I looked at him. Should I frisk him? Was there any chance that he had it in for Wolfe personally for some reason unknown to me, or that he had been hired by one of the thousand or so people who thought it would be a better world with no Nero Wolfe? Of course it was possible, but if so, this complicated stunt wasn't the way to do it. It would have been much simpler and surer for Pierre just to put something in a sauce, in anything, the next time Wolfe went there for a meal. Anyway, not only had Pierre seen me at dose quarters; I had seen him. I said, 'My pajamas would be too big for you.'
He shook his head. 'I'll keep my clothes on. Usually I sleep with nothing on.'
'All right, there's plenty of cover on the bed in the South Boom. It's two flights up, on the same floor as my room, above Mr. Wolfe's room. I was on my way up when you rang the doorbell.'
I stood. 'Come along.'
'But Mr. Goodwin, I don't want- I can just stay here.'
He stood up.
'No, you can't. Either you go up or you go out.'
'I don't want to go out. Sunday night a car tried to run over me. He tried to kill me. I'm afraid to go out.'
'Then follow me. Maybe when you sleep on ft…'
I moved, crossed to the door, and he came. I flipped the light switch. I don't dawdle going upstairs, and I had to wait for him at the top of the first flight because he was only halfway up. At the second landing I turned left, swung the door of the South Boom open, and turned the light on. I didn't have to check on the bed or towels in the bathroom because I knew everything was in order; all I had to do was turn the radiator on.
'I'm sorry, Mr. Goodwin,' he said. 'I'm very sorry.'
'So am I,' I said. 'I'm sorry you're in a jam. Stick right here until I tell you I've told Mr. Wolfe about you. That will be around nine o'clock. If you open the door and go into the hall before eight o'clock, it will set off a gong in my room and you'll see me coming with guns in both hands. Security. I should have offered you a shot of something. Whiskey? Would it help you go to sleep?'
He said no and he was sorry, and I went shutting the door. As I entered my room, down the hall, I looked at my watch. Seventeen minutes past one. I wouldn't get my eight hours. When I get in that late I usually set my radio-alarm at nine-thirty, but now that wouldn't do. I would have to be up and dressed and telling Wolfe about the company before he went up to the plant rooms at nine o'clock.
Of course I have figured how many minutes had passed after I entered my room when it happened. Six, possibly seven. I refuse to hurry the night routine. I had got my pajamas from the closet, set the alarm, put things from my pockets on the dresser, turned the bedcovers down, turned the telephone and other two switches on, hung up my jacket and necktie, taken my shoes and socks off, and was unbuckling my belt, when the earthquake came and the house shook. Including the floor I was standing on. I have since tried to decide what the sound was like and couldn't. It wasn't like thunder or any land of gun or any other sound I had ever heard. It wasn't a thud or a bang or a boom; it was just a loud noise. Of course there were doors and walls between it and me.
I jumped to the door and opened it and turned the hall light on. The door to the South Boom was shut. I ran to it and turned the knob. No. He had bolted it. I ran down one flight, saw that the door to Wolfe's room was intact, and went and knocked on it. My usual three, a little spaced. I really did, and his voice came.
'Archie?'
I opened the door and entered and flipped the light switch. I don't know why he looks bigger in those yellow pajamas than in clothes. Not fatter, just bigger. He had pushed back the yellow electric blanket and black sheet and was sitting up.
'Well?'
he demanded.
'I don't know,' I said, and I hope my voice didn't squeak from the pleasure of seeing him. 'I put a man in the South Room. The door's bolted. I'm going to see.'
Of the three windows in the south wall, the two end ones are always open at night about five inches, and the middle one is shut and locked and draped. I went and pulled the drape, slid the catch, opened it, and climbed through. The fire escape is only a foot wider than the window. I have tried to remember if my bare feet felt the cold of the iron grating as I went up but can't. Of course they didn't when I got high enough to see that most of the glass in the window was gone. I put my hand in between the jagged edges and slipped the catch and pushed the window up, what was left of it, and stuck my head in.
He was on his back with his head toward me and his feet toward the closet door in the right wall. I shoved some glass slivers off the windowsill, climbed through, saw no pieces of glass on the rug, and crossed to him. He had no face left. I had never seen anything like it. It was about what you would get if you pressed a thick slab of pie dough on a man's face and then squirted blood on the lower half. Of course he was dead, but I was squatting to make sure when something hit the door three hard knocks, and I went and slid the bolt and opened it and there was Wolfe. He keeps one of his canes in the stand in the downstairs hall and the other four on a rack in his room, and he was gripping the biggest and toughest one with a knob the size of my fist, which he says is Montenegrin applewood.
I said, 'You won't need that,' and sidestepped to give him room.
He crossed the sill, stood, and sent his eyes around.
I said, 'Pierre Ducos, Rusterman's. He came just after I got home and said a man was going to kill him and he had to tell you. I said if it was urgent he could tell me or he could come and tell you at eleven o'clock. He said a car had tried to run him down and -' 'I want no details.'
'There aren't any. He wanted to wait for you there on the couch, and of course that wouldn't do, so I brought him up here and told him to stay put and went to my room, and in a few minutes I felt it and heard it and went. He had bolted the door, and-' 'Is he dead?'
