I went up three flights, on past the bedroom floors to the roof, where ten thousand square feet of glass in aluminum frames make a home for ten thousand orchid plants. The riot of color on the benches of the three rooms doesn’t take my breath any more, but it is unquestionably a show, and as I went through that day I kept my eyes straight ahead to preserve my mood for yapping intact. However, it was wasted. In the intermediate room Wolfe stood massively, with an Odontoglossum seedling in his hand, glaring at it, a mountain of cold fury, with Theodore Horstmann, the orchid nurse, standing nearby with his lips tightened to a thin line.
As I approached, Wolfe transferred the glare to me and barked savagely, “Thrips!”
I did some fast mood shifting. There’s a time to yap and a time not to yap. But I went on.
“What do you want?” he rasped.
“I realize,” I said politely but firmly, “that this is ill timed, but I told Mr. Heller I would speak to you. He phoned—”
“Speak to me later! If at all!”
“I’m to call him back. It’s Leo Heller, the probability wizard. He says that calculations have led him to suspect that a client of his may have committed a serious crime, but it’s only a suspicion and he doesn’t want to tell the police until it has been investigated, and he wants us to investigate. I asked for details, but he wouldn’t give them on the phone. I thought I might as well run over there now — it’s over on East Thirty-seventh Street — and find out if it looks like a job. He wouldn’t—”
“No!”
“My eardrums are not insured. No what?”
“Get out!” He shook the thrips-infested seedling at me. “I don’t want it! That man couldn’t hire me for any conceivable job on any imaginable terms! Get out!”