Free If Death Ever Slept by Rex Stout Page B

turned.
    'He reminds me of you a little,' I said-just an interesting fact, nothing personal. 'I was about to say, I'll have to go back up there and I need to know what for. Just hang around or try to start something'For instance, it would be a cinch to put the bee on Jarrell. You couldn't ask for a better setup for blackmail. I tell him that if he makes a sizable contribution in cash, say half a million, we'll regard the stolen gun as a coincidence and forget it. If he doesn't we'll feel that we must report it. Of course I'll have to wait until the news is out about Eber, but if-'
    'Shut up.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    He eyed me. 'You understand the situation. You have expounded it.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'This may or may not affect the job you undertook for Mr. Jarrell-don't interrupt me-very well, that we undertook. Murder sometimes creates only ripples, but more frequently high seas. Assuredly you are not going back there to take women to lunch at Rusterman's or to taverns to dance. I offer no complaint for what has been done; I will concede that we blundered into this mess by a collaboration in mulishness; but if it was Mr. Jarrell's gun that was used to kill Eber, and it isn't too fanciful to suppose that it was, we are in it willy-nilly, and we should emerge, if not with profit, at least without discomfiture. That is our joint concern. You ask if you should start something up there. I doubt if you'll need to; something has already started. It is most unlikely that the murder had no connection with that hive of predators and parasites. I can't tell you how to proceed because you'll have to wait on events. You will be guided by your intelligence and experience, and report to me as the occasion dictates. Mr. Jarrell said he has instructions for you. Have you any notion what they'll be?'
    'Not a glimmer.'
    'Then we can't anticipate them. You will call police headquarters?'
    'Yes, on my way.'
    'That will expedite matters. Otherwise there's no telling when the body would be found.'
    I was on my feet. 'If you phone me there,' I told him, 'keep it decent. He has four phones on his desk, and I suspect two of them.'
    'I won't phone you. You'll phone me.'
    'Okay,' I said, and went.

Nero Wolfe 29 - If Death Ever Slept
    Chapter 6
    PASSING THE GANTLET OF the steely eyes of the lobby sentinel, mounting in the private elevator, and using my key in the tenth-floor vestibule, I found that the electronic security apparatus hadn't been switched on yet. Steck appeared, of course, and said that Mr. Jarrell would like to see me in the library. The eye I gave him was a different eye from what it had been. It could even have been Steck who had worked the rug trick to get hold of a gun. He had his duties, but he might have managed to squeeze it in.
    Hearing voices in the lounge, I crossed the reception hall to glance in, and saw Trella, Nora, and Roger Foote at a card table.
    Roger looked up and called to me. 'Pinochle! Come and take a hand!'
    'Sorry, I can't. Mr. Jarrell wants me.'
    'Come when you're through! Peach Fuzz ran a beautiful race! Beautiful! Five lengths back at the turn and only a head behind at the finish! Beautiful!'
    A really fine loser, I was thinking as I headed for the corridor. You don't often meet that kind of sporting spirit. Beautiful!
    The door of the library was standing open. Entering, I closed it. Jarrell, over by the files with one of the drawers open, barked at me, 'Be with you in a minute,' and I went to the chair at an end of his desk. A Portanaga with an inch of ash intact was there on a tray, and the smell told me it was still alive, so it couldn't have been more than ninety seconds since he left his desk to go to the files. That's the advantage of being a detective with a trained mind; you collect all kinds of useless facts without even trying.
    He came and sat, picked up the cigar and tapped the ash off, and took a couple of puffs. He spoke. 'Why did you go to see Wolfe?'
    'He pays my salary. He likes to know what he's getting for