She turned and made for the door. I was immediately on my feet and after her, but halfway across the room I put on the brake, because the doorway had suddenly filled up with a self-propelled massive substance and she couldn’t get through.
She stopped, goggle-eyed, and then fell back a couple of paces. The massive substance advanced, halted, and used its mouth.
“How do you do. I am Nero Wolfe.”
VII
He did it well, at top form, and it was quite an effect. Nobody made a chirp. He moved forward, and Jane retreated again, moving backwards without looking around and nearly tripping on Jensen’s feet. Wolfe stopped at the corner of his desk and wiggled a finger at Hackett.
“Take another chair, sir, if you please?”
Hackett sidled out, without a word, and went to the red leather chair. Wolfe leaned over to peer at the hole in the back of his own chair, and then at the hole in the plaster, which I had chiseled to a diameter of four inches, grunted, and got himself seated.
“This,” Jensen said, “makes it a farce.”
Jane snapped, “I’m going,” and headed for the door, but I had been expecting that and with only two steps had her by the arm with a good grip and was prepared to give her the twist if she went thorny on me. Jensen sprang to his feet, with both of his hands fists. Evidently in the brief space of forty-eight hours it had developed to the point where the sight of another man laying hands on his Jane started his adrenaline spurting in torrents. If he had come close enough to make it necessary to slap him with my free hand he might have got blood on his ear too, because I had my gun in that hand.
“Stop it!” Wolfe’s voice was a whip. It turned us into a group of statuary.
“Miss Geer, you may leave shortly, if you still want to, after I have said something. Mr. Jensen, sit down. Mr. Goodwin has a gun and is probably in a temper, and might hurt you. Archie, go to your desk, but be ready to use the gun. One of them is a murderer.”
“That’s a lie!” Jensen was visibly breathing. “And who the hell are you?”
“I introduced myself, sir. That gentleman is my temporary employee. When my life was threatened I hired him to impersonate me. If I had known the worst to be expected was a gash in the ear I could have saved some money and spared myself a vast amount of irritation.”
Jane spat at him, “You fat coward!”
He shook his head. “No, Miss Geer. It is no great distinction not to be a coward, but I can claim it. Not cowardice. Conceit. I am insufferably conceited. I was convinced that the person who killed Mr. Jensen would be equally daring, witty, and effective in dealing with me. Should I be killed, I doubted if the murderer would ever be caught. Should another be killed in my place, I would still be alive to attend to the matter myself. Justified conceit, but still conceit.” He turned abruptly to me. “Archie, get Inspector Cramer on the phone.”
They both started talking at once, with vehemence. I watched them from a corner of an eye while dialing. Wolfe cut them off. “If you please! In a moment I shall offer you an alternative: the police or me. Meanwhile Mr. Cramer can help. One of you, of course, is putting all this on; to the other I wish to say that you might as well sit down and resign yourself to some inconvenience and unpleasantness.” He glanced at Hackett. “If you want to get away from this uproar, there is your room upstairs…”
“I think I’ll stay here,” Hackett declared. “I’m a little interested in this myself, since I nearly got killed.”
“Cramer on,” I told Wolfe.
He lifted his phone from the cradle. “How do you do, sir. No. No, I have a request to make. If you send a man here right away, I’ll give him a revolver and a bullet. First, examine the revolver for fingerprints and send me copies. Second, trace the revolver if possible. Third, fire a bullet from it and compare it both with the bullet I am sending you and with the bullets that killed Mr. Jensen and Mr. Doyle. Let me know the results. That’s all. No. Confound it, no! If you come yourself you will be handed the package at the door and not admitted. I’m busy.”
As he hung up I said, “The number has been filed off of the gun.”
“Then it can’t be traced.”
“No, sir. Does Cramer get the handkerchief too?”
“Let me see it.”
I handed the gun to him, with its butt still protruding through the tear in the handkerchief. Wolfe frowned as he saw that the handkerchief had no laundry mark or any other mark and was a species that could be bought in at least a thousand stores in New York City alone, not to mention the rest of the country. “We’ll keep the handkerchief,” Wolfe said.
Jensen demanded, “What the devil is it doing there?”
Wolfe’s eyes went shut. He was, of course, tasting Jensen’s expression, tone of voice, and mental longitude and latitude, to try to decide whether innocent curiosity was indicated or a camouflage for guilt. He always shut his eyes when he tasted. In a moment they opened again halfway.
“If a man has recently shot a gun,” he said, “and has had no opportunity to wash, an examination of his hand will furnish incontestable proof. You probably know that. One of you, the one who fired that shot, certainly does. The handkerchief protected the hand. Under a microscope it would be found to contain many minute particles of explosive and other residue. The fact that it is a man’s handkerchief doesn’t help. Major Jensen would naturally possess a man’s handkerchief. If Miss Geer decided to use a handkerchief in that manner, naturally she wouldn’t use a woman’s handkerchief. Anyway, it wouldn’t be big enough.”
“You asked me to stay while you said something,” Jane snapped. She and Jensen were back in their chairs. “You haven’t said anything yet. Where were you when the shot was fired?”
