Murder by the Book

notes while I pasted on the labels and fought with the ribbon. The damn ribbon was what took time. Wolfe is better at it than either Theodore or me, but this was my party. When the last bow was tied and the sixteen boxes were carefully packed in a large carton, it was twenty minutes to four. Still time. I lugged the carton downstairs, got my hat and coat, went out and found a taxi, and gave the driver the address, on Madison Avenue in the Fifties.

The office of Corrigan, Phelps, Kustin and Briggs was on the eighteenth floor of one of those buildings that think there is nothing like marble in big slabs if you want real class, with double doors for an entrance at the end of a wide corridor. The automatic door-closer was strong enough to push a horse out, and my entry was a little clumsy on account of the carton. In the long anteroom a couple of guys were on chairs, another one was pacing up and down, and back of a rail a three-sbades-of-blond sourpuss was fighting it out with a switchboard. Near her, inside the rail, was a table. I took the carton there, put it on the floor by the rail, opened it, and began removing the ribboned boxes and putting them on the table.

She sent me a withering glance. "Mother's Day in February?" she inquired wearily. "Or atom bombs, perhaps?"

I finished my unpacking and then stepped to her. "On one of those boxes," I told her, "you will find your name. On the others there are other names. They should be delivered today. It may possibly make you take a brighter view-"

I stopped because I had lost her. She had left the switchboard and made a beeline for the table. I don't know what it was that she was hoping life had in Store for her, but it must have been something that could be put in a small box, they way she went for it. As she started her eye over the labels, I crossed to the door, pulled it open by getting a firm foothold, and departed.

If that was typical of the reaction of females in that office to ribboned boxes there was no telling how soon I would be getting a phone call, so I told the taxi driver it would be okay if he made it to Thirty-fifth Street in less than an hour, but with the midtown traffic at that time of day it made no difference.

When we had finally made it and I had mounted the stoop and let myself in, I went to the kitchen and asked Fritz, "Any calls?"

He said no. There was a gleam in his eyes. "If you need any

help with all the ladies, Archie, for my age I am not to be ignored. A Swiss has a long usefulness."