Free Three For The Chair by Rex Stout

business during meals is not only for his own protection but other people's too, including me, so I could keep my mind where it belonged, on the proper ratio of the ingredients of a mouthful. Only after that had been attended to, and my share of the blueberry pie, and we had crossed the hall to the office, where Fritz brought coffee, did he ask for a report. I gave it to him. When I had described the climax, the empty refrigerator ' that is, empty of ice cream ' I got up to refill our coffee cups.
    'But,' I said, 'if you have simply got to know what happened to it, God knows why, there is still one slender hope. David wasn't on my list. I was going to phone from the Churchill to ask if you wanted me to try him, but I wanted some of that lobster. He was there in the apartment most of Sunday. Shall I see him?'
    Wolfe grunted. 'I phoned him this afternoon, and he was here at six o'clock. He says he knows nothing about it.'
    'Then that's the crop.' I sat and took a sip of coffee. Fritz' coffee is the best on earth. I've done it exactly as he does, but it's not the same. I took another sip. 'So the gag didn't work.'
    'It is not a gag.'
    'Then what is it?'
    'It is a window for death. I think it is ' or was. I'll leave it at that for tonight. We'll see tomorrow, Archie.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'I don't like the slant of your eye. If you're thinking of badgering me, don't. Go somewhere.'
    'Glad to. I'll go have another piece of pie.' I took my cup and saucer and headed for the kitchen.
    I spent the rest of the evening there, chewing the rag with Fritz, until his bedtime came, eleven o'clock, and then went to the office to lock the safe and tell Wolfe good night, and mounted the two flights to my room. I have been known to feel fairly well satisfied with myself as I got ready for bed after a day's work, but not that night. I had failed to learn the fate of the ice cream. I hadn't the faintest notion where the ice cream came in. I didn't know what a window for death was, though I knew what it had been on a winter night twenty years ago. One of the noblest functions of a man is to keep millionaires from copping pretty girls, and I hadn't moved a finger to stop Arrow. And the case was no damn good anyhow, with a slim chance of getting any more out of it than the thousand bucks, and with the job limited to deciding whether to call the cops in or not. It was a bad setup all the way. Usually I'm asleep ten seconds after I hit the pillow, but that night I tossed and turned for a full minute before I went off.
    The trouble with mornings is that they come when you're not awake. It's all a blur until I am washed and dressed and have somehow made my way down to the kitchen, and got orange juice in me, and I'm not really awake until the fourth griddle cake and the second cup of coffee. But that Thursday morning it was accelerated. As I picked up the glass of orange juice I became aware through the blur that Fritz was putting stuff on a tray, and glanced at my wrist.
    'My God,' I said, 'you're late. It's a quarter past eight.'
    'Oh,' he said, 'Mr. Wolfe already has his. This is for Saul. He's up with Mr. Wolfe. He said he already had breakfast, but you know how he likes my summer sausage.'
    'When did he come?'
    'About eight o'clock. Mr. Wolfe wants you to go up when you're through breakfast.' He picked up the tray and went.
    That did it. I was awake. But that was no good either, because it kept me from enjoying my breakfast. I ate the sausage all right, but forgot to taste it, and I also forgot to put honey on the last cake until it was half gone. I had the Times propped on the rack in front of me, and pretended to read it, but didn't. It was only 8:32 when I took the last gulp of coffee, shoved my chair back, went to the hall and up one flight to Wolfe's room, found the door open, and entered.
    Wolfe, in his yellow pajamas and barefooted, was seated at the table near a window, and Saul, chewing on griddle cake and sausage, was across from him. I