Might as Well Be Dead

“If she’s working, probably not until around five-thirty, maybe later. If she’s there I might be able to take her out to buy champagne, but then you’d have to do the work. Shall I phone?”

“You might as well.”

I went to my desk and dialed the number, waited through fifteen whirrs, hung up, and swiveled. “No answer. If you like the idea, we won’t want the kit, just some of the keys. The door downstairs has a Manson lock, old style. The one to her apartment is a Wyatt. You know more about them than I do.”

Saul brought the kit to my desk and opened it, selected four strings of keys and dropped them in his pocket, and closed the kit. While he was doing that I went to the cupboard and got two pairs of rubber gloves.

“I must remind you,” Wolfe said as we started out, “that prudence is no shame to valor. I shall not evade my responsibility as accessory.”

“Much obliged,” I thanked him. “If we’re caught we’ll say you begged us not to.”

We went to Ninth Avenue for a taxi, and on the way downtown discussed modus operandi. Not that it needed much discussion. Dismissing the cab on Christopher Street, we walked on to Arbor Street, rounded the corner, and continued to Number 43. Nobody had painted it in the five days since I had seen it. We entered the vestibule, and I pushed the button marked Brandt. Getting no click, I pushed it again, and, after another wait, a third time.

“Okay,” I told Saul, and stepped to the outer door, which was standing open, for an outlook. Arbor Street is not Fifth Avenue, and only two boys and a woman with a dog had passed by when Saul told my back, “Come on in.” It had taken him about a minute and a half. We entered.

He preceded me up the narrow dingy stairs, the idea being that we would do a quick once-over and then I would stand guard outside, at the head of the stairs, while he dug deeper. As we reached the top of the third flight he had a string of keys in his hand, ready to tackle the Wyatt, but I remembered that prudence is no shame to valor and went to the door first and knocked. I waited, knocked louder, got no response, and stepped aside for Saul. The Wyatt took longer than the one downstairs, perhaps three minutes. When he got it he pushed the door open. Since I was supposed to be in command, the proper thing would have been for him to let me go in first, but he crossed the threshold, saying, “Jumping Jesus.”