The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"As a matter of fact, he has, for one night. I won't explain that. Hold it a second." I transferred the receiver to my right hand and used the left to slip the photograph from my pocket. "Here's some poetry. Listen." I read it, with feeling. "Do you recognize it?"

"Certainly. So do you."

"No I don't, but it seems familiar."

"It should. Where did you get it?"

"I'll tell you someday. What is it?"

"It's a take-off of the last four lines of the second stanza of Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' It's sort of clever, but no one should monkey with Keats. Escamillo, you're a pretty good detective and you dance like an angel, and you have other outstanding qualities, but you will never be a highbrow. Come and read Keats to me."

I told her she was too jejune, hung up, slipped the photograph back in my pocket, and went out and took my fifth taxi in five hours. The client could afford it.

It was five minutes to two when I put my hat and coat on the rack in the hall, went to the door of the dining room, told Wolfe, who was at the table, that it looked and felt like snow, and proceeded to the kitchen. I don't join Wolfe when I arrive in the middle of a meal; we agree that for one man to hurry with meat or fish while the other dawdles with pastry or cheese is bad for the atmosphere. Fritz put things on my breakfast table and brought what was left of the baked bluefish, and I asked him how he was getting on with the menu for next Thursday's blowout.

"I'm not discussing that," he said. "I am not discussing anything, Archie. He was in my room for more than an hour before lunch, talking with the television on loud. If it is so dangerous I will not talk at all."

I told him we should be back to normal by the time the shad roe started coming, and he threw up his hands and said good God in French.