Plot It Yourself

“I’ve only done three more pages. I want-”

“I want all of it. I’ll take care.”

I took it to him, taking care, and then went to the kitchen to see how Fritz was getting on with the braised duckling stuffed with crabmeat, because I didn’t want to sit and watch Wolfe smearing up the last fifteen pages. It isn’t that he doesn’t believe in fingerprints; it’s just that they are only routine and therefore a genius can’t be expected to bother about them. However, by going to the kitchen I merely transferred from one genius to another. When I offered to spread the paste on the cheesecloth which was to be wrapped around the ducklings, Fritz gave me exactly the kind of look Wolfe has given me on various and numerous occasions. I was perched on a stool, making pointed comments to Fritz about the superiority of teamwork, when there was a bellow from the office.

“Archie!”

I went. Wolfe was leaning back with his palms on the chair arms. “Yes, sir?”

“This is a complication. It was written by Alice Porter.”

“Sure. It says so at the top.”

“Don’t be flippant. You fully expected, and so did I, to find that it had been written by the same person as the other three. It wasn’t. Pfui!”

“Well, well, as Kenneth Rennert would say. Of course you’re sure?”

“Certainly.”

“And also sure that Alice Porter did write it?”

“Yes.”

I went to my chair and sat. “Then she decided to do one on her own, that’s all. Obviously. That doesn’t help any, but it doesn’t hinder either. Does it?”

“It may. It makes it extremely likely that the one we’re after, the one we must find and expose, had no hand in this, and therefore we should waste no time or effort on it. Miss Wynn is not our client, and neither is Mr Imhof. They are merely members of that committee. Of immediate concern is the fact that they were under a misapprehension when they agreed to contribute ten thousand dollars to the bait for Simon Jacobs. They assumed that this is another operation by the same person, and it isn’t. We must tell them so, and when we do they will probably decline to make the contribution.”

“Yeah.” I scratched my nose. I scratched my cheek. “Yeah. So they will. You work too hard. You read too much. I don’t suppose you could forget you read the damn thing? Just forget it for twenty-four hours, say?”

“No, and neither could you. You’ll have to phone them at once. Is it out of the question to offer Simon Jacobs as little as ten thousand?”