Too Many Women

CHAPTER Sixteen

Wolfe was reading three books at once. He had been doing that, off and on, all the years I had been with him, and it always annoyed me because it seemed ostentatious. The three current items were The Sudden Guest by Christopher La Farge, Love from London by Gilbert Gabriel, and A Survey of Symbolic Logic by C.

I. Lewis. He would take turns with them, reading twenty or thirty pages in each at a time. In the office after dinner that evening he sat at his desk, having a wonderful time with his literary ring-around-a-rosy.

I had already, before dinner, reported to him on the day’s events, and presumably he had listened, but he had not asked a single question or made a single comment. For table conversation business was of course taboo, but it might have been supposed that with digestion proceeding under control and according to plan he would have one or two suggestions to offer. Not so.

I was at my own desk, cleaning and oiling my arsenal-two revolvers and an automatic. When he finished the second heat with A Survey of Symbolic Logic, dogeared it, put it down, and reached for Love from London, I inquired respectfully, “Where’s Saul?” “Saul?” You might have thought he was trying to decide whether I meant Saul of Tarsus or Saul Soda. “Oh. It seemed pointless to waste a client’s money. Did you want him for something? I believe he’s working on a forgery case for Mr.

Bascom.” “So I’m doing a solo. Shall I go up and start catching up on sleep, or would you care to pretend we both earn money?” “Archie.” He picked up the book. “I do not propose to start sorting out chaos.

At present this case is merely a guggle of unintelligible babel. If Mr. Naylor killed Mr. Moore, it is quite possible that he will carry his joke too far. If he didn’t, and he knows that someone else did, the same comment can be made. If neither, the corporation is spending money foolishly but we are not stockholders. We’ll probably know more about it after my talk with Mr. Naylor Monday evening. Until then it would be futile to bother my head about it.

Besides, you don’t really want me to. You are wallowing in clover, with hundreds of young women accessible, unguarded, and utterly at your mercy.” “I do not,” I said, closing the drawer where I kept the arsenal and getting to my feet, “like clover.” I walked to the door to the hall, where I turned. “It is not my mercy they’re at. And if I stick my foot in something down there that you have to pull it out of, don’t blame me.”