Read Online Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 by Over My Dead Body - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Over My Dead Body
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, Political, New York (N.Y.), Private Investigators - New York (State) - New York, Wolfe; Nero (Fictitious character)
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for the stairs, and the third went to the office and took me with him.
The radio flatfoot was there, holding his tongue between his teeth while he wrote down names in a notebook. The precinct dick spoke with him a moment and then started in on Mrs. Miltan. I sidled off and made myself unobtrusive alongside the coat rack, resisting a temptation to edge around and get in a few words of advice to the Montenegrin females before the homicide squad arrived, which was when the real fun would start. I decided not to take a chance on starting a mental process even in a precinct man. The clients and employees were scattered all around the office, some sitting, some standing, with no sound coming from them except an occasional muttering. While I was making the round of their faces, without any realexpectation of seeing anything interesting or significant, I suddenly saw something right in front of my eyes that struck me as being both interesting and significant. My coat was there on the rack where I had left it, so close my elbow was touching it, and what I saw was that the flap of the left-hand pocket had been pushed inside and the pocket was gaping on account of something in it. That was wrong. I didn’t patronize the kind of tailors Percy Ludlow had, but I was born neat and I don’t go around with my pocket flaps pushed in; and besides, that pocket had been empty.
My hand had started for it instinctively, to reach in for a feel, but I caught the impulse in time and stopped it. I looked around, but as far as I could see no one had me under special observation, either furtive or open. There was no time for a prolonged test of that nature, for the homicide squad would be busting in any minute, maybe less than a minute, and once they arrived the right of self-determination wouldn’t stand a chance.
I reached up and took the hat and coat from the rack and started for the hall door, and had taken three steps when I was halted by a loud growl from behind:
“Hey, you, where you going?”
I turned and spoke loudly but not offensively to the suspicious glare from the precinct dick, “The management is not responsible for hats and coats, and these are mine. There’ll be a lot of company coming and I’d prefer to put them in a locker.”
I moved as I spoke, and sailed on through the door. There was one chance in three that he would actually abandon Mrs. Miltan and take after me, but he didn’t. In the hall, I didn’t even glance toward the left, where the watchdog stood at the entrance, knowing that it was out of the question to bluff a passage to freedom.Instead I turned right, and it was only five steps to a narrow door I had noticed there. I opened it and saw an uncarpeted wooden stair going down. There was a light switch just inside, but without flipping it on I shut the door behind me and it was pitch-dark, black. With my pencil flashlight for a guide, I descended to the bottom of the stair, quietly but without wasting any time. Playing the light around, I saw that I was in a large low-ceilinged room lined with shelves and with stacks of cartons and shipping cases occupying the middle floor space. I stepped around them and headed for the rear, where I could see the dim rectangles of two windows a few feet apart. I must have been a little on edge, because I stood stiff and motionless and stopped breathing when the beam of my light, directed toward the floor, showed me something sticking out from behind a pile of cartons that I wasn’t expecting to see. It was the toe of a man’s shoe, and it was obvious from its position and appearance that there was a foot in it and the foot’s owner was standing on it. I kept the light on it, steady, and in a few seconds I breathed, moved the light upwards, and put my right hand inside my coat and out again. Then I said out loud but not too loud:
“Don’t move. I’m aiming a gun at where you are and I’m nervous. If your hands are empty stick them out beyond the edge. If they’re not
The radio flatfoot was there, holding his tongue between his teeth while he wrote down names in a notebook. The precinct dick spoke with him a moment and then started in on Mrs. Miltan. I sidled off and made myself unobtrusive alongside the coat rack, resisting a temptation to edge around and get in a few words of advice to the Montenegrin females before the homicide squad arrived, which was when the real fun would start. I decided not to take a chance on starting a mental process even in a precinct man. The clients and employees were scattered all around the office, some sitting, some standing, with no sound coming from them except an occasional muttering. While I was making the round of their faces, without any realexpectation of seeing anything interesting or significant, I suddenly saw something right in front of my eyes that struck me as being both interesting and significant. My coat was there on the rack where I had left it, so close my elbow was touching it, and what I saw was that the flap of the left-hand pocket had been pushed inside and the pocket was gaping on account of something in it. That was wrong. I didn’t patronize the kind of tailors Percy Ludlow had, but I was born neat and I don’t go around with my pocket flaps pushed in; and besides, that pocket had been empty.
My hand had started for it instinctively, to reach in for a feel, but I caught the impulse in time and stopped it. I looked around, but as far as I could see no one had me under special observation, either furtive or open. There was no time for a prolonged test of that nature, for the homicide squad would be busting in any minute, maybe less than a minute, and once they arrived the right of self-determination wouldn’t stand a chance.
I reached up and took the hat and coat from the rack and started for the hall door, and had taken three steps when I was halted by a loud growl from behind:
“Hey, you, where you going?”
I turned and spoke loudly but not offensively to the suspicious glare from the precinct dick, “The management is not responsible for hats and coats, and these are mine. There’ll be a lot of company coming and I’d prefer to put them in a locker.”
I moved as I spoke, and sailed on through the door. There was one chance in three that he would actually abandon Mrs. Miltan and take after me, but he didn’t. In the hall, I didn’t even glance toward the left, where the watchdog stood at the entrance, knowing that it was out of the question to bluff a passage to freedom.Instead I turned right, and it was only five steps to a narrow door I had noticed there. I opened it and saw an uncarpeted wooden stair going down. There was a light switch just inside, but without flipping it on I shut the door behind me and it was pitch-dark, black. With my pencil flashlight for a guide, I descended to the bottom of the stair, quietly but without wasting any time. Playing the light around, I saw that I was in a large low-ceilinged room lined with shelves and with stacks of cartons and shipping cases occupying the middle floor space. I stepped around them and headed for the rear, where I could see the dim rectangles of two windows a few feet apart. I must have been a little on edge, because I stood stiff and motionless and stopped breathing when the beam of my light, directed toward the floor, showed me something sticking out from behind a pile of cartons that I wasn’t expecting to see. It was the toe of a man’s shoe, and it was obvious from its position and appearance that there was a foot in it and the foot’s owner was standing on it. I kept the light on it, steady, and in a few seconds I breathed, moved the light upwards, and put my right hand inside my coat and out again. Then I said out loud but not too loud:
“Don’t move. I’m aiming a gun at where you are and I’m nervous. If your hands are empty stick them out beyond the edge. If they’re not
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