In the Best Families

“Don't you believe your own ads? It says that Mr Wolfe will not hereafter be available. I had the door swung to a narrow gap. “I never saw you before, but

Lon Cohen is an old friend of mine. He gets to work at noon, doesn't he?

“Yes, but-

“Tell him not to bother to phone about this. Mr Wolfe is not available, and I'm reserved for clients, as the ad says. Watch your foot, here comes the door.

I shut it and put the chain bolt on. As I went back down the hall Fritz emerged from the kitchen and demanded, “Who was that?

I eyed him. “You know damn' well, I said, “that when Mr Wolfe was here you would never have dreamed of asking who was that, either of him or of me. Don't dream of it now, anyway not when I'm in the humour I'm in at present.

“I only wanted-

“Skip it. I advise you to steer clear of me until I've had a chance to think.

I went to the office and this time took my own chair. At least I had got some instructions from Wolfe, though his method of sending them was certainly roundabout. The ad meant, of course, that I wasn't to try to cover his absence; on the contrary. More important, it told me to lay off of the Rackham thing. I was to handle inquiries from clients on unfinished matters, but only from clients; and since Mrs Rackham, being dead, couldn't inquire, that settled that.

Another thing-apparently I still had my job, unlike Fritz and Theodore. But I couldn't sign cheques, I couldn't-suddenly I remembered something. The fact that

I hadn't thought of it before indicates the state I was in. I have told, in my account of another case of Wolfe's, how, in anticipation of the possibility that some day a collision with Arnold Zeck would drive him into a foxhole, he had instructed me to put fifty thousand dollars in cash in a safe deposit box over in Jersey, and how I obeyed instructions. The idea was to have a source of supply for the foxhole; but anyway, there it was, fifty grand, in the box rented by me under the name I had selected for the purpose. I was sitting thinking how upset I must have been not to have thought of that before when the phone rang and I reached for it.

“Nero Wolfe's office, Archie Goodwin speaking.

I thought it proper to use that, the familiar routine, since according to

Wolfe's ad he wouldn't retire until the next day.

“Archie? A voice I knew sounded surprised. “Is that you, Archie?

“Right. Hallo, Marko. So early on Sunday?

“But I thought you were away! I was going to give Fritz a message for you. From

Nero.