Free The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout Page B

to counter, and then the damn fool tried to turn to get hand leverage on the floor. At the front door I braked when Fritz got his arms and held them down.
    “There’s snow on the stoop,” I said. “If I let you up and give you your hat and coat, just walk out. I know more tricks than you do. Right?”
    “Yes. You goddam goon.”
    “Goodwin. You left out the D, W, I, but I’ll overlook it. All right, Fritz.”
    We let go, and he scrambled to his feet. Fritz got his coat from the rack, but he said, “I want to go back in. I’m going to ask him something.”
    “No. You have bad manners. We’d have to bounce you again.”
    “No you wouldn’t. I want to ask him something.”
    “Politely. Tactfully.”
    “Yes.”
    I shut the door. “You can have two minutes. Don’t sit down, don’t raise your voice, and don’t use words like ‘goon.’ Lead the way, Fritz.”
    We filed down the hall and in, Fritz in front and me in the rear. Wolfe, whose good ears hear what is said in the hall, gave him a cold eye as he stopped short of the desk, surrounded by Fritz and me.
    “You wanted an acceptable reason,” he told Wolfe. “As I said, I am a friend of Miss Hinckley. A good enough friend so that she called me on the phone to tell me about Goodwin-what he said to her and Mrs Althaus. I advised her not to come here this evening, but she’s coming. At nine o’clock?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then I’m going-” He stopped. That wasn’t the way. It came hard, but he managed it. “I want to be here. Will you& May I come?”
    “If you control yourself.”
    “I will.”
    “Time’s up,” I said, and took his arm to turn him.

Nero Wolfe 41 - The Doorbell Rnd
    7
    At ten minutes past nine in the evening of that long day I went to the kitchen. Wolfe was at the center table with Fritz, arguing about the number of juniper berries to put in a marinade for venison loin chops. Knowing that that could go on and on, I said, “Excuse me. They’re all here, and more. David Althaus, the father, came along. He’s the bald one, to your right at the back. Also a lawyer named Bernard Fromm, to your left at the back. Long-headed and hard-eyed.”
    Wolfe frowned. “I don’t want him.”
    “Of course not. Shall I tell him so?”
    “Confound it.” He turned to Fritz. “Very well, proceed. I say three, but proceed as you will. If you put in five I won’t even have to taste it; the smell will tell me. With four it might be palatable.” He gave me a nod and I headed for the office, and he followed.
    He circled around Mrs Althaus in the red leather chair and stood while I pronounced names. There were two rows of yellow chairs, with Vincent Yannack, Marian Hinckley, and Timothy Quayle in front, and David Althaus and Bernard Fromm in the rear. That put Quayle nearest me, which had seemed advisable. Wolfe sat, sent his eyes left to right and back again, and spoke. “I should tell you that it may be that with an electronic eavesdropping device agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation hear everything that is said in this room. Mr Goodwin and I think it unlikely, but it is quite possible. I feel that you-“
    “Why would they?” Fromm the lawyer. The courtroom tone, cross-examination.
    “That will appear, Mr Fromm. I feel that you should be aware of that possibility, however remote. Now I beg you to indulge me. I’m going to talk a while. I can expect you to help further my interest only if I can demonstrate that your interest runs with mine. You are the father, the mother, the fiancee, and the associates of a man who was murdered seven weeks ago, and the murderer has not been exposed. I intend to expose him. I intend to establish that Morris Althaus was killed by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That intention-“
    They made two demands simultaneously. Yarmack demanded, “How?” and Fromm demanded, “Why?”
    Wolfe nodded. “That intention stands on two legs. Recently I undertook a job which made it necessary for me