If Death Ever Slept

Having bought a newspaper of my own on the way back, I went to the lounge with it, finding no one there, and caught up with the world, including the latest non-news on the Eber murder. There was no mention of the startling fact that Otis Jarrell’s new secretary had turned out to be no other than Nero Wolfe’s man Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the celebrated detective, Archie Goodwin. Evidently Cramer and the DA weren’t going to give us any free publicity until and unless we were involved in murder, a typical small-minded attitude of small men, and it was up to Wolfe’s public-relations department, namely me, to do something about it; and besides, I owed Lon Cohen a bone. So I went up to my room and phoned him, and wished I hadn’t, since he tried to insist on a hunk of meat with it. I had no sooner hung up than a ring called me to the green phone. It was Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum, who invited me to appear at his office at three o’clock that afternoon for a little informal chat. I told him I would be delighted, and went down to get some oats, having been informed by Steck that lunch would be at one-thirty.

Lunch wasn’t very gay, since there were only three of them there-Jarrell, Wyman, and Susan. Susan said maybe thirty words altogether, as for instance, “Will you have cream, Mr. Goodwin?” When I announced that I would have to leave at two-thirty for an appointment at the district attorney’s office, thinking that might pinch a nerve, Wyman merely used a thumb and forefinger to pinch his thin straight nose, whether or not meant as a vulgar insult I couldn’t say, and Susan merely said that she supposed talking with an assistant district attorney was nothing for a detective but she would be frightened out of her wits. Jarrell said nothing then, but when we left the table he took me aside and wanted to know. I told him that since the police commissioner had promised that there would be no officious prying into his private affairs there was no problem. I would just tell Mandelbaum that I was part of Mr. Jarrell’s private affairs and therefore a clam.