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I was finishing off my fourth week of fishing up in Maine when I got the telegram telling me that Nero Wolfe, world-famous detective and my boss, had been shot while I wasn't around. Fritz, chef and majordomo at Wolfe's brownstone in Manhattan, had also wired me that Wolfe would be okay, but I still spent a juicy interval swearing once the kid who had bicycled all the way out to our fishing camp left with his two-dollar tip. Then I heaved my suitcase up onto the Pendleton blanket covering my bed and got busy packing.

Before I was done, Gus Farrell showed up in the doorway of my room, still wearing his waders and carrying his rod and creel. He said, "I saw the Western Union boy as I hiked up to the lodge. What's wrong?"

"I thought two men could substitute for me. Seems Wolfe should have also hired a machine gun squad."

"Oh?"

"The guy who the agency claimed was a bodyguard let Wolfe get in front of a bullet. I guess the secretary stood around and applauded."

He glanced at his wristwatch. "I'll drive you over to Oquossoc to catch the evening train." He headed toward his own bedroom without another word. There were reasons we got along well enough for me to have accepted his invitation to spend September of '37 fly fishing, even if that had meant staying in a lodge filled with stick chairs and antler knickknacks.

Dr. William Hinton, who was a friend of Gus and not a reason I had accepted this invitation, came in on Gus's heels. He looked at me, his face a study in sympathy. "Can I help?"

A snarl would only make him more sympathetic. "Do something with the fish I caught this morning."

He nodded and disappeared. To tell the truth, I didn't care what he did with those brook trout as long as he left. Three days ago we had spent some time talking, a chat that made him the last person in Maine I wanted watching me while I worried about Wolfe. Not only had Hinton ambushed me with a certain proposition, but he had also proved to have notions about my life and the other guys in it, ones that he had felt free to share. And, as words do when they are wrong but not wrong enough, what he had said had gotten underneath my skin. Even on vacation, headshrinkers made me itch.

We stopped to buy gasoline in Rangeley, on the way to the train. I got out to stretch my legs and take a break from Hinton, who was riding along to have dinner with Gus after they dropped me off at the Maine Central platform in Oquossoc. Lucky for me, I had the excuse of needing to check at the post office to see if Wolfe's latest letter had arrived. He had written me twice each week that I had been away, our normal routine. Such letters give him a chance to complain about any disruptions to his sacred schedule caused by my absence, and me a chance to brace myself for any changes lurking to ambush me when I return to the brownstone.

When I got back into the front of the station wagon, I pocketed my mail rather than opening up Wolfe's letter like I usually would. But it only took about a mile of unpaved road for me to get mad at myself and pull it out to see what Wolfe had to tell me.

Dear Archie:

The Phalaenopsis violacea hybrids are promising, and I have hopes for a new stippling pattern. However the man sent by the agency still cannot spell Phalaenopsis properly after repeated promptings, which is why I write to you longhand.

William Burton has been sentenced to be executed at Sing-Sing. We were both invited to attend by Mrs. Henderson. I have refused on your behalf, knowing your feelings in this matter. As well, Mr. Parker came to dinner this past Tuesday. At his request, I will be speaking again with Andrew Burton before he departs for Europe.

We have received your latest letters, which were read with pleasure. Fritz sends his regards and reminds you that he looks forward to the fruits of your leisure. If you are able to bring back brook trout, do not forget that they must be chilled as quickly as possible, to as close to zero Fahrenheit as is possible without freezing, in order to preserve their freshness. Icing is optimal. I hope this letter arrives before you leave Maine.

Your return is much anticipated. The men from the agencies are incompetent.

My best regards,

NW

I hoped I hadn't been gritting my teeth as I read. Crumpling up the letter when I was done was enough of a give away. When I smoothed out the letter a few minutes later and read through it a second time, I realized the last line about temporary help had been added later, likely just before the letter had been put in an envelope and mailed. Those words were paler than the rest of the writing, which meant the secretary must not have refilled Wolfe's fountain pen promptly. He was right. They were both incompetent.

"More bad news?" Gus asked me.

"No. Only more evidence of something I already suspected. The son of a man we sent to the chair was probably the guy who shot Wolfe."

"Good heavens. Your replacements certainly didn't know their jobs."

"Yeah. What a surprise."

"Not your fault," Hinton suddenly said from the back seat.

"Sure. Not my fault."

Hinton was like that. He came right out with his opinions. Three days ago, he had been equally blunt, if polite.

His clever idea of how to make it up to me for being lodged in the Maine woods with no more exciting scenery around than brooks, lakes, and a cantankerous guide who chewed plug tobacco, caught me by surprise. I was so surprised that I stayed calm during his pitch, just as well. Hinton and I were fellow guests at Gus's fishing camp, and my years of living with Wolfe had left me sharing the fat genius's strict standards of hospitality.

"No thanks," I told Hinton at the time, also being blunt, if polite.

He examined me, brown eyes quizzical, for a while before saying, "I'm sorry. Somehow I misunderstood your situation."

I hadn't. Spend time growing up in an area short of hired girls and farmers' daughters, and you quickly learn where else a farmboy can find a helping hand. Given enough of a shortage, the substitutes can come to seem like a good idea. In fact, I had caught myself measuring Hinton's offer against my four weeks of fasting when my brain started working again. Since that left it too late to play dumb, I settled for a shrug.

"Your domestic situation, I mean," Hinton told me. "I'm afraid what I learned when I read the case reports you have published gave me a false impression: your residing with your employer, his nature, how you interact together in the case reports you publish."

Okay, Wolfe might be that way, but he had never-- And I wasn't-- Why did people keep thinking--?

Hinton's next words jaywalked through my mental traffic jam. "I blame the Freudians. The spreading belief in their so-called stages of development is leading society to see sex in places where it doesn't exist. It's becoming too easy to interpret intense Platonic love as carnal attraction."

Intense Platonic lo-- Hell, no.

You would think Hinton's little speeches, along with the apologetic smile, would have let me find some wisecrack that would have backed us out of our tight corner. I would have thought so, too. Instead, I was fighting back a sudden urge to slug him.

His eyes widened, but not with fear. Although his expression shifted into neutral, I have the practice needed to recognize curiosity behind a blank face when I see it.

Somehow, I found a grin. "I guess you heard a lot about some other Archie Goodwin who isn't me. I'm the one who works for Nero Wolfe down in Manhattan. Glad to meet you, Doctor Hinton."

Although a faint smile stretched Hinton's lips, his gaze stayed interested. "My mistake. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Goodwin." Good thing for him he didn't offer me a hand to shake. "Again, I am sorry that I mistook your close friendship with another man for a certain sexual situation."

"I'll live."

"Well, that, at least, is a relief." After his bit of professional wit, he changed the subject.

I don't think I was too obvious when I avoided him for the next few days. Even so, I wasn't happy to have him in the back seat as I stared out the car window at passing pine trees and pondered Wolfe's recent taste for bullets. Excluding the morning's fly-fishing, seeing the far side of Hinton as Gus drove away from the platform was the only high point of an otherwise lousy day.

The train trip down from Maine also turned out to be lousy. I had to transfer twice, and using the chances to buy lots of diverting magazines at newsstands was a waste of time. Although brooding is bunk, I couldn't keep my brain from skipping here, there, and everywhere, let alone read. Then, to add insult to injury, the waiter in the dining car offered me fresh trout at dinner, reminding me again that I had neglected to bring back my own catch for Fritz. By the time I ended up at Penn Station, I was yawning, tense, and annoyed, all at once.

I got back to the brownstone well after midnight. When I put down my bags on the stoop and tried my key, I found that Fritz had left the chain off the front door. After nine years, he knew me well enough to wager I would be back before he woke early in the morning to start breakfast.

When I paused by the door to the office, I made myself not go in. If the temporary help had been dumb enough to let Wolfe be shot, I did not want to know what they had done to my desk while I was gone. It was too late for an inspection to do anything but leave me hotter under the collar than ever. Instead, I climbed the stairs to the second floor where Wolfe and I have our bedrooms.

I blame fatigue for the fact that I got all the way into my bedroom with my luggage dumped down on the carpet before I realized that there had been light leaking out beneath Wolfe's bedroom door. For a minute or two, I hesitated. Then I stopped trying to feed myself a load of guff. Wolfe always went to sleep by one a.m. when we didn't have a case. If he was up, I wanted to know why. I flipped the switch that overrode the alarm in the corridor outside his bedroom and went to investigate.

At my knock, Wolfe said, "Come in." The tone of his words told me that he knew from my knock who it was, me and not Fritz.

Strolling in, I asked, "What? No buxom nurse to sooth your fevered brow?"

Of course Wolfe's reply was a glare. I would have damn well worried if it weren't.

He was propped up on his side by all of the usual yellow silk pillows plus a few extras, bare above the waist. His yellow silk pajama tops would never have fit over the wrappings around the upper part of his right arm, and Wolfe wasn't the sort to take scissors to good tailoring. Judging from the gauze and bandages, the bullet wound was another in-and-out number like the one he had gotten during the Rubber Band case two years ago, but this time through his right arm.

"Looks like you decided you needed a matched set of scars. Tasteful."

His huffy look was not improved by the three o'clock shadow, not to mention all the exposed padding and chest hair. "I'm thirsty."

"No beer for invalids after midnight. That was what Dr. Kildare said during the movie I saw back in April, and I never argue with a heroic young medical professional."

"If your only purpose in returning early was to help me vent my spleen, I remind you of the existence of emetics and black draughts. Now get me a glass of water."

There was a pitcher and glass within arm's reach of him on the bedside table, but since he didn't have an arm to reach with right now, I decided I would make an exception to my usual policy of not encouraging his laziness. Filling the glass two-thirds full, I leaned over the bed and held it to his lips, so he wouldn't have to move from his reclining pose and make the portrait painter start all over again.

Close up, Wolfe had the faint, greasy sheen to his skin that meant the arm was hurting him enough to make him sweat. I would have bet part of that was due to his skipping pain pills, but I wasn't fond of them either, so I let it pass without comment. He also had the slight salt-and-metal whiff of a newly wounded man. I tend to blur such distasteful details in my books, but I'd been around - hell, taken - serious damage several times. In real life, injuries need time to heal. Wolfe would be laid up for a while.

When he was done drinking, I dabbed his lips with the napkin that had been folded underneath the glass and told him, "I bet you'll have fun in the bathroom when all this water decides to continue onwards to the sea."

"Yes. Another reason why I would have preferred that my left arm be the one injured, again." He grimaced. "That bodyguard was useless."

"We need to have a talk about changing agencies. What were you doing while your arm was being punctured?"

"Preventing the same from happening to my chest."

"Sure. I need to have a talk with your former employees, too."

"Don't be puerile. At least they secured the younger Mr. Burton until he could be handed over to the police."

"Then I'll make it a short talk. You can't sleep?"

"I cannot read with any comfort." Which told me another reason why he was petulant. No rummy loved his bottle the way Wolfe loved his books. "Between that and the pain, I am having difficulties settling. A pleasant time in Maine, Archie?"

"You want me to bore you into nodding off? Okay." I found a chair and moved it over to his bedside before sitting. "The trip was so-so. The fishing was good, and Gus was fine. But the other bird he invited along to cast some lines was a psychiatrist."

"Indeed. Exasperating company for a man of your temperament."

"Gosh. You knew I'd take that as a compliment no matter how you meant it. Well, I am swayed by your cunning, even so. Let me tell you about my mostly-during-summer vacation."

I laid it out for him with all the details, the way he liked to hear my accounts, no matter what the subject. Not that I thought he cared about the fine points of tying flies or cleaning trout, but he was at the stage of pain where any distraction that didn't hurt was better than none. The only facts I omitted were Hinton's idea of how to brighten my leisure time and the talk that resulted. I should have figured on how well those particular edits would work.

When I was done, Wolfe's eyes were narrowed enough that someone unfamiliar with him might have thought I had done my job and he had dozed off. I knew better. He started to shift to make some gesture, and then went still as the arm vetoed. "You are eliding."

"Not unless you want to hear about a psychiatrist who needed a psychiatrist."

"I am more interested in knowing why you want to speak with me about him."

My look was bitter. "Sometimes you are too goddamned much of a genius."

Bullet holes or no bullet holes, he managed to waggle a forefinger at me. "Archie. We dodge each other verbally as we will, except when the matter is professional or significant. If you thought this was trivial, you would not have drawn my attention to it."

"You instructed me once not to tell you to go to hell."

Behind their mostly lowered lids, Wolfe's eyes flickered faintly. "In this case, we will take the sentiment as read. Well?"

"Fine. He was a homo. He offered to--" I made a gesture that involved repetition.

"Stop that. I take your meaning. Doubtless it cannot have been your first such invitation, given your attributes and manner. Since I know you well enough to anticipate that Doctor Hinton was neither accommodated nor seriously injured, what truly disturbed you?"

I hate it when Wolfe wins arguments, even ones I want him to win. That may be why I kept going with, "Okay, I admit to some backing up of the mental pipes these past few days. But you asked for it, especially given that you know my attributes and manners. Here's the first clog. Are you...that way, like Hinton?"

Not even a pause, damn it. "Yes. With some qualifications. Although you suspected."

"Sure, what with the wooden nickel's worth of discretion you've spent over the years. In fact, I guessed early on, given all the hints. For one thing, your actions speak even louder than your words around women, loud enough to be a riot. For another, you only like attractive objects around you, and I spend a lot of time parked in the office."

"Don't flatter yourself. I also avoid having anything in the office that might distract me while I am working. If I always behaved consistently, you would have been dismissed long ago." I snorted at the notion of him working, but he glared at me and continued, "I will assume you already made whatever accommodations you needed to my possible tastes, for once managing not to inform me of the tremendous effort as you did so. What else did Hinton say?"

I scowled, and then tried doubling back in the conversation. "You know I'm not like Hinton. Mostly." He went entirely still except for the forefinger of his right hand, which tapped a few times on his black silk coverlet before stopping. It must have hurt. Too bad my fuming kept me from enjoying a gesture that meant Wolfe was rocked back on his heels or, at least, back on his pillows. "I'll choose the pretty girl any day, unless overcome by a mood while on an extended polar expedition with no lady Eskimos in sight. But it seems I'm not obvious enough for a shrink of Hinton's caliber."

"He was a Freudian?"

"No, one of the other kinds. I still nixed him. Not that it stopped him talking." And there I stuck.

Wolfe let the silence stretch out for a while. Then he said, "I would appreciate another glass of water."

I got it for him. Once done, I said, "What a swell time to have this little chat." At Wolfe's grunt, I added, "Okay, I know the conditions here and now may be the only reason why we're having this little chat."

"At least I can still hope this is nothing but delirium brought on by my wound."

"Dibs on it being a nightmare." When I paused to consider him in all his petulant, plump, and partially yellow-silk-clad glory, he grunted in exasperation, which was not needed. "I don't know what he was getting at. Hinton's crazy."

"Your amatory exploits with young women are almost as impressive as you depict them as being in your books. Minor contretemps or no, you have no reason to worry about your desires. Your manhood."

"That's not what I meant. I'm not worried about my female friends." Taking a deep breath, I let it out before saying, "Look. When it comes right down to it, love is nothing but sex in a fancy dress."

"If you wish to slaughter the aesthetics involved, yes. Although I remind you that I agree with you when most would not. And we are ignoring the variations on kinship or friendship." I could tell from his expression that Wolfe didn't like where we were heading. Fine: I didn't either. We could exchange notes of sympathy in the morning if I hadn't quit by then. Or been fired.

"Then there's got to be some reason folks make assumptions. Hinton's not even the first. It's what I write in the books, I guess. Nuts. Maybe I'm more of a ho--"

"Shut. Up." Dividing the phrase into two distinct words was an example of what Wolfe calls his conclusive tone. Since I was still getting a paycheck on Fridays, I consented to the shutting. "Confound it, my arm hurts. It is now almost half past three in the morning. You are retreating from your main point again. Archie, what did Doctor Hinton go on to say that resulted in all this blathering?"

I looked at him. I looked down at the napkin I had used on him - and to which he had consented - without either of us thinking much. I looked up at him again and asked, "Did you ever consider making me an offer like Hinton's?"

I have played enough poker to know not to bluff when I've had more than three shots of bourbon. So you would think I would also know better than to ask that question right then, with me tired and Wolfe freshly down for the count and sulking about it. I didn't get an answer. I did get one beaut of a Pfui, and I got booted out of his bedroom. I was too tired to consider what it meant when I didn't get fired.

The next week was a real treat, with Wolfe at his most obnoxious and Fritz gently reproachful about the brook trout. Wolfe could still only read for an hour or two at a stretch, which kept his temper warmed. After two days, something got him even more fired up, and he insisted on visiting the greenhouses on the roof to bully his orchid nurse, Theodore, into doing what Theodore would have done anyhow. That effort put him back in bed for another two days, which was his own damn fault.

I was spending a lot of time with him, enough time that both the germination records and the correspondence files were cleaned up from the mess the temporary secretary had made out of them, but I had also quit twice and been fired three times, an all-time record for us. You would have thought what was said up in Maine and then down in Manhattan would have been drowned out by my ongoing urge to crate up Wolfe and mail him to Egypt, postage due. You would have been wrong.

Instead, the touchy subject seemed to be creeping into normal conversation, adding to our fun. After his fourth complaint about juniper berries in a new sauce, I said, idly, "I used to think maybe you and Fritz--"

Wolfe's face shut down like a nightclub after the cops come to call. Then, his tone teeth-gratingly sweet, he said, "You must know otherwise by now. Fritz is merely my employee."

"Just like me, uh-huh. Of course, I found out later that Fritz cuts a swath through the mature salesladies at the fancy boutiques. There are advantages to being so nice." I paused, considering. For some reason, I was reluctant to keep going, but I still said, "Although I am learning that cutting a swath does not prove everything. Did Fritz ever play for the other team?"

"No!" I could see Wolfe rein himself in before he added, "We discussed this, he and I. Once, years ago. I offered him promises that he told me he did not need. We have not had to speak of it since, given that Fritz is able to have done with an issue." He punctuated that last clause with a glare at me.

"Well, if he's nothing but your employee, maybe you might want to go easy on the juniper criticism. He looked a little smoky, the third time it came up at lunch."

After a moment of study during which Wolfe also looked a little smoky, he said, "I will take that under advisement."

Being the polite sort, I ignored the air of aggravation that accompanied his words. "Dr. Martingale called from Harvard while you were napping. He's sending you a nice, long letter about his new discoveries over in French Indochina. Seems the fish sauce is good there. Also, his congratulations on your shifting six inches to the left when it counted."

With a grimace, Wolfe said, "I would believe that you had to rehearse while not around me in order to be so remarkably aggravating if I had not seen you do this to others. Fetch the new catalogues from the growers."

A few days later, I found myself asking him, "What about Saul?"

"Was that somehow meant to be a specific inquiry?"

"He sure thinks a lot of you, which just goes to show that every sort of genius is cracked somewhere on the shell."

Wolfe heaved out a small typhoon. "If you have any questions for Saul, you should ask him once he returns from Havana."

"I'm noticing that's no kind of answer."

"Good. Given the way your mind wanders these days, I welcome any sign that your intellect was not damaged by some fluvial immersion in Maine."

For once, Wolfe had reason to feel provoked. He was right. I was distracted, and I did not have my usual resources on hand to break me free. Since he had been shot, we weren't working. As Wolfe had said, Saul Panzer was busy with a case that had taken him down to Cuba. The other guys I paled around with were making up for the work time they had skipped during summer vacations. But the real kicker, given the nature of my problem, was that the distaff share of my social life was in a lull.

Just before my vacation, I had come to a final parting of the ways with a certain friend when she chose to visit The Little Church Around the Corner and I chose to stick with the nightclubs she had once favored. I brought along a slice of the wedding cake to eat on the train up to Maine, but that did nothing to help my peace of mind when I returned with some questions. Not to mention the fact that, in one of those coincidences that can make a Don Juan turn to matrimony, the other two women I was taking out dancing just then were both busy with other hobbies.

For reasons ranging from good company through good taste down to the sort of peril that showed up in army hygiene movies a few years later, I did not - do not - go fishing in unknown waters. In short, I was left to ponder my private life while having nothing better to relieve any strain than the movies. I don't like pondering, especially in that kind of situation.

Right around then, Wolfe decided to help out. While the record shows he is more adept at deserving kicks than thanks, I can still admit that he has been known to be helpful when I have had serious problems. Once or twice. But at first, I did not realize that helping is what he thought he was doing when he started bringing up my concerns. Instead, I thought he was joining the abrupt and annoying conversation competition.

The first Tuesday after Wolfe was allowed back into his custom-built mahogany chair in the office, he looked up from not frowning over my rough draft recounting his hi-jinks at a certain chef's convention and said, without warning, "You could easily alter more details of your account to serve your social needs. After all, you have done so in the past."

"I already moved the resort clear across two states' worth of Dixie and mostly lost the hot springs. Too bad. I wanted to save what you said to that matron who recommended mud baths for your figure, but--"

"You mistake me, Archie." His mild tone when he stopped me should have been a warning. "I am not referring to your facts but to your overarching portrayals. Given that you have already retouched your first self-portrait as a crude and simple-minded, if sporadically witty, thug--"

I interrupted him right back. "Sporadically?"

"In any case, your need to be read as an especially tough and abrasive specimen of the American male seems to have diminished somewhat in the past few years. Because of that, you no longer have to soften the lines of your depiction in order to make yourself seem tolerable by recounting the warmer and more intimate details of your social interactions."

"My editor tells me the public likes reading about pretty girls." I visibly considered. "So do I. In fact, given the recent misunderstanding, maybe I should add more of them to my next book." I made sure my eyes were filled with sympathy when I gazed at him. "Sorry, sir. You're outvoted."

"Indeed." The word was both placid and sarcastic. I had missed something. He returned to reading the page of manuscript he was holding. I squashed a sudden urge to get up from my desk, go over to his, and find out which page it was.

A few days later, I was running all the events of the past couple of weeks through my mind again, still trying to answer a question that wasn't getting answered in the abstract without using a certain word, when Wolfe looked up from working his way through something called Their Eyes were Watching God.

He marked his page with one big finger. "Archie."

"Yes, sir?"

His gaze dropped down from meeting my own. I realized that I had been rubbing my shirt with the fingertips of my left hand, over the scar where I had been shot in the chest. Then I realized I had scowled at the realization.

"I find it annoying when you do that."

"Next time I'll try to get shot in the jaw, so I can settle for rubbing my chin."

"I would prefer for you to avoid getting shot at all. It is disruptive. In any case, what recalled that incident to mind?"

I gave the right sleeve of his suit coat a cold look.

"Very well, I take your point. But we have both been injured before and may be again. Such is the difficulty of private investigation for pay, that it must be more dangerous than coupon clipping, if less dangerous than clipping coins."

"Since I'm neither an investor nor a counterfeiter, I'm sure I wouldn't know. I also don't care. Getting shot isn't something I'm worried about, aside from your enthusiasm for it. I'm remembering what happens afterward." I was remembering seeing blood on him and the times he had seen it on me. I was remembering reactions. I wasn't comfortable with what I recalled.

Our gazes met. He grunted, one I didn't recognize.

I waited to see if he had something to say, but he didn't. He just sat there, the lids slowly narrowing over his sharp brown eyes. I suspected his lips were about to start pushing in and out, in and out, a sure sign of the genius getting a sudden strike on the line. All at once, I decided I didn't want to know if he had anything else to add. "I'm going to a movie."

"Do. Even vacuous popular entertainment must be better than this."

Although I wasn't sure what 'this' was, I didn't wait to learn. Instead, I got up and went out to watch Greta Garbo's Countess chase down Napoleon, well-known emperor, genius, and runt, which was enlightening in one way but didn't answer any other questions.

By late Sunday evening, I was fed up. Sunday evening was when I broke down and did what I should have done sooner.

Early on that evening, I was in a good mood. One of my female friends had finished toying with her latest hobby and was returning to town. She had sent me a cheerful ship-to-shore cablegram proposing dinner and dancing once she'd disembarked the next week, and her good cheer had spread to me.

I didn't even mind that Fritz had left early for his Sunday off after hinting that he would be returning late from the company of one of his own lady friends. Wolfe could cook better than any twenty Joes or Janes picked up randomly off the street, if not better than Fritz. Wolfe was also willing to share if I did something about the dishes once we were done. His roasted chicken that evening was good enough to sustain notions about goodwill towards men, even fat detectives who licked their lips after drinking beer.

Over dinner, we had drifted from talking about fascist Italy into discussing classical history. Wolfe continued the theme when we took our coffee into the office afterward, sharing some warmer details of Greek and Roman murder cases that hadn't made it into the schoolbooks at Chillicothe High. His private conversation had lost the last traces of censoring such matters, now that his own details were out on the table without me commenting excessively. I did have some comments about his history lesson, though.

"These guys just went ahead and switched back and forth? There wasn't any etiquette to it, like boys are only to be chased between Memorialus Day and Laborious Day?

"Of course they had both laws and customs, ones which differed from ours as their cultures differed from ours. However, just as in our own time, men and women violated those codes of sexual conduct regardless of the consequences. Human nature is perverse no matter where the boundaries are set."

I considered this. I considered him. Then I considered Hinton and his reference to Plato. Weeks had passed since my fishing vacation, and my preoccupations - my questions - weren't going away on their own. I was tired of this. I was done.

Wolfe had set down his cup of coffee, and his face had gone still. I'm not sure if the dinner conversation had been more of him helping or not, but he was watching me closely no matter what had brought on this moment.

"I'm thinking about Hinton. Again. No surprise."

"I weary of that man's company under my roof, even if only within the confines of your skull." Wolfe was sharp. "It has become obvious that you do not wish to discuss all of what he said to you in Maine. Taking that as a given, exactly what is needed for you to cease this pointless nonsense?"

I looked at him, expression grim. "For one thing, I need to know. Conclusively. One way or the other. And you, sir, would be about as conclusive as it gets, seeing as how there would be no accidental overlap from the usual sources of stimulation. So this time, I'm the guy making the offer."

It is a measure of how low we had sunk those past few weeks that he only closed his eyes and then opened them again, in what a stranger might have taken for a slow blink. "I suspected something along these lines would be your response to your worries."

"You asked."

"Confound it, don't tax me with my weakness." He grimaced. "That's the devil of it. Your recent introspection about your private affairs appears to be infectious. This ridiculous difficulty now preoccupies me. I am in a tumult. My peace is shattered. Very well, then."

"Not my fault. The tumult, I mean." For some reason, my lips were dry. I wet them. "Now?"

"Do you truly wish to prolong this folly?"

"Now."

From our attitudes as we left the office, you would think we were heading off for an evening of original poetry in the Village, or to give up on a case and turn over the evidence to Inspector Cramer, not for some brisk and pleasant exercise. And it had not escaped my attention that, of the two of us, Wolfe was the one more sinned against than sinning. Nuts.

It took me until the door to his room on the second floor to muster up, "I'm grateful for the helping hand."

Wolfe gave me a pointed survey, the likes of which I had only imagined once or twice over the years. Its effect on me was only half a surprise. Then he said, the words both polite and exasperated, "I believe I would be judged to have the easier task before me."

"I'll settle for being pleased someone knows the details. For once, I'm lost."

This time he studied me in a way with which I was familiar. "I will do my best to guide you back to your normal path through this particular dark wood." He put a hand on my shoulder. "Come along, Archie."

"Overcoming my last scruples with the irresistible appeal of his seductive words and his brooding air, he then lured me into his lair, where he--"

"Bah," he said, but mildly. With his free hand, he opened his bedroom door.

Not too many minutes later, just when things were getting interesting amidst the fancy bedclothes, he paused. I stopped my encouraging commentary and scowled. With a delicate palm, he gently patted the appropriate spot and then murmured, "My arm still tires easily. I need to resort to another tactic."

"Oh. Well. If that's the problem, go ahead." Feeling generous, I shifted around on all the yellow silk to give him better access. Sure enough, he took advantage, at length and with resolve.

By the time he was done, I was back to being in a good mood. Of course, he had to try spoiling it by sitting up on the edge of the bed, obviously ready to go somewhere. I quit panting long enough to say, "Hold it."

"I need my sink."

"You already took care of that little detail--" I paused for more oxygen "--and mine was the view to tell. Also, if you think I am leaving you all undressed up with no place to go--" I let the direction of my gaze make my meaning clear "--think again. I have a reputation to maintain."

Wolfe shook his head, maybe an eighth of an inch in each direction. It was interesting to watch with his mouth looking the way it did just then. "Archie, the first judge of any man's reputation is himself, especially in these circumstances."

"You bet."

"Then I take it you view this as a matter of pride."

"I do."

"Given the way I just truckled to my own vanity, I cannot argue with you."

"Sure, I was impressed, I admit it." I reached over and searched around. "But even you have been known to admit I learn fast." Then I trailed along two fingers where I thought they would do some good. He shuddered a little. I grinned. "So let's see if I can learn some new grunts."

Afterwards, while Wolfe's good hand wandered idly across me, I mulled the whole thing over. Okay, maybe I had anticipated this for a while, and that was what had been leaking into the books. After all, I spent enough time on the dance floor to know fancy maneuvers go better when your partner has smarts, style, and skill, and not just visual appeal. Even I thought Wolfe's smarts were obvious, and I had watched him fertilize enough orchids, consume enough cuisine, and caress enough silk to suspect that he had everything but one thing needed between the sheets. Two things. No, four.

Nuts. Who cared? Wolfe was good in the sack, was all. The rest was noise. Shifting, I moved in to kiss him. I think I caught him by surprise, but he came back strong.

Once I freed my lips, I said amiably, "Go ahead, explore the scenery some more. After all, you earned the tour."

"I knew you would preen." He settled down again, a little careful of the arm, and went back to what he had been doing. After a pleasant interlude, he asked, "Have you satisfied your curiosity?"

"Yeah. Not thrilled by the result, recent events excluded, but better to know than not."

"I have always thought so. Nonetheless, exceptions need not change the rule, given the strength of your usual preferences."

"Sure. Maybe. At least I won't be running out to visit 'those' clubs any time soon, given how well I get along with the cops on your behalf. Painting a bull's-eye on my back would be smarter."

This grunt was one of the amiable ones. "On my behalf? You underestimate your own talent for provocative abrasiveness."

Not really. I had always preferred being sandpaper to being chammy and used for a rag. That might be why Hinton's take on the brownstone as a vine-covered cottage with white picket fence had gotten under my skin. "Too bad my provocative abrasiveness didn't sand off Hinton. I would have been spared some stewing and you a lot of needless irritation." There was an admission I didn't usually make, but he'd worked hard that evening, for him

The smile Wolfe gave me then was not one I saw often. The corners of his lips even tilted up. "I consider myself adequately compensated for my troubles." The smile disappeared. "Which is high compliment, considering. When I spoke to him, Doctor Hinton proved to be an exasperatingly maudlin individual."

"Have you been making your own phone calls again? You know you could break a finger doing that, or throw out your back picking up the receiver, or maybe even--"

"I telephoned him three days after you returned from Maine, while you were busy discussing our temporary employees with the agency. You were right. The man is delusional." Wolfe paused for a grimace. "After hearing him out, I informed him you were quite capable of forming intense emotional bonds with young females, even if you were unlikely to ever be entirely shackled. He claimed that was not his point and then had the gall to bring up Socrates before inviting me to dinner." You couldn't tell if Wolfe was more outraged at the reference to the Greek philosopher or the notion of eating food not cooked by Fritz.

"Am I allowed to say 'I told you so?" No, wait. We had that conversation."

He snorted. I shifted over a little, so his hand wandered toward my left shoulder. All the reading and orchid work kept his grip solid, and there was a stiff spot he could take care of while he was in the neighborhood.

"After dealing with his nonsense, I hope that peace will be restored."

Turning my head, I examined him with a critical eye. The bullet wound was healing nicely. He was going to have a matched set of scars to go with the rest of the marks a busy life had left on his copious hide. "Peace will be restored if you are done flirting with injury. Three bullet wounds in three years is enough, even without that close call with a knife."

"I was speaking of evenings here. Now that you have satisfied your curiosity, there is no reason for you not to return to your usual prowling."

He had found the right spot. I leaned back. "Good. Miss van Reisner is returning from Paris, eager to share what she's learned about the life bohemian. But I wasn't curious, I was making sure."

"That Doctor Hinton was in error?"

"Yeah." He could feel me shrug. "I do have some lavender in me. I can play both fields, and want to. But wanting to chase someone is not the same as twue romance."

"Indeed. Shift over a little more." I did. His hands swept down to the small of my back, lingered, and then worked up again.

I unpacked another pleased noise for him. "Of course, I could be mistaken."

He snorted.

"Not about romance. The rest of it. You're the one who told me about the importance of replication in verifying a hypothesis."

"Sex is an art, not a science." He leaned in, and I felt his lips' warmth against my shoulder. It seemed a little colder when he moved away. "But if this is your manner of saying you are not done for the nonce, I suppose something could be managed." His good hand swept back down and around, firm and warm.

"Anything for a peaceful evening," I agreed. His other hand had also shifted into interesting territory. I frowned. "But watch that right arm. I can't take another few weeks like these last ones."

"Pfui." His hands stilled for a moment. "The circumstances have changed. You are no longer preoccupied. For the most part, I am healed. We will consider any minor strain to be a sacrifice to aesthetics." I interjected a single word comment when he found his target, one he ignored. "A sacrifice meant to appease the muse of romance, whose illusory art you so vocally disdain. Perhaps this will bank some credit with her for when you next craft a book. Or when you next encounter yet another young woman." His mouth shifted over mine, silencing any possible reply. But I was in no state for a verbal parry by then anyhow.

I hate it when Wolfe wins our arguments, especially so easily. It's just as well I get to edit all that out of my accounts of our cases together. He should be grateful for my editing, too, considering the books I would write in the years to come, the reactions to bullets we had yet to meet, and the fact that I never did get around to tipping him out of my creel and tossing him back into the stream. Too big a catch, I guess, a record weight for those particular waters. It's kind of a pity I can't have him mounted for display, with date of capture appended, in the socially-approved fashion.

That wasn't needed, though. As long as I can cross off the Platonic part and thereby nix Hinton's description, I'll never have to worry about that other word he used. It's hard enough coping with Wolfe as it is, without adding such language to the mix. Although events seem determined to suggest that Hinton's notion might have something to it, that one word is still a fly to which this trout refuses to rise, even with Wolfe as the fisherman. The occasional time spent in the other stream will just have to do instead.