Plot It Yourself

Forty-two hours later, at nine o’clock Sunday morning, as I put down my empty coffee cup, thanked Fritz for the meal, and headed for the office, I told myself aloud, “What a hell of a way to spend a Memorial Day weekend.” I had been invited to the country. I had been invited to a boat in the Sound. I had been invited to accompany a friend to Yankee Stadium that afternoon. And here I was. The only reason I was up and dressed was that the phone had roused me at twenty to eight, Fred calling to say that he was on his way to relieve Saul; and half an hour later Saul had reported that Alice Porter slept late on Sunday, which was the most exciting piece of news I had heard for quite a while. On Friday, tailed by Dol Bonner, she had driven from Arbor Street straight back to Carmel, done some shopping at a supermarket and a drugstore, and then home.

Entering the office, I went to my desk and started to plow through the mountain of the Sunday Times-my copy; Wolfe’s was up in his room-for the section I looked at first. I yanked it out, scowled at it, said aloud, “Oh nuts,” and tossed it on the floor. Either I had meant it when I thought to myself last night, as I sat watching a cowboy take off his boots and wiggle his toes on TV, that it would be more interesting to be in jail, or I hadn’t. If I had it was up to me. I would be losing nothing if I got nabbed for a misdemeanor or even a minor felony. I went to the phone, dialed the number of Kenneth Rennert’s apartment, got no answer after thirteen rings, and hung up. I went to a cabinet and unlocked a drawer, took out six boxes of assorted keys, and spent twenty minutes making selections. From another drawer I got a pair of rubber gloves. I went to the kitchen and told Fritz I was going for a walk and would be back in an hour or so, and left the house. It was only a twenty-minute stroll.

I was not actually determined to get tossed in the coop. I thought I might find something helpful in Rennert’s nice big room. I knew from past experience that Wolfe would have approved, but if I had told him in advance he would have been responsible, me being his agent, and it was fair for him to share the risk of my law-breaking when it was his idea, but not when it was mine. I wasn’t hoping to find evidence that Rennert was X, but there was a chance of digging up something to indicate that X had instigated his claim against Mortimer Oshin, or that he hadn’t. Either one would help a little, and I might get more.