Some Buried Caesar

Wolfe sighed, and shut his eyes.

I sat and watched the pen in McMillan's hand moving along the top sheet of the pad. Apparently he was a slow writer. The faint scratch of its movement was the only sound for several minutes. Then he asked without looking up:

"How do you spell 'unconscious'? I've always been a bad speller."

Wolfe spelled it for him, slowly and distinctly.

I watched the pen starting to move again. My gun, in my pocket, was weighting my coat down, and I transferred it back to the holster, still looking at the pen. Wolfe, his eyes closed, was looking at nothing.

21

THAT WAS two months ago. Yesterday, while I was sitting here in the office typing from my notebook Wolfe's dictated report on the Crampton-Gore case, the phone rang. Wolfe, at his desk in his oversize chair, happening not to be pouring beer at the moment, answered at his instrument. After a second he grunted and muttered:

"She wants Escamillo."

I lifted my receiver. "Hello, trifle. I'm busy."

"You're always busy." She sounded energetic. "You listen to me a minute. You probably don't know or don't care that I seldom pay any attention to my mail except to run through it to see if there's a letter from you. I've just discovered that I did after all get an invitation to Nancy's and Jimmy's wed- ding, which will be tomorrow. I know you did. You and I will go together. You can come-"

"Stop! Stop and take a breath. Weddings are out. They're barbaric vestiges of… of barbarism. I doubt if I'd go to my own."

"You might. You may. For a string of cellophane pearls I'd marry you myself. But this wedding will be amusing. Old Pratt and old Osgood will be there and you can see them shake hands. Then you can have cocktails and dinner with me."

"My pulse remains steady."

"Kiss me."

"Still steady."

"I'll buy you some marbles and an airgun and roller skates…"

"No. Are you going to ring off now?"

"No. I haven't seen you for a century."

"Okay. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm going to the Strand tomorrow evening at 9 o'clock to watch Greenleaf and Bald- win play pool. You can come along if you'll promise to sit quietly and not chew gum." "I wouldn't know a pool from a pikestaff. But all right. You can come here for dinner-"

"Nope. I'll eat at home with my employer. I'll meet you in the lobby "of the Churchill at 8:45."

"My God, these public assignations-"

"I am perfectly willing to be seen with you in public."

"8:45 tomorrow."

"Right."

I replaced the instrument and turned to my typewriter. Wolfe's voice came:

"Archie."

"Yes, sir."