Before Midnight

"Then I'm back where I started. Have you got anywhere?"

"Now I can answer you. No."

"Why not?"

Wolfe stirred. "Mr. Heery. I tell you precisely what I told Mr. Hansen. If my talks with the contestants had led me to any conclusions, I might be ready to disclose them and I might not, but I have formed no conclusions. Conjectures, if I have any, are not fit matter for a report unless I need help in testing them, and I don't. You interrupted the digestion not only of my dinner, but also of the information and impressions I have gathered in a long and laborious day. Those four men wanted to come here. I told them either to let me alone until I have something worth discussing or hire somebody else."

"But there's no time! What do you do next?"

It took another five minutes to get rid of him, but finally he went. After escorting him to the door I went back to my desk, got at the typewriter, and resumed where I had left off on my notes of the Frazee interview. They should all be done before I went to bed, and it was after ten o'clock, so I hammered away. There were one or two remarks I had for Wolfe, and several questions I wanted to ask, but I was too busy, and besides, he was deep in a book. When I returned after seeing Heery out he had already been to the bookshelves and was back at his desk, with Beauty for Ashes, by Christopher La Farge, opened to his place, and the wall light turned on. That may not be the way you go about settling down to work on a hard job with a close deadline, but you're not a genius.

I had finished Frazee and was well along with Wheelock when the doorbell rang. As I started for the hall I offered five to one that it was LBA and their lawyer, disregarding Wolfe's demand to be let alone, but I was wrong. When I flipped the switch of the stoop light, one glance through the panel was enough. Stepping back into the office, I told Wolfe:

"Too bad to disturb you--"

"No one," he growled. "No one on earth."

"Okay. It's Cramer."

He lowered the book, with his lips tightened. Slowly and neatly, he dog-eared a page and closed the book,on the desk. "Very well," he said grimly. "Let him in."

The doorbell rang again.

Chapter 10