The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"Not that I remember. He might have mentioned them."

I raised my brows at Wolfe. He regarded her for half a minute, grunted, and told her he doubted if she had supplied anything that would help, so the evening had probably been wasted. As he spoke I went and got her coat, and held it for her when she got up. Wolfe didn't leave his chair. He does sometimes rise when a woman comes or goes; he probably has some kind of a rule for it, but I have never been able to figure it out. She said I needn't bother to see her downstairs, but, wishing to show her that some private detectives have some manners, I went along. Down on the sidewalk, as the doorman waved a taxi up, she put her hand on my arm and said she would be so grateful if we didn't tell Mrs Bruner, and I patted her shoulder. Patting a shoulder can be anything from an apology to a promise, and only the patter can say which.

When I got back to the room upstairs Wolfe was still in the armchair, with his fingers clasped at the peak of his middle mound. When I turned from shutting the door he growled, "Does she lie?"

I said certainly and went and sat.

"How the devil can you tell?"

"All right," I said, "to skip argument I'll concede that I am wise to attractive young women and you are not, since that's your line. But even you must know that she is not a big enough sap to give Mrs Bruner that guff about FBI men just because she thought she would like to hear it. I doubt if she's a sap at all. But she did tell Mrs Bruner that, so she had a reason, and not just some bull about how they walked. She had a real reason, God knows what. One guess out of a dozen: When she went in the house she heard noises, and went up another flight and listened at Althaus's door, and heard something they said. I don't like it, because if it was something like that why didn't she tell the cops? I prefer something she wouldn't want to spill. For instance, she knew Althaus was working on the FBI. He had-"

"How did she know?"

"Oh, it had progressed to intimacy. That's the easiest lie a woman can tell, they've been telling that one for ten thousand years. Very convenient, there in the same house, and he liked women and she is no hag. He had told her. He had even told her they might call on him uninvited when he wasn't home. So she-"

"She would have gone up to see if he was there."