Might as Well Be Dead

One of my sixteen thousand duties is keeping a five-week file of the Times in a cupboard below the bookshelves. I went and slid the door open and squatted, and before long I had it, on the seventeenth page of the issue of March 27. I gave it a look and went and handed it to Wolfe, and from a drawer of my desk got the picture of Paul Herold in mortarboard and gown, and handed him that too. He held them side by side and scowled at them, and I circled around to his elbow to help. The newspaper shot wasn’t any too good, but even so, if they were the same P.H. he had changed a lot in eleven years. His round cheeks had caved in, his nose had shrunk, his lips were thinner, and his chin had bulged.

“No,” Wolfe said. “Well?”

“Unanimous,” I agreed. “That would have been a hell of a spot to find him. Is it worth going to the courtroom for a look?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, not today. You’re needed here.”

But that only postponed the agony for a few hours. That afternoon, after various journalists had been dealt with, and some of the P.H.’s, and Saul had been sent to keep the appointments, we had a visitor. Just three minutes after Wolfe had left the office for his daily four-to-six conference with the orchids, the doorbell rang and I answered it. On the stoop was a middle-aged guy who would need a shave by sundown, in a sloppy charcoal topcoat and a classy new black homburg. He could have been a P.H., but not a journalist. He said he would like a word with Mr. Nero Wolfe. I said Mr. Wolfe was engaged, told him my name and station, and asked if I could be of any service. He said he didn’t know.

He looked at his wristwatch. “I haven’t much time,” he said, looking harassed. “My name is Albert Freyer, counselor-at-law.” He took a leather case from his pocket, got a card from it, and handed it to me. “I am attorney for Peter Hays, who is on trial for first-degree murder. I’m keeping my cab waiting because the jury is out and I must be at hand. Do you know anything about the advertisement Nero Wolfe put in today’s papers, ‘To. P.H.’?”

“Yes, I know all about it.”

“I didn’t see it until an hour ago. I didn’t want to phone about it. I want to ask Nero Wolfe a question. It is being assumed that the advertisement was addressed to my client, Peter Hays. I want to ask him straight, was it?”

“I can answer that. It wasn’t. Mr. Wolfe had never heard of Peter Hays, except in the newspaper accounts of his trial.”

“You will vouch for that?”

“I do vouch for it.”