The Rubber Band

"I know." Wolfe sighed. "It was lying in front of the telephone. So Mr. Stebbins heard no shot."

"No. Of course, he was down at the corner and there was a lot of noise."

"To be sure. Was the weapon on Lord Clivers' person?"

"No." Cramer sounded savage. "That's one of the nice details. We can't find any gun, except one in Walsh's pocket that hadn't been fired. There's a squad of men still up there, combing it. Also there's about a thousand hollow steel shafts sticking up from the base construction, and it might have been dropped down one of those."

"So it might," Wolfe murmured. "Well… no shot heard, and no gun found." He looked around at them. "I can't help observing, gentlemen, that that news relieves me enormously. Moreover, I think you have a right to know that Mr. Goodwin and I heard the shot."

They stared at him. Skinner demanded, "You what? What the hell are

you talking about?"

Wolfe turned to me. "Tell them, Archie."

I let them have my open countenance. "This evening," I said, and corrected it, "-last evening- Mr. Wolfe and I were in this office. At two minutes before seven o'clock the phone rang, and it happened that we both took off our receivers. A voice said, 'Nero Wolfe!' It sounded far off but very excited- it sounded- well, unnatural. I said,*Yes, talking,' and the voice said, 'I've got him, come up here. Fifty-fifth Street, this is Mike Walsh, I've got him covered, come up.' The voice was cut off by the sound of an explosion, very loud, as if a gun had been shot close to the telephone. I called Walsh's name a few times, but there was no answer. We sent a phone call to police headquarters right away."

I looked around respectfully for approval. Skinner looked concentrated, Hombert looked about ready to bust, and Cramer looked disgusted. The inspector, I could see, didn't have far to go to get good and sore. He burst out at Wolfe, "What else have you got? First you tell me the man I've got the whole force looking for, thinking I've got a hot one, is one of your boy scouts acting as advance agent. Now you tell me that the phone call we're trying to trace about a shot being heard, and you can't trace a local call anyway with these damn dials, now you tell me you made that too." He stuck his cigar in his mouth and bit it nearly in two.