a littered desk in his 9x12 office.
“Smiley down in the lobby said you were expecting me.” I grinned, dropping into a straight-backed chair. “Things calming down a bit?”
“This is the first time in more than two hours that there haven’t been at least three other people in here,” he rasped. “I haven’t even had time to get down to the city room. And now you . . .” He turned his palms up and rolled his eyes.
“Sounds to me like your day’s improving steadily,” I said, crossing my legs.
Lon yanked at his tie and leaned on his elbows. “Archie, what’s this all about? I can understand—and agree with—Wolfe’s concern about MacLaren’s gobbling up the paper, but how on earth does that tie in with Mrs. Haverhill’s suicide?”
“He doesn’t think it was suicide.”
Lon groaned. “Oh, come on, Archie! You’re not going to tell me that—”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you. He claims it’s murder.”
“How the hell can he think that?” Lon said, cupping his chin in one hand and shaking his head. He eyed the cold coffee in his mug and rejected it.
“You’ve got me. He hasn’t shared his thought processes, but if Nero Wolfe says it’s murder, I’ll buy it.”
“What choice have you got—you’re working for him.”
“Hey,” I said, leaning forward, “has Wolfe ever gulled you?”
“No,” Lon admitted. “You’ve both kept a few things from us at times, though.”
“Only during a case. Afterward, you always get the story first—and complete.”
“Okay, all right,” he said, throwing up his hands. “You don’t have to call in your markers. You came to see her office, right?”
I nodded and we went down the hall to a set of mahogany double doors at the end that had no name or number on them.
“The police are through in there now—they decided not to seal it. That,” he said pointedly, “is how cut-and-dried they think the suicide is. But we may still have some company,” Lon said over his shoulder as he turned one of the French-door handles and pushed. The suite was large, lush, and crowded. A local television crew— young blond reporter, soundman, and lightman—were packing their gear under the indifferent gaze of another security guard.
“It’s okay, Eddie,” Lon told the guard. “The gentleman’s with me. We’ll close up after we’re through.”
“Yessir, Mr. Cohen,” Eddie said, tipping his hat as he ushered the TV crew out. I sidestepped to keep from being trampled.
“Quite a layout,” I whistled, admiring the high-ceilinged room, which was bigger than Wolfe’s office and a damn sight fancier. Or maybe “fussier” was a better word. I felt like I’d just opened Architectural Digest, which is one of Lily’s favorite magazines. Everything was lacquer or velvet. Not surprisingly, it occupied corner space, so there were sweeping windows on two sides. We had entered at one end, and the desk, an elegant white number the size of a pool table with delicate curvy legs, was on our right. Three heavily draperied windows and a credenza with a computer terminal were behind it. At the far end of the room, some thirty-five feet away, was
a light blue sofa, centered under two windows and flanked by end tables with tall lamps on them. Several light blue chairs of a style similar to the sofa were scattered around the room. On the walls hung French impressionist oils that fit in perfectly.
The left wall was dominated by built-in bookcases and a large TV screen. On either side of the bookcases were dark wood doors.
“Where do they lead?” I asked Lon.
“The nearest goes to a powder room. And that far one connects with a bedroom-bathroom-kitchen suite. This is actually an apartment, and it’s where she lived most of the time. She liked being on the premises—she almost never spent the night at her place up on Park. That was more for entertaining, big parties for local muckety-mucks or visiting publishers, things like that.”
“The body was found at the desk?”
Lon nodded. “The gun was still in her hand.”
We both snuck a look at the desk blotter. If there had ever been any blood there, it was gone now.
“Whose gun?”
“Her own. She kept it in her right-hand drawer ever since that editor got kidnapped down South some years back.”
“Did a lot of people know it was there?”
“I doubt it.” Lon frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t, until today. Carl Bishop’s the one who told me about it. But I suppose we’d be amazed to learn how many executives keep handguns in their offices.”
“No argument there,” I said. “Did anyone hear