Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 Read Online Free PDF

four feet wide. Beyond that is the room proper. The body is in that passage, diagonal, with the feet toward the door. When the door is opened wide its edge comes within ten inches of Lewent’s right foot. There’s a runner the length of the passage, an Oriental, not fastened down, and it’s in place. The body’s on it, of course. There is nothing disarranged in either the room or the passage. Everything is just as it was when I was there an hour earlier.”
    “Except Mr. Lewent.” Wolfe’s tone was dry and disgusted.
    “Yeah. He was hit in the back of the head at the base of the skull with something heavy and hard enough to smash the whole bottom of the skull. The thing was comparatively smooth, because the skin is not broken, only bruised. No blood. I am not a laboratory, but on a bet there was only one blow and it came from beneath, traveling upward. The weapon is not in the passage—”
    “Under him.”
    “No. I lifted him and put him back. Nor is it open to view in the room. Won’t that stand some questions?”
    “It will indeed. No doubt the police will ask them.”
    “I’m coming to that. I was not seen entering that room or leaving it. I might as well come on home, or, better still, go and keep my weekend date, if it weren’t for one thing—the grand Lewent paid us. I’ve only been here three hours, and I doubt if I’ve been earning three hundred and and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents an hour, considering what’s happened. Our client may not have been one of nature’s top products, but to come here to do a job for him and just fiddle around while someone croaked him and then find his corpse is not my idea of a masterpiece. I don’t like it. I won’t like the remarks that will occur to Cramer and Stebbins if I phone the cops to say that Mr. Wolfe has had a client murdered while my back was turned and will they please come and take over. Nor will you.”
    “I won’t hear them. Is there an alternative?”
    “Yes. That’s the favor I’m asking. My feelings are hurt.”
    “Naturally.”
    “I resent the assumption that it is perfectly okay to kill a client of yours practically in my presence. I want to ram that assumption down somebody’s throat. I had already told Mrs. O’Shea that I am staying for dinner, and I ask your permission to do so. One of those people is stretched good and tight, waiting for the body to be found, and if I’m half as good as I think I am I’ll see it or hear it or feel it. Anyhow I want to try.”
    “How sure are you that you’re clear?”
    “Completely. For a hair of my head on a rug, or a fingerprint, I was in there before. As for being seen, not a chance. I will mention that if you feel you owe Lewent some return for what he paid us, for which I could cite a couple of precedents, we’re more likely to deliver this way than with the cops in command. And of course I can find the body any time I want to if that seems to be called for.”
    He grunted. “You won’t be home to dinner.”
    I told him no and hung up, and sat a while, getting my mind arranged. The probability of the murderer’s giving himself away while under the suspense of waiting forsomeone to find the body would be reduced by about nine-tenths if any word or look of mine aroused a suspicion that I already knew. Or would it? It might be better. Finally I left the booth, walked back to the house and rang the bell, and was admitted by the viqueen. She was as stolid as ever, so presumably there had been no discovery while I was out. As I started for the stairs down to the kitchen, intending to find Mrs. O’Shea, my name was called, and I turned to see Dorothy Riff coming through a door.
    “I was looking for you.” she said.
    “I went out to phone Mr. Wolfe. What time do you go home?”
    “I usually leave around six, but today …” She fluttered a hand. “I told Mr. Huck I’d stay until you’re through.” She glanced around. “This isn’t very private, is it? Let’s go in