Plot It Yourself

I didn’t take the elevator. Purley knew that the natural thing would be for me to find the janitor and pump him, so I took the stairs. He had made it all the way to the basement. I found him there, pale and upset. He was too sick to talk, or too scared, or he may have thought I was the murderer. I told him the best thing was strong hot tea, no sugar, found my way to the sidewalk, and headed for home. I walked, taking my time. There was no point in disturbing Wolfe in the plant rooms, since there was no emergency. Rennert’s belly had already turned green, and another half an hour wouldn’t matter.

I had returned the keys and rubber gloves to the drawers, and fixed myself a gin and tonic because I wanted to swallow something and the idea of milk or water didn’t seem to appeal to my stomach, and was looking at the sports section of the Times when Wolfe came down. We exchanged good mornings, and he went to the only chair in the world he really approved of, sat, rang for beer, and said I might as well go for a walk. He has some sort of an idea that my going for a walk is good for him.

“I already have,” I told him. “I found another corpse, this time in an advanced condition. Kenneth Rennert.”

“I’m in no mood for flummery. Take a walk.”

“No flummery.” I put the paper down. “I dialed Rennert’s number and got no answer. I walked to his address and rang the bell and got no answer. Happening to have keys and rubber gloves with me, and thinking I might find something interesting, I went in and up to his apartment. For three or four days he has been lying on a couch with a knife in his chest, and is still there. So is the knife. He was probably fed a dose in a drink before-”

I stopped because he was having a fit. He had closed his right hand to make a fist and was hitting the desk with it, and he was bellowing. He was roaring something in a language that was probably the one he had used as a boy in Montenegro, the one that he and Marko Vukcic had sometimes talked. He had roared like that when he heard that Marko had been killed, and on three other occasions over the years. Fritz, entering with beer, stopped and looked at me reproachfully. Wolfe quit bellowing as abruptly as he had started, glared at Fritz, and said coldly, “Take that back. I don’t want it.”

“But it will do-”

“Take it back. I shall drink no beer until I get my fingers around the creature’s throat. And I shall eat no meat.”

“But impossible! The squabs are marinating!”

“Throw them out.”