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

"No," the lawyer said. "It would be unrealistic not to agree with you about the FBI. When I learned that nothing about them was found in the apartment I made the obvious assumption, and I told Mr Althaus that I thought it very unlikely that the murderer would ever be caught. The FBI is untouchable. Goodwin told Mrs Althaus that a man told you yesterday that he knows that an FBI agent killed her son, and that he supported it with information, and I came here intending to demand the man's name and the information, but you're right. The procedure is up to you. I think it's hopeless, but I wish you luck, and I wish I could help."

"So do I." Wolfe pushed his chair back and rose. "It's possible, if this conversation has been overheard, that one or more of you will be harassed. If so I would like to know. I would like to know of any development that comes to your knowledge, however trivial. Whether the conversation was overheard or not, this house is under surveillance, and the FBI now knows that I am concerning myself with the murder of Morris Althaus. The police do not, as far as I know, and I request you not to tell them; that would only make it more difficult. I apologize for not offering you refreshment; I was preoccupied. Mr Althaus, you have not spoken. Do you wish to?"

"No," David Althaus said-his one and only word.

"Then good evening." Wolfe walked out.

As they left their chairs and moved toward the hall I stood.

The gentlemen could help the ladies with their coats; I wasn't needed. I must have been about as low as you can get, for it didn't occur to me that it would be a pleasure to hold Miss Hinckley's coat until I heard the front door open, and then it was too late. I stayed put until I heard it close and then went and bolted it. They were down on the sidewalk.

I hadn't heard the elevator, so Wolfe must be in the kitchen, and I headed for it. But he wasn't. Neither was Fritz. Had he actually climbed the stairs? Why? The only other way was down. I chose that, and as I descended I heard his voice. It came from the open door to Fritz's room, and I stepped to it and entered.

Fritz could have had a room upstairs, but he prefers the basement. His den is as big as the office and front room combined, but over the years it has got pretty cluttered-tables with stacks of magazines, busts of Escoffier and Brillat-Savarin on stands, framed menus on the walls, a king-size bed, five chairs, shelves of books (he has 289 cookbooks), a head of a wild boar he shot in the Vosges, a TV and stereo cabinet, two large cases of ancient cooking vessels, one of which he thinks was used by Julius Caesar's chef, and so on.

Wolfe was in the biggest chair by a table, with a bottle of beer and a glass. Fritz, seated across from him, got up as I entered, but I moved another chair up.

"It's too bad," I said, "that the elevator doesn't come down. Maybe we can have it done."

Wolfe drank beer, put the glass down, and licked his lips. "I want to know," he said, "about those electronic abominations. Could we be heard here?"

"I don't know. I've read about a thing that is supposed to pick up voices half a mile off, but I don't know about how much area it covers or about obstructions like walls and floors. There could be items I haven't read about that can take a whole house. If there aren't there soon will be. People will have to talk with their hands."

He glared at me. Since I had done nothing to deserve it, I glared back. "You realize," he said, "that absolute privacy has never been so imperative."

"I do. God knows I do."

"Could whispers be heard?"

"No. A billion to one. To nothing."

"Then we'll whisper."

"That would cramp your style. If Fritz turns the television on, fairly loud, and we sit close and don't yell, that will do it."

"We could do that in the office."

"Yes, sir.

"Why the devil didn't you suggest it?"

I nodded. "You're in a stew. So am I. I'm surprised I thought of it now. Let's try it here. In the office I'd have to lean across your desk."

He turned. "If you please, Fritz. It doesn't matter what."

Fritz went to the cabinet and turned a knob, and soon a woman was telling a man she was sorry she had ever met him. He asked (not the man, Fritz) if it was loud enough, and I said a little louder and moved my chair nearer Wolfe. He leaned forward and growled, eighteen inches from my ear, "We'll prepare for a contingency. Do you know if the Ten for Aristology is still in existence?"

My shoulders went up and down. It takes a moron or a genius to ask a question that has no bearing whatever. "No," I said. "That was seven years ago. It probably is. I can ring Lewis Hewitt."

"Not from here."

"I'll go to a booth. Now?"

"Yes. If he says that group still- No. Whatever he says about the Ten for Aristology, ask him if I may call on him tomorrow morning to consult him on an urgent private matter. If he invites me to lunch, as he will, accept."

"He lives on Long Island the year around."

"I know he does."

"We'll probably have to lose a tail."

"We won't need to. If I am seen going to him so much the better."

"Then why not call him from here?"

"Because I'm willing, I even wish, to have my visit to him known, but not that I invited myself."

"What if he can't make it tomorrow?"

"Then as soon as possible."

I went. As I mounted to the hall and got my coat and hat and let myself out and headed for Ninth Avenue, I was thinking, two rules down the drain in one day-the morning schedule and not leaving the house on business-and why? The Ten for Aristology was a bunch of ten well-heeled men who were, to quote, "pursuing the ideal of perfection in food and drink." Seven years back, at the home of one of them, Benjamin Schriver, the shipping tycoon, they had met to pursue their ideal by eating and drinking, and Lewis Hewitt, a member, had arranged with Wolfe for Fritz to cook the dinner. Naturally Wolfe and I had been invited and had gone, and the guy between us at the table had been fed arsenic with the first course, caviar on blinis topped with sour cream, and had died. Quite a party. It had not affected Wolfe's relations with Lewis Hewitt, who was still grateful for a special favor Wolfe had done him long ago, who had a hundred-foot-long orchid house at his Long Island estate, and who came to dinner at the old brownstone about twice a year.

It took a while to get him because the call had to be switched to the greenhouse or the stables or maybe the john, but it was a pleasure for him to hear my voice; he said so. When I told him Wolfe would like to pay him a call he said he would be delighted and that of course we would lunch with him, and added that he would like to ask Wolfe a question regarding the lunch.

"I'm afraid I'll have to do," I told him. "I'm calling from a booth in a drugstore. Excuse my glove, but is there any chance that someone is on an extension?"

"Why-why no. There would he no reason…"

"Okay. I'm calling from a booth because our wire is tapped and Mr Wolfe doesn't want it known that he suggested calling on you. So don't ring our number. It's conceivable that you might get a call tomorrow afternoon from someone who says he's a reporter and wants to ask questions. I mention it now because I might forget to tomorrow. The idea is, this appointment, our coming to lunch tomorrow, was made last week. All right?"