'Me, I was lucky. I often rode in the park with Keyes at that ungodly hour--two or three times a week. He wanted me to make it every day, but I got out of it about half the time. There was nothing social or sociable about it. We would walk our horses side by side, talking business, except when he felt like trotting. I live at the Hotel Churchill. I got in late Monday night, but I left a call for six o'clock anyway, because I
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hadn't ridden with Keyes for several days and didn't want to get him sore. But when the girl rang- my phone in the morning I was just too damn sleepy, and I told her to call the riding academy and say I wouldn't be there, and to call me again at seven-thirty. She did so, and I still didn't feel like turning out bat I had to because I had a breakfast date with an out-of-town customer, so I told her to send up a double orange juice. A few minutes later a waiter brought it up. So was I lucky? Keyes was killed uptown at twenty-five past seven at the earliest, and probably a little later. I was in my room at the Churchill, nearly three miles away, at half-past seven. You can have three guesses how glad I was I left that seven-thirty call!'
Wolfe nodded. 'You should give the out-of-town customer a discount. In that armor, why did you take the trouble to join this gathering?'
'A switchboard girl and a waiter, for God's sake!' .Pohl snorted sarcastically.
'Nice honest people, Ferdy,' Talbott told him, and answered Wolfe, 'I didn't.'
'No? You're not here?'
'Sure I'm here, but not to join any gathering. I came to join Miss Keyes. I don't regard it as trouble to join Miss Keyes. As for the rest of them, except maybe Broadyke--'
The doorbell rang again, and since additional gatecrashers might or might not be desirable, I upped myself in a hurry, stepped across and into the hall, intercepted Fritz just in time, and went to the front door to take a look through the panel of one-way glass.
Seeing who it was out on the stoop, I fastened the chain bolt, pulled the door open the two inches the rchain would permit, and spoke through the crack. 'I lon't want to catch cold.' 90 Rex Stout
'Neither do I,' a gruff voice told me. 'Take that damn bolt off.'
'Mr. Wolfe is engaged,' I said politely. 'Will I do?'
'You will not. You never have and you never will.'
'Then hold it a minute. I'll see.'
I shut the door, went to the office, and told Wolfe, 'The man about the chair,' which was my favorite alias for Inspector Cramer of Homicide.
Wolfe grunted and shook his head. 'I'll be busy for hours and can't be interrupted.'
I returned to the front, opened to the crack again, and said regretfully, 'Sorry, but he's doing his homework.'
'Yeah,' Cramer said sarcastically, 'he certainly is. Now that Talbott's here too you've got a full house. All six of 'em. Open the door.'
'Bah. Who are you trying to impress? You have tails on one or more, possibly all, and I do hope you haven't abandoned Talbott because we like him. By the way, the phone girl and the waiter at the Churchill-- what're their names?'
'I'm coming in, Goodwin.'
'Come ahead. This chain has never had a real test, and I've wondered about it.'
'In the name of the law, open this door!'
I was so astonished that I nearly did open it in order to get a good look at him. Through the crack I could use only one eye. 'Well, listen to you,' I said incredulously. 'On me you try that? As you know, it's the law that keeps you out. If you're ready to make an arrest, tell me who, and I'll see that he or she doesn't pull a scoot. After all, you're not a monopoly. You've had them for a full week, day or night, and Wolfe has had them only an hour or so, and you can't bear it! Incidentally, they're not refusing to see you, they don't
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know you're here, so don't chalk that against them. It's Mr. Wolfe who can't be disturbed. I'll give you this much satisfaction: he hasn't solved it yet, and it may take till midnight. It will save time if you'll give me the names--'
'Shut up,' Cramer rasped. 'I came here perfectly friendly. There's no law against Wolfe having people in his office. And there's no law against my being there with them, either.'
'There sure isn't,' I agreed heartily, 'once you're in, but what about this door? Here's a legal door, with a man on one side who can't open it, and a man on the other side who won't, and according to the statutes--'
'Archie!' It was a bellow from the office, Wolfe's loudest bellow, seldom heard, and there were other sounds. It came again. 'Archie!'
I said hastily, 'Excuse me,' slammed the d6or shut, ran down the hall and turned the knob, and popped in.
It was nothing seriously alarming. Wolfe was still in his chair behind his desk. The chair Talbott had occupied was overturned. Dorothy was on her feet, her back to Wolfe's desk, with her brows elevated to a record high. Audrey Rooney was standing in the corner by the big globe, with her clenched fists pressed against her cheeks, staring. Pohl and Broadyke were also out of their chairs, also gazing at the center of the room. From the spectators' frozen attitudes you might have expected to see something really startling, but it was only a couple of guys slinging punches. As I entered Talbott landed a right hook on the side of Saf ford's neck, and as I closed the door to the hall behind me Safford countered with a solid stiff left to Talbott's kidney sector. The only noise besides their fists and feet was a tense mutter from Audrey Rooney in her corner. 'Hit him, Wayne; hit him, Wayne.'
92 Rex Stout
'How much did I miss?' I demanded.
