Murder by the Book

"I suppose so," I conceded. "She's dead. I just want permission to phone Cramer. I might as well, since I was seen by the elevator man who let me off at her floor, and a cop, and my fingerprints are on her desk."

"Who is dead?"

"The woman who typed that manuscript for Baird Archer."

"When and how?"

"Just now. She died while I was in the elevator going up to her office on the seventh floor. She was going down faster, out of her window. What killed her was hitting the sidewalk."

"How do you know she typed the manuscript?"

"I found this in her desk." I took the notebook from my pocket and showed him the entries. His hands were too dirty to touch it, and I held it before his eyes, I asked him, "Do you want details now?"

"Confound it. Yes."

As I reported in full he stood with the tips of his dfftf fingers resting on the potting bench, his head turned to me, his lips tight, his brow creased with a frown. His yellow smock, some half an acre in area, was exactly the color of the daffodils on Rachel Abrams' desk.

When I had finished the story I inquired grimly, "Shall I expound?"

He grunted.

"I should have stuck around, but it wouldn't have done any good because I was too goddam mad to function. If I had been three minutes earlier I would have had her alive. Also, if she was pushed out of the window I would have had the pusher alive, and you told me to get you something, and it would have been a pleasure to get you that. The lucky bastard. He must have entered a down elevator, or passed down the hall on his way to the stairs, not more than thirty seconds before I stepped out on that floor. When I looked out of the window he was probably there on the sidewalk, walking away because he wasn't morbid."

Wolfe's eyes opened and half shut again.

"If you're thinking," I said aggressively, "that she wasn't pushed, one will get you ten. I do not believe that the woman who typed that manuscript picked today to jump out of the window or to fall out by accident."

"Nevertheless, it's possible."

"I deny it. It would be too goddam silly. Okay, you said to get you something, and at least I got you this." I tapped the notebook with a finger.

"It doesn't help much." Wolfe was glum. "It establishes that Miss Wellman was killed because she had read that manuscript, but we were already going on that assumption. I doubt if it would gratify Miss Abrams to know that her death validated an assumption for us. Most people expect more than that of death. Mr. Cramer will want that notebook."