Murder by the Book

The cop crossed to him and squatted. In ten seconds, which wasn't long enough, he got upright and spoke. "DOA." There seemed to be a little shake in his voice, and he raised it. "We can't use this phone. Go down and call in. Don't break your neck."

The colleague went. The cop kept his voice up. "Can you see him from there, Goodwin? Come closer, but keep your hands off."

I approached. "That's him. The guy that phoned. James A. Corrigan."

"Then you heard him shoot himself."

"I guess I did," I put one hand on my belly and the other on my throat. "I didn't get any sleep last night and I'm feeling sick. I'm going to the bathroom."

"Don't touch anything."

"I won't."

I wouldn't have been able to get away with it if the radio hadn't been going. It was plenty loud enough to cover my toe steps through the outer door, which was standing open, and in the hall to the door to the stairs. Descending the four flights, I listened a moment behind the door to the ground-floor hall, heard nothing, opened it, and passed through. The runt was standing by the elevator door, looking scared. He said nothing, and neither did I, as I crossed to the entrance. Outside I turned right, walked the half a short block to Lexington Avenue and stopped a taxi, and in seven minutes was climbing out in front of Wolfe's house.

When I entered the office I had to grin. Wolfe's current book was lying on his desk, and he was fussing with the germination slips. It was comical. He had been reading the book, and, when the sound came of me opening the front door, he had hastily ditched the book and got busy with the germination slips, just to show me how difficult things were for him because I hadn't made the entries from the slips on the permanent record cards. It was so childish I couldn't help grinning.

"May I interrupt?" I asked politely.

He looked up. "Since you're back so soon I assume you found nothing of interest."

"Sometimes you assume wrong. I'm back so soon because a flock of scientists would be coming and I might have been kept all night. I saw Corrigan. Dead. Bullet through his temple."

He let the slips in his hand drop to the desk. "Please report."

I did so, in full, including even the cop's thoughts about the Yankees. Wolfe was scowling some when I started and a lot more by the time I finished. He asked a few questions, sat a while tapping with a forefinger on the arm of his chair, and suddenly blurted at me, "Was the man a nincompoop?"

"Who, the cop?"

"No. Mr. Corrigan."