That evening around midnight, when I got home after taking a friend to a show, A Barrel of Love, by Mortimer Oshin, Wolfe had just finished his book and was making room for it on one of the shelves over by the big globe. As I tried the door of the safe I spoke.
“Why not leave it on your desk?”
He grunted. “Mr Harvey’s self-esteem needs no sop. If he were not so skillful a writer he would be insufferable. Why curry him?”
Before I went up two flights to my room I looked up “curry” in the dictionary. Check. I won’t live long enough to see the day when Wolfe curries anybody including me.
Chapter 2
At eleven-twenty the next morning, Tuesday, Wolfe, seated at his desk, sent his eyes from left to right and back again, rested them on Philip Harvey, and inquired, “You’re the spokesman, Mr Harvey?”
Since Harvey had made the appointment and was chairman of the committee, I had put him in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe’s desk. He was a middle-aged shorty with a round face, round shoulders, and a round belly. The other five were in an arc on yellow chairs that I had had ready for them. Their names, supplied by Harvey, were in my notebook. The one nearest me, the big blond guy in a brown suit with tan stripes, was Gerald Knapp, president of Knapp and Bowen. The one next to him, the wiry-looking bantam with big ears and slick black hair, was Reuben Imhof of the Victory Press. The female about my age who might have been easy to look at if her nose would stop twitching was Amy Wynn. I had seen a couple of reviews of her novel. Knock at My Door, but it wasn’t on Wolfe’s shelves. The tall gray-haired one with a long bony face was Thomas Dexter of Title House.