You observe my bulk.
I am not immovable, but my flesh has a constitutional reluctance to sudden, violent or sustained displacement.
You spoke of 'decent regard.'
How about a decent regard for the privacy of my dwelling?
I use this room as an office, but this house is my home.
Good day, sir.”
The young man flushed, but did not move.
“You won't go?” he demanded.
“I will not.”
“Twenty blocks, eight minutes, your own car.”
“Confound it, no.”
Frost frowned at him.
He muttered to himself,
“They don't come any stubborner.”
He reached to his inside coat pocket and pulled out some papers, selected one and unfolded it and glanced at it, and returned the others.
He looked at Wolfe:
“I've spent most of two days getting this thing signed.
Now, wait a minute, hold, your horses.
When Molly Lauck was poisoned, a week ago today, it looked phony from the beginning.
By Wednesday, two days later, it was plain that the cops were running around in circles, and I came to you.
I know about you, I know you're the one and only.
As you know, I tried to get McNair and the others down here to your office and they wouldn't come, and I tried to get you up there and you wouldn't go, and I invited you to go to hell.
That was five days ago.
I've paid another detective three hundred dollars for a lot of nothing, and the cops from the inspector down are about as good as Fanny Brice would be for Juliet. Anyhow, it's a tough one, and I doubt if anyone could crack it but you.
I decided that Saturday, and during the weekend I covered a lot of territory.” He pushed the paper at Wolfe.
“What do you say to that?”
Wolfe took it and read it.
I saw his eyes go slowly half-shut, and knew that whatever it was, its effect on his irritation was pronounced.
He glanced over it again, looked at Llewellyn Frost through slits, and then extended the paper toward me. I got up to take it.
It was typewritten on a sheet of good bond, plain, and was dated New York City, March 28, 1936:
To MR. NERO WOLFE:
At the request of Llewellyn Frost, we, the undersigned, beg you and urge you to investigate the death of Molly Lauck, who was poisoned on March 23 at the office of Boyden McNair Incorporated on 52nd Street, New York.
We entreat you to visit McNair's office for that purpose.
We respectfully remind you that once each year you leave your home to attend the Metropolitan Orchid Show, and we suggest that the present urgency, while not as great to you personally, appears to us to warrant an equal sacrifice of your comfort and convenience.
With high esteem,
WINOLD GLUECKNER CUYLEH DlTSON T.
M. O'GORMAN RAYMOND PLEHN CHAS.
E. SHANKS CHRISTOPHER BAMFORD
I handed the document back to Wolfe and sat down and grinned at him.
He folded it and slipped it under the block of petrified wood which he used for a paperweight.
Frost said:
“That was the best I could think of, to get you.
I had to have you.
This thing has to be ripped open. I got Del Pritchard up there and he was lost.
I had to get you somehow.
Will you come?”
Wolfe's forefinger was doing a little circle on the arm of his chair.
“Why the devil,” he demanded, “did they sign that thing?”
“Because I asked them to.
I explained.