In true Nero form, the day of his funeral, riots broke out in the city. Not because of his death of course. I don't any of those young people rioting would have even known my friend's name. Nor would they have they known all the great things he did. Martin Luther King Jr. had coincidentally died the day before. It was bitter, cold, and damp. Just like his pops, Nero didn't make it to his seventies. Then again, he always told me living forever would be a waste.

"There will always be someone to catch the crooks," he would reassure me in his letters. "Someone will always still want justice."

His service took place in Our Lady of Good Counsel in Staten Island. The pews were packed full of people. Most of the attendants were extended family, servants and their families, clients, and members of the police departments. They could've cared less if the whole city burned. Everyone showed up for Nero.

He got the full honors. He would have been proud to hear how people spoke of him. Enough orchids adorned the place in his approval. I smiled at the arrangements around his dark cedar casket. A black and white picture hung next to him, in his wheelchair at his desk in Brownstone. A grin he rarely showed. He was always a handsome devil.

I stuck around for quite a bit after the funeral. It wounds a man to lose a good friend. Luckily most people just let me be. Nero would've hated showing my emotions in public. Today however, I just couldn't help it. The last time we were this long apart was when he went to Japan for three years. When I gave up living in the city to go live with my sister in Ohio even then, he would write me long letters & call. Mainly he would just complain about the shoddy job the police were up to. We'd laugh about old cases and stories.

As I felt the tears in my eyes mixing with the rain, a thought came to my mind in that instant. I thought about it more as I sat in my hotel room at the Hilton Garden Inn. I was thinking so much about Nero, it didn't even bother me to hear all those hippies with their pointless protests.

I had never told another living soul outside of a small fraction about Nero. Writing about him would give me something to do. It would be a fantastic way to remember someone who had given me so much.

As soon as I got home, I asked my sister Amy for an Olympia SG3 typewriter. The stories, the memories, the people, all came back to me in an instant. It was just like the good old days again.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have been reminiscing this. Nero always said his father once told him to never let his heart rule his head. Nero was right on most things, but between you and me, sentimentality was not his genes. I like to think he would be proud to know that people remember him.

Your pal,

Archie Goodwin

In the year 1913 I rushed to join the US Army. I was a restless young boy ready to leave at any excuse to being bored to tears in Ohio. The regiment was stationed in Mexico at the time. The campaign brought honors and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I lost many people I called friends during that time. We succeeded in securing the Panama Canal from its enemies, but we all paid a heavy price for our service.

I had neither family nor friends in New York City and at the time looked much more attractive to me than anything in my state. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to the city, that great cesspool called the melting pot. There I stayed for some time at a apartment in Manhattan, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis or go back to Ohio, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at Angela's Diner on 9th street when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized Bill Katz, who had been in my platoon. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of New York City is a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Katz had never been a particular friend of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Angela's, and we started off together in a taxi.

"Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Goodwin?" he asked in undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded Manhattan streets. "You are as thin as a plank and as brown as a nut."

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the time that we reached our destination.

"Poor man!" he said, commiserating, after he had listened to my misfortunes. "What are you up to now?"

"Looking for residence," I answered. Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price in this city."

"You slay me," remarked my companion; "you are the second man today that has used that expression to me."

"And who was the first?" I asked.

"A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was whining to himself this morning because he could not get someone to share his place with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and was terribly lonely."

"Just my luck!" I cried; if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone."

Katz looked rather strangely at me over his coffee cup. "You don't know Mr. Wolfe yet," he said; "perhaps you would not care for him as a stable companion."

"Why, what is there against him?"

"Oh, I didn't say there was anything against him. He is a little funny in the head – he's confined to a wheelchair. As far as I know he is a decent fellow enough."

"A medical student, I suppose?" said I.

"No - I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well up in horticulture and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know, he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are very random and eccentric, but he has comprehensive knowledge which would sure put his professors to shame."

"Did you never ask him what he was going in for?" I asked.

"No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the moment seizes him or when he hears the sound of water. Not sure why though."

"I should like to meet him," I said. If I am to put up with anyone, I should prefer a man of intellectual and calm habits. I had enough of both in Mexico to last me for the remainder of my life. How could I meet this friend of yours?"

"He is sure to be at the laboratory," returned my companion. "He either avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning till night. If you like, we will drive round together after luncheon."

"Certainly," I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other channels.

As we made our way to the hospital after leaving Angela's, Katz gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to take as a fellow-tenant

"Don't you blame me if you don't get on with him," he said; "I know nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in the laboratory. This was your idea, so don't hold me responsible."

"If we don't get on it won't be a big ordeal," I answered. "It seems to me, Katz," I added, looking hard at my companion, "that you have some reason for not wanting to be a part of this. Is this cat's temper so difficult, or what is it? Don't beat around the bush."

"Isn't easy to explain," he answered with a laugh. "Wolfe is a little too eccentric for my tastes - it approaches to insanity. I can understand how he feels, been stuck to a chair the rest of his life. I can imagine it must be hard for a kid to lose his physical capabilities so young in life. To do him justice, has a passion for definite and exact knowledge that I've never seen in anyone before or since. However, but it may be pushed to excess. His need for absolute control over his environment certainly can drive others away fast."

"What do you mean control?"

"He insists on total silence when he is thinking. I saw him at it with my own eyes."

"And yet you say he is not a student?"

"No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we are, and you must make your own impressions about him." As he spoke, we turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me, and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed wall and dark wooded doors. Near the farther end a low arched passage branched away from it and led to the laboratory.

This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles. Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with orchids strewn about. There was only one student in the room, who was sitting over a table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he realized our presence. "I've found it! I've found it," he shouted to my companion, wheeling himself towards us. "I have found the reason why Daphne Schultz was murdered." Had he discovered a gold mine, greater joy could not have shown on his face.

"Archie Goodwin, Mr. Wolfe," said Katz, introducing us.

"How are you?" he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. "You have been in Mexico, I perceive."

"How on earth did you know that?" I asked in astonishment.

"Never mind," said he, chuckling to himself. The question now is about his case. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?"

"It is interesting I guess," I answered, "but why…"

"Why, not one person in the police could figure it out in the last two months. Don't you see that it gives us an idea what might the last couple of murders in downtown could be linked?" he said clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. "What do you think of that?"

"It seems to be a very sound hypothesis," I remarked. "Just like Christmas day! The old evidence was very clumsy and uncertain. Had I not figured this out just now, I could not link the last couple of crimes together that have been ravaging this area."

"Indeed!" I murmured.

His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his heart and sighed as if he had found his true love.

"You are to be congratulated," I remarked, considerably surprised at his enthusiasm.

"You seem to be a walking calendar of crime," said Katz with a laugh. "You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the "Police News of the Past.""

"Very interesting reading it might be made, too," remarked Mr. Wolfe. "I have to be careful," he continued, turning his face to me with a smile, "for I dabble with poisons a good deal."

He held out his hand as he spoke, and I noticed that it was slightly discolored with strong acids.

"We came here on business," said Katz, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. "My friend here wants to take a roommate; and as you were complaining that you were lonely in that Brownstone of yours, I thought that I had better bring you together."

Mr. Wolfe seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. "I have my eye on a place on 34th Street," he said, "which would suit us I think. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

"A man that doesn't smoke is a fool," I answered.

"Let me see - what are my other shortcomings? I pipe down for days on end. You must not think I am angry when I do that. Just let me alone, and I'll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together."

I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a Mexican Mask turtle named Clyde. I found him during my time in the Panama Canal," I said, "and I object to and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."

"Do you include the sound of water in your category of rows?" he asked, anxiously.

"Oh no, not at all!," I answered. There are worst noises you can hear in a city such as this one."

"Oh, that's all right," he cried, with a merry laugh.

"I think we may consider the matter as settled - that is if the rooms are agreeable to you."

"When shall we see them?"

"Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we'll go together and settle everything," he answered.

"All right - noon exactly," said I, shaking his hand.

We left him working among his theories, and we walked together towards my hotel.

"By the way," I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, "how on God's green earth did he know that I had come from Mexico?"

My companion smiled a cheeky smile. "That's just his little habit," he said. "A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out."

"Oh! A mystery is it?" I cried, rubbing my hands. "This is all very interesting. I am much grateful to you for bringing us together."

"You'll find him a knotty problem, though. I'll wager he learns more about you than you about him. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably interested in my new acquaintance.