Рекс Стаут - The Doorbell Rang

I considered taking my electric blanket but vetoed it. In a pinch a man must expect hardship. From my bed I took only the pillow, and got sheets and blankets from the closet in the hall. With my arms loaded I descended, went to the office, removed the cushions from the couch, and spread the sheets. As I was unfolding a blanket Wolfe’s voice came.

“I question the need for that.”

“I don’t.” I spread the blanket, and the other one, and turned. “You’ve read that book. They can move fast if and when. With some of the stuff in the files they could have a picnic — and the safe.”

“Bah. You’re stretching it. Blow open a safe in an occupied house?”

“They wouldn’t have to, that antique. You ought to get some books on electronics.” I tucked the blankets in at the foot.

He pushed his chair back, levered himself up, said good night, and went, taking The Treasure of Our Tongue.

Thursday morning there was an off chance that when Fritz came down from delivering the breakfast tray he would bring word for me to go up for a briefing, but he didn’t. So, since Wolfe wouldn’t be down from the plant rooms until eleven, I took my time with the routine, and it was going on ten when everything was under control — the bedding back upstairs, breakfast inside me, the Times looked at, the mail opened and under a paperweight on Wolfe’s desk, and Fritz explained to. Explained to, but not at ease. He had a vivid memory, as we all did, of the night that machine guns on a roof across the street had strafed the plant rooms, shattering hundreds of panes of glass and ruining thousands of orchids, and his idea was that I was sleeping in the office because my room faced Thirty-fifth Street and there was going to be a repeat performance. I explained that I was a guard, not a refugee, but he didn’t believe it and said so.

In the office, after opening the mail, all I had to pass was time. There was a phone call for Fritz from a fish man, and I listened in, but got no sign that the line was tapped, though of course it was. Hooray for the technicians. Modern science was fixing it so that anybody can do anything but nobody can know what the hell is going on. I got my notebook from a drawer and went through the dope Lon Cohen had given us, considering the possibilities. There were fourteen items altogether, and at least five of them were obviously hopeless. Of the other nine we had made a stab at three and got nothing. That left six, and I sized them up, one by one. I decided that the most promising one, or anyway the least unpromising, concerned a woman who had been fired from a job in the State Department and got it back, and was reaching for the Washington phone book to see if she was listed when the doorbell rang.

Going to the hall for a look through the one-way glass in the front door, I was expecting to see a stranger, and maybe two. The direct approach. Or possibly Morrison. But there was a well-known face and figure on the stoop — Dr. Vollmer, whose office is in a house he owns down the block. I went and opened the door and greeted him, and he entered, along with a lot of fresh icy air. Turning from shutting the door, I told him if he was drumming up trade he’d have to try next door, and put out a hand for his hat.

He kept it on. “I’ve got too much trade as it is, Archie. Everybody’s sick. But I’ve got a message for you, just now on the phone. A man, no name. He said to give it to you personally. You’re to be at the Westside Hotel, Room Two-fourteen, on Twenty-third Street, at eleven-thirty or as soon thereafter as you can make it, and you must be sure you’re loose.”

My brows were up. “Quite a message.”

“That’s what I thought. He said you would tell me to keep it under my hat.”

“Okay, I tell you. That’s why you’re keeping it on.” I looked at my wrist: 10:47. “What else did he say?”

“That’s all, just the message, after he asked if I would come and tell you personally.”

“Room Two-fourteen, Westside Hotel.”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of a voice?”

“No particular kind, nothing distinctive, neither high nor low. Just a normal man’s voice.”

“All right, Doc, many thanks. We need another favor if you can spare it. We’re on an operation that’s a little tricky, and you were probably seen. It’s possible that someone will want to know why you called. If anybody asks, you might—”

“I’ll say you phoned and asked me to come and look at your throat.”

“No. Wrong twice. He’ll know there’s nothing wrong with my throat, and he’ll know I didn’t phone. Our line is tapped. The trouble is that if someone gets the notion that we get confidential messages through you, your line will be tapped.”

“My God. But that’s illegal!”

“That makes it more fun. If anybody asks, you might be indignant and say it’s none of his damned business, or you might be obliging and say you came to take Fritz’s blood pressure — no, you haven’t got the gadget. You came—”

“I came to get his recipe for escargots bourguignonne. I like that better, nonprofessional.” He moved to the door. “My word, Archie, it certainly is tricky.”

I agreed and thanked him again, and he said to give his regards to Wolfe. When I closed the door after him I didn’t bother to slide the bolt since I would soon be leaving. I went to the kitchen and told Fritz he had just given the recipe for escargots bourguignonne to Dr. Vollmer, and then to the office and buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone. I refused to believe they could tap a house phone. Wolfe answered, and I told him. He grunted and asked, “Have you any notion?”

“Not the vaguest. Not the FBI. Why would they? It could be that quote some prick may have stirred someone end of quote. Evers or Miss Fenster or even Muller. Any instructions?”

He said pfui and hung up, and I admit I had asked for it.

There would be the problem of spotting a tail and shaking it, and that can take time, so I would have to get help if I wanted to be punctual for the appointment. Also I should be prepared for the remote possibility that Ernst Muller was sensitive about having his arm twisted and was intending to return the compliment, so I got the shoulder holster from the drawer and put it on, and the Marley .38, and loaded it. But another kind of ammunition might be needed, and I opened the safe and got a grand in used tens and twenties from the cash reserve. Of course there were other conceivables, such as that I was going to have my picture taken in a room with a naked female or a corpse or God knew what, but I would have to dive off of that bridge when I came to it.

It was one minute to eleven when I left the house. With no glance around, I walked to the drugstore at the corner of Ninth Avenue, entered, went to the phone booth, and dialed the number of the garage on Tenth Avenue which houses the Heron sedan that Wolfe owns and I drive. Tom Halloran, who had been there for ten years, didn’t answer, but after a wait I got him and explained the program, and he said he would be ready in five minutes. Thinking it would be better to give him ten, I looked over the rack of paperbacks awhile before leaving. Heading back on Thirty-fifth Street, I went on past the brownstone, turned right at Tenth Avenue, entered the garage office, went on through, and crossed to a Ford sedan standing there with the engine running. Tom was in front behind the wheel. I climbed in the back, took my hat off and curled up on the floor, clear down, and the car moved.

There may be leg room in that Ford model, but there’s not body room for a six-footer who is not an expert contortionist, and I suffered. After five minutes of it I began to suspect that Tom was jerking to stops and around corners just to see how tough I was, but I was stuck, in more ways than one. My ribs were about to give and my legs were going numb when he stopped for the sixth time and his voice came. “All right, pal. All clear.”