Death on Deadline - Robert Goldsborough Page 0,28

you’re not letting this get to you,” I said to his back. “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s hysterics. Thank heaven ...” I let it trail off, because I’d lost my audience. The elevator door shut, and the motor groaned as it carried its passenger to the second floor.

Nine

The next morning, Saturday, my alarm clocks wail interrupted an interlude with a chestnut-haired nymph under a tree on a grassy hillside. She was about to murmur something in my ear when the siren went off, and I cursed as I punched it into silence. It wasn’t until I’d gotten my feet planted on the floor that I remembered Fritz’s bulletin the night before, and then I swore again.

I was still exercising my vocabulary when I got down to the kitchen, where the hot griddle cakes, link sausages, English muffins, orange juice, and a pot of coffee were waiting. I nodded to Fritz and sat at my small table, where as usual he had the Times propped up on a rack. Harriet Haverhill’s suicide was on the front page, of course, although the article was fairly short—probably because her death was discovered too close to deadline time to permit more.

I read through the piece three times, and committed the following basic information to memory: (1) Harriet Haverhill, age 72, was found dead in her office at the Gazette at seven-forty by a security guard making his customary rounds; (2) she had a single bullet wound in her right temple; (3) a .32-caliber automatic was clutched in her right hand; (4) no suicide note had been found; (5) she had spent most of the day in individual meetings with other principal owners of the Gazette and with newspaper magnate Ian MacLaren; (6) these meetings were presumably to discuss MacLaren’s desire to add the paper to his collection; and (7) “sources close to

Mrs. Haverhill” said she had seemed in good spirits throughout the day.

As I reread the article and finished my breakfast, I could feel Fritz’s eyes boring in on me. “Well?” I said, turning to face him.

He blushed and looked apologetic. “Archie, he wants to see you up in his room, as soon as possible.”

I started to ask why he hadn’t told me that when I came down, but checked myself. Among the many things Wolfe and Fritz agree on is that a meal should never be interrupted or delayed for business, and I appreciate that line of thinking, at least where it concerns my breakfast. I took a last swig of coffee, went up one flight, knocked, and was commanded to enter.

Wolfe sat at the table by the window, barefoot and looking even larger than he usually does in the office, probably because the yellow dressing gown and the yellow silk pajamas under it seem to magnify his size, and that’s a lot to magnify. He finished a blueberry muffin and set to polishing off the shirred eggs. “You’ve seen the Times?” he said between bites, gesturing toward his own copy that lay folded on the corner of the table.

“Yes, sir.”

He made a face. “A skeletal report. Call Mr. Cohen. Get him to show you the office where she was murdered. I want a complete description. Also, I must see Mrs. Haverhill’s stepchildren, as well as the nephew and Mr. Bishop.”

“Separately or together?”

“I prefer them separately, and—”

“And how am I supposed to lure them here?” I cut in. “Run another ad in the Times’?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Actually, your sarcasm is not far off the mark. I was about to suggest that if any one of them balks, say I’m considering an advertisement that would promise a reward for information about Mrs. Haverhill’s murder.”

“At this rate, you’ll become one of the Times’s top ten advertisers, right up there with Bloomingdale’s and Saks.”

Wolfe took a sip of chocolate. “I’m not going to place such an advertisement, but the threat alone will be sufficient to get each one of them here.”

“In that case, it should be a snap. When do you want them?”

“You know my schedule as well as I do,” he said airily, reaching for the Times. “Let that alone govern you.”

There had to be a good comeback to that, but I was damned if I could think of one, so I closed the door hard behind me, not quite a slam, and went down to the office. I got Lon on the second ring.

“Archie, this place is an asylum. I can’t talk. What’s on your mind?” Behind him, the Gazette sounded