Murder by the Book

"Of all the goddam lousy luck," I said with feeling and, slipping the notebook in my pocket, made for the door. There was a bare chance that Rachel Abrams had enough life left in her to talk a little. As I rounded the second turn in the hall an elevator door opened and a flatfoot emerged. I was so engrossed that I didn't even glance at him, which was a mistake because cops can't bear not to be glanced at, especially when they're on something hot. He stopped in my path and demanded, "Who are you?"

"Governor Dewey," I told him. "How do you like me without the mustache?"

"Oh, a wag. Show me some identification."

I raised the brows. "How did I get behind the Iron Curtain without knowing it?"

"I'm' in a hurry. What's your name?"

I shook my head. "Honest, officer, I don't like this. Take me to the nearest Kremlin and I'll tell the sergeant." I stepped and pushed the down button.

"Aw, nuts." He tramped down the hall.

An elevator stopped and I entered. The elevator man was telling his passengers about the excitement. The street lobby was deserted. Out on the sidewalk the crowd was thick now, ignoring the drizzle, and I had to get authoritative to elbow my way through to the front. A cop was there, commanding them to stand back. I had a line ready to hand him to get me an approach, but when I got close enough for an unobstructed view I saw I wouldn't need it. She was smashed good, and there would be no more talking from a head that had taken that angle to the shoulders. Nor did I have to ask her name, since I had heard everybody telling everybody else, Rachel Abrams, as I pushed my way through the mob. I pushed my way out again, went to the corner and grabbed a taxi, and gave the driver the number on West Thirty-fifth Street.

When I mounted the stoop and let myself in with my key it was five minutes past four, so Wolfe had gone up for his afternoon conference with the orchids. Hanging my hat and topcoat in the hall, I ascended the three flights to the plant rooms on the roof. For all the thousands of times I have seen that display of show-offs, they still take my eye and slow me down whenever I go through, but that day I didn't even know they were there, not even in the warm room, though the Phalaenopsis were in top bloom and the Cattleyas were splashing color all around.

Wolfe was in the potting room with Theodore, transferring young Dendrobium chrysotoxums from fours to fives. As I approached he snapped at me, "Can't it wait?"