Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 24 by Three Men Out

to move and even said please, he gave me a dirty look as he complied.
    As Wolfe sat and turned his head from left to right and back again, taking them in, and they focused on him, I was not utterly at ease because I had slid out from under the responsibility. He had said he would have to discuss murder with them, and in the heat of his resentment at my having foxed him into taking a two-mile taxi ride he might regard it as funny to manage it so that I would have not less to explain to the cops, but more.
    Huck spoke. “I have explained to Mr. Goodwin that I tolerated his intrusion out of deference to my brother-in-law.” His tone wasn’t very deferential. “But now your barging in—frankly, Mr. Wolfe, there is a limit to my forbearance.”
    Wolfe nodded. “I don’t blame you, sir. I return your candor and confess that the fault is Mr. Goodwin’s. On account of a defect in his make-up he has botched his errand here so badly that I was compelled to intervene. When he phoned me, twice, some four hours ago, not from this house, I suspected that he had been so thoroughly bewitched by one of these women that his mental processes were in suspense. It hits him like that. When later he phoned again, this time from your study, my fear was verified, and I was even able to identify the witch.”
    He looked straight at Mrs. O’Shea, then at Miss Riff,then at Miss Marcy, but got no return because they were all looking at me. I didn’t mind, provided he was now willing to call it even.
    He was going on. “Plainly there was no other alternative, so I came to supersede him; and now that I am here I refuse to employ the puerile stratagem that Mr. Lewent and Mr. Goodwin were determined to try. They should have known that their pretended concern about a large sum left secretly by Mr. Lewent’s sister with one of you to be passed to him at her death—they should have known that none of you would take it seriously.” He looked at Huck. “You, sir, even assumed that it was merely a blackmailing device, didn’t you?”
    “I thought it possible.” Huck, being a millionaire, was giving no ground for a suit for slander. “You say it was a stratagem?”
    “Yes.” Wolfe flipped a hand. “Let’s dismiss it. Slithering around looking for cracks is not to my taste. I’d much rather be forthright and tell you straight that I came here to discuss murder.”
    There were noises, but not explosive. Paul Thayer’s head jerked up. My private reaction was absolutely unfavorable. Since he had blurted it out, a call to the police was in order right now, and exactly where would I be?
    “Murder?” Huck was disbelieving his ears. “Did you say murder?”
    “Yes, sir, I did.” Wolfe was at a disadvantage. Working on an audience in his office, it wasn’t difficult to keep all the faces in view, but there they made almost half a circle, with Huck in his wheelchair in the center, and Wolfe had to keep turning his head and moving his eyes. “There’s no point,” he declared, “in going on with the rigmarole started by Mr. Goodwin. I much prefer the directness and vigor of Mr. Lewent’s original suggestion when he called at my office this morning to hire me. He suggested that Mr. Goodwin should come here and tell you that he, Lewent, suspected that one of these three women had murdered his sister, poisoned her, and that he had engaged me to investigate. I now propose—”
    This time the noises could be called explosions, especially the one contributed by Mrs. O’Shea. Also she moved. She bounced out of her chair and started for the door, andwhen Wolfe sharply demanded where she was going and she didn’t stop, I dived across and headed her off. White-faced, she ordered me, “Get out of my way! The dirty little rat!”
    I held the pass. Wolfe’s voice came. “If you’re going for Mr. Lewent, madam, I beg you to consider. He came to me and paid me money because he lacked the spunk to tackle this himself. You can drag him in here, and the