Over My Dead Body

My mouth was standing open in astonishment. After two hours on his feet in the plant rooms, when he came to the office at eleven o'clock and got lowered into his chair, with me there to annoy him pleasantly and the beer-tray freshly delivered by Fritz Brenner, Wolfe was ordinarily as immovable as a two-ton boulder. But now he was rising; he was risen. With a mutter that might have been taken either for an excuse or an imprecation, and with no glance at either of us, he stalked out of the room, by the door that led to the hall. We watched him go and then the immigrant turned and let me have her eyes wide open.

"He gets sick?" she demanded.

I shook my head. "Eccentric," I explained. "I suppose you might call it a form of sickness, but it's nothing tangible like concussion of the brain or whooping-cough. Once when a respectable lawyer was sitting in that very chair you're in now- Yes, Fritz?"

The door which Wolfe had closed behind him had opened again and Fritz Brenner stood there with a bewildered look on his face.

"In the kitchen a moment, please, Archie."

I got up and excused myself and went to the kitchen. Preliminary preparations for lunch were scattered around on the big linoleum-covered table, but it was obvious that Wolfe had not been suddenly seized with a violent curiosity about food. He stood at the far side of the refrigerator, facing me in a determined manner that seemed entirely uncalled for, and told me abruptly as I entered:

"Send her away."

"My God!" I admit I blew up a little. "She said she'd pay something, didn't she? It's enough to freeze the blood of an alligator! If you read it in her eyes that her friend Neya did actually glumb the glass, you might at least-"

"Archie." It was about as hostile as his voice ever got. "I have skedaddled, physically, once in my life, from one person, and that was a Montenegrin woman. It was many years ago, but my nerves remember it. I neither desire nor intend to explain how I felt when that Montenegrin female voice in there said 'hvala Bogu.' Send her away."

"But there's no-"

"Archie!"

I saw it was hopeless, though I had no idea whether he was overcome by terror or was staging a stunt. I gave it up and went back to the office and stood in front of her.

"Mr Wolfe regrets that he will be unable to help your friend out of her trouble. He's busy."