Rex Stout - Before Midnight

That helped, giving them something to do. Philip Younger picked up a chair and came, and the others after him. I opened the door to the dining room, and they filed across and in. Fritz was at my elbow, and I told him there would be lots of company and he might as well leave the bolt off. The doorbell rang, and he went and admitted Doc Vollmer, and I waved Doc to the office.

Leaving the door from the dining room to the hall wide open and standing just inside, I surveyed my herd. Mrs. Wheelock had flopped onto a chair, and so had Philip Younger. I hoped Younger wasn’t having a paroxysm. Most of the others were standing, and I told them they might as well sit down.

The only one who put up a squawk was Rudolph Hansen. He confronted me. “Vernon Assa is my client and my friend, and I have a right to see that he gets proper—”

“He’s already got. A doctor’s here, and a good one.” I raised my voice. “Just take it easy, everybody, and it would be better if you’d shut up.”

“What happened to him?” Gertrude Frazee demanded.

“I don’t know. But if you want something to occupy your minds, just before Mr. Wolfe entered he was standing by the wall with a glass in his hand and there was liquid in the glass. You heard the glass hit the floor, but I saw no sign of spilled liquid. You might turn that over and see what you think of it.”

“It was Pernod in the glass,” Patrick O’Garro said. “I saw him pour it. He always drank Pernod. He put the glass down on the table when Hansen called to him, and went—”

“Hold it, Pat,” Hansen snapped at him. “This may be — I hope not — but this may be a very grave matter.”

“You see,” I told the herd. “I advised you to shut up, and Mr. Hansen, who is a lawyer, agrees with me.”

“I want to telephone,” Heery said.

“The phone’s busy. Anyway, I’m just a temporary watchdog. I’ll be getting a relief, and you can—”

I broke it off to stretch my neck for a look at the newcomers Fritz was admitting — two city employees in uniform. They came down the hall and headed for me, but I pointed across to the office and they right-angled. From there on it was a parade. A minute later two more in uniform came, and then three in their own clothes, two of whom I knew, and before long one with a little black bag. My herd had more or less settled down, and I had decided I didn’t need to catch Doc Vollmer on his way out for a look at Younger. Two more arrived, and when I saw one of them was Lieutenant Rowcliff a little flutter ran over my biceps. He affects me that way. He and his pal went to the office, but pretty soon appeared again, heading for the dining room, and I sidestepped to keep from being trampled.

They entered, and the pal closed the door, and Rowcliff faced the herd. “You will remain here under surveillance until otherwise notified. Vernon Assa is dead. I am Lieutenant George Rowcliff, and for the present you are in my custody as material witnesses.”

That was like him. In fact, it was him. What the hell did they care whether he was George Rowcliff or Cuthbert Rowcliff? Also he had said it wrong. If they were in his custody they were under arrest, and in that case they could demand to be allowed to communicate with their lawyers before answering any questions as a matter of ordinary prudence, which would stop the wheels of justice for hours. I was surprised that neither Hansen nor Hibbard picked it up, but they could have thought it would sound like soliciting business and didn’t want to be unethical. Lawyers are very delicate.

I was in an anomalous position again. I wanted to open the door to leave, (a) to see if Wolfe wanted me, (b) to watch the scientists at work, and (c) to get a rise out of Rowcliff in case he had the notion that I was in his custody too, but on the other hand it seemed likely that a specimen who had had the nerve to commit a murder in Wolfe’s office, right under his nose, was there in the dining room, and I didn’t like to leave him with only a baboon like Rowcliff to keep an eye on him. I was propped against the wall, considering it, when the door opened and Inspector Cramer walked in. Short of the table he stopped and sent his eyes around.

“Mr. Buff,” he said. “Buff and O’Garro and Hansen — and I guess Heery. You four men come here please.” They moved. “Stand there in front of me. I’m going to show you something and ask if you can identify it. Look at it as close as you want to, but don’t touch it. You understand? Don’t touch it.”

They said they understood, and he lifted a hand. The thumb and forefinger were pinching the corner of a brown leather wallet. The quartet gazed at it. O’Garro’s hand started toward it and he jerked it back. No one spoke.

“The initials ‘LD’ are stamped on the inside,” Cramer said, “and it contained items with Louis Dahlmann’s name on them, but I’m asking if you can identify it as the wallet Dahlmann was carrying at that meeting last Tuesday evening.”

“Of course not,” Hansen said curtly. “Positively identify it? Certainly not.”

A voice came from behind him: “It looks like it.” Gertrude Frazee had stepped up to help. Rowcliff got her elbow to ease her back, but she made it stronger. “It looks exactly like it!”

“Okay,” Cramer said, “I’m not asking you to swear to it, but you can tell me this, is it enough like the wallet he had at that meeting that you can’t see any difference? I ask you that, Mr. Hansen.”

“I can’t answer. I wasn’t at the meeting. Neither was Mr. Buff.”

“Oh.” Cramer wasn’t fazed. Even an inspector can’t remember everything. “You, Mr. O’Garro? You heard the question.”

“Yes,” O’Garro said.

“Mr. Heery?”

“It looks like it. Assa had it?”

Cramer nodded. “In his breast pocket.”

“I knew it!” Miss Frazee cried. “A trick! A cheat! I knew all the time—”

Rowcliff gripped her arm, and she whirled and used the other one to smack him in the face, and I made a note to send a contribution to the Women’s Nature League. Others started to ask Cramer things, or tell him, but he showed them a palm. “You’ll all get a chance to talk before you leave here. Plenty. Stay here until you’re sent for.”

“Are we under arrest?” Harold Rollins asked, as superior as ever.

“No. You’re being detained by police authority at the scene of a violent death in your presence. Anyone who prefers to be arrested will be accommodated.” He turned, looked around for me, found me, said, “Come with me, Goodwin,” and made for the door.

I supposed he was taking me to the office, but no, he told me to wait in the hall, and anyway there wasn’t room for me in the office. A mob of experts was expertizing in every direction, and Fritz was seated in Wolfe’s chair behind his desk, watching them. Wolfe was nowhere in sight. From the door I saw Cramer go to one sitting at my desk and deliver the wallet by depositing it gently in a little box. Then he passed a few orders around, came to me and said, “Wolfe’s up in his room,” and headed up the stairs. I followed.

Wolfe’s door was closed, but Cramer opened it without bothering to knock, and walked in. That was bad manners. He was unquestionably in command of the office, since a man had just died there violently with him present, but not the rest of the house. However, it wasn’t the best possible moment to read him the Bill of Rights, so I followed him in and shut the door.

At least Wolfe hadn’t gone to bed. He was in the big chair under the reading lamp with a book. Lifting his eyes to us, he put the book on the table, and as I moved a chair up for Cramer I caught its title: Montaigne’s Essays . It was one of a few dozen he kept on the shelves there in his room, so he hadn’t removed anything from the office, which might have been interfering with justice.