conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'Plot It Yourself'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Plot It Yourself
  At the lawyer's office I had to wait only thirty minutes, which was an improvement. He would be glad to help. When a lawyer says he will be glad to help he means that he will be glad to relieve you of any information you may have that he could ever possibly use, and at the same time will carefully refrain from burdening you with any information that you don't already have. That one wasn't even going to admit that he had ever heard of a woman named Alice Porter until I told him I had read three letters signed by him referring to her as his client. I finally pried it out of him that he hadn't seen her or communicated with her for some time. Two years? Three? He couldn't say definitely, but an extended period. As for the information he relieved me of, I will only say that I put him under no obligation.
  It was after five o'clock when I arrived at the office of Best and Green, so it was a tossup whether I would catch him, but I did. The receptionist halted a lipstick operation long enough to tell me that Mr. Green was in conference, and I was asking her if she had any idea how long the conference would last, when a man appeared from within and headed for the door, and she called to him, "Mr. Green, someone to see you," and I went for him, pronouncing my name, and he said, "I'm making a train," and loped out. So, as I say, I caught him.
  I had used up half of Cora Ballard's ideas. Of those left, two weren't very promising. There are about a thousand banks with safe-deposit vaults in New York, and anyway I didn't have keys to all the boxes, and besides, it was after hours. Taking a plane to the West Coast to look up Alice Porter's parents seemed a little headlong. Finding an empty taxi in midtown Manhattan at that time of day was almost as hopeless, but I finally grabbed one and gave the driver the address on West 82nd Street.
  Collander House could have been worse. The girl in the neat little office had a vase of daisies on her desk, and the room across the hall, which she called the lounge, where she sent me to wait for Mrs. Garvin, had two vases of daisies, comfortable chairs, and rugs on the floor. Another thirty-minute wait. When Mrs. Garvin finally appeared, one straight look from her sharp gray eyes confirmed Cora Ballard's statement that anyone would trust her with anything. Certainly she remembered Alice Porter, who had lived there from August 1951 until May 1956. She had the dates in her head because she had looked them up at the request of a city detective last week, and had recalled them that morning because a woman had come and asked about Alice Porter. She hadn't seen Alice Porter for three years and was keeping nothing for her. Not even some little thing like an envelope? No. Which didn't mean a thing. She was a busy woman, and it was quicker to say no than to explain that it was none of my business and have me trying to persuade her that it was. A lie isn't a lie if it is in reply to a question that the questioner has no right to ask.
  All in all, a hell of an afternoon. Not one little crumb. And the immediate future was as bleak as the immediate past: another meatless dinner for Wolfe, after a beerless day. More gloom. He would be there at his desk, glaring into space, wallowing in it. As I climbed out of the taxi in front of the old brownstone I had a notion to go to Bert's diner around the corner and eat hamburgers and slaw and discuss the world situation for an hour or so, but, deciding it wouldn't be fair to deprive him of an audience, I mounted the stoop and used my key on the door; and, with one foot inside and one out, stopped and stared. Wolfe was emerging from the kitchen, carrying a large tray loaded with glasses. He turned in at the office. I brought my other foot in, shut the door, and proceeded.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Mortimer Oshin cut in, "Wait a minute. What if she knew how that would look?" There was still a little cognac in his glass, and he still hadn't lit a cigarette.
  Orrie got up and went to the corner of Wolfe's desk and stood facing the committee. "My job," he said, "was to find out if she had ever been in contact with Simon Jacobs. Of course the best place to start was with the widow. I went to the apartment on Twenty-first Street and there was no one there. I asked around among the other tenants, and I—"
  Sally Corbett was one of the two women who, a couple of years back, had made me feel that there might be some flaw in my attitude toward female dicks. The other one was Dol Bonner. Their physical characteristics, including their faces, were quite different, but were both of a description that makes a woman looked at from a personal viewpoint; and they were good operatives. Sally went and took Orrie's place at the corner of Wolfe's desk, turned her head to look at him, got a nod, and faced the audience.
  I turned my head for a look at Alice Porter. She was on the edge of the chair, rigid, her eyes half closed, her head thrust forward, and her lips parted with the tip of her tongue showing. She was looking at Wolfe, oblivious of the eight pairs of eyes, including mine, that were aimed at her. When Sally Corbett returned to her chair and Fred Durkin took her place at the corner of Wolfe's desk, Alice Porter's gaze didn't leave Wolfe, even when Fred spoke.
  Wolfe stopped him. "That will serve, Fred. The ifs are ahead of us. Mr. Panzer?" As Fred went back to his chair and Saul came forward, Wolfe told the committee, "I should explain that Mr. Panzer's assignment was of a different nature. It was given to him because it required illegal entry to a private dwelling. Yes, Saul?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: What if she knew how that would look?" There was still a little cognac in his glass, and he still hadn't lit a cigarette.
  Orrie got up and went to the corner of Wolfe's desk and stood facing the committee. "My job," he said, "was to find out if she had ever been in contact with Simon Jacobs. Of course the best place to start was with the widow. I went to the apartment on Twenty-first Street and there was no one there. I asked around among the other tenants, and I—"
  Sally Corbett was one of the two women who, a couple of years back, had made me feel that there might be some flaw in my attitude toward female dicks. The other one was Dol Bonner. Their physical characteristics, including their faces, were quite different, but were both of a description that makes a woman looked at from a personal viewpoint; and they were good operatives. Sally went and took Orrie's place at the corner of Wolfe's desk, turned her head to look at him, got a nod, and faced the audience.
  I turned my head for a look at Alice Porter. She was on the edge of the chair, rigid, her eyes half closed, her head thrust forward, and her lips parted with the tip of her tongue showing. She was looking at Wolfe, oblivious of the eight pairs of eyes, including mine, that were aimed at her. When Sally Corbett returned to her chair and Fred Durkin took her place at the corner of Wolfe's desk, Alice Porter's gaze didn't leave Wolfe, even when Fred spoke.
  Wolfe stopped him. "That will serve, Fred. The ifs are ahead of us. Mr. Panzer?" As Fred went back to his chair and Saul came forward, Wolfe told the committee, "I should explain that Mr. Panzer's assignment was of a different nature. It was given to him because it required illegal entry to a private dwelling. Yes, Saul?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Wolfe grunted. "If so, not an egregious one. She had the upper hand—especially after the manuscript of her story was found in a file in your publisher's office."
  Wolfe turned a palm up. "On one occasion you showed ready and notable wit—on Friday, four days ago, when Miss Porter drove to New York to see you at your apartment. By then, of course, she was confronting you with a direr menace than exposure of your swindles; she was threatening to reveal you as a murderer. That is true?"
  Wolfe shook his head. "Mr. Imhof used the right word for you, Miss Wynn. 'Incredible.' Apparently you have performed prodigies of sagacity and finesse without knowing it. Not surely by inadvertence; it must be that your singular faculties operate below the level of consciousness—or above it. Perhaps the psychologists should add a new term, superconscious. When Miss Porter came to your apartment on Friday afternoon did she tell you that she had been followed?"
  Wolfe shook his head again. "You are beyond me. Added to your other achievements, you committed three murders in an emergency with such resourcefulness and dexterity that a highly skilled police force is completely at sea. I offer a suggestion. I suggest that you request the District Attorney to arrange for your brain to be turned over to competent scientists. I shall myself suggest it to Mr. Cramer of the police. Will you do that?"
  A sound came from Cora Ballard, half gasp and half moan. It was the first sound from any of them except Imhof since Dol Bonner had reported. No one looked at her. No one was looking at anyone but Amy Wynn.