chair in the potting room, and Theodore spoke to me only in a whisper. I have never been able to get it into Theodore’s head that when Wolfe is concentrating on a business problem he wouldn’t hear us yelling right across his nose, so long as we don’t try to drag him into it.
Of the eighty words he used during those nine hours, only nine of them — one to an hour — had to do with the stratagem he was working on. Shortly before dinner he muttered at me, “What time is Mr. Cohen free in the evening?”
I told him a little before midnight.
When, in the office after dinner, he once more settled back and shut his eyes, I thought my God, this is going to be Nero Wolfe’s last case. He’s going to spend the rest of his life at it. I had myself done a good day’s work and saw no sense in sitting on my fanny all evening listening to him breathe. Considering alternatives, and deciding for Phil’s and a few games of pool, I was just opening my mouth to announce my intention when Wolfe opened his.
“Archie. Get Mr. Cohen down here as soon as possible. Ask him to bring a Gazette letterhead and envelope.”
“Yes, sir. Is the ironing done?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see. Get him.”
At last, I thought, we’re off. I dialed the number, and after some waiting because that was a busy hour for a morning paper, got him.