If Death Ever Slept

“A vital statistic. Ringing James L. Eber’s bell several times and getting no reaction, and finding the door was locked, I used a key and entered. He was on the floor facedown in the middle of the room, with a bullet hole in the back of his head which could have been made by a thirty-eight. He was cooling off, but not cold. I would say, not for quotation, that he had been dead from three to seven hours. As you know, that depends. I did no investigating because I didn’t care to stay. I don’t think I was seen entering or leaving.”

Wolfe’s lips had tightened until he practically didn’t have any. “Preposterous,” he said distinctly.

“What is?” I demanded. “It’s not preposterous that he’s dead, with that hole in his skull.”

“This whole affair. You shouldn’t have gone there in the first place.”

“Maybe not. You suggested it.”

“I did not suggest it. I raised difficulties.”

I crossed my legs. “If you want to try to settle that now,” I said, “okay, but you know how things like that drag on, and I need instructions. I should have called headquarters and told them where to find something interesting, but didn’t, because I thought you might possibly have a notion.”

“I have no notion and don’t intend to have one,” Wolfe said.

“Then I’ll call. From a booth. They say they can’t trace a local dial call, but there might be a miracle. Next, do I get back up there quick, I mean to Jarrell’s, and if so what’s my line?”

I said I have no notion. Why should you go back there at all?”

I uncrossed my legs. “Look,” I said, “you might as well come on down. I could go back just to return his ten grand and tell him we’re bowing out, if that’s what you want, but it’s not quite so simple and you know it. When the cops learn that Eber was Jarrell’s secretary and got fired, they’ll be there asking questions. If they learn that Jarrell hired you and you sent me to take his place-don’t growl at me, they’ll think you sent me no matter what you think-you know what will happen, they’ll be on our necks. Even if they don’t learn that, we have a problem. We know that a thirty-eight revolver was taken from Jarrell’s desk yesterday afternoon, and we know that Eber was there yesterday morning and it made a stir, and if and when we also know that the bullet that killed him came from a thirty-eight, what do we do, file it and forget it?”