Rex Stout - Three at Wolfe's Door

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"No. He's not hanging, he's on the floor. Also after the noose was pulled tight the rope was wound around his neck a dozen times. He didn't do that."

"But how could--who would--wo.'"

"Yes. It would be me to hand you something like this, hut at that I'm glad it is. I mean since it happened I'm glad I'm here. Do you want me to phone?"

She swallowed. "No, I will. It's my house." She touched my sleeve. "I'm damn glad you're here."

"Spring seven, three one hundred. I'll repeat that number: Spring seven--"

"You clown! All right, I needed it, that helped. I'll phone from the bedroom."

She moved, hut I stopped her. "Do you want me to collect the guests and tell them the cops are coming?"

"Oh my God. Here in my house--but of course that's routine. That's etiquette--when you're having a party and someone finds a body you collect the guests and make an announcement and say you hope they'll come again and--"

"You're babbling."

"So I am." She went, and I had to step to get to the door ahead of her.

Since a prowl car was certainly in the neighborhood there wasn't much time, and I went to the terrace and sang out, "Everybody inside! Don't walk, run! Inside, everybody!" I entered the living room and mounted a chair. I wanted to see their faces. You seldom get anything helpful from faces, especially when there are more than twenty of them, but you always think you might. Those already inside approached, and those coming from the terrace joined them. I turned to the musicians and patted the air, and they broke off. Mel Fox said in a champagne-loud voice, "She's gone and got a saddle for me." Laughter. When you've been drinking champagne for an hour laughing comes easy.

I raised a hand and waggled it. "I've got bad news," I said. "I'm sorry, but here it is. A dead body has been found on the premises.

144 3 at Wolfe's Door

The body of Wade Eisler. I have seen it. He was murdered. Miss Rowan is notifying the police and they will soon be here. She asked me to tell you. Of course nobody will leave."

What broke the silence was not a gasp but a giggle, from Nan Karlin. Then Roger Dunning demanded, "Where is he?" and Laura Jay moved, darting to the door to the terrace and on out, and the faces I had wanted to see turned away as Lily appeared through the arch.

She came on. She raised her voice. "All right, I got you here and we're in for it. I don't go much by rules, but now I need one. What does the perfect hostess do when a guest murders another guest? I suppose I ought to apologize, but that doesn't seem . . ."

I had stepped down from the chair. It wasn't up to me to welcome the cops, it was Lily's house and she was there, and anyway it would only be a pair from a prowl car. The homicide specialists would come later. Circling the crowd, I made for a door at the other side of the room, passed through, and was in what Lily called the kennel because a guest's dog had once misused the rug there. There were book shelves, and a desk and safe and typewriter, and a phone. I went to the phone and dialed a number I could have dialed with my eyes shut. Since Wolfe's afternoon session up in the plant rooms with the orchids was from four to six, he would have gone down to the office and would answer it himself.

He did. "Yes?"

"Me. Calling from the library in Miss Rowan's apartment. Regarding Wade Eisler. The one with a pudgy face and a scratch on his cheek. I gathered from your expression when he called you Nero that you thought him objectionable."

"I did. I do."

"So did somebody else. His body has been found in a storage room here on the roof. Strangled with a rope. The police are on the way. I'm calling to say that I have no idea when I'll be home, and I thought you ought to know that you'll probably be hearing from Cramer. A man getting croaked a few hours after he ate lunch with you--try telling Cramer you know nothing about it."

"I shall. What do you know about it?"

"The same as you. Nothing."

The Rodeo Murder 145

"It's a confounded nuisance, but it was worth it. The grouse was superb. Give Miss Rowan my respects."

I said I would.

The kennel had a door to the side hall, and I left that way, went to the side terrace, and headed for the shack. As I expected, Cal was not alone. He stood with his back against the door, his arms folded. Laura Jay was against him, gripping his wrists, her head tilted back, talking fast in a voice so low I caught no words. I called sharply, "Break it up!" She whirled on a heel and a toe, her eyes daring me to come any closer. I went closer. "You damn fool," I said, reaching her. "Snap out of it. Beat it! Get!"

"She thinks I killed him," Cal said. "I been trying to tell her, but she won't--"

What stopped him was her hands pressed against his mouth. He got her wrists and pulled them away. "He knows about it," he said. "I told him."

"Cal! You didn't! You mustn't-"

I got her elbow and jerked her around. "If you want to make it good," I said, "put your arms around his neck and moan. When I poke you in the ribs that'll mean a cop's coming and you'll moan louder and then turn and let out a scream, and when he's close enough, say ten feet, you leap at him and start clawing his face. That'll distract him and Cal can run to the terrace and jump off. Have you got anything at all in your skull besides air? What do you say when they ask you why you dashed out to find Cal when I announced the news? That you wanted to be the first to congratulate him?"

Her teeth were clamped on her lip. She undamped them. She twisted her neck to look at Cal, twisted back to look at me, and moved. One slow step, and then she was off, and just in time. As she passed the first evergreen the sound came of the back door of the penthouse closing, and heavy feet, and I turned to greet the company. It was a harness bull.

146

3 at Wolfe's Door

in

Even when I get my full ration of sleep, eight hours, I don't break through my personal morning fog until I have emptied my coffee cup, and when the eight is cut to five by events beyond my control, as it was that night, I have to grope my way to the bathroom. After getting home at five in the morning, and leaving a note for Fritz saying I would be down for breakfast at 10:45,1 na^ set the alarm for ten o'clock. That had seemed sensible, but the trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off. Before prying my eyes open I stayed flat a while, trying to find an alternative, and had to give up when I was conscious enough to realize that Wolfe would come down from the plant rooms at eleven. Forty minutes later I descended the two flights to the ground floor, entered the kitchen, told Fritz good morning, got my orange juice from the refrigerator, and sat at the table where my copy of the Times was on the rack. Fritz, who is as well acquainted with my morning fog as I am and never tries to talk through it, uncovered the sausage and lit the fire under the griddle for cakes.

The murder of Wade Eisler with a lasso at the penthouse of Lily Rowan rated the front page even in the Times. There was no news in it for me, nothing that I didn't already know, after the five hours I had spent at the scene of the crime with Homicide personnel, three hours at the District Attorney's office, and three hours back at the penthouse with Lily, at her request. Cal Barrow was in custody as a material witness. The District Attorney couldn't say if he would be released in time for the Tuesday-evening rodeo performance. Archie Goodwin had told a Times reporter that he had not been at the penthouse in his professional capacity; he and Nero Wolfe had merely been guests. The police didn't know what the motive had been, or weren't telling. Wade Eisler, a bachelor, had been a well-known figure in sporting and theatrical circles. The Times didn't say that he had had a chronic and broadminded

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