Over My Dead Body

I sat on the edge of the table for two minutes by my watch and then went to the house phone on the wall and buzzed the office. Wolfe answered.

"Well?"

"Mr Goodwin speaking. Green says he has got to talk with you."

"I'm busy."

"I told him that. He said what the hell."

"You can give him the programme as well as I can, and the reports we got yesterday-"

"I told him that too. He says he wants to hear it from you. I'll switch him on to your line."

"No, no, don't do that. Confound him anyway. You know I'm not alone-and that's a confidential-tell him to hold the wire. He's an unspeakable nuisance. I'll come there and take it."

"Okay."

I hung up and tiptoed back to the wood carving in the hall. In a moment the office door opened and Wolfe came out and shut the door. He got to me fast, whispered to me, "Quick on the signal," and glued his eyes to the peephole.

And I nearly missed connexions. Rudolph Faber must have been in a hurry. Wolfe hadn't been at the peephole more than ten seconds before he jerked his hand up and waved it. I wasn't supposed to jump or run, so I trod the three paces to the office door, giving my steps plenty of weight, and flung the door open and kept going on in. Faber, in an attitude of arrested motion, was standing across the room from where his chair was, with his back to the book shelves, but his hands were empty. He blinked at me once, but otherwise his face was impassive except for its inborn expression of superior and bullheaded meanness. With only one swift glance at him, I went to my desk and sat down, opened a drawer and took out a file of papers, and began going through them to look for something.

He didn't say a word and neither did I. I finished going through the file and started on another one, and was prepared to continue with that indefinitely, but it wasn't necessary. I was half-way through the second one when noises filtered in through the door to the hall, and pretty soon the door opened and I looked up and got another shock. Nero Wolfe was there, in overcoat, muffler, hat and gloves, with his applewood stick in his hand. I gawked at him.

"I'm sorry," he told Faber. "I must go out on business. If you want to go on with this, come to-morrow between eleven and one, or two and four, or six and eight. Those are my hours. Archie, we'll take the sedan. If you please. Fritz! Fritz, if you will help Mr Faber with his coat…"