weapon? Easily available?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you mind showing it to me?”
“Comedy,” Fabian said. The crease had appeared again. “I could have had it out and in again twenty times. I came to get some proof from you. You and this Goodwin-”
“Excuse me.” Wolfe was crisp and cool. “We’ll go in the office and sit down. The people in there are a lawyer, Mr. Schwartz, a law student, Mr. Schane, and a man who works for me, Mr. Panzer.” He had stepped to the connecting door and was opening it. “This way, sir.” I followed him, preceding Fabian in accordance with the underworld’s Emily Post. Wolfe stood in the middle of the office and pronounced names, but there was no handshaking. Fabian got the scene with a slow take, his head doing the arc from right to left, and then picked a chair backed up against a section of the bookshelves. Schwartz was in the red leather chair, and Morton Schane was off to my right, on the couch in the corner made by the wall of the lavatory that had been built in. Saul Panzer, in a chair with its back to the wall, was six feet the other side of Schwartz.
Wolfe, from behind his desk, looked around at us, then leveled off at Fabian. He spoke casually. “I must apologize, sir, for appropriating a few moments of your time. I realize it is your time, since you made an appointment to come here, and therefore you should have first say. But this will only take me-”
The damn doorbell rang. Wolfe went right on, but darted a glance at me when he saw I was staying put. I met the glance deadpan. Without consulting him about it, I had told Fritz to attend to the door if the bell rang, not intending to do any trotting in and out under the circumstances. I suppose I should have told him to keep the door bolted, which he never did when I was there unless so instructed, but subconsciously I must have figured that with Fabian already inside it wouldn’t matter who else came. The result was that unwelcome noises came from the hall, including voices, one of which was Fritz’s yelling for me.
“Archie! ARCHIE!”
I was up and on my way, but the gate-crasher must have galloped right through Fritz, for I was still ten feet short of the door to the hall when he entered the office. At sight of him I locked my brakes and held my breath. What was flashing through my mind was nothing you could call a thought, but just a pair of facts. One was Fabian. The other was Thumbs Meeker. I backed up so fast I bumped into the corner of Wolfe’s desk, and hung there, looking. Fabian was on his feet and was furnishing the proof Wolfe had asked for. It was in his hand, with his elbow against his hip and his forearm extended. Schwartz had left the red leather chair and was kneeling on the floor behind it.
As far as Meeker and Fabian were concerned, they were the only two there. Their gazes had met and held. Fabian’s gun was steady and pointed, the same as his eyes, but no blast came. Meeker’s hands hung at his sides.
“You’d better lift ‘em,” Fabian said, no less hoarse and no more. Besides having his gun out, he also had the best of it in size of target, since Meeker was well over six feet and weighed a good two- twenty.
“Not here and now,” Meeker said in a thin voice. “Who gave you the steer?”
“Nobody. I came on business.”
“Lift ‘em up.”
“Tommyrot!” Wolfe blurted at them, but none of their four eyes moved. He went on, “This is preposterous! Besides you two, there are five people here. If you shoot him, Mr. Fabian, what do you expect to do, shoot all of us? Nonsense. The same consideration holds for the other gentleman.” He addressed the other gentleman. “Who the devil are you, sir? What do you mean, bounding into my house like this?”
That relaxed me. I thought to myself, okay, say it ends-today, tomorrow. Before I die at least I get this. Before I die I get to hear Wolfe bawling hell out of Thumbs Meeker for dashing in to where Fabian is ready with his gun out. I felt I owed them something. So I said, “That’s Mr. Meeker, Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Meeker, this is Nero Wolfe.”
“You heard me,” Meeker said in his thin voice. “Not here and now. He’s right. I came here on business.” Fabian didn’t say anything. His arm didn’t straighten out, but his hand receded until it was where his elbow had been, and both hand and gun slid into his side coat-pocket and stayed there.
Wolfe demanded, “You came here on business? What business?”
Meeker turned, letting his eyes leave Fabian. They aimed at Wolfe. “Who are these guys?”
“They’re here on business too. What is yours?”
“By God.” Meeker smiled. That smile was famous, and I decided it justified its reputation. “I don’t know if I care to make it public. With Fabian here. He might think I was backing out, and I don’t back out.” He turned again, not fast. “I don’t back out, Fabian.” Fabian had nothing to say. He was still standing up.
“Confound it,” Wolfe said testily. “What do you want?”
Meeker turned again, and smiled again. “I want to know if it’s true that you told the cops that your punk put a finger on Perrit and his daughter for me.”
“No.”
“They seem to have that idea.”
“That isn’t true.”
Meeker’s smile came again. It came and went. “Oh,” he said, “I’m a liar.”
“I don’t know whether you’re a liar or not. But if the police have made any such statement or intimation, they are. I would have expected you to be sufficiently familiar with police methods not to come running to me with anything as silly as that.”
“You didn’t tell them that?”
“Certainly not.”
