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

"I say probably," Wolfe said, "but it is barely short of certainty. The victim was Morris Althaus. Mr Goodwin will give you the details of this too, but not now, not until the situation has been resolved. I would have preferred not to give you even the bare fact now, but as my client you merit my protection. I wish to make a suggestion."

"I don't believe it," she said. "I want the details now."

"You won't get them." He was curt. "I have had a trying week, and night, and day. If you make this difficult too I'll leave the room and you'll leave the house, and probably question Miss Dacos. That will alarm her and she'll skedaddle, and after the police find her and bring her back they will have questions for you-civil questions, but many of them. Do you want that?"

"No."

"Do you think I would make so grave an accusation idly?"

"No."

"Then I have a suggestion." He looked at the wall clock. Five minutes past noon. "What time does Miss Dacos go to lunch?"

"It varies. She eats there, in the breakfast room, usually around one o'clock."

"Then Mr Panzer will go with you now. Tell her you are going to have the office redecorated-painted, plastered, whatever suits-and you won't need her the remainder of this week. Mr Panzer will start the preparations immediately. She, your secretary, is going to be taken, but at least she won't be taken from your house. I do not want a murderer taken into custody in the house of my client. Do you?"

"No."

"Nor would you have wanted the disagreeable surprise of sitting in your office with your secretary and having the police suddenly appear and drag her out."

"No."

"Then you may thank me at your convenience for preventing it. You're not in a humor to thank anyone for anything at the moment. Shall Mr Panzer go in your car with you, or separately? You could discuss it with him on the way. He is not a fool."

She looked at me and back at Wolfe. "Can Mr Goodwin go?"

Saul has not yet heard the last of that. It didn't change my decision about marriage because I prefer to do the courting myself, but it gave me one on Saul. Wolfe told her no, Mr Goodwin had work to do, and the poor woman had to settle for Saul. He brought her coat from the front room and held it for her, and I admit I had a pang. By the time they got to Seventy-fourth Street she would be appreciating him. Not wanting to intrude, I didn't go to the hall with them.

When the sound came of the front door closing Wolfe cocked his head at me and demanded, "Say something."

"Bejabers," I said. "Will that do? A guy I know named Bimbaum uses it to show he's not prejudiced. Bejabers."

"Satisfactory."

"All of that."

"Our telephone is still tapped. Will you see Mr Cramer before lunch?"

"After would be better. He'll be in a better humor. It will take them only an hour or so to get the warrant."

"Very well. But don't- Yes, Fred?"

Fred Durkin, at the door, announced, "They want breakfast."

14

The office of the inspector in command of Homicide South on West Twentieth Street is not really shabby, but it's not for show. The linoleum floor has signs of wear, Cramer's desk would appreciate a sanding job, I have never seen the windows really clean, and the chairs, all but Cramer's, are plain, honest, hard wood. As I put my fundament on one of them at 2:35 p.m. he snapped at me, "I told you don't come and don't phone."

I nodded. "But it's okay now and I had to. Mr Wolfe-"

"What's okay?"

"He has earned the hundred grand and a fee."

"The hell he has. He has got them to quit on that Mrs Bruner?"

"Yes. Bejabers. But we haven't filled your order. We have-"

"I didn't give any order."

"Oh, all right. We have learned that it wasn't a G-man who shot Morris Althaus. We think we know who did, and we think we know how it can be tagged. I'm not going to tell you how we put the screws on the FBI. That's not what I came for, and Mr Wolfe will enjoy telling you some time at your leisure, and you'll enjoy listening. It was the longest shot he has ever played, and it hit. I'm here to talk homicide."

"Go ahead. Talk."

I reached to my breast pocket, took something out, and handed it to him. "I doubt if you've seen that before," I said, "but one or more of your men have. It was in a drawer in Althaus's bedroom. His mother gave me the keys, so don't book me for illegal entry. Look at the back."

He turned it over and read the poetry.

"That," I said, "is a take-off of the last four lines of the second stanza of Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' Rather clever. It was written by Miss Sarah Dacos, Mrs Bruner's secretary, who lives at Sixty-three Arbor Street, second floor, below Althaus's apartment. The way I know, I got samples of her handwriting from Mrs Bruner. Here they are." I got them from a pocket and handed them over. "By the way, she saw the three G-men leave the house. From her window. Remember that when you're working on her."

"Working on her for what? This?" He tapped the photograph.

"No. The main thing I came for was to place a bet. One will get you fifty that if you get a warrant and comb her apartment you'll get something you'll appreciate. The sooner the better." I stood up. "That's all for now. We would-"

"Like hell it's all." His red round face was redder. "Sit down. I'll work on you. What will we find and when did you put it there?"

"I didn't. Listen. As you know, when you deal with me you're dealing with Mr Wolfe. You also know that I always stick to instructions. For the present I'm through. I stand mute. Any time you spend barking at me will be wasted. Get the warrant and use it, and if you find anything Mr Wolfe will be glad to discuss it."

"I'll discuss it with you first. You'll stay right here."

"Not unless I'm put under arrest." I got sore. "What more do you want, for God's sake? You've had this homicide nearly two months! We've had it one week!"

I turned and walked out. It was even money I would be stopped, if not there by him then down on the ground floor when I left the elevator. But all I got, from the bull on duty in the downstairs hall, who knew me by sight, was a nod, not too friendly but almost human. I didn't loiter.

I crossed town to Sixth Avenue and turned south. Everything was under control at the old brownstone. Ashley Jarvis and Dale Kirby, not too badly hung over, had been fed a hearty breakfast and handed the bonus of one grand each, and had departed. Fred and Orrie had each been given three Cs for two days' work, not to mention nights, miles above scale, and had also departed. Saul was up at Mrs Bruner's office getting ready to paint or plaster, whichever suited. Wolfe would of course be reading a book, certainly not The FBI Nobody Knows, since he knew them now, anyhow three of them, and at four o'clock he would go up to the plant rooms, back on schedule. Since I never take an afternoon nap, even when I'm short on sleep, I could go for a walk, and did.

I came to a stop across the street from 63 Arbor Street. But the thermometer outside the front-room window had said sixteen above zero when I got up, and it had climbed only about five notches since, and I had the keys in my pocket, so I crossed the street, entered, and mounted the two flights to Althaus's apartment. I include this in the report not because it changed anything, but because I remember so well my state of mind. Fifty-three hours had passed since I had put the gun under the box spring, and that was time enough for a healthy girl to find a dozen guns and put them somewhere else. If it wasn't there we would now be out on a limb, and a shaky one, since I had told Cramer. He knew Wolfe hadn't sent me there just on a suspicion or a hunch; he knew we knew there was something hot in that apartment, and if it was gone we were in for it. If I told him about the gun I would be admitting I had tampered with evidence; if I didn't, I would be suspected of something even worse, and good-by licenses.