Plot It Yourself

It was a fine well-furnished cloister and probably contained many objects that were worth a look, but my attention centred immediately on its tenant. She was on her back on the floor in front of an oversized couch, dressed in a blue garment that I would call a smock but she probably had called something else. One of her legs was bent a little, but the other one was out straight. Crossing to her, I stooped to get her hand and found that the arm was completely stiff. I got a foot, which was covered by a sock but no shoe; the leg was stiff too. She had been dead a minimum of six hours, and almost certainly more.

There was a dark red stain at heart level around a slit in the smock, not a big one. My hand started to open the zipper for a look underneath. But I drew it back. Let the medical examiner do it. I straightened up and looked around. There was no sign of a struggle or of any disturbance-no drawers open or anything scattered around. Everything was as it should be except that she was dead.

I said aloud, with feeling, “The sonofabitch.”

There was a phone on a table against a wall, and I went and lifted the receiver, using my handkerchief, and put it to my ear. The dial tone came. There was a chance that it was an extension, but probably not; the number on the disc was not the same as the one listed for Ogilvy in the phone book. I dialed and got Fritz, and asked him to buzz the plant rooms.

Wolfe’s voice: “Yes?”

I apologized. “I’m sorry to disturb you so often when you’re up with the orchids, but I’ve hit another snag. I’m in a building in the rear of the Ogilvy grounds which Jane called the cloister. Her corpse is here on the floor. Stabbed in the chest. She died at least six hours ago, probably more. At the house her mother told me she was here and might not be up yet, and I came here alone. I have touched nothing but the knocker and the doorknob. If you want me to hurry home for new instructions, okay, I knocked a few times and got no response, and left. I can stop at the house and tell Mrs Ogilvy that.”

He growled, “If you had gone last night.”

“Yeah. Maybe. She was probably killed about the time I started trying to find Lon Cohen. If I leave I should leave quick.”

“Why leave? How in the name of heaven could I have new instructions?”

“I thought you might want to discuss the situation.”

“Pfui. Discussion wouldn’t help it any.”

“Then I stick.”

“Yes.”