I

I was doing two things at once. With my hands I was getting my armpit holster and the Marley .32 from a drawer of my desk, and with my tongue I was giving Nero Wolfe a lecture on economics.

“The most you can hope to soak him,” I stated, “is five hundred bucks. Deduct a C for twenty per cent for overhead and another C for expenses incurred, that leaves three hundred. Eighty-five per cent for income tax will leave you with forty-five bucks clear for the wear and tear on your brain and my legs, not to mention the risk. That wouldn’t buy—”

“Risk of what?” He muttered that only to be courteous, to show that he had heard what I said, though actually he wasn’t listening. Seated behind his desk, he was scowling, not at me but at the crossword puzzle in the London Times.

“Complications,” I said darkly. “You heard him explain it. Playing games with a gun is sappy.” I was contorted, buckling the strap of the holster. That done, I picked up my coat. “Since you’re listed in the red book as a detective, and since I draw pay, such as it is, as your licensed assistant, I’m all for detecting for people on request. But this bozo wants to do it himself, using our firearm as a prop.” I felt my tie to see if it was straight. I didn’t cross to the large mirror on the far wall of the office for a look, because whenever I did so in Wolfe’s presence he snorted. “We might just as well,” I declared, “send it up to him by messenger.”

“Pfui,” Wolfe muttered. “It is a thoroughly conventional proceeding. You are merely out of humor because you don’t like Dazzle Dan. If it were Pleistocene Polly you would be zealous.”

“Nuts. I look at the comics occasionally just to be cultured. It wouldn’t hurt any if you did.”

I went to the hall for my things, let myself out, descended the stoop, and headed toward Tenth Avenue for a taxi. A cold gusty wind came at my back from across the Hudson, and I made it brisk, swinging my arms, to get my blood going.

It was true that I did not care for Dazzle Dan, the hero of the comic strip that was syndicated to two thousand newspapers — or was it two million? — throughout the land. Also I did not care for his creator, Harry Koven, who had called at the office Saturday evening, forty hours ago. He had kept chewing his upper lip with jagged yellow teeth, and it had seemed to me that he might at least have chewed the lower lip instead of the upper, which doesn’t show teeth. Moreover, I had not cared for his job as he outlined it. Not that I was getting snooty about the renown of Nero Wolfe — a guy who has had a gun lifted has got as much right to buy good detective work as a rich duchess accused of murder — but the way this Harry Koven had programmed it he was going to do the detecting himself, so the only difference between me and a messenger boy was that I was taking a taxi instead of the subway.

Anyhow Wolfe had taken the job and there I was. I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket, typed on by me from notes taken of the talk with Harry Koven, and gave it a look.

MARCELLE KOVEN, wife ADRIAN GETZ, friend or camp follower, maybe both PATRICIA LOWELL, agent (manager?), promoter PETE JORDAN, artist, draws Dazzle Dan BYRAM HILDEBRAND, artist, also draws D.D.

One of those five, according to Harry Koven, had stolen his gun, a Marley .32, and he wanted to know which one. As he had told it, that was all there was to it, but it was a cinch that if the missing object had been an electric shaver or a pair of cufflinks it would not have called for all that lip-chewing, not to mention other signs of strain. He had gone out of his way, not once but twice, to declare that he had no reason to suspect any of the five of wanting to do any shooting. The second time he had made it so emphatic that Wolfe had grunted and I had lifted a brow.

Since a Marley .32 is by no means a collector’s item, it was no great coincidence that there was one in our arsenal and that therefore we were equipped to furnish Koven with the prop he wanted for his performance. As for the performance itself, the judicious thing to do was wait and see, but there was no point in being judicious about something I didn’t like, so I had already checked it off as a dud.

I dismissed the taxi at the address on Seventy-sixth Street, east of Lexington Avenue. The house had had its front done over for the current century, unlike Nero Wolfe’s old brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street, which still sported the same front stoop it had started with. To enter this one you went down four steps instead of up seven, and I did so, after noting the pink shutters at the windows of all four floors and the tubs of evergreens flanking the entrance.

I was let in by a maid in uniform, with a pug nose and lipstick about as thick as Wolfe spreads Camembert on a wafer. I told her I had an appointment with Mr. Koven. She said Mr. Koven was not yet available and seemed to think that settled it, making me no offer for my hat and coat.

I said, “Our old brownstone, run by men only, is run better. When Fritz or I admit someone with an appointment we take his things.”

“What’s your name?” she demanded in a tone indicating that she doubted if I had one.

A loud male voice came from somewhere within. “Is that the man from Furnari’s?”

A loud female voice came from up above. “Cora, is that my dress?”

I called out, “It’s Archie Goodwin, expected by Mr. Koven at noon! It is now two minutes past twelve!”

That got action. The female voice, not quite so loud, told me to come up. The maid, looking frustrated, beat it. I took off my coat and put it on a chair, and my hat. A man came through a doorway at the rear of the hall and approached, speaking.

“More noise. Noisiest goddam place. Up this way.” He started up the stairs. “When you have an appointment with Sir Harry, always add an hour.”

I followed him. At the top of the flight there was a large square hall with wide archways to rooms at right and left. He led me through the one at the left.

There are few rooms I can’t take in at a glance, but that was one of them. Two huge TV cabinets, a monkey in a cage in a corner, chairs of all sizes and colors, rugs overlapping, a fireplace blazing away, the temperature around eighty — I gave it up and focused on the inhabitant. That was not only simpler but pleasanter. She was smaller than I would specify by choice, but otherwise acceptable, especially the wide smooth brow above the serious gray eyes, and the cheekbones. She must have been part salamander, to look so cool and silky in that oven.

“Dearest Pete,” she said, “you are going to stop calling my husband Sir Harry.”

I admired that as a time-saver. Instead of the usual pronouncement of names, she let me know that she was Marcelle, Mrs. Harry Koven, and that the young man was Pete Jordan, and at the same time told him something.

Pete Jordan walked across to her as for a purpose. He might have been going to take her in his arms or slap her or anything in between. But a pace short of her he stopped.

“You’re wrong,” he told her in his aggressive baritone. “It’s according to plan. It’s the only way I can prove I’m not a louse. No one but a louse would stick at this, doing this crap month after month, and here look at me just because I like to eat. I haven’t got the guts to quit and starve a while, so I call him Sir Harry to make you sore, working myself up to calling him something that will make him sore, and eventually I’ll come to a boil and figure out a way to make Getz sore, and then I’ll get bounced and I can start starving and be an artist. It’s a plan.”

He turned and glared at me. “I’m more apt to go through with it if I announce it in front of a witness. You’re the witness. My name’s Jordan, Pete Jordan.”

He shouldn’t have tried glaring because he wasn’t built for it. He wasn’t much bigger than Mrs. Koven, and he had narrow shoulders and broad hips. An aggressive baritone and a defiant glare coming from that make-up just couldn’t have the effect he was after. He needed coaching.

“You have already made me sore,” she told his back in a nice low voice, but not a weak one. “You act like a brat and you’re too old to be a brat. Why not grow up?”

He wheeled and snapped at her, “I look on you as a mother!”

That was a foul. They were both younger than me, and she couldn’t have had more than three or four years on him.

I spoke. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I am not a professional witness. I came to see Mr. Koven at his request. Shall I go hunt for him?”

A thin squeak came from behind me. “Good morning, Mrs. Koven. Am I early?”

As she answered I turned for a look at the owner of the squeak, who was advancing from the archway. He should have traded voices with Pete Jordan. He had both the size and presence for a deep baritone, with a well-made head topped by a healthy mat of gray hair nearly white. Everything about him was impressive and masterful, including the way he carried himself, but the squeak spoiled it completely. It continued as he joined us.

“I heard Mr. Goodwin, and Pete left, so I thought—”

Mrs. Koven and Pete were both talking too, and it didn’t seem worth the effort to sort it out, especially when the monkey decided to join in and started chattering. Also I could feel sweat coming on my forehead and neck, overdressed as I was with a coat and vest, since Pete and the newcomer were in shirt sleeves. I couldn’t follow their example without displaying my holster. They kept it up, including the monkey, ignoring me completely but informing me incidentally that the squeaker was not Adrian Getz as I had first supposed, but Byram Hildebrand, Pete’s co-worker in the grind of drawing Dazzle Dan.

It was all very informal and homey, but I was starting to sizzle and I crossed to the far side of the room and opened a window wide. I expected an immediate reaction but got none. Disappointed at that but relieved by the rush of fresh air, I filled my chest, used my handkerchief on the brow and neck, and, turning, saw that we had company. Coming through the archway was a pink-cheeked creature in a mink coat with a dark green slab of cork or something perched on her brown hair at a cocky slant. With no one bothering to glance at her except me, she moved across toward the fireplace, slid the coat off onto a couch, displaying a tricky plaid suit with an assortment of restrained colors, and said in a throaty voice that carried without being raised, “Rookaloo will be dead in an hour.”

They were all shocked into silence except the monkey. Mrs. Koven looked at her, looked around, saw the open window, and demanded, “Who did that?”

“I did,” I said manfully.

Byram Hildebrand strode to the window like a general in front of troops and pulled it shut. The monkey stopped talking and started to cough.

“Listen to him,” Pete Jordan said. His baritone mellowed when he was pleased. “Pneumonia already! That’s an idea! That’s what I’ll do when I work up to making Getz sore.”

Three of them went to the cage to take a look at Rookaloo, not bothering to greet or thank her who had come just in time to save the monkey’s life. She stepped to me, asking cordially, “You’re Archie Goodwin? I’m Pat Lowell.” She put out a hand, and I took it. She had talent as a handclasper and backed it up with a good straight look out of clear brown eyes. “I was going to phone you this morning to warn you that Mr. Koven is never ready on time for an appointment, but he arranged this himself so I didn’t.”

“Never again,” I told her, “pass up an excuse for phoning me.”

“I won’t.” She took her hand back and glanced at her wrist. “You’re early anyway. He told us the conference would be at twelve-thirty.”

“I was to come at twelve.”

“Oh.” She was taking me in — nothing offensive, but she sure was rating me. “To talk with him first?”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

She nodded, frowning a little. “This is a new one on me. I’ve been his agent and manager for three years now, handling all his business, everything from endorsements of cough drops to putting Dazzle Dan on scooters, and this is the first time a thing like this has happened, him getting someone in for a conference without consulting me — and Nero Wolfe, no less! I understand it’s about a tie-up of Nero Wolfe and Dazzle Dan, having Dan start a detective agency?”

I put that question mark there, though her inflection left it to me whether to call it a question or merely a statement. I was caught off guard, so it probably showed on my face — my glee at the prospect of telling Wolfe about a tie-up between him and Dazzle Dan, with full details. I tried to erase it.

“We’d better wait,” I said discreetly, “and let Mr. Koven tell it. As I understand it, I’m only here as a technical adviser, representing Mr. Wolfe because he never goes out on business. Of course you would handle the business end, and if that means you and I will have to have a lot of talks—”

I stopped because I had lost her. Her eyes were aimed past my left shoulder toward the archway, and their expression had suddenly and completely changed. They weren’t exactly more alive or alert, but more concentrated. I turned, and there was Harry Koven crossing to us. His mop of black hair hadn’t been combed, and he hadn’t shaved. His big frame was enclosed in a red silk robe embroidered with yellow Dazzle Dans. A little guy in a dark blue suit was with him, at his elbow.

“Good morning, my little dazzlers!” Koven boomed.

“It seems cool in here,” the little guy said in a gentle worried voice.

In some mysterious way the gentle little voice seemed to make more noise than the big boom. Certainly it was the gentle little voice that chopped off the return greetings from the dazzlers, but it could have been the combination of the two, the big man and the small one, that had so abruptly changed the atmosphere of the room. Before they had all been screwy perhaps, but all free and easy; now they were all tightened up. They even seemed to be tongue-tied, so I spoke.

“I opened a window,” I said.

“Good heavens,” the little guy mildly reproached me and trotted over to the monkey’s cage. Mrs. Koven and Pete Jordan were in his path, and they hastily moved out of it, as if afraid of getting trampled, though he didn’t look up to trampling anything bigger than a cricket. Not only was he too little and too old, but also he was vaguely deformed and trotted with a jerk.

Koven boomed at me, “So you got here! Don’t mind the Squirt and his damn monkey. He loves that damn monkey. I call this the steam room.” He let out a laugh. “How is it, Squirt, okay?”

“I think so, Harry. I hope so.” The low gentle voice filled the room again.

“I hope so too, or God help Goodwin.” Koven turned on Byram Hildebrand. “Has seven-twenty-eight come, By?”

“No,” Hildebrand squeaked. “I phoned Furnari, and he said it would be right over.”

“Late again. We may have to change. When it comes, do a revise on the third frame. Where Dan says, ‘Not tonight, my dear,’ make it, ‘Not today, my dear.’ Got it?”

“But we discussed that—”

“I know, but change it. We’ll change seven-twenty-nine to fit. Have you finished seven-thirty-three?”

“No. It’s only—”

“Then what are you dome up here?”

“Why, Goodwin came, and you said you wanted us at twelve-thirty—”

“I’ll let you know when we’re ready — sometime after lunch. Show me the revise on seven-twenty-eight.” Koven glanced around masterfully. “How is everybody? Blooming? See you all later. Come along, Goodwin, sorry you had to wait. Come with me.”

He headed for the archway, and I followed, across the hall and up the next flight of stairs. There the arrangement was different; instead of a big square hall there was a narrow corridor with four doors, all closed. He turned left, to the door at that end, opened it, held it for me to pass-through, and shut it again. This room was an improvement in several ways: it was ten degrees cooler, it had no monkey, and the furniture left more room to move around. The most prominent item was a big old scarred desk over by a window. After inviting me to sit, Koven went and sat at the desk and removed covers from dishes that were there on a tray.

“Breakfast,” he said. “You had yours.”

It wasn’t a question, but I said yes to be sociable. He needed all the sociability he could get, from the looks of the tray. There was one dejected poached egg, one wavy thin piece of toast, three undersized prunes with about a teaspoonful of juice, a split of tonic water, and a glass. It was an awful sight. He waded into the prunes. When they were gone he poured the tonic water into the glass, took a sip, and demanded, “Did you bring it?”

“The gun? Sure.”

“Let me see it.”

“It’s the one we showed you at the office.” I moved to another chair, closer to him. “I’m supposed to check with you before we proceed. Is that the desk you kept your gun in?”

He nodded and swallowed a nibble of toast. “Here in this left-hand drawer, in the back.”

“Loaded.”

“Yes. I told you so.”

“So you did. You also told us that you bought it two years ago in Montana, when you were there at a dude ranch, and brought it home with you and never bothered to get a license for it, and it’s been there in the drawer right along. You saw it there a week or ten days ago, and last Friday you saw it was gone. You didn’t want to call the cops for two reasons, because you have no license for it, and because you think it was taken by one of the five people whose names you gave—”

“I think it may have been.”

“You didn’t put it like that. However, skip it. You gave us the five names. By the way, was that Adrian Getz, the one you called Squirt?”

“Yes.”

“Then they’re all five here, and we can go ahead and get it over with. As I understand it, I am to put my gun there in the drawer where yours was, and you get them up here for a conference, with me present. You were to cook up something to account for me. Have you done that?”

He swallowed another nibble of toast and egg. Wolfe would have had that meal down in five seconds flat — or rather, he would have had it out the window. “I thought this might do,” Koven said. “I can say that I’m considering a new stunt for Dan, have him start a detective agency, and I’ve called Nero Wolfe in for consultation, and he sent you up for a conference. We can discuss it a little, and I ask you to show us how a detective searches a room to give us an idea of the picture potential. You shouldn’t start with the desk; start maybe with the shelves back of me. When you come to do the desk I’ll push my chair back to be out of your way, and I’ll have them right in front of me. When you open the drawer and take the gun out and they see it—”

“I thought you were going to do that.”

“I know, that’s what I said, but this is better because this way they’ll be looking at the gun and you, and I’ll be watching their faces. I’ll have my eye right on them, and the one that took my gun, if one of them did it — when he or she suddenly sees you pull a gun out of the drawer that’s exactly like it, it’s going to show on his face, and I’m going to see it. We’ll do it that way.”

I admit it sounded better there on the spot than it had in Wolfe’s office — and besides, he had revised it. This way he might really get what he wanted. I considered it, watching him finish the tonic water. The toast and egg were gone.

“It sounds all right,” I conceded, “except for one thing. You’ll be expecting a look of surprise, but what if there are five looks of surprise? At seeing me take a gun out of your desk — those who don’t know you had a gun there.”

“But they do know.”

“All of them?”

“Certainly. I thought I told you that. Anyhow, they all know. Everybody knows everything around this place. They thought I ought to get rid of it, and now I wish I had. You understand, Goodwin, all there is to this — I just want to know where the damn thing is, I want to know who took it, and I’ll handle it myself from there. I told Wolfe that.”

“I know you did.” I got up and went to his side of the desk, at his left, and pulled a drawer open. “In here?”

“Yes.”

“The rear compartment?”

“Yes.”

I reached to my holster for the Marley, broke it, removed the cartridges and dropped them into my vest pocket, put the gun in the drawer, shut the drawer, and returned to my chair.

“Okay,” I said, “get them up here. We can ad lib it all right without any rehearsing.”

He looked at me. He opened the drawer for a peek at the gun, not touching it, and pushed the drawer to. He shoved the tray away, leaned back, and began working on his upper lip with the jagged yellow teeth.

“I’m going to have to get my nerve up,” he said, as if appealing to me. “I’m never much good until late afternoon.”

I grunted. “What the hell. You told me to be here at noon and called the conference for twelve-thirty.”

“I know I did. I do things like that.” He chewed the lip some more. “And I’ve got to dress.” Suddenly his voice went high in protest. “Don’t try to rush me, understand?”

I was fed up, but had already invested a lot of time and a dollar for a taxi on the case, so kept calm. “I know,” I told him, “artists are temperamental. But I’ll explain how Mr. Wolfe charges. He sets a fee, depending on the job, and if it takes more of my time than he thinks reasonable he adds an extra hundred dollars an hour. Keeping me here until late afternoon would be expensive. I could go and come back.”

He didn’t like that and said so, explaining why, the idea being that with me there in the house it would be easier for him to get his nerve up and it might only take an hour or so. He got up and walked to the door and opened it, then turned and demanded, “Do you know how much I make an hour? The time I spend on my work? Over a thousand dollars. More than a thousand an hour! I’ll go get some clothes on.”

He went, shutting the door.

My wristwatch said 1:17. My stomach agreed. I sat maybe ten minutes, then went to the phone on the desk, dialed, got Wolfe, and told him how it was. He told me to go out and get some lunch, naturally, and I said I would, but after hanging up I went back to my chair. If I went out, sure as hell Koven would get his nerve up in my absence, and by the time I got back he would have lost it again and have to start over. I explained the situation to my stomach, and it made a polite sound of protest, but I was the boss. I was glancing at my watch again and seeing 1:42 when the door opened and Mrs. Koven was with me.

When I stood, her serious gray eyes beneath the wide smooth brow were level with the knot in my four-in-hand, She said her husband had told her that I was staying for a conference at a later hour. I confirmed it. She said I ought to have something to eat. I agreed that it was not a bad notion.

“Won’t you,” she invited, “come down and have a sandwich with us? We don’t do any cooking, we even have our breakfast sent in, but there are some sandwiches.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” I told her, “but are they in the room with the monkey?”

“Oh, no.” She stayed serious. “Wouldn’t that be awful? Downstairs in the workroom.” She touched my arm. “Come on, do.”

I went downstairs with her.

II

In a large room at the rear on the ground floor the other four suspects were seated around a plain wooden table, dealing with the sandwiches. The room was a mess — drawing tables under fluorescent lights, open shelves crammed with papers, cans of all sizes, and miscellaneous objects, chairs scattered around, other shelves with books and portfolios, and tables with more stacks of papers. Messy as it was to the eye, it was even messier to the ear, for two radios were going full blast.

Marcelle Koven and I joined them at the lunch table, and I perked up at once. There was a basket of French bread and pumpernickel, paper platters piled with slices of ham, smoked turkey, sturgeon, and hot corned beef, a big slab of butter, mustard and other accessories, bottles of milk, a pot of steaming coffee, and a one-pound jar of fresh caviar. Seeing Pete Jordan spooning caviar onto a piece of bread crust, I got what he meant about liking to eat.

“Help yourself!” Pat Lowell yelled into my ear.

I reached for the bread with one hand and the corned beef with the other and yelled back, “Why doesn’t someone turn them down or even off?”

She took a sip of coffee from a paper cup and shook her head. “One’s By Hildebrand’s and one’s Pete Jordan’s! They like different programs when they’re working! They have to go for volume!”

It was a hell of a din, but the corned beef was wonderful and the bread must have been from Rusterman’s, nor was there anything wrong with the turkey and sturgeon. Since the radio duel precluded table talk, I used my eyes for diversion and was impressed by Adrian Getz, whom Koven called the Squirt. He would break off a rectangle of bread crust, place a rectangle of sturgeon on it, arrange a mound of caviar on top, and pop it in. When it was down he would take three sips of coffee and then start over. He was doing that when Mrs. Koven and I arrived and he was still doing it when I was full and reaching for another paper napkin.

Eventually, though, he stopped. He pushed back his chair, left it, went over to a sink at the wall, held his fingers under the faucet, and dried them with his handkerchief. Then he trotted over to a radio and turned it off, and to the other one and turned that off. Then he trotted back to us and spoke apologetically.

“That was uncivil, I know.”

No one contradicted him.

“It was only,” he went on, “that I wanted to ask Mr. Goodwin something before going up for my nap.” His eyes settled on me. “Did you know when you opened that window that sudden cold drafts are dangerous for tropical monkeys?”

His tone was more than mild, it was wistful. But something about him — I didn’t know what and didn’t ask for time out to go into it — got my goat.

“Sure,” I said cheerfully. “I was trying it out.”

“That was thoughtless,” he said, not complaining, just giving his modest opinion, and turned and trotted out of the room.

There was a strained silence. Pat Lowell reached for the pot to pour some coffee.

“Goodwin, God help you,” Pete Jordan muttered.

“Why? Does he sting?”

“Don’t ask me why, but watch your step. I think he’s a kobold.” He tossed his paper napkin onto the table. “Want to see an artist create? Come and look.” He marched to one of the radios and turned it on, then to a drawing table and sat.

“I’ll clean up,” Pat Lowell offered.

Byram Hildebrand, who had not squeaked once that I heard, went and turned on the other radio before he took his place at another drawing table.

Mrs. Koven left us. I helped Pat Lowell clear up the lunch table, but all that did was pass time, since both radios were going and I rely mostly on talk to develop an acquaintance in the early stages. Then she left, and I strolled over to watch the artists. So far nothing had occured to change my opinion of Dazzle Dan, but I had to admire the way they did him. Working from rough sketches which all looked alike to me, they turned out the finished product in three colors so fast I could barely keep up, walking back and forth. The only interruptions for a long stretch were when Hildebrand jumped up to go and turn his radio louder, and a minute later Pete Jordan did likewise. I sat down and concentrated on the experiment of listening to two stations at once, but after a while my brain started to curdle and I got out of there.

A door toward the front of the lower hall was standing open, and I looked in and stepped inside when I saw Pat Lowell at a desk, working with papers. She looked up to nod and went on working.

“Listen a minute,” I said. “We’re here on a desert island, and for months you have been holding me at arm’s length, and I’m desperate. It is not mere propinquity. In rags and tatters as you are, without make-up, I have come to look upon you—”

“I’m busy,” she said emphatically. “Go play with a coconut.”

“You’ll regret this,” I said savagely and went to the hall and looked through the glass of the front door at the outside world. The view was nothing to brag about, and the radios were still at my eardrums, so I went upstairs. Looking through the archway into the room at the left, and seeing no one but the monkey in its cage, I crossed to the other room and entered. It was full of furniture, but there was no sign of life. As I went up the second flight of stairs it seemed that the sound of the radios was getting louder instead of softer, and at the top I knew why. A radio was going the other side of one of the closed doors. I went and opened the door to the room where I had talked with Koven; not there. I tried another door and was faced by shelves stacked with linen. I knocked on another, got no response, opened it, and stepped in. It was a large bedroom, very fancy, with an oversized bed. The furniture and Sittings showed that it was co-ed. A radio on a stand was giving with a soap opera, and stretched out on a couch was Mrs. Koven, sound asleep. She looked softer and not so serious, with her lips parted a little and relaxed fingers curled on the cushion, in spite of the yapping radio on the bedside table. I damn well intended to find Koven, and took a couple of steps with a vague notion of looking under the bed for him, when a glance through an open door at the right into the next room discovered him. He was standing at a window with his back to me. Thinking it might seem a little familiar on short acquaintance for me to enter from the bedroom where his wife was snoozing, I backed out to the hall, pulling the door to, moved to the next door, and knocked. Getting no reaction, I turned the knob and entered.

The radio had drowned out my noise. He remained at the window. I banged the door shut. He jerked around. He said something, but I didn’t get it on account of the radio. I went and closed the door to the bedroom, and that helped some.

“Well?” he demanded, as if he couldn’t imagine who I was or what I wanted.

He had shaved and combed and had on a well-made brown homespun suit, with a tan shirt and red tie.

“It’s going on four o’clock,” I said, “and I’ll be going soon and taking my gun with me.”

He took his hands from his pockets and dropped into a chair. Evidently this was the Koven personal living room, from the way it was furnished, and it looked fairly livable.

He spoke. “I was standing at the window thinking.”

“Yeah. Any luck?”

He sighed and stretched his legs out. “Fame and fortune,” he said, “are not all a man needs for happiness.”

I sat down. Obviously the only alternatives were to wrangle him into it or call it off.

“What else would you suggest?” I asked brightly.

He undertook to tell me. He went on and on, but I won’t report it verbatim because I doubt if it contained any helpful hints for you — I know it didn’t for me. I grunted from time to time to be polite. I listened to him for a while and then got a little relief by listening to the soap opera on the radio, which was muffled some by the closed door but by no means inaudible. Eventually, of course, he got around to his wife, first briefing me by explaining that she was his third and they had been married only two years. To my surprise he didn’t tear her apart. He said she was wonderful. His point was that even when you added to fame and fortune the companionship of a beloved and loving wife who was fourteen years younger than you, that still wasn’t all you needed for happiness.

There was one interruption — a knock on the door and the appearance of Byram Hildebrand. He had come to show the revise on the third frame of Number 728. They discussed art some, and Koven okayed the revise, and Hildebrand departed. I hoped that the intermission had sidetracked Koven, but no; he took up again where he had left off.

I can take a lot when I’m working on a case, even a kindergarten problem like that one, but finally, after the twentieth sidewise glance at my wrist, I called a halt.

“Look,” I said, “this has given me a new slant on life entirely, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but it’s a quarter past four and it’s getting dark. I would call it late afternoon. What do you say we go ahead with our act?”

He closed his trap and frowned at me. He started chewing his lip. After some of that he suddenly arose, went to a cabinet, and got out a bottle.

“Will you join me?” He produced two glasses. “I’m not supposed to drink until five o’clock, but I’ll make this an exception.” He came to me. “Bourbon all right? Say when.”

I would have liked to plug him. He had known from the beginning that he would have to drink himself up to it but had sucked me in with a noon appointment. Anything I felt like saying would have been justified, but I held in. I accepted mine and raised it with him, to encourage him, and took a swallow. He took a dainty sip, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and then emptied the glass at a gulp. He picked up the bottle and poured a refill.

“Why don’t we go in there with the refreshment,” I suggested, “and go over it a little?”

“Don’t rush me,” he said gloomily. He took a deep breath, swelling his chest, and suddenly grinned at me, showing the teeth. He lifted the glass and drained it, reached for the bottle and tilted it to pour, and changed his mind.

“Come on,” he said, heading for the door. I stepped around him to open the door, since both his hands were occupied, closed it behind us, and followed him down the hall. At the farther end we entered the room where we were to stage it. He went to the desk and sat, poured himself a drink, and put the bottle down. I went to the desk too, but not to sit. I had taken the precaution of removing the cartridges from my gun, but even so a glance at it wouldn’t hurt any. I pulled the drawer open and was relieved to see that it was still there. I shut the drawer.

“I’ll go get them,” I offered.

“I said don’t rush me,” Koven protested, but no longer gloomy.

“Thinking that two more drinks would surely do it, I moved to a chair. But I didn’t sit. Something wasn’t right, and it came to me what it was: I had placed the gun with the muzzle pointing to the right, and it wasn’t that way now. I returned to the desk, took the gun out, and gave it a look.

It was a Marley .32 all right, but not mine.

III

I put my eye on Koven. The gun was in my left hand, and my right hand was a fist. If I had hit him that first second, which I nearly did, mad as I was, I would have cracked some knuckles.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded.

My eyes were on him and through him. I kept them there for five pulse beats. It wasn’t possible, I decided, that he was that good. Nobody could be.

I backed up a pace. “We’ve found your gun.”

He gawked at me. “What?”

I broke it, saw that the cylinder was empty, and held it out. “Take a look.”

He took it. “It looks the same — no, it doesn’t.”

“Certainly it doesn’t. Mine was clean and bright. Is it yours?”

“I don’t know. It looks like it. But how in the name of God—”

I reached and took it from him. “How do you think?” I was so damn mad I nearly stuttered. “Someone with hands took mine out and put yours in. It could have been you. Was it?”

“No. Me?” Suddenly he got indignant. “How the hell could it have been me when I didn’t know where mine was?”

“You said you didn’t. I ought to stretch you out and tamp you down. Keeping me here the whole goddam day, and now this! If you ever talk straight and to the point, now is the time. Did you touch my gun?”

“No. But you’re—”

“Do you know who did?”

“No. But you’re—”

“Shut up!” I went around the desk to the phone, lifted it, and dialed. At that hour Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms for his afternoon shift with the orchids, where he was not to be disturbed except in emergency, but this was one. When Fritz answered I asked him to buzz the extension, and in a moment I had Wolfe.

“Yes, Archie?” Naturally he was peevish.

“Sorry to bother you, but. I’m at Koven’s. I put my gun in his desk, and we were all set for his stunt, but he kept putting it off until now. His will power sticks and has to be primed with alcohol. I roamed around. We just came in here where his desk is, and I opened the drawer for a look. Someone has taken my gun and substituted his — his that was stolen, you know? It’s back where it belongs, but mine is gone.”

“You shouldn’t have left it there.”

“Okay, you can have that, and you sure will, but I need instructions for now. Three choices: I can call a cop, or I can bring the whole bunch down there to you, don’t think I can’t the way I feel, or I can handle it myself. Which?”

“Confound it, not the police. They would enjoy it too much. And why bring them here? The gun’s there, not here.”

“Then that leaves me. I go ahead?”

“Certainly — with due discretion. It’s a prank.” He chuckled. “I would like to see your face. Try to get home for dinner.” He hung up.

“My God, don’t call a cop!” Koven protested.

“I don’t intend to,” I said grimly. I slipped his gun into my armpit holster. “Not if I can help it. It depends partly on you. You stay put, right here. I’m going down and get them. Your wife’s asleep in the bedroom. If I find when I get back that you’ve gone and started chatting with her I’ll either slap you down with your own gun or phone the police, I don’t know which, maybe both. Stay put.”

“This is my house, Goodwin, and—”

“Goddam it, don’t you know a raving maniac when you see one?” I tapped my chest with a forefinger. “Me. When I’m as sore as I am now the safest thing would be for you to call a cop. I want my gun.”

As I made for the door he was reaching for the bottle. By the time I got down to the ground floor I had myself well enough in hand to speak to them without betraying any special urgency, telling them that Koven was ready for them upstairs, for the conference. I found Pat Lowell still at the desk in the room in front and Hildebrand and Jordan still at their drawing tables in the workroom. I even replied appropriately when Pat Lowell asked how I had made out with the coconut. As Hildebrand and Jordan left their tables and turned off their radios I had a keener eye on them than before; someone here had swiped my gun. As we ascended the first flight of stairs, with me in the rear, I asked their backs where I would find Adrian Getz.

Pat Lowell answered. “He may be in his room on the top floor.” They halted at the landing, the edge of the big square hall, and I joined them. We could hear the radio going upstairs. She indicated the room to the left. “He takes his afternoon nap in there with Rookaloo, but not this late usually.”

I thought I might as well glance in, and moved to the archway. A draft of cold air hit me, and I went on in. A window was wide open! I marched over and closed it, then went to take a look at the monkey. It was huddled on the floor in a corner of the cage, making angry little noises, with something clutched in its fingers against its chest. The light was dim, but I have good eyes, and not only was the something unmistakably a gun, but it was my Marley on a bet. Needing light, and looking for a wall switch, I was passing the large couch which faced the fireplace when suddenly I stopped and froze. Adrian Getz, the Squirt, was lying on the couch but he wasn’t taking a nap.

I bent over him for a close-up and saw a hole in his skull northeast of his right ear, and some red juice. I stuck a hand inside the V of his vest and flattened it against him and held my breath for eight seconds. He was through taking naps.

I straightened up and called, “Come in here, all three of you, and switch on a light as you come!”

They appeared through the archway, and one of them put a hand to the wall. Lights shone. The back of the couch hid Getz from their view as they approached.

“It’s cold in here,” Pat Lowell was saying. “Did you open another—”

Seeing Getz stopped her, and the others too. They goggled.

“Don’t touch him,” I warned them. “He’s dead, so you can’t help him any. Don’t touch anything. You three stay here together, right here in this room, while I—”

“Christ Almighty,” Pete Jordan blurted. Hildebrand squeaked something. Pat Lowell put out a hand, found the couch back, and gripped it. She asked something, but I wasn’t listening. I was at the cage, with my back to them, peering at the monkey. It was my Marley the monkey was clutching. I had to curl my fingers until the nails sank in to keep from opening the cage door and grabbing that gun.

I whirled. “Stick here together. Understand?” I was on my way. “I’m going up and phone.”

Ignoring their noises, I left them. I mounted the stairs in no hurry, because if I had been a raving maniac before, I was now stiff with fury and I needed a few seconds to get under control. In the room upstairs Harry Koven was still seated at the desk, staring at the open drawer. He looked up and fired a question at me but got no answer. I went to the phone, lifted it, and dialed a number. When I got Wolfe he started to sputter at being disturbed again.

“I’m sorry,” I told him, “but I wish to report that I have found my gun. It’s in the cage with the monkey, who is—”

“What monkey?”

“Its name is Rookaloo, but please don’t interrupt. It is holding my gun to its breast, I suspect because it is cold and the gun is warm, having recently been fired. Lying there on a couch is the body of a man, Adrian Getz, with a bullet hole in the head. It is no longer a question whether I call a cop, I merely wanted to report the situation to you before I do so. A thousand to one Getz was shot and killed with my gun. I will not be — hold it—”

I dropped the phone and jumped. Koven had made a dive for the door. I caught him before he reached it, got an arm and his chin, and heaved. There was a lot of feeling in it, and big as he was he sailed to a wall, bounced off, and went to the floor.

“I would love to do it again,” I said, meaning it, and returned to the phone and told Wolfe, “Excuse me, Koven tried to interrupt. I was only going to say I will not be home to dinner.”

“The man is dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you anything satisfactory for the police?”

“Sure. My apologies for bringing my gun here to oblige a murderer. That’s all.”

“We haven’t answered today’s mail.”

“I know. It’s a damn shame. I’ll get away as soon as I can.”

“Very well.”

The connection went. I held the button down a moment, with an eye on Koven, who was upright again but not asking for an encore, then released it and dialed RE 7–5260.

IV

I haven’t kept anything like an accurate score, but I would say that over the years I haven’t told the cops more than a couple of dozen barefaced lies, maybe not that many. They are seldom practical. On the other hand, I can’t recall any murder case Wolfe and I were in on and I’ve had my story gone into at length where I have simply opened the bag and given them all I had, with no dodging and no withholding, except one, and this is it. On the murder of Adrian Getz I didn’t have a single thing on my mind that I wasn’t willing and eager to shovel out, so I let them have it.

It worked fine. They called me a liar.

Not right away, of course. At first even Inspector Cramer appreciated my cooperation, knowing as he did that there wasn’t a man in his army who could shade me at seeing and hearing, remembering, and reporting. It was generously conceded that upon finding the body I had performed properly and promptly, herding the trio into the room and keeping the Kovens from holding a family council until the law arrived. From there on, of course, everyone had been under surveillance, including me.

At six-thirty, when the scientists were still monopolizing the room where Getz had got it, and city employees were wandering all over the place, and the various inmates were still in various rooms conversing privately with Homicide men, and I had typed and signed my own frank and full statement, I was confidently expecting that I would soon be out on the sidewalk unattended, flagging a taxi. I was in the front room on the ground floor, seated at Pat Lowell’s desk, having used her typewriter, and Sergeant Purley Stebbins was sitting across from me, looking over my statement.

He lifted his head and regarded me, perfectly friendly. A perfectly friendly look from Stebbins would, from almost anyone else, cause you to get your guard up and be ready to either duck or counter, but Purley wasn’t responsible for the design of his big bony face and his pig-bristle eyebrows.

“I guess you got it all in,” he admitted. “As you told it.”

“I suggest,” I said modestly, “that when this case is put away you send that to the school to be used as a model report.”

“Yeah.” He stood up. “You’re a good typist.” He turned to go.

I arose too, saying casually, “I can run along now?”

The door opened, and Inspector Cramer entered. I didn’t like his expression as he darted a glance at me. Knowing him well in all his moods, I didn’t like the way his broad shoulders were hunched, or his clamped jaw, or the glint in his eye.

“Here’s Goodwin’s statement,” Purley said. “Okay.”

“As he told it?”

“Yes.”

“Send him downtown and hold him.”

It caught me completely off balance. “Hold me?” I demanded, squeaking almost like Hildebrand.

“Yes, sir.” Nothing could catch Purley off balance. “On your order?”

“No, charge him. Sullivan Act. He has no license for the gun we found on him.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “Ha, ha, and ha, ha. There, you got your laugh. A very fine gag. Ha.”

“You’re going down, Goodwin. I’ll be down to see you later.”

As I said, I knew him well. He meant it. I had his eyes. “This,” I said, “is way out of my reach. I’ve told you where and how and why I got that gun.” I pointed to the paper in Purley’s hand. “Read it. It’s all down, punctuated.”

“You had the gun in your holster and you have no license for it.”

“Nuts. But I get it. You’ve been hoping for years to hang something on Nero Wolfe, and to you I’m just a part of him, and you think here’s your chance. Of course it won’t stick. Wouldn’t you rather have something that will? Like resisting arrest and assaulting an officer? Glad to oblige. Watch it—”

Tipping forward, I started a left hook for his jaw, fast and vicious, then jerked it down and went back on my heels. It didn’t create a panic, but I had the satisfaction of seeing Cramer take a quick step back and Stebbins one forward. They bumped.

“There,” I said. “With both of you to swear to it, that ought to be good for at least two years. I’ll throw the typewriter at you if you’ll promise to catch it.”

“Cut the clowning,” Purley growled.

“You lied about that gun,” Cramer snapped. “If you don’t want to get taken down to think it over, think now. Tell me what you came here for and what happened.”

“I’ve told you.”

“A string of lies.”

“No, sir.”

“You can have ’em back. I’m not trying to hang something on Wolfe, or you either. I want to know why you came here and what happened.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I moved my eyes. “Okay, Purley, where’s my escort?”

Cramer strode four paces to the door, opened it, and called, “Bring Mr. Koven in here!”

Harry Koven entered with a dick at his elbow. He looked as if he was even farther away from happiness than before.

“We’ll sit down,” Cramer said.

He left me behind the desk. Purley and the dick took chairs in the background. Cramer stationed himself across the desk from me, where Purley had been, with Koven on a chair at his left. He opened up.

“I told you, Mr. Koven, that I would ask you to repeat your story in Goodwin’s presence, and you said you would.”

Koven nodded. “That’s right.” He was hoarse.

“We won’t need all the details. Just answer me briefly. When you called on Nero Wolfe last Saturday evening, what did you ask him to do?”

“I told him I was going to have Dazzle Dan start a detective agency in a new series.” The hoarseness bothered Koven, and he cleared his throat explosively. “I told him I needed technical assistance, and possibly a tie-up, if we could arrange—”

There was a pad of ruled paper on the desk. I reached for it, and a pencil, and started doing shorthand. Cramer leaned over, stretched an arm, grabbed a corner of the pad, and jerked it away. I could feel the blood coming to my head, which was silly of it with an inspector, a sergeant, and a private all in the room.

“We need your full attention,” Cramer growled. He went to Koven. “Did you say anything to Wolfe about your gun being taken from your desk?”

“Certainly not. It hadn’t been taken. I did mention that I had a gun in my desk for which I had no license, but that I never carried it, and I asked if that was risky. I told them what make it was, a Marley thirty-two. I asked how much trouble it would be to get a license, and if—”

“We’ll keep it brief. Just cover the points. What arrangement did you make with Wolfe?”

“He agreed to send Goodwin to my place on Monday for a conference with my staff and me.”

“About what?”

“About the technical problems of having Dazzle Dan do detective work, and possibly a tie-up.”

“And Goodwin came?”

“Yes, today around noon.” Koven’s hoarseness kept interfering with him, and he kept clearing his throat. My eyes were at his face, but he hadn’t met them. Of course he was talking to Cramer and had to be polite. He went on, “The conference was for twelve-thirty, but I had a little talk with Goodwin and asked him to wait. I have to be careful what I do with Dan and I wanted to think it over some more. Anyway I’m like that, I put things off. It was after four o’clock when he—”

“Was your talk with Goodwin about your gun being gone?”

“Certainly not. We might have mentioned the gun, about my not having a license for it, I don’t remember — no, wait a minute, we must have, because I pulled the drawer open and we glanced in at it. Except for that, we only talked—”

“Did you or Goodwin take your gun out of the drawer?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Did he put his gun in the drawer?”

“Absolutely not.”

I slid in, “When I took my gun from my holster to show it to you, did you—”

“Nothing doing,” Cramer snapped at me. “You’re listening. Just the high spots for now.” He returned to Koven. “Did you have another talk with Goodwin later?”

Koven nodded. “Yes, around half-past three he came up to my room — the living room. We talked until after four, there and in my office, and then—”

“In your office did Goodwin open the drawer of the desk and take the gun out and say it had been changed?”

“Certainly not!”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing, only we talked, and then he left to go down and get the others to come up for the conference. After a while he came back alone, and without saying anything he came to the desk and took my gun from the drawer and put it under his coat. Then he went to the phone and called Nero Wolfe. When I heard him tell Wolfe that Adrian Getz had been shot, that he was on a couch downstairs dead, I got up to go down there, and Goodwin jumped me from behind and knocked me out. When I came to he was still talking to Wolfe, I don’t know what he was telling him, and then he called the police. He wouldn’t let me—”

“Hold it,” Cramer said curtly. “That covers that. One more point. Do you know of any motive for Goodwin’s wanting to murder Adrian Getz?”

“No, I don’t. I told—”

“Then if Getz was shot with Goodwin’s gun how would you account for it? You’re not obliged to account for it, but if you don’t mind just repeat what you told me.”

“Well—” Koven hesitated. He cleared his throat for the twentieth time. “I told you about the monkey. Goodwin opened a window, and that’s enough to kill that kind of a monkey, and Getz was very fond of it. He didn’t show how upset he was but Getz was very quiet and didn’t show things much. I understand Goodwin likes to kid people. Of course I don’t know what happened, but if Goodwin went in there later when Getz was there, and started to open a window, you can’t tell. When Getz once got aroused he was apt to do anything. He couldn’t have hurt Goodwin any, but Goodwin might have got out his gun just for a gag, and Getz tried to take it away, and it went off accidentally. That wouldn’t be murder, would it?”

“No,” Cramer said, “that would only be a regrettable accident. That’s all for now, Mr. Koven. Take him out, Sol, and bring Hildebrand.”

As Koven arose and the dick came forward I reached for the phone on Pat Lowell’s desk. My hand got there, but so did Cramer’s, hard on top of mine.

“The lines here are busy,” he stated. “There’ll be a phone you can use downtown. Do you want to hear Hildebrand before you comment?”

“I’m crazy to hear Hildebrand,” I assured him. “No doubt he’ll explain that I tossed the gun in the monkey’s cage to frame the monkey. Let’s just wait for Hildebrand.”

It wasn’t much of a wait; the Homicide boys are snappy. Byram Hildebrand, ushered in by Sol, stood and gave me a long straight look before he took the chair Koven had vacated. He still had good presence, with his fine mat of nearly white hair, but his extremities were nervous. When he sat he couldn’t find comfortable spots for either his hands or his feet.

“This will only take a minute,” Cramer told him. “I just want to check on Sunday morning. Yesterday. You were here working?”

Hildebrand nodded, and the squeak came. “I was putting on some touches. I often work Sundays.”

“You were in there in the workroom?”

“Yes. Mr. Getz was there, making some suggestions. I was doubtful about one of his suggestions and went upstairs to consult Mr. Koven, but Mrs. Koven was there in the hall and—”

“You mean the big hall one flight up?”

“Yes. She said Mr. Koven wasn’t up yet and Miss Lowell was in his office waiting to see him. Miss Lowell has extremely good judgment, and I went up to consult her. She disapproved of Mr. Getz’s suggestion, and we discussed various matters, and mention was made of the gun Mr. Koven kept in his desk drawer. I pulled the drawer open just to look at it, with no special purpose, merely to look at it, and closed the drawer again. Shortly afterward I returned downstairs.”

“Was the gun there in the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take it out?”

“No. Neither did Miss Lowell. We didn’t touch it.”

“But you recognized it as the same gun?”

“I can’t say that I did, no. I had never examined the gun, never had it in my hand. I can only say that it looked the same as before. It was my opinion that our concern about the gun being kept there was quite childish, but I see now that I was wrong. After what happened today—”

“Yeah.” Cramer cut him off. “Concern about a loaded gun is never childish. That’s all I’m after now. Sunday morning, in Miss Lowell’s presence, you opened the drawer of Koven’s desk and saw the gun which you took to be the gun you had seen there before. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct,” Hildebrand squeaked.

“Okay, that’s all.” Cramer nodded at Sol. “Take him back to Rowcliff.”