Three Doors to Death (The Rex Stout Library)

the office.

She looked scared, untended, haggard, and determined.

'The point is,' I told her, 'that a police inspector named Cramer is in the dining room asking about you. Do you want to see him?'

'Oh.' She gazed at me as if she were trying to remember who I was. 'I've already seen him.' She looked around, saw a chair, got to it, and sat. 'They've been – asking me – questions for hours -'

'Why, what happened?'

'My uncle -' Her head went forward and she covered her face with her hands. In a moment she looked up at me and said, 'I want to see Nero Wolfe,' and then covered her face with her hands again.

It might, I figured, take minutes to nurse her to the point of forming sentences. So I told her, 'Stay here and sit tight. The walls are soundproofed, but keep quiet anyhow.'

When I rejoined them in the dining room the coffee pot was still on the table unthrown, but the battle was on. Wolfe was out of his chair, erect, rigid with rage.

'No, sir,' he was saying in his iciest tone, 'I have not finished my gobbling now, as you put it. I would have eaten two more cakes, and I have not had my coffee. You broke in, and you're here. If you were not an officer of the law Mr. Goodwin would knock you unconscious and drag you out.'

He moved. He stamped to the door, across the hall, and into the office. I was right behind him. By the time Cramer was there, seated in the red leather chair, Wolfe was seated too, behind his desk, breathing at double speed, with his mouth closed tight.

'Forget it,' Cramer rasped, trying to make up.

Wolfe was silent.

'All I want,' Cramer said, 'is to find out why Cynthia Nieder came to see you. You have a right to ask why I want to know, and I would have told you if you hadn't lost your temper just because I arrived while you were stuffing it in. There's been a murder.'

Wolfe said nothing.

'Last night,' Cramer went on. 'Time limits, eight p.m. and midnight. At the place of business of Daumery and Nieder on the twelfth floor of Four-ninety-six Seventh Avenue. Cynthia Nieder was there last night between nine and nine-thirty, she admits that; and nobody else as far as we know now. She says she went to get some drawings, but that's got holes in it. The body was found this morning, lying in the middle of the floor in the office. He had been hit in the back of the head with a hardwood pole, one of those used to raise and lower windows, and the end of the pole with the brass hook on it had been jabbed into his face a dozen times or more – like spearing a fish.'

Wolfe had his eyes closed. I was considering that after all Cramer was the head of Homicide and he was paid for handling murders, and he always tried hard and deserved a little encouragement, so I asked in a friendly manner, 'Who was it?'

'Nobody knows,' he said sarcastically and without returning the friendliness. 'A complete stranger to all the world, and nothing on him to tell.' He paused, and then suddenly barked at me, 'You describe him!'

'Nuts. Who was it?'

'It was a medium-sized man around forty, with a brown beard and slick brown hair parted on the left side, with glasses that were just plain glass. Can you name him?'

I thought it extremely interesting that Cramer's description consisted of the three items that Cynthia had specified. It showed what a well-planned disguise could do.

V

Wolfe remained silent.

'Sorry,' I said. 'Never met him.'

Cramer left me for Wolfe. 'Under the circumstances,' he argued, still sarcastic, 'you may concede that I have a right to ask what she came to you for. It was only after she tried two lies on us about how she spent yesterday morning that we finally got it out of her that she came here. She didn't want us to know, she was dead against it, and she wouldn't tell what she came for. Add to that the fact that whenever you are remotely connected with anyone who is remotely connected with a murder you always know everything, and there's no question about my needing to know what you were consulted about. I came to ask you myself because I know what you're like.'

Wolfe broke his vow. He spoke. 'Is Miss Nieder under arrest?'

The phone rang before Cramer could answer. I took it, a voice asked to speak to Inspector Cramer, and Cramer came to my desk and talked. Or rather, he listened. About all he used was grunts, but at one point he said 'Here?' with an inflection that started my mind going, and simple logic carried it on to a conclusion.

So as Cramer hung up I pushed in ahead of him to tell Wolfe. 'Answering your question, she is not under arrest. They turned her loose because they didn't have enough to back up anything stiffer than material witness, and they put a tail on her, and the tail phoned in that she came here, and the call Cramer just got was a relay on the tail's report. She's in the front room. I put her there because I know how you are about having your meals interrupted. Shall I bring her in?'