The Second Confesion

It's my self-conceit again. You have diddled me, and I will not be diddled.” “I've paid you fifty-five thousand dollars.” “So you have. And no more?” “No more. For what?” “For finishing the job. I'm going to find out who killed Mr Rony, and I'm going to prove it.” Wolfe aimed a finger at him. “If I fail, Mr Sperling-” He let the finger down and shrugged. “I won't. I won't fail. See if I do.” Suddenly, without the slightest preliminary, Sperling got mad. In a flash his eyes changed, his colour changed-he was a different man. Up from the chair, on his feet, he spoke through his teeth.

“Get out! Get out of here!” Evidently there was only one thing to do, get out. It was nothing much to me, since I had had somewhat similar experiences before, but for Wolfe, who had practically always been in his own office when a conference reached the point of breaking off relations, it was a novelty to be told to get out. He did well, I thought. He neither emphasized dignity nor abandoned it, but moved as if he had taken a notion to go to the bathroom but was in no terrible hurry. I let him precede me, which was only proper.

However, Sperling was a many-sided man. His flare-up couldn't possibly have fizzled out as quick as that, but as I hopped ahead of Wolfe to open the door his voice came.

“I won't stop payment on that cheque!”

CHAPTER Fourteen

The package arrived a little before noon on Wednesday.

We hadn't got back to normal, since there was still a small army busy up in the plant rooms, but in many respects things had settled down. Wolfe had on a clean shirt and socks, meals were regular and up to standard, the street was cleared of broken glass, arid we had caught up on sleep. Nothing much had yet been done towards making good on Wolfe's promise to finish the Rony job, but we had only been home fourteen hours and nine of them had been spent in bed.

Then the package came. Wolfe, having been up in the plant rooms since breakfast, was in the office with me, checking invoices and shipping memos of everything from osmundine fibre to steel sash putty. When I went to the front door to answer the bell, and a boy handed me a package about the size of a small suitcase and a receipt to sign, I left the package in the hall because I supposed it was just another item for the operations upstairs, and I was busy.