At ten minutes to eight, with the meal nearly over for the five of us at table, I said I didn’t care for coffee, which wasn’t true, excused myself on a pretext, and went up to the third floor, opened the door of Lewent’s room, and entered.
I had decided to discover the body. They had all been agreeable enough at dinner, except Thayer, who was sulking about something, but it was plain that they were humoring me only because Huck had said his brother-in-law must be humored. No one said or did anything that gave me the slightest feeling of a hunch, and as dessert was being served and I took them in — Thayer scowling, and Mrs. O’Shea cold and cocky, and Dorothy Riff smirking at her new wristwatch, and Sylvia Marcy smiling at me like a sympathetic nurse — I had a strong feeling that it would be gratifying to arrange, for each of them, a prolonged interview with a cop, especially a good Homicide man. Also I had to admit that I had got nowhere with my idea of investigating a murder without disclosing that there had been one.
But now, in the narrow passage with the door closed, looking down at the corpse, I was doubling up my fists and setting my jaw. I would never have claimed that I was such a holy terror as a sleuth that no one had better risk a misdemeanor within a mile of me, but someone in this house had certainly had one hell of a nerve to perform on Wolfe’s client like that with me wandering all over the premises. He looked pitiful there on the floor, and even smaller than when he was on his feet and breathing. I was more than willing for the performer to get tagged, the sooner the better, but not by a horde of city employees with me off in a corner being grilled by Lieutenant Rowcliff. On the other hand, at my rate of progress for the past two and a half hours, I would reach first base about a week from Tuesday.
I listened at the door a minute, opened it, passed through, and pulled it shut. I stood. There was no sight, sound, or smell of man or woman. I went to the stairs and started down quietly, which was no feat on the carpeted treads. At the bottom I stood again. Sounds of voices came up from the floor below, where dinner had been served, so they were still at the table. I headed down the hall for the door to Huck’s study.
It was dark in there, but I closed the door before groping for the wall switch. It gave me light from ceiling fixtures, plenty, and I crossed to Huck’s desk, which was actually two desks with an alley between them for his wheelchair, so that when he maneuvered into the alley he had desk space on both sides. There were three phones on the left, one a house phone and the other two labeled with their numbers, but the numbers were different. One of them was the number listed in the phone book, and I moved it forward, since it was the one I wanted to use, no matter how many extensions were on it. Needing two props, I looked around. One of them, exactly what I wanted, was on the other desk — a paperweight, a heavy ball of green marble with a segment sliced off to give it a base. For the other, there were hundreds of books available, and any of them would do. I would have liked to do some experimenting to find out how thick a book to use and how hard to hit it to get the effect I wanted, but under the circumstances it was not advisable. I got one about an inch thick, too intent on my program to notice the title, put it flat on the other desk, not the one the phone was on, lifted the receiver and dialed a number, and took the paperweight in my right hand.
Fritz answered, and I told him I was sorry to interrupt Wolfe’s dinner if he wasn’t finished, but I had to ask him something. After a wait his gruff voice came.
“Yes, Archie?”
I gave it pace and urgency. “I’m in Huck’s study, and there may be someone on an extension, but I can’t help it. If I call the cops now there’ll be hell to pay, because — no, it’s too long to explain. You absolutely refuse to leave the house on business, okay, but what about Saul? I need him. If you can get Saul—”
I cut myself off by bringing the paperweight down on the book and emitting the kind of sharp little agonized grunt a man may emit when he is solidly and accurately conked, and I let the receiver drop to the desk with a clatter. Also I collapsed onto the floor with enough racket to reach the transmitter, but not enough, I hoped, to alarm Huck up above or the quartet down below. Then I got back onto my feet and stood regarding the receiver lying on the table. That was a question I had left open. It might seem more natural for the cracker of my skull to replace the receiver, but if Wolfe dialed the number I certainly didn’t want extensions ringing all over the place, and this way he would get a busy signal. So I let it lie.
It was now a matter of timing. Wolfe could conceivably try dialing the number, fail to get it, and shrug it off, but I doubted it. He was tough, but not that tough. He could phone the cops to please come and feel my pulse, but he never would, not after okaying my postponement of reporting a homicide. Then he would come himself, which was of course the idea, and I wanted to be at the door to let him in, but I did not want to leave the study at once, with the receiver out of its cradle. Two minutes would surely see him out of the house and on his way, but I would allow ten. I put the paperweight back, returned the book to its place on a shelf, and spent the rest of the time gazing at my watch. At the end of the tenth minute I replaced the receiver, left the room, and went down a flight to the entrance hall.
Dorothy Riff was there with her hat on, putting on her coat. If I had been thirty seconds later I would have been minus a member of the cast. She shot me a glance but offered no converse. I asked her courteously, “You’re not leaving us?”
“Yes.” She was brusque. “I’m going home. Any objection?”
“Yes.” I was brusque too.
“Oh?” She cocked an eye. “You have?”
I nodded. “I’ve decided that you folks are too genteel for me. I’m the type that sticks thumbs in people’s eyes, and this is the wrong setting for it. I have phoned Mr. Wolfe to tell him that, and he agrees, and he’s on his way up here. He will particularly want to speak with you, since it was you who suggested that his client is a blackmailer, so if you don’t mind waiting?”
She was frowning. “Nero Wolfe coming here?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
I waved a hand. “To detect.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Well, I won’t try to sell you on it. Seeing is believing, and seeing him you can believe anything. I have appointed myself doorman, to let no one out, and to let him in.”
“That’s silly. I can go if I please.”
“Sure you can. If you think Huck would like that.”
She opened her mouth, shut it again, turned and made for the stairs, and flew up. As she did so Paul Thayer emerged from a door on the right, from the room where the TV was, followed by Mrs. O’Shea and Sylvia Marcy. They came on, Thayer demanding, “What’s all the powwow? Where’s Miss Riff?”
I said I had told her that Wolfe was on his way to join us, and she had gone up to tell Huck. The news did not visibly impress Mrs. O’Shea, but Sylvia cooed something appreciatively, and Thayer backed off, lowering his chin and gazing at me from under his heavy brows. He had no question or comment, but the two women did. Mrs. O’Shea stated that she had always thought that professional detectives caused more trouble than they cured, and now she was sure of it. Miss Marcy said she would love to be asked questions by Nero Wolfe, even if it wasn’t something dreadful like murder, only her mind wasn’t very quick and she hoped he wouldn’t get her tangled up about some little thing.
A buzzer sounded, and I went and opened the door, and Wolfe stepped in.
He gave me a piercing glance, swept his eyes around to take in the others, returned to me, and muttered, “Well?”
“Miss Marcy,” I said. “Mrs. O’Shea. Mr. Thayer. This is Mr. Wolfe.”
He inclined his head a quarter of an inch. “How do you do.” Again to me, louder and plainer, “Well?”
“There’s an elevator,” I told him, “which makes it simple. We all take it. You and I get off on the next floor and go to the study, and I explain the situation. The others go to Mr. Huck’s room on the floor above and tell him we;ll be up shortly, if that’s how you would like to handle it. If otherwise, you send me up with a message. Perfectly simple. Your coat and hat?”
He let me take them. Putting them on a chair and making for the elevator, with them following, I heard Sylvia cooing something at him but didn’t catch it. One flight up Wolfe and I got out, and I led the way down the hall to the study, opened the door, and stood aside for him. When I turned from closing the door he was facing me.
“Well?” he growled.
“Yes, sir. May I show you?”
I crossed to the desks and got between them. “I used this phone.” I touched it. “I put a book here.” I tapped the spot. “After dialing the number I took this in my right hand.” I picked up the paperweight. “At an appropriate moment I hit the book with it, grunted, let the receiver fall to the table, and dropped on the floor.”
That was one of the two or three times, possibly four, that I have seen him speechless. He didn’t even glare. He looked around, saw no chair that appealed to him, went to a couch against a wall, sat, and buttressed himself by spreading his arms and putting his palms flat on the couch.
“I forwent salad, cheese, and coffee,” he said, “and came at once.”
“Yes, sir. I fully appreciate it. I can—”
“Shut up. You regard my rule not to leave my house on a business errand as one of the stubborn poses of a calculated eccentricity. It is no such luxury; it is merely a necessity for a tolerable existence. Without such a rule a private detective is the slave of all the exigencies of his neighbors, and in New York there are ten million of them. Are you too headstrong to understand me?”
“No. But I can—”
“Shut up.” He had relaxed enough to tighten his lips and glare. He shook his head. “No. Talk.”
I moved a chair and planted it in front of him, knowing that he disliked tilting his head to look up at people. When I sat I was close enough to keep my voice down almost to a whisper. “I’m fairly sure this room isn’t wired for sound,” I said, “and that there’s no one hiding in here, but we don’t have to bellow. I would like to tell you what has happened in the last three hours. It will take seven minutes.”
“I’m here,” he growled. “Talk.”
I did so, going overtime some, but not much. There was a pained and peevish look on his face throughout, but I could tell by his eyes that he was listening. Having covered the events, such as they were, I proceeded to cover me.
“When I left the dinner table and went upstairs,” I declared, “I fully intended to glance in at the corpse and call the cops. But as I stood looking down at him I realized that I would have to call you first to tell you what I was going to do, and I didn’t want to call you from here. I needed instructions. When the cops came, if I told them what Lewent had hired us to do, and the inmates here told them what I had said he had hired us to do, I would be in the middle of another of those goddam tangles that have been known to keep me on a straight-backed-chair in the DA’s office for ten hours running. You would be in it too. I had to ask you to consider that and decide it, and I didn’t want to leave here to go out to phone.”
He grunted, not sympathetically.
“After all,” I submitted, “no bones are broken, except Lewent’s skull. You can tell me what to do and say, and go back home and have your salad and cheese and coffee. After you’re safely outside I’ll go up to our client’s room to ask him something and will be horrified to find him dead, and will rush to notify the household and call the police. As for the thousand bucks he paid you, surely he would admit that you have earned it by coming up here to tell me how to manage things so that his death will cause us as little inconvenience as possible.”
He eyed me. It was precisely the kind of situation that would normally have called for an outraged roar, in the privacy of his office, but here he had to hold it.
“Poppycock,” he muttered bitterly. “You know quite well what you have done and are doing, and so do I. The police, and especially Mr. Cramer, would never believe that you would dare to trick me into coming here for anything less than murder, and they know that without a trick I wouldn’t come at all. So I’ll have to discuss murder with these people. Is there a decent chair in Mr. Huck’s room?”
“Yeah, one that will do, but don’t expect to like it.”
“I won’t.” He stood up. “Very well. Let’s go.”