There’s not a lot else I want to recall about the rest of that night.  Maybe I should mention that I woke up twice, breathing hard and with my heart pounding, although I’m usually a good sleeper.  Once again I got up feeling soggy and moving slow.  Even thought I skipped shaving, I had to apologize to Fritz for rushing my breakfast.  But, if I hadn’t have hurried, I wouldn’t have caught Wolfe before he went up to the plant rooms at nine.

I did make time before I climbed the three flights of stairs to call my publisher and then the number I’d gotten to see if Fay would be in her office and available.  An efficient female voice answered and, on a hunch, I asked her to let Miss Tremayne know that Mr. Goodwin was on the line.  To my surprise, it worked.  I heard a voice that I recognized as Fay’s.

“Archie?  It’s Fay.” She sounded as distant as she had the day before.

“Sorry, this isn’t a social call.  Mr. Wolfe would like to see you.”

“I thought he might.  I’ve been thinking about you and Mr. Wolfe.”

I kept my voice polite.  “Are you considering including us in another book?”

“Perhaps, or perhaps not.  I seemed to have missed something.  I’ll have to consider it for a while longer.”  There was a pause, as if she was beginning operations, before then she continued, “All right.  I need to meet with a client, but when I return you can convey me to Mr. Wolfe.  I believe I will be free around noon.  Check with Alicia to make sure of my schedule.”  A click told me she had transferred me back to her secretary without saying goodbye.  After confirming the time of my appointment, I hung up, shaking my head.

I told Wolfe where I was going while he was putting on my war paint, to distract myself.  It didn’t help. 

“Do you feel it will be necessary for her to dine with us?”  He was working around my shoulder blades.

“Maybe, but I’m not sure.  You know it helps, sometimes.”

He grimaced.  “I suppose it is warranted by the situation.”  His hands still felt too good.  I was tamping down an urge to arch back into them when he asked, “Has Saul called?”

It was a dim question since he knew darn well I would have put Saul through, but given the circumstances, I only said, “No, sir.”

“That concerns me.  If he hasn’t telephoned by the time you return, you may have to drive out to Long Island, and speak with Mr. Hewitt yourself.”

That was a trip to avoid since, like any Manhattan old-timer, I hated bucking weekday traffic on the Parkway.  However, traffic or no traffic, there was no way I would leave Saul in a fix.  “I can put off Fay.”

“No, confound it;  I need to see the woman.”  His starting operations on my front snapped my attention back to his hands.  I scrambled around for another topic of conversation. 

“I looked at the Britannica last night.”  In fact, after the second time I woke up, I had gone back downstairs and leafed through several of the books on Wolfe’s shelves, but there was no need to confess everything.

He raised his eyebrows.  “Did you learn anything of interest to you?”  His fingers stroked down towards my belly and I shuddered.

“Sorry.  Yes, sir, I did.”  I turned at his gesture and let him work on a symbol above my left hip.  “Although, if you think I’m growing my hair long and wearing a dress like those tribal guys, you can think again.”

“I inquired if you had learned anything useful, Archie, not if you had acquired novel ways to pester me with nonsense.”  His cheeks had unfurled very slightly before he pressed his lips together, his method of suppressing a smile.

“Well, I guess I now understand part of what is going on with the touching.  No wonder you don’t like shaking hands.  For you, it’s like playing ‘Information, Please’, except with feelings.”

“Are you adding catch-phrases to your vocabulary again?  It seems a high price to pay for the limited amount of entertainment afforded by the radio and motion pictures.  Never mind, you distract me.  You are correct, Archie, there is always a flow across physical contact although not usually of this nature.”  He straightened up to work on the last pattern, a fancy item that crawled diagonally across my chest.  My nipples just had to react.  His eyes met mine, and he snorted.  I grinned. 

“Sorry again.”

“Bah.  Picaroon.”   Again, the folds of his cheeks pulled back a little, and this time he let them.  “I am finished, so you can wash and dress.”

I used his bathroom.  When I was done, I sauntered out without saying goodbye.  We both prefer it that way.

It was a fast trip to the Fay’s new office:  I took a shortcut through Grand Central Station, went down two streets, and I was there.  She had space in one of the newest buildings on the block, an ugly looking pile of steel and glass that hinted the architect had been separated from his blocks too early and had developed a complex.  Fay’s office was on the seventh floor.  The gold lettering on the outside door said, “Fay Tremayne, Consultant.”  She was doing some sort of business in there, all right, but, with that title, it could be anything.

The door opened into a small ante-room lined with a decent carpet and furnished with antiques.  I surveyed the staff, which consisted of one lush brunette switchboard operator and one neat blonde whose crisp, grey linen suit matched the tones of the secretary I’d heard over the phone.  They both looked a little bored.  I donned an expression of warm, human sympathy before crossing to the blonde’s desk.

“May I help you, sir?”  I’d been right about her appearance but wrong about her job since her nameplate announced that she was an office manager, an extra syllable of status above secretary.  I made a mental note to work her title into my report to Wolfe, to see if he would snort.

“Mr. Archie Goodwin, of Nero Wolfe’s office, here to see Miss Tremayne.”

“I’ll let Miss Tremayne know you’re here, Mr. Goodwin.”  She glanced at a colonial armchair, but I let the glance go past me and leaned on the corner of her desk.  Stroking a button, she said, “Miss Tremayne?”

There was no answer.  She looked at her phone, allowed a small frown to mar her efficient neutrality, and tried again.  This time there was a click from the receiver and a wet, muffled, thud.  It seemed she deserved the extra syllables of status because she stood up decisively, went, and knocked on Fay’s door.  I had tagged along, so we both heard the noises through the wood.  But, it was the smell that spurred me into action, a variation on one I remembered too well, the reek of rotten flesh and tuberoses.

I tried the door handle;  it was locked.  “Get out of the way,” I said, as I drew Wolfe’s gun.  She scooted.  Internal doors are cheap, these days.  I kicked it and it flew open like something in a B movie.

There was a lot of blood, even more than I’m used to seeing.  I swallowed hard and turned to the executive assistant, who was leaning against the doorjamb, looking green.  “Go outside, put your head between your knees if you have to, and call the cops.”

She managed to pull herself together and moved.

I knelt down next to Fay, the revolver still in my hand.  Something strange was floating over her, but I had a gut instinct that it wasn’t dangerous, and I was busy.  I used my off hand to feel what was left of her neck.  She was gone.  I’d known it, but I’d wanted an excuse to go into her office.  Now I looked up at the thing above her.

It wasn’t the transparent image that I was half expecting to see.  Instead, it was a swarm of iridescent gnats, almost too small to observe, faintly glowing a color some distance past purple.  Something about the way they were swirling around made me think they were confused.

You’re dead, I told them.  The movement slowed, and then sped up again.  Get going.  The cops are coming, but I’ll take care of it.  The swarm drifted in my direction and I suppressed a flinch.  Just before they reached my face, as if they’d come to some decision, the swarm tightened down into a ball, a point, and then, with an inaudible snap, disappeared.

I shook my head.  On what the hell had I just been wasting time?  I holstered the gun and went over to the telephone on the mahogany desk.  There was blood on it.  Fay must have flailed at it while whatever it was worked on her.  I used my pen to punch for an outside line and called the brownstone.

He was brusque when I got through to him in the plant rooms, which was about what I expected.  “Yes?”

“Me.  He got here first, and she’s dead.”  I looked up at the office manager peering, reluctantly, through the doorway.  She made a vague gesture towards me.  “I have to go.  The cops are on their way up.”

“Confound it!  I will call Mr. Parker’s office.  Report back when you can.”

I hung up.  Heads were popping into the doorframe, probably from the other offices on the hall, so I couldn’t check Fay’s desk.  Someone was retching in the anteroom, and the switchboard operator was working up a nice case of hysteria.  It was almost a relief when the first uniform showed up.

Being detained hasn’t changed much, over the years.  The cops aren’t always as physical as they used to be, which is good, but the overall experience is the same.  They really shouldn’t have held on to me at all, but it varies with the local top cop.  The Captain of that division doesn’t like Wolfe, so I was probably headed for the cooler.  A few years ago, at the height of the depression, it might have been exciting, but today’s trip was a yawn.  The locals were so busy trying to pump me dry that I hadn't even seen bars yet.

I was in the usual badly painted interrogation---interview---room.  In fact, I thought I recognized one of the chairs from a visit back before Black Friday.  The two detectives working on me were okay, a team who had their routine down pat.  I admired them for showing me their best effort when their hearts clearly weren’t in it.  The bad guy, a ‘Det.  Bernardo Sanchez’, had made a face at the good guy, a towhead whose identification card was so worn down it seemed to read ‘et.  Gi Gle’, while I was going over my story for the fourth time.  It clued me in that he, at least, thought I was in the clear.  So, I hadn’t bothered riling them much.  I was soon glad I’d saved my ammunition because one of my all time favorite targets hoved into view.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Archie Goodwin.  Again.”

In the last few years, Lieutenant Vincent Fradkin had pulled off the amazing feat of making me yearn for Lieutenant Rowcliffe.  For one thing, Rowcliffe never really believed that he sounded smart and Fradkin did.  For another, Fradkin thought my mother dressed me funny.

“Yeah.  Astonishing how often a private investigator is found near a crime.  You might think we were somehow connected.”  I had tried holding on to my hat by telling the uniform at the desk that I was religious, just to see if it would work.  It had, and now my effort paid off.  I looked at Fradkin and slowly tilted my hat back half an inch with a forefinger, rather than taking it off.  He probably wouldn’t get what it meant, but it would bother him. 

Fradkin tried a smile.  He was a redhead with a face like a fox, so it made him look as if he was about to eat a beetle.  “What the hell is it with you, anyway, too many issues of Argosy at an early age?”  He turned to Gigle.  “Ten years I’ve had to deal with this clown, and he’s still acting like he thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart or something.”

Gigle didn’t reply, but I saw his eyes flick to the window in the door of the interrogation room and then to the pulse at Fradkin’s temple.  The word about the Lieutenant must be getting around.  At least now I knew who had been the genius who ordered me arrested.  Fradkin felt strongly enough about me to try something that stupid.

Fradkin took Sanchez outside for a little chat, and I said to Gigle, “Too bad for you.  The Lieutenant could ruin anyone’s day.”

“Stuff it, Goodwin,” he said, with no real heat behind it.  Since there was no reason for us to chat before Fradkin returned, I stuffed.

When the Lieutenant came back in, his lips had thinned out and his nostrils had flared.  It seemed the beetle had disagreed with him.  “You’re still insisting you weren’t seeing Miss Tremayne about a case.”

I was patient.  “As I said in my statement, Mr. Wolfe sent me to escort Miss Tremayne to the brownstone for lunch.  She was a former client, and we were acquainted.”

He sneered although he didn’t do it very well.  “Sure.  Wolfe always sends his sweet little errand boy to fetch home lunch guests.”

Fradkin frequently managed to give my labor relations an overtone that annoyed me.  I decided to try a new method of discouraging him.  I tilted my chin a little, lowered my eyelashes, and looked up at Fradkin through them.  It wasn’t quite a simper, but it verged.  “Oh, I wouldn’t call myself an errand boy.  I’ve reached my majority, after all.”  My eyes drifted up him and turned limpid.  “Since you’re interested.”

Fradkin was halfway around the interrogation table before I could decide whether to risk laying hands on a cop.  Gigle solved my problem by stepping between us.  I thought for a moment that Fradkin was going to go through him and so did Fradkin, but something about Gigle’s attitude stopped him.  The lieutenant turned his back to get a grip on himself, and Gigle showed me an expression I couldn’t entirely figure out, a mixture of irritation, amusement, and interest.

“You and that porcine boss of yours, you think you’re so God-damned special---” Fradkin started, and stopped.  He tried again.  “Just because---don’t think I haven’t seen---”

The pulse at his temple was throbbing.  Gigle decided to intervene.  He hoisted one hip up onto the table and said, his voice dispassionate, “Look, Goodwin, we all know you’re a real funny guy, so why don’t you stop proving it and repeat your story for the Lieutenant?”

“Oh, is that what he wanted?”  I said, my voice friendly and cooperative.  “Sure.  This morning---”  I never got to see if I could repeat the whole thing word-perfect for the fifth time in a row because Sanchez came back in.

“Lieutenant.  Goodwin’s lawyer is here.”

Nathan Parker stood waiting for me at the desk, looking like a well-dressed Roosevelt appointee visiting a state prison.  I grinned when I saw him, and he permitted a small, sedate smile to disrupt his composure.

“Mr. Goodwin,” he said.

“Mr. Parker.” For an attorney who would touch bail work, he was so gilt-edged he almost rustled;  he would rather have been fried alive on a backyard grill in New Jersey than chase an ambulance.  I liked him because of that and because he had a sense of humor underneath the Ivy League surface.  Wolfe had him in to dine with us once a month. 

I made sure I got back Wolfe’s gun, my clip, and my card case before I signed the form, and signed the other form, and signed, yet again, the other form at the Sergeant’s desk.  After I was finally done, I waved goodbye to the nice police officers and trailed Parker out of the building.  When we hit the top of the steps outside, I had to know.

“Well?”

He fussed with his glasses.  “Rather disappointing, Archie.  No bail, only paperwork this time, and it would have been even easier to obtain your release if the means of the homicide hadn't been so mysterious.”

I snorted.  “That’s one way to put it.”

“A well know literary figure, mutilated as if attacked by a wild beast, behind a door that was observed by at least two people for the entire time she was in her office.  Isn’t a locked room mystery a bit, well, recondite for you two gentlemen?”

“We’re branching out.  The same old thing gets boring after a while.”

He gave me a swift, sideways glance and lay off.  “If you have no further need for my services, I have to be going.  I would like, though, to hear how all this turns out if you can tell me when it is over.”

“I’ll spill it next month at dinner if he lets me have the floor long enough.”

Parker gave me his hand and I took it and gravely shook.  There was something about him that seemed to demand such gestures, and they amused him.  Then I looked around for a cab.

By the time I was back at the brownstone, Wolfe was up in the plant rooms with Horstmann again.  I didn’t bother to interrupt him but headed for the kitchen to scavenge some lunch.  I was not in enough favor at that precinct to be supplied with so-called food and, to my surprise, I was hungry.

“Fritz, did Saul---” I stopped, because the answer to my question was sitting at the kitchen table eating a hunk of steak between two slices of Fritz’s homemade bread.

“Fooled you,” he said, placidly.  He looked battered around the edges. 

I took the chair across from Saul and lowered myself into it.  “Run into trouble?”  Fritz put a repeat of Saul’s order and a glass of milk down in front of me, and I gave him a grin.

“Oh brother, did I ever.”  He glanced at the kitchen clock.  “Do you want it now? Or shall I wait until Mr. Wolfe comes down from the plant rooms?”

“What, are you kidding?”  Fritz had just set down a plate of what he considers to be acceptable pomme frites between us.  We polished them, the Vermont cheddar, and the Roxbury apples off before we went into the office and played a couple of hands of pinochle.  Saul, I noticed, had a large lock-box with him that he kept close under his eye.  I was distracted enough by the morning’s events to keep losing.

When we heard the elevator, I scooped up the cards, and Saul went over and put the lock-box on Wolfe’s desk.  Wolfe nodded at Saul as he came in;  I realized then that he had been as worried as I had been.

“What success did you have at Mr. Hewitt’s estate, Saul?”

Saul snorted.  “Not much, I’m afraid, sir.  It was a struggle to get past the butler to see Mr. Hewitt.  Then there was trouble, so I wasn’t able to get away until very early this morning.  I can give details, if you want.”

“Later, if it seems necessary.  Continue.”

“The butler and I were still discussing the matter when we both noticed that Mr. Hewitt’s Dobermans, loose on the grounds, were making a racket.” Saul actually paused, as if he was unsure of what to say next.

“Someone was attempting to enter the house?”

For once, Wolfe had it wrong.  “No, something was in one of the outbuildings, the small Greek temple Mr. Hewitt uses for his retreat.”  Saul gestured at the box on Wolfe’s desk, and Wolfe opened it.  “The dogs and I drove off the creature after it had finished but before it got away with its prize, and it took me quite a while to persuade the butler to let me bring it back here.  In the end, I managed to convince him that you were the only one who could both identify it and figure out what it had to do with his boss disappearing.”

Wolfe had emptied the box and held its contents in his hands: a skull.  It still had the slight pink sheen that meant it was fresh.  He sighed, and turned it so that the eyeholes faced his own.  “Lewis.”