I

That was the one and only time Nero Wolfe had ever seen the inside of the morgue.

That Thursday evening in March I barely caught the phone call. With a ticket for a basketball game at the Garden in my pocket, I had dined in the kitchen, because I would have to leave the house at ten to eight, and Wolfe refuses to sit at table with one who has to pack it in and run. And that time I couldn’t eat early because Fritz was braising a wild turkey and had to convey it to the dining room on a platter for Wolfe to see whole before wielding the knife. Sometimes when I have a date for a game or a show I get things from the refrigerator around six-thirty and take my time, but I wanted some of that hot turkey, not to mention Fritz’s celery sauce and corn fritters.

I was six minutes behind schedule when, as I pushed my chair back and got erect, the phone rang. After asking Fritz to get it on the kitchen extension and proceeding to the hall, I had got my topcoat from the rack and was putting it on when Fritz called to me, “Archie! Sergeant Stebbins wants you!”

I muttered something appropriate for muttering but not for printing, made it to the office and across to my desk, lifted the receiver, and told it, “Shoot. You may have eight seconds.”

It took more like eight times eighty, not because Purley Stebbins insisted on it, but I did after he had given me the main fact. When I had hung up I stood a while, frowning at Wolfe’s desk. Many times through the years I have had the job of reporting something to Wolfe that I knew he wouldn’t enjoy hearing, but this was different. This was tough. I even found myself wishing I had got away two minutes sooner, and then, realizing that that would have been tougher — for him, at least — I went to the hall, crossed it to the dining room, entered and spoke.

“That was Purley Stebbins. Half an hour ago a man came out of a house on East Fifty-fourth Street and was shot and killed by a man waiting there in a parked car. Papers found—”

Wolfe cut me off. “Must I remind you that business shall not intrude on meals?”

“You don’t need to. This isn’t business. Papers found on the body indicate that it was Marko Vukcic. Purley says there’s no doubt about it, two of the dicks knew him by sight, but he wants me to come down and give positive identification. If you have no objection I’m going. It won’t be as pleasant a way to spend an evening as going to a ball game, but I’m sure he would have done as much...”

I would have preferred to go on talking, but had to stop to clear my throat. Wolfe had put down his knife and fork, quietly and properly, on his plate. His eyes were leveled at me, but he wasn’t scowling. A corner of his mouth twitched, and after a moment twitched again. To stop it he compressed his lips.

He nodded at me. “Go. Phone.”

“Have you any—”

“No. Phone.”

I whirled and went.

After going a block south on Tenth Avenue and flagging a taxi on Thirty-fourth Street, it didn’t take long to roll cross-town to the city mortuary on East Twenty-ninth; and, since I was not a stranger there and was expected, I was passed through the railing and on in with no questions asked. I have never cared for the smell of that place. An assistant medical examiner named Faber tried once to sell me the idea that it smells just like a hospital, but I have a good nose and I didn’t buy. He claimed that there are rarely more than one or two cadavers on the premises not in the coolers, and I said in that case someone must spray the joint with something to make it smell like a morgue.

The Homicide dick who escorted me down the corridor was one I knew only well enough to nod to, and the assistant ME in the room we entered was one I hadn’t run across before. He was working on an object that was stretched out on a long table under a strong light, with a helper standing by. The dick and I stood and watched a minute. A detailed description of the performance would help only if you expect to be faced with the job of probing a corpse for a bullet that entered at an angle between the fifth and sixth ribs, so I won’t go into it.

“Well?” the dick demanded.

“Yes,” I told him. “I identify it as the body of Marko Vukcic, owner of Rusterman’s Restaurant. If you want that signed, get it ready while I go use the phone.”

I went out and down the corridor to the phone booth and dialed a number. Ordinarily when I am out of the house and phone in Fritz will answer after two or three signals or Wolfe will answer after five or six, but that time Wolfe’s voice came before the first whirr was done.

“Yes?”

“Archie. It’s Marko. Shot twice in the chest and once in the belly. I suppose Stebbins is up at Fifty-fourth Street, at the scene, and maybe Cramer too. Shall I go up there?”

“No. Stay where you are. I’m coming to look at him. Where is it?”

He had been making a living as a private detective in Manhattan for more than twenty years, and majoring in murder, and he didn’t know where the morgue was. I told him; and, thinking that a little esprit de corps wouldn’t be out of place in the circumstances, and knowing how he hated moving vehicles, I was going to suggest that I go get the sedan from the garage and drive him myself, but he hung up. I went out front to the sergeant at the desk, whose name was Donovan, and told him I had identified the body but Mr. Wolfe was coming to take a look and I would stick around.

Donovan shook his head. “I only got orders about you.”

“Nuts. You don’t need orders. Any citizen and taxpayer can enter here to look for the remains of a relative or friend or enemy. Mr. Wolfe is a citizen and taxpayer. I make out his tax returns.”

“I thought you was a private eye.”

“I don’t like the way you say it, but I am. Also I am an accountant, an amanuensis, and a cocklebur. Eight to five you never heard the word amanuensis and you never saw a cocklebur.”

He didn’t rile. “Yeah, I know, you’re an educated wit. For Nero Wolfe I need orders. I know too much about him. Maybe he can get away with his tricks with Homicide and the DA, but not with me or none of my guests.”

I didn’t feel like arguing. Besides, I knew Donovan had a lot to put up with. When the door opened to admit a customer it might be anything from a pair of hoodlums wanting to collect data for a fake identification, to a hysterical female wanting to find out if she was a widow. That must have got on his nerves. So I merely explained it to him. I told him a few things about Marko Vukcic. That he was one of the only ten men I knew of that Nero Wolfe called by their first names. That for years he had dined once a month at Wolfe’s table, and Wolfe and I had dined once a month at his restaurant. That he and Wolfe had been boys together in Montenegro, which was now a part of Yugoslavia. Donovan seemed to be listening, but he wasn’t impressed. When I thought I had made the situation perfectly plain and stopped for breath, he turned to his phone, called Homicide, told them Wolfe was coming, and asked for instructions.

He hung up. “They’ll call back,” he informed me.

No bones got broken. His instructions came a minute before the door opened to admit Wolfe. I went and opened the gate in the railing, and Wolfe stepped through. “This way,” I said and steered him to the corridor and along to the room.

The doctor had got the slug that had entered between the fifth and sixth ribs, and was going for the one lower down. I saw that from three paces off, where I stopped. Wolfe went on until the part of him that is farthest front, his middle, was touching the edge of the table. The doctor recognized him and spoke.

“I understand he was a friend of yours, Mr. Wolfe.”

“He was,” Wolfe said a little louder than necessary. He moved sidewise, reached a hand, put fingertips under Marko’s chin, and pushed the jaw up so that the mouth closed; but when he took his hand away the lips parted again. He turned his head to frown at the doctor.

“That’ll be arranged,” the doctor assured him.

Wolfe nodded. He put fingers and a thumb into his vest pocket, withdrew them, and showed the doctor two small coins. “These are old dinars. I would like to fulfill a pledge made many years ago.” The scientist said sure, go ahead, and Wolfe reached to Marko’s face again, this time to place the coins on the eyes. The head was twisted a little, and he had to level it so the coins would stay put.

He turned away. “That’s all. I have no further commitment to the clay. Come, Archie.”

I followed him out and along the corridor to the front. The dick who had been my escort, there chinning with the sergeant, told me I didn’t need to sign a statement and asked Wolfe if he verified the identification. Wolfe said he did and added, “Where’s Mr. Cramer?”

“Sony, I couldn’t tell you.”

Wolfe turned to me. “I told the driver to wait. You said East Fifty-fourth Street. Marko’s address?”

“Right.”

“We’ll go there.” He went, and I followed.

That taxi ride uptown broke a precedent. Wolfe’s distrust of machinery is such that he is never in a condition to talk when he is being conveyed in something on wheels, even when I am driving, but that time he mastered it. He asked me questions about Marko Vukcic. I reminded him that he had known Marko a lot longer and better than I had, but he said there were some subjects which Marko had never discussed with him but might have with me — for example, his relations with women. I agreed that was logical, but said that as far as I knew Marko hadn’t wasted time discussing his relations with women; he just went ahead and enjoyed them. I gave an instance. When, a couple of years previously, I had taken one named Sue Dondero to Rusterman’s for dinner, Marko had cast an eye on her and contributed a bottle of one of his best clarets, and the next day had phoned to ask if I would care to give him her address and phone number, and I had done so and crossed her off. Wolfe asked why. I said to give her a break. Marko, sole owner of Rusterman’s, was a wealthy man and a widower, and Sue might hook him. But she hadn’t, Wolfe said. No, I agreed, as far as I knew there had been something wrong with the ignition.

“What the hell,” the hackie grumbled, braking.

Having turned off Park Avenue into Fifty-fourth Street, he had made to cross Lexington, and a cop had waved him down. The cab stopped with a jerk that justified Wolfe’s attitude toward machinery, and the hackie stuck his head out and objected.

“My fare’s number is in that block, officer.”

“Can’t help it. Closed. Up or down.”

He yanked the wheel, and we swung to the curb. I paid him, got out, and held the door, and Wolfe emerged. He stood a moment to take a deep breath, and we headed east. Ten paces along there was another cop, and a little farther on still another. Ahead, in the middle of the block, was a convention: police cars, spotlights, men working, and a gathering of citizens on the sidewalk across the street. On our side a stretch of the sidewalk was included in a roped-off area. As we approached it a cop got in the way and commanded, “Cross over and keep moving.”

“I came here to look at this,” Wolfe told him.

“I know. You and ten thousand more. Cross over.”

“I am a friend of the man who was killed. My name is Nero Wolfe.”

“Yeah, and mine’s General MacArthur. Keep moving.”

It might have developed into an interesting conversation if I hadn’t caught sight, in one of the spotlights, of a familiar face and figure. I sang out, “Rowcliff!”

He turned and peered, stepped out of the glare and peered some more, and then approached. “Well?” he demanded.

Among all the array of Homicide personnel that Wolfe and I have had dealings with, high and low, Lieutenant Rowcliff is the only one of whom I am dead sure that our feelings are absolutely reciprocal. He would like to see me exactly where I would like to see him. So, having summoned him, I left it to Wolfe, who spoke.

“Good evening, Mr. Rowcliff. Is Mr. Cramer here?”

“No.”

“Mr. Stebbins?”

“No.”

“I want to see the spot where Mr. Vukcic died.”

“You’ll be in the way. We’re working.”

“So am I.”

Rowcliff considered. He would have loved to order a couple of the help to take us to the river and dump us in, but the timing would have been bad. Since it was unheard of for Wolfe to leave his house to work as a matter of routine, he knew this was something extraordinary, and there was no telling how his superiors might react if he let his personal inclinations take charge. Of course he also knew that Wolfe and Vukcic had been close friends.

He hated to do it, but he said, “Come this way,” and led us along to the front of the house and to the curb. “This is open to correction,” he said, “but we think we’ve got it about right. Vukcic left the building alone. He passed between two parked cars to look west for a taxi. A car that was double-parked about twenty yards to the west — not a hack, a black or dark blue Ford sedan — started and came forward, and when it was about even with him an occupant of the car started shooting. It’s not settled whether it was the driver or someone with him. We haven’t found anyone that got a good look. He fell right there.” Rowcliff pointed. “And stayed there. As you see, we’re still at it here. Nothing from inside so far. Vukcic lived alone on the top floor, and there was no one there with him when he left. Of course he ate at his restaurant. Anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

“Don’t step off the curb. We’re going over the pavement again in daylight.” He left us.

Wolfe stood a moment, looking down at the spot on the pavement where Marko had dropped, then lifted his head to glance around. A moving spotlight hit his face and he blinked. Since that was the first time to my knowledge that he had ever started investigating a murder by a personal visit to the scene of the crime — not counting the occasions when he had been jerked loose by some other impulse, such as saving my life — I was curious to see how he would proceed. It was a chance he had seldom had.

He hopped on it by turning to me and asking, “Which way to the restaurant?”

I nodded west. “Up Lexington four blocks and around the corner. We can get a taxi—”

“No. We’ll walk.” He was off.

I went along, more and more impressed. The death of his oldest and closest friend had certainly hit him hard. He would have to cross five street intersections, with wheeled monsters waiting for him at every corner, ready to spring, but he strode on regardless, as if it were a perfectly natural and normal procedure.