Free Too Many Clients by Rex Stout Page A

Mr. Yeager’s secretary. I was. I came to get a notebook I left here, that’s all.”
    “Then you have nothing to fear. If and when the police get to you, just tell them that and they’ll apologize for bothering you.”
    “If I don’t go with you, you’re going to tell the police?”
    “I haven’t said so. Mr. Wolfe makes the decisions. I’m just the errand boy.”
    She moved. I thought she was bound for the phone, but she kept straight on, to the far end, to the door to the bathroom, and on through. I went and took a look at Fred’s cheek. He had his belt back on. “So this was Yeager’s room,” he said. “Now since I know that-“
    “You don’t. You don’t know anything. I lied to her and she fell for it. Your job is merely to be here to welcome callers. There’s no harm done. Your cheek looks worse than it is, and there’s stuff in the bathroom for it. You would have had to take the coverlet off anyway when you go to bed. I’ll help you fold it.”
    I took one end and he took the other. He asked how long he would have to hang on there, and I said until further notice, and what better could he ask'Any man with a feeling for the finer things of life would consider it a privilege to be allowed to shack up in such an art gallery as that, and he was getting paid for it, twenty-four hours a day. He said even the TV had caught it; when he turned it on what he had got was a woman in a bathtub blowing soap bubbles.
    As he put the folded coverlet on a couch Julia McGee reappeared. She had adjusted the neck of her dress, put her hair in order, and repaired her face. She wasn’t at all bad-looking. She came up to me and said, “All right, I’m accepting your invitation.”

Nero Wolfe 34 - Too Many Clients
    Chapter 7
    When you enter the hall of the old brownstone on West 35th Street, the first door on your left is to what we call the front room, and the one beyond it is to the office. Both of those rooms are soundproofed, not as perfectly as Yeager’s bower of carnality, but well enough, including the doors. I took Julia McGee to the front room, had my offer to take her coat declined, and went through the connecting door to the office, closing it behind me. Wolfe was in his favorite chair with his book. He is not a fast reader, and that book has 677 pages, with about 600 words to the page. When I crossed to his desk and told him I had brought company he finished a paragraph, closed the book on a finger, and scowled at me.
    I went on. “Her name is Julia McGee. She says she was Yeager’s secretary, which is probably true because it can be easily checked. She says she went there tonight to get a notebook she had left there, which is a he and not a very good one. There is no notebook in that room. When she entered and saw Fred she went for him and drew blood on his face, and he had to wrap her up in a bed cover so he could use the phone. After I got her name and address from things in her bag I told her she could either go now and explain to the police later or she could come here with me, and she came with me. I made a concession, I told her she could use the phone as soon as she got here, with us present.”
    He said, “Grrrrh.” I gave him two seconds to add to it, but apparently that was all, so I went and opened the door to the front room and told her to come in. She came on by me, stopped to glance around, saw the phone on my desk, crossed to it, sat in my chair, and dialed. Wolfe inserted his bookmark, put the book down, leaned back, and glared at her.
    She told the receiver, “I want to speak to Mr. Aiken. This is Julia McGee. . . . That’s right. . . . Thank you.” A one-minute wait. “Mr. Aiken'. . . Yes. . . . Yes, I know, but I had to tell you, there was a man there and he attacked me and . . . No, let me tell you, another man came and said they were working for Nero Wolfe, the detective. . . . Yes, Nero Wolfe. The second one, Archie Goodwin, said Nero Wolfe wanted to talk with anyone who came