Murder by the Book

that crowded plane and jab a knife in me, especially as I had no briefcase or other receptacle big enough to hold the manuscript of a novel, but I wasn't going to sleep, and I didn't like his being at my rear. I had a notion to ask him to trade seats but voted it down.

It was a long and weary night.

At La Guardia Airport, where we landed in the morning on schedule, he was in a bigger hurry than me. He grabbed his bag and trotted out to a taxi. Before getting my suitcase I went to a booth and phoned Fritz to expect me for breakfast in thirty minutes and mix plenty of batter. As my taxi crossed Queensboro Bridge I saw the sun for the first time in four days.

Wolfe never came downstairs in the morning until after he finished in the plant rooms at eleven o'clock, but Fritz welcomed me home as if I had been gone a year. He met me at the front door, took my suitcase, hung up my hat and coat, escorted me to the kitchen, and put the griddle on. I was perched on a stool drinking orange juice when I heard the elevator, and a moment later Wolfe entered. He was actually breaking a rule. I thought it deserved some recognition and accepted his offer of a handshake. We made appropriate remarks. He sat. The kitchen is the only place on earth where he doesn't mind a chair that lets his fanny lap over the sides. I went to my seat at my breakfast table as Fritz flapped the first cake onto my hot plate.

"He looks skinny," Fritz told Wolfe. Fritz is convinced that without him we would both starve to death in a week.

Wolfe nodded in agreement and told me, "Two flowers are open on a Cypripedium Minos."

"Wonderful," I said with my mouth full. When the bite was down, "I assume you want a report. There's-"

"Eat your breakfast."

"I am. Unlike you, I don't mind business with meals. There's nothing but fill-in to add to what you already know, except that I came on the same plane as Corrigan, as arranged. At the airport he took his bag and scooted. I presume that with what you've collected here we're about ready to jump?"

He snorted. "Where? On whom?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. When.Mr. Wellman first came to see me, eighteen days ago, I assumed that Dykes had written that novel, that he and two women were killed on account of their knowledge of it, and that someone in that law office wasinvolved. We have validated that assumption, and that's all. We know nothing new."

I swallowed food. "Then my trip to rainy California was a washout."