Wolfe, from behind his desk, looked around at us, then leveled off at Fabian. He spoke casually. “I must apologize, sir, for appropriating a few moments of your time. I realize it is your time, since you made an appointment to come here, and therefore you should have first say. But this will only take me—”
The damn doorbell rang. Wolfe went right on, but darted a glance at me when he saw I was staying put. I met the glance deadpan. Without consulting him about it, I had told Fritz to attend to the door if the bell rang, not intending to do any trotting in and out under the circumstances. I suppose I should have told him to keep the door bolted, which he never did when I was there unless so instructed, but subconsciously I must have figured that with Fabian already inside it wouldn’t matter who else came. The result was that unwelcome noises came from the hall, including voices, one of which was Fritz’s yelling for me.
“Archie! ARCHIE!”
I was up and on my way, but the gate-crasher must have galloped right through Fritz, for I was still ten feet short of the door to the hall when he entered the office. At sight of him I locked my brakes and held my breath. What was flashing through my mind was nothing you could call a thought, but just a pair of facts. One was Fabian. The other was Thumbs Meeker. I backed up so fast I bumped into the corner of Wolfe’s desk, and hung there, looking. Fabian was on his feet and was furnishing the proof Wolfe had asked for. It was in his hand, with his elbow against his hip and his forearm extended. Schwartz had left the red leather chair and was kneeling on the floor behind it.
As far as Meeker and Fabian were concerned, they were the only two there. Their gazes had met and held. Fabian’s gun was steady and pointed, the same as his eyes, but no blast came. Meeker’s hands hung at his sides.
“You’d better lift ’em,” Fabian said, no less hoarse and no more. Besides having his gun out, he also had the best of it in size of target, since Meeker was well over six feet and weighed a good two-twenty.
“Not here and now,” Meeker said in a thin voice.
“Who gave you the steer?”
“Nobody. I came on business.”
“Lift ’em up.”
“Tommyrot!” Wolfe blurted at them, but none of their four eyes moved. He went on, “This is preposterous! Besides you two, there are five people here. If you shoot him, Mr. Fabian, what do you expect to do, shoot all of us? Nonsense. The same consideration holds for the other gentleman.” He addressed the other gentleman. “Who the devil are you, sir? What do you mean, bounding into my house like this?”
That relaxed me. I thought to myself, okay, say it ends — today, tomorrow. Before I die at least I get this. Before I die I get to hear Wolfe bawling hell out of Thumbs Meeker for dashing in to where Fabian is ready with his gun out. I felt I owed them something. So I said, “That’s Mr. Meeker, Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Meeker, this is Nero Wolfe.”
“You heard me,” Meeker said in his thin voice. “Not here and now. He’s right. I came here on business.”
Fabian didn’t say anything. His arm didn’t straighten out, but his hand receded until it was where his elbow had been, and both hand and gun slid into his side coat-pocket and stayed there.
Wolfe demanded, “You came here on business? What business?”
Meeker turned, letting his eyes leave Fabian. They aimed at Wolfe. “Who are these guys?”
“They’re here on business too. What is yours?”
“By God.” Meeker smiled. That smile was famous, and I decided it justified its reputation. “I don’t know if I care to make it public. With Fabian here. He might think I was backing out, and I don’t back out.” He turned again, not fast. “I don’t back out, Fabian.”
Fabian had nothing to say. He was still standing up.
“Confound it,” Wolfe said testily. “What do you want?”
Meeker turned again, and smiled again. “I want to know if it’s true that you told the cops that your punk put a finger on Perrit and his daughter for me.”
“No.”
“They seem to have that idea.”
“That isn’t true.”
Meeker’s smile came again. It came and went. “Oh,” he said, “I’m a liar.”
“I don’t know whether you’re a liar or not. But if the police have made any such statement or intimation, they are. I would have expected you to be sufficiently familiar with police methods not to come running to me with anything as silly as that.”
“You didn’t tell them that?”
“Certainly not.”
Meeker looked at me. I was back at my desk. “You’re Goodwin. Did you?”
“No,” I said. “Am I a half-wit?”
“Mr. Meeker.” Wolfe was curt. “Now that you’re here, I suggest that you stay. Be seated. You’ll be interested in what I have to say. When you entered I was about to tell these people who killed Mr. Perrit and his daughter and how and why. It will be doubly interesting because the man who did it is present.”
You could have heard a cockroach stomping. Schwartz, who was back in the red leather chair, was blinking as if he would never stop again. Morton was sitting on the edge of the couch, his palms on his knees. Saul Panzer hadn’t moved as much as a finger since Wolfe and I had brought Fabian in.
Fabian, still on his feet, rasped, “I don’t want to miss that.”
“I’m present,” Meeker said.
“Yes, sir, but it wasn’t you. Sit down. I don’t like to talk to faces on different levels. You too, Mr. Fabian.”
I then saw Thumbs Meeker being self-conscious. There were three vacant chairs, not counting Fabian’s. He glanced around at them, hesitating, wanting a good tactical position, got conscious that we were all watching, didn’t like that, and dropped himself onto the closest one, which put him with his back to Fabian. With that settled, Fabian sat down too, but his hand didn’t come out of his pocket.
Wolfe leaned back and his fingertips met at the summit of his magnificent middle. “First,” he said, “about Mr. Perrit’s daughter. The police know that the young woman who was killed last night was not his daughter, but they do not know that he actually has a daughter. I do, and I know who and where she is, because Mr. Perrit told me about her in this room yesterday. At this moment she is—”
“Go slow,” Fabian said. I never heard him speak without wishing to God he would clear his throat.
“If you please,” Wolfe snapped. “No power on earth, Mr. Fabian, not even the kind of primitive power you rely on, will keep me from telling this properly. You could shoot me, but you’re not going to, so don’t interrupt. Mr. Perrit’s daughter is at this moment in this house, upstairs looking at my orchids. He—”
“That’s a lie!” Morton Schane declared, with his chin jerked up.
“She doesn’t think so.” Wolfe’s eyes went to him. “Stop interrupting me. Mr. Perrit entrusted her interests to me and I intend to guard them. I’m not going to waste time telling you men things you already know. You know he had a daughter and was keeping her identity concealed, both from his enemies and from his friends. Some eighteen months ago he discovered that Mr. Meeker had learned of her existence and was trying to find her, so he tried a finesse. He went to Salt Lake City and arranged with a young woman named Murphy, a fugitive from justice, to come to New York and live with him as his daughter.”
“Go slow,” Fabian said.
“Don’t be absurd, Mr. Fabian. The police know all that. The arrangement was made, and Miss Murphy came to New York and became Miss Violet Perrit. But before long she violated the agreement. She began demanding sums of money, increasingly larger, with the threat that she would make a disclosure if he didn’t pay. He paid. Then, Sunday evening, night before last, she asked for fifty thousand dollars. Harassed beyond endurance, he came to me for help. He gave me, I think — me and Mr. Goodwin — a correct and accurate account as far as it went, but not a complete one. He did not tell me that Miss Murphy had somehow found out who and what and where his daughter was, though he must have known that she had. In any event, I know it, having deduced it.”