Plot It Yourself

So the strain on his brain had been something else, I had no idea what. Whenever that happens, when he goes off somewhere out of sight, I am not supposed to yodel at him, especially with company present, so I got to my feet and asked if there were any errands on the way, and he said no. Alice Porter was going to say something and decided not to. When I held her jacket she missed the armhole twice, and I admit it could have been partly my fault. My mind was occupied. It was starting back over the conversation, her part of it, trying to spot what had opened up a crack for Wolfe.

It was still trying three hours and twenty minutes later, at half past two in the morning, when I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone and let myself in. At one point on the way back, as I was rolling along on the parkway, I had thought I had it. Alice Porter was X. When she had written the first one, “There Is Only Love,” she had used another style, as different as she could make it from her own style in her book. But there were three things wrong with that. First, if she had been slick enough to make up a style for the first one, why hadn’t she made up other styles for the other two instead of copying that one? Second, why had she used her own style for “Opportunity Knocks,” the one she had used on Amy Wynn? Third, what had she said that gave Wolfe so strong a suspicion that she was X that he called a halt and started on his lip routine? I had to try again, and was still at it when I got home.

There was a note on my desk for me:

AG:

Saul, Fred, Orrie, Miss Bonner, and Miss Corbett will come at eight in the morning and come to my room. I have taken one thousand dollars from the safe to give them for expenses. You will not be needed. You will of course sleep late. NW

Wolfe has his rules and I have mine. I absolutely refuse to permit any wear and tear on my brain after my head hits the pillow. Usually it works automatically, but that night a little discipline was needed. It took me a full three minutes to fade out.

Chapter 17