A Right To Die Read Online Free PDF Page B

Columbia University. One thing I had not actually known but could have guessed if I had put my mind on it: the police and the district attorney’s office had started an investigation.
    When the roe and sauce and rolls were where they belonged, and some salad, I refilled my coffee cup and took it to the office. Wolfe was at his desk, tapping his nose with a pencil, scowling at a crossword puzzle. I went to my desk, sat, and sipped coffee. After a while he switched the scowl to me, realized I hadn’t earned it, and erased it.
    “Confound it,” he said, “it’s preposterous and insulting that I might lose your services and talents merely through the whim of a mechanism. How high up were you at noon?”
    “Oh, four miles. I know. You regard anything and everything beyond your control as an insult. You-“
    “No. Not in nature. Only in what men contrive.”
    I nodded. “And what they do. For instance, committing murder. Have you any news besides what’s in the Times?”
    “No.”
    “Any callers'Whipple?”
    “No.”
    “Do you want a report on Racine?”
    “No. To what purpose?”
    “I merely ask. I need a shave. Since there’s nothing urgent, apparently, I’ll go up and use a mechanism. If I did report I wouldn’t have to speak ill of the dead.” I left the chair. “At least I won’t-“
    The doorbell rang. I went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass, saw two men on the stoop, and stepped back in. “Two Whipples, father and son. I have never seen the son, but of course it is. Have they an appointment?”
    He glared. I stood, but evidently he thought the glare needed no help, so I went down the hail to the front and opened the door. Paul Whipple said, “We have to see Mr. Wolfe. This is my son Dunbar.”
    “He’s expecting you,” I said, which was probably true, and sidestepped to give them room.
    A day or two earlier I would have been glad to meet the Negro specimen that Susan Brooke intended to marry, just to size him up. All right, I was meeting him, and he looked like Sugar Ray Robinson after a hard ten rounds, except that he was a little darker. A day or two earlier he would probably have been handsome and jaunty; now he was a wreck. So was his father. When I started a hand for his hat he let go before I reached it, and it dropped to the floor.
    In the office I nodded the father to the red leather chair and moved up one of the yellow ones for the son. Dunbar sat, but Whipple stood and looked at Wolfe, bleary-eyed. Wolfe spoke. “Sit down, Mr. Whipple. You’re crushed. Have you eaten?”
    That wasn’t flip. Wolfe is convinced that when real trouble comes the first thing to do is eat.
    Dunbar blurted at Wolfe, “What did you do'What did you do?”
    Whipple shook his head at him. “Take it easy, son.” He twisted around to look at the chair, saw it there, and sat. He looked at Wolfe. “You know what happened.”
    Wolfe nodded. “I have read the paper. Mr. Whipple. Many people in distress have sat in that chair. Sometimes I cannot supply advice or services, but I can always supply food. I doubt if you have eaten. Have you?”
    “We’re not here to eat!” Dunbar blurted. “What did you do?”
    “I’ll talk, son,” Whipple told him. To Wolfe: “I know what you mean. I made him eat a little just now, on the way here. I felt I had to tell him what I asked you to do, and he wants to know what you said. You understand that he’s-uh-overwrought. As you said, in distress. Of course I would like to know too, what you did. You understand that.”
    “Yes. I myself have done nothing.” Wolfe leaned back, drew in air through his nose, all there was room for, which was plenty, and let it out through his mouth. “Archie. Tell them.”
    Dunbar blurted at me, “You’re Archie Goodwin.”
    “Right.” I moved my eyes to Whipple. “Did you tell him exactly what you asked Mr. Wolfe to do?”
    “Yes. Exactly.”
    “Okay. A friend of mine named Lily Rowan invited Miss Brooke to lunch, and