Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

I thought that might make him mad enough to forget himself and enter the office, and if I once got him in there it would be a point gained, but he merely stood and scowled at me.

“You said,” he growled, “that you’re on furlough.”

“I did not. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That shows the condition you’re in. A thousand times, right in this room, I’ve heard you give people hell for inexact statements. What I said was that my furlough is two weeks. I did not say that I’m on it now. Nor did I mention-”

“Pfui!” he sputtered scornfully, and turned and started up the stairs. Which was another phenomenon I had never seen before, him mounting those stairs. It had cost him $7,000 to install the elevator.

I got my cap and left the house and started to work.

I tried to inject some enthusiasm into the day’s operations, and I did do my best, but at no point did any probability appear that I was going to turn up anything that could be used for a lever to pry Wolfe loose. It was a different problem from any that had ever confronted me before, because, since he was hell-bent for heroism, no appeal to his cupidity would work. In the condition he had got himself into, the only weak spot where I might break through was his vanity.

I learned from friends at Centre Street that the investigation of Mrs. Leeds’ death had never gone beyond the precinct, so I went there and made inquiries. The sergeant didn’t bother to look up the record. Nothing to it. The doctor had certified coronary thrombosis at the age of 87, and the neighborhood gossip about Mrs. Chack pinch-hitting for the vengeance of God because she got impatient with Him for waiting so long was the bunk.