Read Online Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe by Three at Wolfe's Door - Free Book Online Page B

want to tell me here and now, in front of her, come with me down to Nero Wolfe’s office and we’ll talk it over.”
    They were exchanging glances, and they were not friendly glances. When I had arrived probably not one of them, excluding the murderer, had believed that apoisoner was present, but now they all did, or at least they thought she might be; and when that feeling takes hold it’s good-bye to friendliness. It would have been convenient if I could have detected fear in one of the glances, but fear and suspicion and uneasiness are too much alike on faces to tell them apart.
    â€œYou
are
a help,” Carol Annis said bitterly. “Now you’ve got us hating each other. Now everybody suspects everybody.”
    I had quit being nice and sympathetic. “It’s about time,” I told her. I glanced at my wrist. “It’s not midnight yet. If I’ve made you all realize that this is no Broadway production, or TV either, and the longer the pay-off is postponed the tougher it will be for everybody, I
have
helped.” I stood up. “Let’s go. I don’t say Mr. Wolfe can do it by just snapping his fingers, but he might surprise you. He has often surprised me.”
    â€œAll right,” Nora said. She arose. “Come on. This is getting too damn painful. Come on.”
    I don’t pretend that that was what I had been heading for. I admit that I had just been carried along by my tongue. If I arrived with that gang at midnight and Wolfe had gone to bed, he would almost certainly refuse to play. Even if he were still up, he might refuse to work, just to teach me a lesson, since I had not stuck to my instructions. Those thoughts were at me as Peggy Choate bounced up and Carol Annis started to leave the couch.
    But they were wasted. That tussle with Wolfe never came off. A door at the end of the room, which had been standing ajar, suddenly swung open, and there in its frame was a two-legged figure with shoulders almost as broad as the doorway, and I was squinting at Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan Homicide West. He moved forward, croaking, “I’m surprisedat you, Goodwin. These ladies ought to get some sleep.”
VI
    Of course I was a monkey. If it had been Stebbins who had made a monkey of me I suppose I would have leaped for a window and dived through. Hitting the pavement from a four-story window should be enough to finish a monkey, and life wouldn’t be worth living if I had been bamboozled by Purley Stebbins. But obviously it hadn’t been him; it had been Peggy Choate or Nora Jaret, or both; Purley had merely accepted an invitation to come and listen in.
    So I kept my face. To say I was jaunty would be stretching it, but I didn’t scream or tear my hair. “Greetings,” I said heartily. “And welcome. I’ve been wondering why you didn’t join us instead of skulking in there in the dark.”
    â€œI’ll bet you have.” He had come to arm’s length and stopped. He turned. “You can relax, ladies.” Back to me: “You’re under arrest for obstructing justice. Come along.”
    â€œIn a minute. You’ve got all night.” I moved my head. “Of course Peggy and Nora knew this hero was in there, but I’d—”
    â€œI said come along!” he barked.
    â€œAnd I said in a minute. I intend to ask a couple of questions. I wouldn’t dream of resisting arrest, but I’ve got leg cramp from kneeling too long and if you’re in a hurry you’ll have to carry me.” I moved my eyes. “I’d like to know if you all knew. Did you, Miss Iacono?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œMiss Morgan?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMiss Annis?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t, but I think you did.” She tossed her head and the corn silk fluttered. “That was contemptible. Saying you wanted to help us, so we would talk, with a policeman