Before Midnight

The names were certainly no help, but I had had time to size them up, and if I knew anything at all about faces they had come not to make trouble but to get out from under some. So I opened the door, helped them put their hats and coats on the big old walnut rack, ushered them into the office, and onto chairs, sat at my desk, and told them:

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, but that's the way it is. Mr. Wolfe never comes to the, office until eleven. the rule has been broken, but it takes a lot of breaking. The only way would be for you to tell me all about it and persuade me to tackle him, and then for me to go and tell him all about it and try to persuade him. Even if I succeeded, all that would take twenty-five minutes, and it's now twenty-five to eleven, so you might as well relax."

"Your name's Goodwin," Hansen stated. His baritone didn't sound as deep as it had on the phone. I had awarded him the red leather chair near the end of Woffe's desk, but, with his long thin neck and gray skin and big ears, he clashed with it. A straight-backed painted job with no upholstery would have suited him better.

"Mr. Goodwin," he said, "this is a confidential matter of imperative urgency. I insist that you tell Mr. Wolfe we must see him at once."

"We all do," one of the clients said in an executive tone. Another had popped up from his chair as soon as he sat down and was pacing the floor. The third was trying to keep a match steady enough to light a cigarette. Seeing that I was in for a pointless wrangle, I said politely, "Okay, I'll see what I can do," and got up and left the room.

In the kitchen, Fritz, who was cleaning up after breakfast and who would never have presumed to ask in words if it looked like business, asked it with a glance as I entered and went to the table where the phones were. I lifted my brows at him, took the house phone, and buzzed the plant rooms.

In a minute Wolfe growled in my ear. "Well?"

"I'm calling from the kitchen. In the office are four men with Sulka shirts and Firman shoes in a panic. They say they must we you at onre."

"Confound it--"

"Yes, sir. I'm merely notifying you that we have company. I told them I'd see what I can do, and that's what I can do." I hung up before he could, took the other phone, and dialed a number.