Part Six: Denouement Time: Wolfe's Differential Diagnosis

The following morning when I got to the kitchen I found I was so used to company over breakfast now that I thought I might actually miss it when they left. Wilson was already there, chatting to Fritz about dinner the previous evening, and making recipe notes on a scrap of paper. House came down about fifteen minutes after me, piled eggs au beurre noir and Georgia ham high on his plate, and took a blueberry muffin off Wilson's plate for good measure. Wilson barely blinked.

"More spade work today, Goodwin?" House enquired with his mouth full.

"Yeah." I wasn't looking forward to it. "I'm sure you can occupy yourself. Maybe do some work, even."

"I'm getting more work done here than I would at the hospital," Wilson said brightly. "I'm almost through all my staff appraisals, way ahead of time."

"You doing these appraisals too, House?" I asked, thinking of Chase, Cameron and Foreman, and wondering how House might evaluate them.

"Naw." House chugged a mouthful of coffee. "My staff write their own. It's amazing how quickly they shift from outraged indignation at the idea to exaggerating the hell out of their pathetic little achievements."

"You mean you actually read them?" Wilson asked, his voice tinged with irony. "I thought you just signed the bottom of the form."

"I like to know exactly how big their lies are each year," House said judiciously. "Mr. Wolfe's got the right idea. None of this bureaucracy crap, he sits at home and has his very own Chase, Cameron and Foreman to go running around the city for him."

"I imagine Mr. Wolfe doesn't spend that time at home getting to the next level of Super Mario," Wilson said dryly.

"No, he spends hours playing with flowers," House shot back. "Maybe I should play the eccentric genius card a bit more, develop a hobby requiring two hour breaks in the morning and the afternoon. Do you think Cuddy would go for it?"

"Oh yeah, make sure I'm around when you ask," Wilson said, deadpan. "Actually, why not go the whole hog and refuse to leave your apartment as well? It's not like you see your patients or anything."

"Brilliant idea. Except I couldn't eat your lunch." House thought for a moment. "You would have to be Fritz. You'd have to move out of that hotel of yours and come do the cooking."

"That's a tempting offer." Wilson threw his hands up with a smile. "But wouldn't you need a live-in Archie too, to do the work? Who'd you have, Chase, Cameron or Foreman?"

"Oh now there's a question." House's eyes gleamed. "Gotta be Chase, don't you think?"

It was with regret that I dragged myself away from their conversation to go do the spade work.

--

We hit pay dirt, mid-morning. Saul found Eloise, much more quickly than we had anticipated. I hadn't even hit the streets--I was still at home, dealing with a large pile of mail that had stacked up over the last couple of days, when Saul called me on his cell. She wasn't out west after all; she was right here in New York Mercy, with a broken leg. She'd broken it two days before the engagement party. Saul had seen her briefly through a ward door, but not spoken to her.

"She's in traction," Saul explained. "She won't be coming to Mr. Wolfe like that. I thought you might want to come along and we'd talk to her together. In fact," he hesitated, then went on with a smile in his voice, "I thought maybe Dr. House could come along too."

"No way." House thought he was running this case as it was. I wasn't going to encourage this.

"He's a doctor, Archie. He can walk in that ward like he belongs there," Saul said reasonably. "And he knows her. She might even want to talk to him, break the ice. Might open up to him more than she would with us."

Unspoken was and don't you really want to see that? I did. I went to find House. I found him in Wilson's room again. Wilson in the armchair, laboriously tapping away at my laptop; House apparently dozing on the bed, flat on his back, with another one of Wolfe's books covering his face. I couldn't read the title of this one but it was about chess.

"House," I said. "We need you."

House took the book off his nose and regarded me suspiciously. Wilson stopped typing and looked at us with interest.

"We've found Eloise," I explained. "She's in hospital with a broken leg. We need you to pull doctor privileges and get us in to talk to her."

"No fucking way," House said immediately.

"Yes fucking way," Wilson broke in swiftly.

House pulled himself into a sitting position and glared at Wilson. "You do it. Swipe a white coat at the door and turn on the charm."

"House," Wilson said patiently. "First, I'm not supposed to leave this house. Secondly, the last time I saw Eloise, Cath was crying on her shoulder and Ellie called me a cheating bastard. Whereas the last time you ever saw Ellie, she would've been all post-coital and mushy. She might even remember you fondly. Right? Or were you supposed to call her and never did?"

"No. Would I ever do a thing like that?" House asked, feigning indignation. "All right, I'll do it." He grasped his bad leg and hauled it over the side of the bed. "My rates are very reasonable."

--

House didn't need a white coat. Which was just as well because I was sure he would look odd in one. We got to Mercy and found Saul. Saul told House which ward Eloise was in and where it was. House stalked off down the corridor like he owned the place, snapped some medical jargon at a nurse who looked as if she might challenge him (she didn't) and barged in through the door.

Eloise was lying in bed, her leg lifted high in the air. Her eyes were shut. House picked the chart and glanced at it.

"Broken leg. Diagnostically boring," he said.

At the sound of his voice, Eloise opened his eyes and shifted her head to look at him. She had large grey eyes and mousy hair with blonde streaks in it. She looked utterly fed up, but of course she was stuck in bed in a hospital gown with her leg hanging suspended from the ceiling.

"Greg?" she said incredulously. Her voice was a little husky. "Greg House? What the hell are you doing here?"

"You've died and ended up in the circle of hell reserved for your one-night stands," House said, sitting down next to her bed. I was startled, but apparently he'd hit the right note, because she chuckled, deep in her throat.

"Not as big a circle as you might think. Glad to see you're still a bastard after all these years. Hey, I saw you on TV a while ago, y'know? Some cyclist was on the news--you were treating him. I said to my son, I used to know that doctor man there." Eloise smiled a little, and reached up to rub behind her ear. "I didn't tell him how I knew you. He's fourteen, he's a bit young for all that. I hope. Anyway he was impressed, he follows these cyclists, was quite a fan of that guy."

Suddenly her face fell. "I guess you're here because of Cath, right? God, I still can't believe she's dead--it just doesn't seem real. Poor Cath, what a way to go. They arrested James, didn't they? I saw it in the papers."

House said gruffly, "He didn't do it, Ellie."

She looked a little surprised. Apparently it hadn't occurred to her that there was any doubt. "It sounded bad for him," she said cautiously.

"He didn't do it, Christ, Ellie, just think about it." A strained note crept into House's voice.

"He didn't do it, who did?" she asked, straight.

"That's why I'm here." House looked around at me and Saul. "These men are detectives--they work for Nero Wolfe. They're trying to find out who did it and clear Wilson's name. We thought maybe you could help."

"How?" she said. "Couldn't even go to the party. Stuck in here with this stupid leg." Her eye fell on House's cane. "Uh, didn't mean to be insensitive. You had an accident or something?"

House wasn't about to be drawn into this. He waved a hand, dismissing it, and addressed me. "Goodwin. Do your job."

I stepped up and did my job.

Over the next half hour, we learned that Eloise and Cath had not been as close as they used to be, Eloise having gotten married and had a family while Cath built up her event planning business, but they'd kept in touch and remained friends for old time's sake. She didn't come up with any new suspects, couldn't think of anyone else who might have wanted to kill Cath, and just reinforced the impressions we already had of our current suspects. Ellie knew all about the vendettas of Sandra Jenner and Tammy Marchant, and had harsh words about them both, the words fucking bitches cropping up repeatedly. She was also fairly contemptuous about Scott, who she thought was arrogant, although admitted she hadn't been too critical of him to Cath. "Because Cath had fallen in love, she really had, so happy, hadn't seen her that happy for a long time." She knew that Cath had wanted children and been trying to start a family for a little while.

It wasn't until the end, when I was thinking we'd spent long enough here and should be going, that she hesitated and said, "There's one thing Cath told me about Scott, said it was a secret. Guess it can't matter now she's dead."

We looked suitably attentive.

"Cath came by, day before the party, tried to cheer me up, told me I might have gotten out of her engagement party but I had to get my leg fixed for her wedding. I hadn't seen her for a while, and I asked if there was any progress on the baby front... and she dropped her voice right down and said, 'Don't tell anyone, but we got some test results back a few weeks ago. I might have some problems with the age thing, but Scott, he's got problems too, in fact he's shooting blanks.' I said wow, so what you gonna do? and she said, 'I'm thinking about it, I've got an idea, ask me after the party Ellie. Scott's kinda in denial about it all though, he even tore up and threw away the letter that told us about it. So please don't tell anyone.' And I said cross my heart and hope to die..."

Tears welled up in her eyes, as she added, "'cept it was Cath who ended up dying."

I looked at Saul, and saw he'd had the same thought as me.

I looked at House; House looked interested, but puzzled. He hadn't spotted it. I was surprised, but House's next words showed he was thinking of something else. He asked abruptly, "How'd you break the leg, Ellie?"

"Fell down the stairs," she replied, and scrunched her face up comically. "Stupid of me. No reason for it. Wasn't even drunk. I'm just getting clumsy in my old age."

"Well, obviously you are getting on a bit..."

"Oh, thanks. Great bedside manner you have, Dr. House."

House turned his head slightly on one side, looking at her. "But it could be something else. I think early stages of Bell's Palsy. You're not moving the left side of your face quite as much as your right side, and you keep rubbing your left ear."

I remembered that House was a diagnostician. I'd noticed the ear-rubbing. Now that he mentioned it, I could see she did seem to have ever so slightly reduced movement on that side of her face. I would never have thought anything of it.

"Bell's Palsy?" she repeated, sounding surprised and worried. "What's that?"

"Paralysis of the facial nerve," House explained. "Can include other neurological symptoms, including balance problems and clumsiness. Tell your doctor; prognosis is usually good, but it helps to start treatment as early as possible."

I left House with Saul, explaining Bell's Palsy to Eloise, and stepped out into the corridor to call Wolfe. I gave him a brief summary of the conversation as a whole, and the bit about Scott and his infertility verbatim.

Wolfe got it immediately. He asked, "Has Dr. House realized the possible significance?"

"Nope," I said. "He's distracted by her medical condition. His lips don't move in and out, but he might as well have a sign round his neck; Warning: Genius At Work. I'm still surprised; he's the first person to say everybody lies, but he can't see it might have happened here."

Wolfe harrumphed. "Dr. House is undoubtedly a genius, but his judgment is distorted when it comes to Dr. Wilson."

"You once told me that all genius was distorted," I said, taking an opportunity to show off my powers of recall. "Including your own."

"I did. You will remember the case."

"Paul Chapin," I said promptly. "Another cripple. Funny, that. Does being crippled intensify sheer genius?"

"In the case of Dr. House it assists him in the eccentricities he affects, but I believe he was always a genius. Come back immediately," Wolfe decided. "I will have Dr. Wilson in the office when you arrive. We will see him without Dr. House."

"Got it." I hung up.

We got a cab back to the brownstone. None of us talked much: House merely said as we left the hospital, "Well, that was a complete waste of fucking time." Back home, House stomped off towards the elevator without even glancing towards the office. I lingered slightly to see the doors close behind him, then went to join Saul in the office.

Wolfe was at his desk. Wilson, looking a little surprised to be there, was in the red chair. He was asking Saul about Ellie and her broken leg; Saul was telling him what she'd looked like.

I sidled over to my desk and dropped into my chair.

"All fine," I said to Wolfe, meaning House was out of the way.

Wolfe waited for Saul and Wilson to finish talking, then asked Wilson without preamble, "Dr. Wilson, when were you planning on telling us that Catherine had asked you to be her sperm donor?"

It was a guess, but an educated one. Borne of intelligence guided by experience, as Wolfe would say. Cath had discovered her fiancé was infertile a few weeks ago. This had coincided with her resuming a friendship with her ex-husband. A man she knew well, with whom she was on good terms. Intelligent, good-looking, successful.

It could have been a bust; she really might have just been asking Wilson for medical advice. But color flushed into Wilson's face and stained his cheeks; it was true. He didn't immediately reply; he sat and opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Wolfe waited for a minute and was about to speak again when House burst into the office. He stormed up to Wilson, struck his cane against the back of the red chair, and shouted, "Wilson, you idiot!"

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. The jerk of a genius had obviously been watching us through the waterfall picture. He must've let that elevator door close behind him, waited just long enough to fool me, then come right out and gone straight to the picture. The goddamn nerve. I saw a look of amusement on Saul's face. I might not live this one down for a while.

House was continuing to shout. Wolfe was letting him have his head, seeing what information we could get.

"When did this happen?" House demanded. "Not on that Princeton visit! Not at that goddamn lunch!"

"No," said Wilson, dropping his head into his hands and briefly covering his face. "But she did drop hints there. She told me she was afraid she was having trouble conceiving; she even hinted it might be Scott as well as her. I realized later that was why she wanted to do the lunch in the first place..."

"She was checking you and your personal life out. Mr. Potential Sperm Donor," House stood up straight and looked at the ceiling. "I guess you passed the test. And that's why she was so eager for you to go to the party. She was going to ask you there."

"Yes," Wilson confirmed unhappily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "But I didn't know that. Not until I got there. She took me upstairs to her apartment, and asked me then. Said Scott's shooting blanks, I need a donor... and I was taken by surprise, maybe a bit flattered, just got caught up in the moment--she was so eager, so desperate, really seemed to need me to say yes... so I did..."

"You fucking idiot!" House practically spat.

Wolfe interjected smoothly. "Dr. Wilson, can you tell us more precisely what you said to her?"

Wilson hesitated. "I said... I supposed it was a huge compliment, but she should realize I had no idea how, um, successful I would be as a donor... not having had any kids myself...she said, but have you ever actually tried to have children? I said, not really...to be honest my marriages all turned bad sufficiently quickly that it was never really an issue. Closest was when I married Bonnie--my second wife--I guess at the start we sort of tried, but Bonnie was never really worried about it as we got a cute puppy and she put all her maternal instincts into that...Cath laughed at that, said no kidding, you had a puppy? so I told her about Hector--he's still alive and kicking, though a bit slow in his old age..."

House was rolling his eyes. "This is so not fucking relevant."

"Anyway, she said if you're willing to give it a go, that would be great. And she went away so happy," Wilson continued. "But I sat there in her living room, and thought about it, and changed my mind almost immediately...realized it was a bad idea...went to try and find her, and found her dead on her kitchen floor. Later I thought, why tell anyone? What can it possibly matter now?"

House looked as if he would have had something to say about that, but he didn't, because something had caught his eye; Wolfe sitting back in his chair, lips going in and out. House and Wilson looked at me; Wilson in bemusement, House frowning. I motioned to them to keep quiet.

A couple of minutes later, Wolfe opened his eyes and sat up. He looked at me. "Archie. Have everyone in my office this evening."

It was denouement time.

--

Wolfe didn't want House in the office; he was too much of a loose cannon. Wolfe broke this to him as we sat and planned events before dinner. House threw a fit, of course, and it was only with great effort that we managed to persuade him that he should watch from behind the waterfall picture, stay there and keep quiet.

"This is my differential diagnosis, Dr. House, not yours," said Wolfe, with finality. "You will have a ringside seat. But you will not interrupt. I must run my diagnosis as I see fit."

House looked at Wilson, blue eyes shining darker than usual. Wilson looked back with equanimity. They didn't speak, but House tilted his chin a little, and Wilson raised his head a little, and House shrugged and said, "Fine. Make the cripple stand for God knows how long, peering through the back of a painting."

"We'll get you a stool, Dr. House," I said.

I made sure House was settled behind the painting promptly after dinner. Everyone else arrived soon afterwards. Wilson, as the client, got the red leather chair. When Scott arrived he glared daggers at Wilson; I was careful to seat Scott a little way away, putting Sandra Jenner and Tammy Marchant in between. Inspector Cramer and Sergeant Purley Stebbins turned up last, Cramer taking a seat, Purley standing at the back. Wolfe made his entrance once everyone was settled. He sat at his desk and inclined his chin one-eighth of an inch towards Wilson, who nodded back. Wolfe then addressed the room.

"Good evening. I am grateful to you all for coming here tonight on short notice."

Cramer snorted.

"As you all know, I was hired to investigate the murder of Catherine Wilson by her ex-husband, James Wilson," Wolfe began. "I was initially approached by Dr. Wilson's friend, Dr. House, a renowned diagnostician. I found it instructive to learn about the process of a differential diagnosis carried out by doctors, in particular the method employed by Dr. House. In essence, it is not dissimilar from that of deductive reasoning carried out by detectives. Instead of a list of symptoms, factors and phenomena, the detective has a list of premises: means, motives, opportunity. Dr. House lists symptoms on a whiteboard; I have no whiteboard, but the mental process of elimination is similar."

Wolfe paused to drink beer, then continued. "The police had decided that Dr. Wilson was the prime suspect on the assumption that he was jealous of his ex-wife's engagement. I rejected this discussion after conversations with Dr. Wilson, and looked elsewhere. After some investigation I decided to work on the assumption that the murderer was one of the few with the opportunity; the access to the upstairs apartment. Only three people were known to go up there that evening; Ms. Jenner, Mrs. Marchant, and Dr. Wilson. One other person had access via the locked back staircase, Mr. Darby. I initially preferred the possible motives of Ms. Jenner and Mrs. Marchant, professional rivalry and a ruined wedding respectively. Both seemed sufficiently angry and tempestuous enough in temperament to have done such a thing."

Wolfe paused to drink beer again. Sandra Jenner and Tammy Marchant both looked as if they would have liked to start shouting and swearing, but were curbing their tempestuous temperaments in order to prove Wolfe wrong.

"As for Mr. Darby, one could conjure up a number of possible reasons why he might have murdered his fiancée in a fit of rage," Wolfe continued, and Scott jerked in his chair. "He has a bad temper and a tendency to jealousy. He also has physical strength and ambidexterity."

I saw Cramer look surprised at Wolfe's last word. Looked like the police hadn't picked up on that one, and it wasn't like Scott would have volunteered it.

"But he was without a clear motive," Wolfe went on. "Until my investigation uncovered the fact that he was infertile."

It was a red rag to a bull. Scott was on his feet, pointing a finger at Wolfe. "You goddamn liar. You fat fuck. Take that back."

"Will you please sit down, Mr. Darby. I prefer eyes at a level." Wolfe was commanding. Scott hesitated, then sat down again.

"It's pointless to deny it, Mr. Darby," Wolfe continued. "You tore up the letter, but we have a copy of your test results right here." Wolfe tapped a piece of paper on his desk.

Scott stared at it. "How the hell did you get that?"

We had House and Wilson to thank for that. We couldn't drag Eloise away from her hospital bed, and a statement from her wouldn't have the same impact. Wolfe had decided we needed physical evidence, something that would at least stand up to a swift read. Wilson had been pretty sure which clinic Cath and Scott would have been tested at: a couple of phone calls, pulling in some favors from New York doctor colleagues, had established it. They knew what the test results would have looked like in terms of format, and House had skillfully mocked up a copy on my PC that afternoon incorporating the clinic logo. I suspected it wasn't the first time House had forged medical documentation. I suspected it wasn't the hundredth, either.

"That is not important," Wolfe said smoothly. "What is important is that we established Mr. Darby was infertile, enraged, and in denial on the subject."

"This is all bullshit," Scott said loudly. "This is a smokescreen to try and protect your precious client."

"Whereas we also knew that Catherine Wilson was desperate to have children, and felt her biological clock was fast running out," Wolfe carried on as if Scott hadn't spoken. "And this morning we obtained a crucial clue from her best friend, Eloise Pickering. Catherine Wilson had an idea, and she was going to try this idea out at her party."

This was a slight exaggeration, but then this was the tricky bit. Scott and his test results could be established as a fact, one way or another, in the end. But it would be Wilson's word against Scott's on the sperm donation thing.

"I deduced Catherine's idea," Wolfe continued. "She required a sperm donor. She cast around her male acquaintances for a suitable person to approach, and she decided on her ex-husband. Dr. James Wilson, a respectable, intelligent, professional man, whom she had remained on friendly if distant terms with for the last nineteen years. She ascertained over a lunch in Princeton that he was helpful and well-disposed to her, and without family complications of his own. She invited him to her engagement party, and asked him to be her donor there during their conversation in the upstairs apartment, and he agreed. This has been confirmed by Dr. Wilson."

"And you didn't think this was worth mentioning to us?" Cramer, outraged, addressing Wilson. Wilson looked distinctly ill-at-ease.

Wolfe was not about to let the police start bludgeoning the client. "Mr. Cramer, please, that is not important. The importance of this information is that it gives Mr. Darby a motive, having already had the means and the opportunity. Mr. Darby was and remains extremely jealous of Dr. Wilson, and suspicious of his intentions towards Catherine. It is my conclusion that after Catherine Wilson had her discussion with Dr. Wilson, and met Mrs. Marchant and Ms. Jenner, Mr. Scott Darby came up to the kitchen via the back stairs, and when she told him what she had done, he murdered her."

"This is fucking outrageous," Scott shouted. "You've got no proof."

"Once the police start focusing the investigation on you, I am sure physical evidence will abound," Wolfe proclaimed. "For a start, it would be most surprising if nobody at the party saw you depart through the door to the back stairs, or return; I think people may recall this if they are specifically asked. But the evidence which convinced me came from your own mouth. Yesterday in this office you said to me that Dr. Wilson 'doesn't even have kids himself--married three times and closest he's got is a dog.' The existence of the dog had not been mentioned to you by either Dr. Wilson or Dr. House on any past occasion. I then discovered that Catherine Wilson had also not known about it, not until Dr. Wilson mentioned it to her during the conversation when she asked him to be her sperm donor. But you had known, therefore you must have had a conversation with her after this point."

The look on Scott's face was like a rabbit in headlights.

"The sequence of events is plain," Wolfe hammered home remorselessly. "You were at the party, you wondered where your fiancée was. Perhaps you also noticed Dr. Wilson was absent and wondered if they were together, thus putting you in a suspicious and jealous frame of mind. You came to the upstairs apartment via the back stairs, and found Catherine in the kitchen, Ms. Jenner and Mrs. Marchant having left. I think you found Catherine radiant and excited by the conversation with Dr. Wilson; she was delighted by his assent to her idea, and she couldn't wait to tell you about it. But instead of being pleased, you were furious. She had gone behind your back to seek a solution to a problem you were denying existed, and to add insult to the injury, she had sought a solution from her ex-husband. A man who you believed still had a romantic interest in her, the subject of intense resentment and jealousy on your part. Maddened by rage, you picked up a knife from the nearby block, and plunged it into her heart--"

With a roar, Scott launched himself at Wolfe. I moved, but Saul was closer, and grabbed him easily, and then Purley Stebbins was there to help.

That was the end of the showdown.

--

One other thing to mention, though. As Scott was collared by Cramer and Stebbins, I saw Wilson leave the room quietly. Everybody else except Wolfe was talking among themselves or otherwise occupied, and didn't notice. Wolfe glanced at me, and I got up and followed. Wilson went round the corner and down the hallway to the alcove where the back of the waterfall picture was. House was there, looking out from behind the curtain. Wilson went straight up to House, and before the curtain closed behind him, I saw House reach out and wrap his arms around Wilson, and Wilson leaned in towards House, and their mouths met.

I was a bit taken aback. I hadn't even seen them touch before, apart from when Wilson had been looking after House's leg. But it all seemed to make perfect sense.

When I mentioned it afterwards to Lily, she said, "Archie, of course they were together, anyone could have seen that."

When I related what I'd seen to Wolfe later, he seemed singularly uninterested. And when I commented on this, he said, "Archie, in our short acquaintance with Dr. House and Dr. Wilson we saw ample evidence of their regard for each other, which went far beyond the average friendship and indeed bordered on the obsessive. We also saw how this affected their actions. Would it really have made any difference to know they also shared a bed?"

Later I figured I'd known all along, on some level.

--

The performance in Wolfe's office had convinced Cramer and Stebbins. The police took the heat away from Wilson and applied it to Scott. As Wolfe had predicted, once they knew where to look they found supporting evidence, including several people who remembered seeing Scott leave the party via the back staircase at roughly the right time, and one who had noticed him come back afterwards. He was convicted and imprisoned a year later.

Wilson came back to New York to give evidence at the trial. He and I celebrated with lunch at Rusterman's after the guilty verdict. Wilson told me in passing that Eloise Pickering had indeed developed Bell's Palsy, just as House had predicted. She'd gotten early treatment and recovered fine.

Wilson also told me that House had solved a complicated medical case without leaving his own living room, to win a bet with Chase. It hadn't become a trend as Cuddy had put her foot down and insisted he come into the hospital or he wouldn't get paid. House had also tried being unavailable at work between the hours of 9 and 11 AM and 4 and 6 PM, on the grounds that he needed the time to practice his guitar, but Cuddy wasn't having it.

"House has plenty of his own eccentricities, anyway. He doesn't need to borrow Wolfe's," Wilson concluded with a smile.

I concurred, and decided not to tell Wilson about an experiment Wolfe had undertaken a while back. Wolfe had tried moving around the brownstone while leaning all his weight on one of his walking sticks, his largest and heaviest one, which he says is made from Montenegrin applewood. After a few hours he had given up, complaining of acute pain in his hand and shoulder. He had pontificated that evening, over curried beef roll, on how having to live with chronic pain might affect the intellect.

"Distort the genius, you mean?" I asked.

"Precisely. It is interesting to speculate what Dr. House would be like were he not a cripple. One imagines he would still be a renowned diagnostician. But one also assumes he might not have such an...abrasive personality." Wolfe shrugged. "Without knowing what he was he was like before his infarction, it is impossible to say."

I offered the opinion that House had probably always been a difficult son-of-a-bitch to deal with.

Wolfe considered this and responded, "I would not disagree with that assessment. However, Dr. Wilson knew Dr. House well before the infarction, of course, and whatever Dr. House was like back then, they formed a deep and lasting bond which has kept the two of them friends and supportive of each other for twenty years. And although I suspect there are some things Wilson would like to change about House if he could, and vice versa, I can nonetheless visualize them together for the next twenty years." Wolfe paused, and then added, "Assuming Dr. House doesn't get himself murdered in the meantime, of course, which would not be wholly surprising."

END

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A/N: If you enjoyed this fic, you might want to visit housebigbang.panfandom.ca/fiction/distortedgenius.htm where you can see a fabulous accompanying trailer vid, cover art, and link (via the Comments page) to my DVD extras on Live Journal, which include a fic commentary and deleted Wilson/Archie slash scenes.

Thanks for reading!