Rex Stout: Help Wanted, Male

I reported, “They tried to get him from the top of the Palisades with a howitzer, but missed him. He has a little bruise on his left elbow from the revolving door at Rusterman’s, but otherwise unhurt.”

Wolfe grunted. “How did he behave?”

“Okay.”

Wolfe grunted again. “After dark we may more reasonably expect results. I repeat what I told you at noon: you will take an active part in the interview with Miss Geer, but you will restrain yourself. If you permit yourself to get fanciful, there is no telling what the effect may be on Mr. Hackett. As you know, his instructions are precise, but his discipline is questionable. See that she speaks up, so I can hear her. Seat her at the corner of my desk farthest from you so I will have a good view of her. The view through that hole is restricted.”

“Yes, sir.”

But as it turned out, I wasn’t able to obey orders. It was then nearly six o’clock. When the doorbell rang a few minutes later and I went to answer it, glancing in at the office on my way down the hall to make sure that Hackett didn’t have his feet up on the desk, I opened the door to find that Miss Geer hadn’t ventured alone on the streets of the great city after all. Major Emil Jensen was there with her.

I had the door open. It wouldn’t have been courteous to slam it shut again and leave them on the stoop while I considered matters, so I dallied on the doorsill.

“Well,” I said brightly, “two on one hook?”

Jensen said hello. Jane said, “You couldn’t have had that thought up, because Major Jensen decided to come on the spur of the moment. We were having cocktails.” She looked me up and down; it was true that I was sort of blocking the way and not moving. “May we come in?”

Certainly I could have told Jensen we only had one extra chair so he had better go for a walk, but if there was going to be anything accomplished by having either of those two get the idea that Hackett was Nero Wolfe, I would have picked him for the experiment rather than her. On the other hand, with Hackett primed only for her it would have been crowding our luck to confront him with both of them; and anyway, I couldn’t take such a chance on my own hook. I needed advice from headquarters. So I decided to herd them into the front room, and ask them to wait, and go to consult Wolfe.

“Sure,” I said hospitably, “enter.” I gave them gangway, and when they were in, shut the door and opened the door to the front room. “In there, please. Find seats. If you don’t mind waiting a minute—”

I had got myself headed back for the hall before noticing an unfortunate fact: the door from the front room to the office was standing open. That was careless of me, but I hadn’t expected complications. If they moved across, as they naturally would, Hackett sitting in the office would be in plain sight. But what the hell, that was what he was there for. So I kept going, down the hall to the turn into the alcove at the far end, found Wolfe there ready to take position at the peep-hole, and muttered to him:

“She brought an outrider along. Major Jensen. I put them in the front room. The door into the office is open. Well?”

He scowled at me. He whispered, “Confound it. Return to the front room by way of the office, closing that door as you go. Tell Major Jensen to wait, that I wish to speak with Miss Geer privately. Take her to the office by way of the hall, and when you—”

Somebody fired a gun.

At least that’s what it sounded like, and the sound didn’t come from outdoors. The walls and the air vibrated. Judging by the noise, I might have fired it myself, but I hadn’t. I moved. In three jumps I was at the door to the office. Hackett was sitting there, looking startled and speechless. I dashed through to the front room. Jensen and Jane were there, on their feet, she off to the right and he to the left, both also startled and speechless, staring at each other. Their hands were empty, except for Jane’s bag. I might have been inclined to let it go for Hackett biting a ginger snap if it hadn’t been for the smell. I knew that smell.

I snapped at Jensen, “Well?”

“Well yourself.” He had transferred the stare to me. “What the hell was it?”

“Did you fire a gun?”

“No. Did you?”

I pivoted to Jane. “Did you?”

“You— you idiot,” she stammered. She was trying not to tremble. “Why would I fire a gun?”

“Let me see that one in your hand,” Jensen demanded.

I looked at my hand and was surprised to see a gun in it. I must have snatched it from the holster automatically en route. “Not it,” I said. I poked the muzzle to within an inch of Jensen’s nose. “Was it?”

He sniffed. “No.” He felt the barrel, found it cold, and shook his head.

I said, “But a gun was fired inside here. Do you smell it?”

“Certainly I smell it.”

“Okay. Let’s join Mr. Wolfe and discuss it. Through there.” I indicated the door to the office with a flourish of the gun.

Jane started jabbering, but I paid no attention. She was merely jabbering, something indignant about a put-up job and so on. She was disinclined to enter the office, but when Jensen went she followed him and I brought up the rear.

“This is Mr. Nero Wolfe,” I said. “Sit down.” I was using my best judgment and figured I was playing it right because Wolfe was nowhere in sight. I had to decide what to do with them while I found the gun and maybe the bullet. Jane was still trying to jabber, but she stopped when Jensen blurted, “Wolfe has blood on his head!”

I stared at Hackett. He was standing up behind the desk, leaning forward with his hand resting on the desk, looking the three of us over with an expression that left it open whether he was dazed, scared, or angry, or all three. He didn’t seem to hear Jensen’s words. When I did I saw the blood on Hackett’s left ear and dribbling down the side of his neck.

I took in a breath and yelled, “Fritz!”

He appeared instantly, probably having been standing by in the hall by Wolfe’s direction. I told him to come here, and when he came handed him my gun. “If anybody reaches for a handkerchief, shoot.”

“Those instructions,” Jensen said sharply, “are dangerous if he—”

“He’s all right.”

“I would like you to search me.” Jensen stuck his hands toward the ceiling.

“That,” I said, “is more like it,” and crossed to him and explored him from neck to ankles, invited him to relax in a chair, and turned to Jane. She darted me a look of pure and lofty disgust and backed away as from a noxious miasma.

I remarked, “If you refuse to stand inspection and then you happen to make a gesture and Fritz shoots you in the tummy, don’t blame me.”

She darted more looks, but took it. I felt her over not quite as comprehensively as I had Jensen, took her bag and glanced in it and returned it to her, and then stepped around Wolfe’s desk to examine Hackett’s blood. He wasn’t screaming or moaning, but the expression on his face was something. After Jensen had announced the blood, he had put his hand up to feel, and he was staring at the red on his fingers with his big jaw hanging open.

“My head?” he croaked. “Is it my head?”

The exhibition he was making of himself was no help to Nero Wolfe’s reputation for intrepidity. After a brief look I told him distinctly, “No, sir. Nothing but a nick in the upper outside corner of your ear.” I wiped with my handkerchief. “You might go to the bathroom and use a towel.”

“I am not — hurt?”

I could have murdered him. Instead, I told Fritz, standing there with my gun, that unnecessary movements were still forbidden, and took Hackett to the bathroom in the far corner and shut the door behind me. While I showed him the ear in the mirror and dabbed on some iodine and taped on a bandage, I told him to stay in there until his nerves calmed down and then rejoin us, act detached and superior, and let me do the talking. He said he would, but at that moment I would have traded him for one wet cigarette.