Before Midnight

I admitted it was very interesting, and made no remark about how helpful it would be in finding out who swiped Dahlmann's wallet, since that would have touched on business. Even after we finished with cheese and coffee and left the dining room to cross the hall to the office, I let him digest in peace, and went to my desk and dialed Lily Rowan's number. When I told her I wouldn't be able to make it to the Polo Grounds tomorrow, she began to call Wolfe names, and thought of several new ones that showed her wide experience and fine feeling for words. While we were talking the doorbell rang, but Fritz had been told about Heery, so I went ahead and finished the conversation properly. When I hung up and swiveled, Heery was in the red leather chair.

He measured up to it, both vertically and horizontally, much better than either Rollins or Mrs. Wheelock. In a dinner jacket, with the expanse of white shirt front, he looked broader even than before. Apparently he had been glancing around, for he was saying, "This is a very nice room. Very personal. You like yellow, don't you?"

"Evidently," Wolf muttered. Such remarks irritate him. Since the drapes and couch cover and cushions and five visible chairs were yellow, it did seem a little obvious.

"Yellow is a problem," Heery declared. "It has great advantages, but also it has a lot of drawbacks. Yellow streak. Yellow journalism. Yellow fever. It's very popular for packaging, but Louis Dahlmann wouldn't let me use it. Formerly I used it a great deal. Seeing all your yellow made me think of him."

"I doubt," Wolfe said drily, "if you needed my decor to remind you of Mr. Dahlmann at this juncture."

"That's funny," Heery said, perfectly serious.

"It wasn't meant to be."

"Anyway, it is, because it's wrong. That's the first time I've thought of him today. Ten seconds after I heard he was dead, and how he had died, I was in a stew about the effect on the contest and my business, and I'm still in it. I haven't had any room for thinking about Louis Dahlmann. Have you seen all the contestants?"

"Four of them. Mr. Goodwin saw Mr. Younger."

"Have you got anywhere?"

Wolfe hated to work right after dinner. He said testily, "I report only to my client, Mr. Heery."

"That's funny too. Your client is Lippert, Buff and Assa. I'm one of their biggest accounts--their commission on my business last year was over half a million. I'm paying all the expenses of the contest, and of course the prizes. And you won't even tell me if you've got anywhere?"