Read Online Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 by Over My Dead Body - Free Book Online

shirttails flying. At the head of the stairs I wheeled to announce: “Don’t go into the end room, anybody. Ludlow’s in there dead. Nobody is to leave the building.” I saw Donald Barrett moving in my direction and the chinless wonder behind him. “If you two guys would herd everyone downstairs into the office it might simplify matters.”
    I disregarded the chatter that broke out and beat it down the steps, with Mrs. Miltan following me. On the ground floor she went to the rear, to the office, and I went to the front, to the door to the street vestibule. I was tempted to keep on going, right on through, and get to a phone and call up Nero Wolfe, but I decided it would be a bad move. If I once got out I might not get back in again, or, if I did, it would be under conditions not nearly so favorable as they were now. Guarding the portal, loyal and true, was the best bet.
    From where I stood I could see the inmates straggling down the stairs. They were mostly silent and subdued, but a couple of the female dancing teachers were jabbering. Belinda Reade, the baby doll with a new silk dress, came along to me instead of turning towards the office and said in a determined voice that she had a very important appointment to keep. I told her I had one too so we were in the same boat. Donald Barrett, who was hovering in the background, approached.
    “See here,” he said, “I know I’m caught in this God-awful mess. Frightful stink and I’m helpless justbecause I’m here. But Miss Reade—after all—are you a cop?”
    “No.”
    “Then my dear fellow, just turn your back and talk to me a moment—and she can just slip out and go to her appointment—”
    “And before long a dozen dicks will slip out and trace her and haul her back. Don’t be silly. Have you ever been intimate with a murder before? I guess you haven’t. The worst thing you can do is make them start looking for you. They get upset Take my advice and—just a minute, Miss Tormic.”
    The two Balkans were there, three paces off. The glances that passed back and forth among the four of them, in one second, obviously meant something to them but not to me. Belinda Reade said, “Come on, Don,” and he followed her in the direction of the office. I surveyed the pair of girls. Carla had put a long loose thing with buttons over her fencing costume. Neya had on the green robe, carelessly closed as before, with one hand inside its folds apparently clinging to it.
    “There’s no time to talk,” I snapped. “You may be a couple of goons. I don’t know. But I’m asking you a damn straight question, and maybe your life depends on giving me a straight answer.” I took Neya’s eyes with mine. “You. Did you kill that man?”
    “No.”
    “Say it again. You didn’t?”
    “No.”
    I switched to Carla. “Did you?”
    “No. But I must tell you—”
    “There’s no time to tell me anything. That’s the hell of it. But anyhow you can—there they are! Beat it! Quick, damn it!”
    They scampered down the hall towards the officeand were gone by the time the cops got through the vestibule. It was a pair of flatfeet. I opened the glass-paneled door and when they were in the hall let it close again.
    “Hello. Precinct?”
    “No. Radio patrol. Who are you?”
    “Archie Goodwin, private detective from Nero Wolfe’s office, happened to be here. I was sitting on the lid. I’ll keep.” I pointed. “Back in the office is Mrs. Miltan and others, and two flights up is a corpse.”
    “God, you’re snappy. Sit on the lid a little longer, will you? Come on, Bill.”
    They tramped to the rear. I stood and played with my fingers. In about two minutes one of them tramped down the hall again and went upstairs. In another two minutes there were fresh arrivals in the vestibule, three dicks in plain clothes, but one glance was enough to tell that they were precinct men, not homicide squad. I gave them a brief picture of it. One of them relieved me at the door, another went