Death Of A Dude Read Free Page A

three months. Of the first twenty-two professional authors considered, three were busy writing books, four were getting ready to, two were in hospitals, one was too mad about Vietnam to talk about anything else, three were out of the country, one was experimenting with LSD, two were Republicans and wouldn’t write the kind of book Lily had in mind about a Tammany Hall man who had made a pile building sewers and laying pavements, one wanted a year to decide, three said they weren’t interested without giving a reason, one was trying to make up his mind whether to switch to fiction, and one was drunk.
    Finally, in May, Lily and the editor had tagged Wade Worthy. According to the editor, no one in the literary world had ever heard of him until three years ago, when his biography of Abbott Lawrence Lowell had been published. It had done only fairly well, but his second book, about Heywood Broun, with the title The Head and the Heart, had nearly made the best-seller list. Lily’s offer of a fat advance, with only half to be deducted from royalties-which the editor strongly disapproved-had appealed to him, and there he was at the typewriter, working on the outline. The title was to be A Stripe of the Tiger: the Life and Work of James Gilmore Rowan. Lily was hoping as many copies of it would be sold as there were steers branded Bar JR. The JR stood for James Rowan.
    In my room I emptied the bag, put the belt around my middle, the toothpaste in the bathroom, and the notebook and magnifying glass in my pockets, went out again with the other three items, and detoured to the corner in the big room to give Wade Worthy the typewriter ribbon. Outside, Lily was still with Diana Kadany. I told her I’d take the car because I might go on to Lame Horse or Farnham’s, and she told me not to be late for supper. I got in the car, rolled down the lane to the road, turned left and left again in a sixth of a mile at the turnoff, crossed the bridge over Berry Creek, went through an open gate which was usually shut, passed corrals and two barns and a bunkhouse-which Pete Ingalls called the dorm-and stopped at the edge of a big square of dusty gravel with a tree in the middle, in front of Harvey Greve’s house.

Nero Wolfe 44 - Death of A Dude
    Chapter 2
    I could tell you a lot about the Bar JR Ranch-how many acres, how many head, the trial and error with alfalfa that had been mostly error, the fence problem, the bookkeeping complications, the open-range question, and so on-but that has nothing to do with a dead dude and how to get Harvey back where he belonged. Irrelevant and immaterial. But the person who appeared inside the screen door as I got out of the car was relevant. As I approached she opened the door and I went in.
    I have never met a nineteen-year-old boy who gave me the impression that he knew things I wouldn’t understand, but three girls around that age have, and little Alma Greve was one of them. Don’t ask me if it was the deep-set brown eyes that seldom opened wide, or the curve of her lips that seemed to be starting a smile but never made it, or what, because I don’t know. When I had mentioned it to Lily a couple of years back she had said, “Oh, come on. It’s not her, it’s you. Every pretty girl a man sees, either she’s a mystery he could learn from, or she’s an innocent he could-uh-edify. Either way, he’s always wrong. Of course with you she’s seldom a mystery because what don’t you understand?”
    I had grabbed a clump of paintbrush and thrown it at her.
    I asked Alma who was around, and she said her mother was taking a nap and the baby was asleep. She asked me if her mother had asked me to get fly swatters, and I said no, they were for Pete.
    “Maybe we could sit and talk a little,” I said.
    Her head was tilted back because her eyes were nine inches lower than mine. “I told you,” she said, “I’m talked out. But all right.”
    She turned and I followed her into what they called the front room, but