Free Corpus Corpus by Harry Paul Jeffers Page B

gone he found the cigars on the lawn, only partially smoked, where the snobs had tossed them away. The next day the person he'd stolen them from told him that someday he was likely to get shot for giving people such awful cigars."
    "But Janus isn't making a point, is he? He's perpetrating a fraud on people who just gave him an award, and in my book that makes him as low as a snake's bellybutton. Well, snakes have been known to get their heads bashed in. Or swallowed by bigger ones."
    "They can also be murder weapons, as in Fer-de-Lance , Nero Wolfe's first recorded case."
    "I haven't read it."
    "A fer-de-lance is a snake."
    "There was also a deadly snake in the Sherlock Holmes case that Dr. Watson called 'The Speckled Band.' "
    Goldstein's voice intruded. "It was a swamp adder, trained to climb a bell rope."
    Turning to Goldstein, Bogdanovic blurted, "A trained snake?"
    "It answered to a whistle," said Dane, grinning.
    "Unfortunately for Dr. Grimesby Roylott of Stoke Moran," said Goldstein, holding a half-smoked Janus cigar, "it ignored common wisdom about never biting the hand that feeds you and sank its fangs into its owner and trainer. Dare I ask you what's prompted this discussion of snakes?"
    Dane answered, "Your assistant thinks Theo Janus is one."
    "You're holding the evidence in your hand," Bogdanovic said. "The band on your cigar says it's Cuban, but it isn't."
    "Is that so?" Goldstein said, studying the black and gold band. "Is an arrest for consumer fraud imminent?"
    Bogdanovic glared at Janus. "No, but I wouldn't slap the cuffs on anybody who gave Janus a poke in the eye, either."
    Goldstein puffed the bogus cigar, took it from his mouth, and declared, "Fake Havana or not, it's a pretty good smoke. All this talk about Havana cigars being the best in the world is, in my opinion, a bunch of baloney. Many fine cigars are being made in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Jamaica."
    As he spoke, he heard the chirping of Bogdanovic's beeper.
    "Of course," he continued while Bogdanovic read the message in the window of the device, "the best cigar is the one you don't have to pay for. There is no such thing as a bad free cigar, no matter who gave it to you."
    With a worried expression, Bogdanovic interrupted. "Excuse me, Chief. The message was from Red Reiter. He wants a callback as soon as possible."
    "Did he say where he is?"
    "No. And I don't recognize the phone number he listed," said Bogdanovic, reaching into his inside coat pocket for his cellular phone. "I think it's an uptown one."
    Looking around the room, Goldstein said quietly, "Discretion is the thing, Johnny. Members of the press might still be around. Use a phone booth in the lobby."
    Watching Bogdanovic impatiently threading through the happy throng that stood between him and the exit, Dane smiled a little, then turned to Goldstein. "You can always tell a detective!"
    "Yes," he replied through a puff of smoke, "but not much."
    "May I deduce that Red Reiter is another of the breed?"
    "He and his partner are what you might call a first-response team," he said, looking anxiously toward the exit. "It's their job to check out situations that might require my attention."
    "As in situations that might require the personal appearance at the scene of the crime by the chief of detectives and what our dear friends in the news media like to call high-profile cases?"
    "That's it exactly."
    "Well, let's hope this very pleasant evening isn't going to turn out to be one of them."
    As they both looked toward the door, Theodore Janus arrived at Goldstein's side. "Pardon this old bloodhound for butting in, Chief," he whispered, tapping a finger to the side of his nose, "but the hurried departure of your sterling aide-de-camp after being beeped and your rapt attention on the door through which he departed so hastily suggest to my keen olfactory sense that the game may be afoot. Dare I hope it's a juicy case of murder?"
    "What's the matter, Theo?" demanded Dane, playfully