The Second Confesion

“Among four-legged brutes there is a certain animal which neither works for its food nor fights for it. A squirrel earns its acorns, and a beast of prey earns its hard-won meal. But this animal skulks among the trees and rocks and tall grass, looking for misfortune and suffering. What a way to live! What a diet that is, to eat misfortune! How lucky we are that it is only among four-legged brutes that we may find such a scavenger as that!

“Perhaps I should apologize, my friends and fellow citizens, for this digression into the field of natural history. Good-bye for another ten days.

Tomorrow, and for the remainder of my vacation, Robert Burr will be with you again in my place. I had to come to town today, and the temptation to come to the studio and talk to you was too much for me. Here is Mr Griswold for my sponsor.” Another voice, as cordial and sunny as Emerson's was acid, began telling us of the part played by Continental Mines Corporation in the greatness of America. I got up and crossed to the radio to turn it off.

“I hope he spelled your name right,” I remarked to Wolfe. “What do you know? He went to all that trouble right in the middle of his vacation just to give you a plug. Shall we write and thank him?” No reply. Obviously that was no time to ask if he wanted our report for the afternoon, so I didn't And later, after dinner, as I have said, he decided to do a survey of the pictures first.

He liked them so much that he practically suggested I should quit detective work and take up photography. There were thirty-eight different shots in the collection I put on his desk. He rejected nine of them, put six in his top drawer, and asked for all four prints of the other twenty-three. As Saul and I got them together I noticed that he had no outstanding favourites. All the family and guests were well represented, and of course the membership card was included. Then they all had to be labelled on the back and placed in separate envelopes, also labelled. He put a rubber band around them and put them in his top drawer.