Rex Stout - Trouble in Triplicate

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.

As I reappeared in the office, Jane shot at me, “Did you search him?” I ignored her and circled around Wolfe’s desk for a look at the back of the chair. The head-rest was upholstered in brown leather; and about eight inches from the top and a foot from the side edge, a spot that would naturally have been on a line behind Hackett’s left ear as he sat, there was a hole in the leather. I looked behind, and there was another hole on the rear side. I looked at the wall back of the chair and found still another hole, torn into the plaster. From the bottom draw of my desk I got a screwdriver and hammer, started chiseling, ran against a stud, and went to work with the point of my knife. When I finally turned around I held a small object between my thumb and finger. As I did so Hackett emerged from the bathroom, apparently more composed.

“Bullet,” I said informatively. “Thirty-eight. Passed through Mr. Wolfe’s ear and the back of his chair and ruined the wall. Patched plaster is an eyesore.”

Jane sputtered. Jensen sat and gazed at me with narrowed eyes. Hackett said, in what he probably thought was a detached and superior tone, “I’ll search them again.” I tried not to glare at him.

“No, sir,” I said deferentially, “I made sure of that. But I suggest-”

“It could be,” Jensen put in, “that Wolfe fired that bullet himself.”

“Yeah?” I returned his gaze. “Mr. Wolfe would be glad to let you inspect his face for powder marks.”

“He washed them off in the bathroom,” Jane snapped.

“They don’t wash off.” I continued to Jensen, “I’ll lend you a magnifying glass. You can examine the leather on the chair too.”

By gum, he took me up. He nodded and arose, and I got the glass from Wolfe’s desk, the big one. First he went over the chair, the portion in the neighborhood of the bullet hole, and then crossed to Hackett and gave his face and ear a look. Hackett stood still, with his lips compressed and his eyes straight ahead.

Jensen gave me back the glass and returned to his seat. I asked him, “Did Mr. Wolfe shoot himself in the ear?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not unless he had the gun wrapped.”

“Sure.” My tone cut slices off of them. “He tied a pillow around it, held it at arm’s length, pointing it at his ear, and pulled the trigger. How would you like to try demonstrating it? Keeping the bullet within an inch of your frontal lobe?”

He never stopped gazing at me. “I am,” he declared, “being completely objective. With some difficulty. I agree it is highly improbable.”

“If I understand what happened-” Hackett began, but I doubted if he was going to offer anything useful, so I cut him off.

“Excuse me, sir. The bullet helps, but the gun would help still more. Let’s be objective too. We might possibly find the object in the front room.” I moved, touching his elbow to take him along. “Fritz, see that they stay put.”

“I,” said Jensen, getting up, “would like to be present-”

“The hell you would.” I wheeled to him. My voice may have gone up a notch. “Sit down, brother. I am trying not to fly off the handle. I am trying not to be rude. Whose house is this, with bullets zipping around? I swear to God Fritz will shoot you in the knee.” He had another remark to contribute, and so did Jane, but I disregarded them and wrangled Hackett ahead of me into the front room and shut the soundproof door. Hackett began to talk, but I shut him off.