Ordinarily when I am out of the house and phone 10 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 11 remains of a revive ^ friend or enemy. Mr. Wolfe is a c^zen and taxpayer. I make out his tax retur^g � "I thought yo^ ^as a private eye." CCT 1 91 "I 1 1 don t like tJ-^ ^y y^y gay ^ ^ j am. Also I am an accountant, an amanuensis, and a cocklebu^ 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. Fo^ ^^ ^y^ j need orders. I know too much about him. Maybe he can get away with hi^ ^icks with Homicide and the DA. but noi: ^h me or none of my guests." I didn't feel lil^ arguing. Besides, I knew Donovan had a ^ to put up with. When the door opened ^o admit a customer it might be anything f^m a pair of hoodlums wanting to collec^ ^ata for a fake identification, to a hysterical female wanting to find out if she was a ^ow.