Rex Stout - The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"Archie," Wolfe snapped. "Put him out. Fritz will open the door." He pushed a button.

I stepped to about arm's length from the red leather chair and stood looking down at the hero. Fritz came, and Wolfe told him to hold the front door open, and he went.

Quayle's situation was bad. With me standing there in front of him, if he started to leave the chair I could get about any hold I wanted while he was coming up. But my situation was bad too. Removing a 180-pound man from a padded armchair is a problem, and he had savvy enough to stay put, leaning back. But his feet weren't pulled in enough. I started my hands for his shoulders, then dived and got his ankles and yanked and kept going, and had him in the hall, on his back, before he could even try to counter, and then the damn fool tried to turn to get hand leverage on the floor. At the front door I braked when Fritz got his arms and held them down.

"There's snow on the stoop," I said. "If I let you up and give you your hat and coat, just walk out. I know more tricks than you do. Right?"

"Yes. You goddam goon."

"Goodwin. You left out the D, W, I, but I'll overlook it. All right, Fritz."

We let go, and he scrambled to his feet. Fritz got his coat from the rack, but he said, "I want to go back in. I'm going to ask him something."

"No. You have bad manners. We'd have to bounce you again."

"No you wouldn't. I want to ask him something."

"Politely. Tactfully."

"Yes."

I shut the door. "You can have two minutes. Don't sit down, don't raise your voice, and don't use words like 'goon.' Lead the way, Fritz."

We filed down the hall and in, Fritz in front and me in the rear. Wolfe, whose good ears hear what is said in the hall, gave him a cold eye as he stopped short of the desk, surrounded by Fritz and me.

"You wanted an acceptable reason," he told Wolfe. "As I said, I am a friend of Miss Hinckley. A good enough friend so that she called me on the phone to tell me about Goodwin-what he said to her and Mrs Althaus. I advised her not to come here this evening, but she's coming. At nine o'clock?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm going-" He stopped. That wasn't the way. It came hard, but he managed it. "I want to be here. Will you… May I come?"

"If you control yourself."

"I will."

"Time's up," I said, and took his arm to turn him.

7

At ten minutes past nine in the evening of that long day I went to the kitchen. Wolfe was at the center table with Fritz, arguing about the number of juniper berries to put in a marinade for venison loin chops. Knowing that that could go on and on, I said, "Excuse me. They're all here, and more. David Althaus, the father, came along. He's the bald one, to your right at the back. Also a lawyer named Bernard Fromm, to your left at the back. Long-headed and hard-eyed."

Wolfe frowned. "I don't want him."

"Of course not. Shall I tell him so?"

"Confound it." He turned to Fritz. "Very well, proceed. I say three, but proceed as you will. If you put in five I won't even have to taste it; the smell will tell me. With four it might be palatable." He gave me a nod and I headed for the office, and he followed.

He circled around Mrs Althaus in the red leather chair and stood while I pronounced names. There were two rows of yellow chairs, with Vincent Yannack, Marian Hinckley, and Timothy Quayle in front, and David Althaus and Bernard Fromm in the rear. That put Quayle nearest me, which had seemed advisable. Wolfe sat, sent his eyes left to right and back again, and spoke. "I should tell you that it may be that with an electronic eavesdropping device agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation hear everything that is said in this room. Mr Goodwin and I think it unlikely, but it is quite possible. I feel that you-"

"Why would they?" Fromm the lawyer. The courtroom tone, cross-examination.

"That will appear, Mr Fromm. I feel that you should be aware of that possibility, however remote. Now I beg you to indulge me. I'm going to talk a while. I can expect you to help further my interest only if I can demonstrate that your interest runs with mine. You are the father, the mother, the fiancee, and the associates of a man who was murdered seven weeks ago, and the murderer has not been exposed. I intend to expose him. I intend to establish that Morris Althaus was killed by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That intention-"

They made two demands simultaneously. Yarmack demanded, "How?" and Fromm demanded, "Why?"

Wolfe nodded. "That intention stands on two legs. Recently I undertook a job which made it necessary for me to make inquiries regarding certain activities of the FBI, and they retaliated immediately by trying to have me deprived of my license as a private investigator. They may succeed; but even if they do, as a private citizen I can pursue an investigation in my private interest, and it will certainly be in my interest to discredit their pretension that they are faultless champions of law and justice. That's one leg. The other leg is my long-standing grievance against the Homicide Squad of the New York Police Department. They too have pretensions. On numerous occasions they have hampered my legitimate activities. They have threatened more than once to prosecute me for withholding evidence or obstructing justice. It would be gratifying to me to reciprocate, to demonstrate that they know or suspect that the FBI is implicated in a murder and they are obstructing justice. That would also-"

"You're talking plenty," Fromm cut in. "Can you back it up?"

"By inference, yes. The police and the District Attorney know that Morris Althaus had been collecting material for an article about the FBI, but they found no such material in his apartment. Mr Yarmack. I believe you were involved in that project?"

Vincent Yarmack was more my idea of a senior editor than Timothy Quayle-round sloping shoulders, tight little mouth, and eyes so pale you had to guess they were there behind the black-rimmed cheaters.

"I was," he said in a voice that was close to a squeak.

"And Mr Althaus had collected material?"

"Certainly."

"Had he turned it over to you, or was it in his possession?"

"I thought it was in his possession. But I have been told by the police that there was nothing about the FBI in his apartment."

"Didn't you draw an inference from that?"

"Well… one inference was obvious, that someone had taken it. It wasn't likely that Morris had put it somewhere else."

"Mrs Althaus told Mr Goodwin this afternoon that you suspected it was the FBI. Is that correct?"

Yarmack turned his head for a glance at Mrs Althaus, and back to Wolfe. "I may have given her that impression in a private conversation. This conversation isn't very private, according to you."

Wolfe grunted. "I said the eavesdropping is possible but not verified. If you drew that inference, certainly the police would." His eyes moved. "Wouldn't they, Mr Fromm?"

The lawyer nodded. "Presumably. But that doesn't warrant a conclusion that they are obstructing justice."

"A conclusion, no. A surmise, yes. If not obstruction, at least nonfeasance. As a member of the bar, you are aware of the tenacity of the police and the District Attorney in an unsolved murder case. If they-"