Might as Well Be Dead

He went, to the elevator, and I went, to the stairs. Up in my room, undressing, I decided to dream of Selma Molloy-something like her being trapped in a blazing building, at an upper window, afraid to jump for the firemen’s net. I would march up, wave the firemen aside, stretch my arms, and down she would come, light as a feather, into my embrace. The light as a feather part was important, since otherwise there might have been some bones broken. I didn’t consider this reneging on my decision, because you can’t hold a man responsible for his dreams. But I didn’t follow through on it. No dreams at all. In the morning I didn’t even remember that I had been going to dream, but I never do remember anything in the morning until I have washed and showered and shaved and dressed and made my way down to the kitchen. With the orange juice the fog begins to lift, and with the coffee it’s all clear. It’s a good thing Wolfe breakfasts in his room, on a tray taken up by Fritz, and then goes up to the plant rooms. If we met before breakfast he would have fired me or I would have quit long ago.

Thursday started busy and kept it up. There were three letters from P.H.’s, answers to the ad, in the morning mail, and I had to answer them. There was a phone call from Omaha, from James R. Herold. His wife was impatient. I told him we had five men working on the case, including Saul Panzer and me, and we would report as soon as there was anything worth reporting. Fred Durkin came in person to confer. He had visited five establishments with phone booths within two blocks of the 52nd Street house, and had found no one who remembered anything about any user of the phone around nine o’clock on January 3. The soda jerk who had been on duty at the drugstore that evening had left and gone somewhere in Jersey. Should Fred find him? I told him yes and wished him luck.

Orrie Cather phoned from Freyer’s office to ask if we had arranged with Mrs. Molloy to hire a lawyer to establish her position legally, and I told him no, that would be done when she came to see Wolfe.