The Golden Spiders by Rex Stout Page B

them the photos. Do you want the unimportant details?”
    “No.”
    “Any instructions?”
    “No.”
    “No program for me for tomorrow?”
    “No.”
    That was Sunday night.
    Monday morning I got a treat. Wolfe never shows downstairs until eleven o’clock. After breakfast in his room he takes the elevator to the roof for the two hours with the plants before descending to the office. For morning communication with me he uses the house phone unless there is something special. Apparently that morning was special, for when Fritz came to the kitchen after taking breakfast up he announced solemnly, “Audience for you. Levee !” I spell it French because he pronounced it so.
    I had finished with the morning paper, in which there was nothing to contradict my gypsies, and when my coffee cup was empty I ascended the one flight, knocked, and entered. On rainy mornings, or even gray ones, Wolfe breakfasts in bed, after tossing the black silk coverlet toward the foot because stains are bad for it, but when it’s bright he has Fritz put the tray on a table near a window. That morning it was bright, and I had my treat. Barefooted, his hair tousled, with his couple of acres of yellow pajamas dazzling in the sun, he was sensational.
    We exchanged good mornings, and he told me to sit. There was nothing left on his plate, but he wasn’t through with the coffee.
    “I have instructions,” he informed me.
    “Okay. I was intending to be at the bank at ten o’clock to deposit Mrs. Fromm’s check.”
    “You may. You will proceed from there. You will probably be out all day. Tell Fritz to answer the phone and take the usual precautions with visitors. Report by phone at intervals.”
    “The funeral is at two o’clock.”
    “I know, and therefore you may come home for lunch. We’ll see. Now the instructions.”
    He gave them to me. Four minutes did it. At the end he asked if I had any questions.
    I was frowning. “One,” I said. “It’s clear enough as far as it goes, but what am I after?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Then that’s probably what I’ll get.”
    He sipped coffee. “It’s what I’ll expect. You’re stirring them up, that’s all. You’re turning a tiger loose in a crowd-or, if that’s too bombastic, a mouse. How will they take it? Will any of them tell the police, and if so, which one or ones?”
    I nodded. “Sure, I see the possibilities, but I wanted to know if there is any specific item I’m supposed to get.”
    “No. None.” He reached for the coffee pot.
    I went down to the office. In a drawer of my desk there is an assortment of calling cards, nine or ten different kinds, worded differently for different needs and occasions. I took some engraved ones with my name in the center and “Representing Nero Wolfe” in the corner, and on six of them I wrote in ink beneath my name, “To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.” With them in my wallet, and the check and bankbook in my pocket, and a gun under my armpit, I was fully loaded, and I got my hat and beat it.
    I walked to the bank, a pleasant fifteen-minute stretch on a fine May morning, and from there took a taxi to Sixty-eighth Street. I didn’t know what the home of a deceased millionairess would be like on the day of her funeral, which was to be held in a chapel on Madison Avenue, but outside it was quieter than it had been Saturday. The only evidences of anything uncommon were a cop in uniform on the sidewalk, with nothing to do, and black crepe hanging on the door. It wasn’t the same cop as on Saturday, and this one recognized me. As I made for the door he stopped me.
    “You want something?”
    “Yes, officer, I do.”
    “You’re Archie Goodwin. What do you want?”
    “I want to ring that bell, and hand Peckham my card to take to Miss Estey, and enter, and be conducted within, and engage in conversation-”
    “Yeah, you’re Goodwin all right.”
    That called for no reply, and he merely stood, so I walked past him into the