"Yes. The windows blew out, to the outside, so ft was a bomb. I'll take a look before I call for help. If you-" I stopped because he was moving. He crossed to Pierre, bent over, and looked. Then he straightened and looked around, at the closet door, which had been standing open and had hit the wall and was split, at the ceiling plaster on the floor, at the table wrong side up and the pieces of the lamp that had been on it, at the chair that had been tossed dear across to the foot of the bed, and so on.

He looked at me and said, "I suppose you had to."

That remark has since been discussed at length, but then I merely said, "Yeah. I'm going to-" "I know what you're going to do. First put your shoes on. I am going to my room and bolt the door. I will stay there until they have come and gone and I will see no one. Tell Fritz that when he brings my breakfast he will make sure that no one is near. When Theodore comes, tell him not to expect me. Is there anything you must say?"

"No."

He went, still gripping the Montenegrin applewood by the small end. I didn't hear the elevator, so he took the stairs, which he rarely does. Barefoot.

He had not known what I was going to do. He hadn't known that I would go down to the basement, to Fritz's room. First I went and put on socks and shoes and a jacket, then down two flights to the office to turn the thermostat up to, and then on down to knock on Fritz's door and call my name, loud. He's a sound sleeper, but in half a minute the door opened. The tail of his white nightshirt flapped in the breeze from the open window. Our pajamas-versus-nightshirt debate will never be settled.

"Sorry to intrude," I said, "but there's a mess. A man came, and I put him in the South Room, and a bomb that he brought along went off and killed him. All the damage is in that room. Mr. Wolfe came up for a look and is now in his room with the door bolted. You may not get much more sleep, because a mob will be coming and there will be noise. When you take his breakfast up-" "Five minutes," he said. "You'll be in the office?"