“But actually we don’t.”
“Certainly not.” He turned and went.
So I was foxed. His house, his office, and his chair. But I had to admit, as I mounted the steps, that pigheaded as he was, it wasn’t a bad idea. If they really had an electronic ear on the office, which I didn’t believe, it might even be a damned good idea. When I entered the office he was back at his desk and I went to mine, and as I sat he said, “Well?”
He should have had a finger raised. He never wastes breath by saying “Well?” when I return from an errand; he merely puts the book down, or the beer glass, and is ready for me to speak.
I raised a finger. “Your guess that they might have hit on the FBI theory at the Gazette, and be working on it, wasn’t so good.” I lowered the finger. “Lon Cohen didn’t mention it, so I didn’t. They haven’t got a theory. He let me go through the files, and we talked, and I got a dozen pages of names and assorted details, some of which might possibly be useful.” I raised a finger. “I’ll type it up at the usual five dollars a page.” I lowered the finger. “Next I phoned Mrs. David Althaus from a booth, and she said she would see me, and I went. Park Avenue in the Eighties, tenth-floor apartment, all the trimmings you would expect. Pictures okay. I won’t describe her because you’ll see her. She quotes Leviticus and Aristotle.” Finger raised. “I wanted to quote Plato but couldn’t work it in.” Finger lowered. “I had asked her on the phone to ask Marian Hinckley to come, and she said she would be there soon. She said she had understood me to say on the phone that her son had been killed by an agent of the FBI and was that correct. From there on you had better have it verbatim.”
I gave it to him, straight through, knowing that I had said nothing we wouldn’t be willing for the FBI to hear. Leaning back with his eyes closed, he wouldn’t have been able to see a raised finger, so I couldn’t make any insertions. When I finished he grunted, opened his eyes, and said, “It’s bad enough when you know there’s a needle in the haystack. When you don’t even—”
The doorbell rang. Going to the hall for a look, I saw a G-man on the stoop. Not that I recognized him, but it must be — the right age, the broad shoulders, the manly mug with a firm jaw, the neat dark gray coat. I went and opened the door the two inches allowed by the chain bolt and said, “Yes, sir?”
He blurted through the crack, “My name’s Quayle and I want to see Nero Wolfe!”
“Spell it, please?”
“Timothy Quayle! Q,U,A,Y,L,E!”
“Mr. Wolfe is engaged. I’ll see.”
I went to the office door. “One of the names in my notebook. Timothy Quayle. Senior editor at Tick-Tock magazine. The hero type. He slugged a reporter who was annoying Marian Hinckley. She must have phoned him about you soon after I left.”
“No,” he growled.
“It’s half an hour till dinner. Are you in the middle of a chapter?”
He glowered at me. “Bring him.”
I returned to the front, slid the bolt, and swung the door open, and he entered. As I was shutting the door he told me I was Archie Goodwin, and I conceded it, took care of his coat and hat, and led him to the office. Three steps in he stopped to glance around, aimed the glance at Wolfe, and demanded, “Did you get my name?”
Wolfe nodded. “Mr. Quayle.”
He advanced to the desk. “I am a friend of Miss Marian Hinckley. I want to know what kind of a game you’re playing. I want an explanation.”
“Bah,” Wolfe said.
“Don’t bah me! What are you up to?”
“This is ridiculous,” Wolfe said. “I like eyes at a level. If you can only blather at me, Mr. Goodwin will put you out. If you will take that chair, change your tone, and give me an acceptable reason why I should account to you, I may listen.”
Quayle opened his mouth and shut it again. He turned his head to look at me, there on my feet, apparently to see if I was man enough. I would have liked it just as well if he had decided I wasn’t, for after that night and day I would have welcomed an excuse to twist another arm. But he vetoed it, went to the red leather chair and sat, and scowled at Wolfe. “I know about you,” he said. Not so blathery, but not at all sociable. “I know how you operate. If you want to hook Mrs. Althaus for some change, that’s her lookout, but you’re not going to drag Miss Hinckley in. I don’t intend—”
“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.
Chapter 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.