The Golden Spiders (Crime Line)

He hung up. So did we. Back in the dining room Wolfe finished his tart and his coffee in silence. I waited until we had returned to the office and he was adjusted in his chair to remark, “Earning it would be fine, but the main thing is to feel you’ve earned it. No animus, but I doubt if delivering that statement to Rowcliff is quite enough. My ego is itching.”

“Deposit the check,” he muttered.

“Yes, sir.”

“We need information.”

“Yes, sir.”

“See Mr. Cohen and get it.”

“About what?”

“Everything. Include Matthew Birch, with the understanding that his knowledge of that connection is not to be disclosed unless the police release it or he gets it from some other source. Tell him nothing. It may be published that I am engaged on the case, but not the source of my interest.”

“Do I tell him that Pete came to see you?”

“No.”

“He would appreciate it. It would be an exclusive human interest story for him. Also it would show that your reputation-”

His fist hit the desk, which for him was a convulsion. “No!” he roared. “Reputation? Am I to invite the comment that it is a mortal hazard to solicit my help? On Tuesday, that boy. On Friday, that woman. They are both dead. I will not have my office converted into an anteroom for the morgue!”

“Yeah. Something of the sort had occurred to me.”

“You were well advised not to voice it. The person responsible would have been well advised not to induce it. We will need Saul and Fred and Orrie, but I’ll attend to that. Go.”

I did so. I took a taxi to the Gazette office. The receptionist on the third floor, who had not only received me before but also had been, for three or four years, on the list of those who receive a box of orchids from Wolfe’s plant rooms twice a year, spoke to Lon on the intercom and waved me in.

I don’t know what Lon Cohen is on the Gazette and I doubt if he does. City or wire, daily or Sunday, foreign or national or local, he seems to know his way in and around without ever having to work at it. His is the only desk in a room about nine by twelve, and that’s just as well because otherwise there would be no place for his feet, which are also about nine by twelve. From the ankles up he is fairly regular.

There were two colleagues in with him when I entered, but they soon finished and went. As we shook he said, “Stay on your feet. You can have two minutes.”

“Nuts. An hour may do it.”