If Death Ever Slept

WOLFE: You didn’t have to come to me to settle that. Ask Mr. Jarrell. Have you?

NORA: No. I told you why. And then-there are reasons…

WOLFE: There often are. If none are at hand we contrive some. A moment ago you said, “But now it’s different.” What changed it?

NORA: You know what changed it. Murder. The murder of Jim Eber. Archie Goodwin has told you all about it.

WOLFE: I’m willing to include that in the assumption. I think, madam, you had better tell me why you came here and what you want-still, of course, on our assumption.

(I said Monday afternoon that she didn’t look her age, forty-seven. She did now. Her gray eyes were just as sharp and competent, and she kept her shoulders just as straight, but she seemed to have creases and wrinkles I hadn’t observed before. Of course it could have been the light angle, or possibly it was looking through the waterfall.)

NORA: If we’re assuming that I’m right, that man (indicating Orrie) can’t be Archie Goodwin, and I don’t know who he is. I haven’t got his picture in my scrapbook. I’ll tell you why I came.

WOLFE: That’s reasonable, certainly. Archie, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave us.

(Poor Orrie. As Orrie Cather he had been chased twice, and now he was chased as Archie Goodwin. His only hope now was to be cast as Nero Wolfe. When he was out and the door shut Nora spoke.)

NORA: All right, I’ll tell you. Right after lunch today I went on an errand, and when I got back Mr. Jarrell told me that the bullet that killed Jim Eber was a thirty-eight. That was all he told me, just that. But I knew why he told me, it was because his own gun is a thirty-eight. He has always kept it in a drawer of his desk. I saw it there Wednesday afternoon. But it wasn’t there Thursday morning, yesterday, and it hasn’t been there since. Mr. Jarrell hasn’t asked me about it, he hasn’t mentioned it. I don’t know-

WOLFE: Haven’t you mentioned it?

(Orrie was at my elbow.)