“Entered? And then what?”
“Oh, as his fancy struck him. Got the grenade from the desk. Took it away. Later, when Miss Bruce left, entered the anteroom, opened the door there into Ryder’s room, pulled the pin from the grenade, tossed it at Ryder, and pumped back into the hall. That, of course, raises the interesting point that presumably only six people knew the grenade was there: Tinkham, Lawson, Shattuck, you, Goodwin, me. I know of nothing that eliminates anyone but the last two. Take you, for instance. You’ve been here all afternoon?”
Fife’s lips tightened in a grim smile. “That’s a good plan; start at the top. Yes, I’ve been here, but I’m afraid I can’t prove I haven’t left this room. Shattuck came back with me after lunch, but he left around two-thirty. Then I dictated for half an hour, but after that I guess you have me.”
Wolfe grunted. “Bah! This is nothing but gibberish, as it stands now. I’ll run down and take a look.”
He stalked out and I followed. As I was pulling the front door to, softly since it was a general’s door, I heard Fife at his phone asking for Colonel Tinkham.
There was delay down on the tenth floor, at the scene. In what had been the doorway to Colonel Ryder’s room from the hall stood a corporal with accouterments. The fact that he would have weighed over 200 even without the accouterments made it seem all the more formidable when he said no one could enter, including us. When Wolfe told me to go and get Fife and haul him down there, I stalled; and, as I expected, in a minute Colonel Tinkham arrived to tell the corporal it was okay, orders from General Fife. Then Tinkham joined our party by preceding us into the shambles. Wolfe asked him if anything had been taken out, and Tinkham said no, the police had given it a good going over but hadn’t been permitted to remove anything, and neither had anyone else.
It was still broad daylight in that corner room, with a nice breeze from the windows, since there was no glass left in them. As we looked things over, stepping to avoid chunks of plaster and similar obstructions, various details were worthy of note. By a freak of the blast, the partition to the hall was a wreck, but the one to the anteroom only had a couple of cracks. The door to the anteroom was standing open, and looked intact but a little cockeyed. Two of the chairs were nothing but splinters, four were battered and scarred, and Ryder’s own chair, against the wall back of his desk, didn’t have a mark. The desk top was smashed and pockmarked, as if someone had first dropped a two-ton weight on it and then used it for a target with a shotgun loaded with slugs. On it and all around that area were bloodstains, from single drops up to a big blob the size of a dishpan on the floor back of the desk. The remains of the suitcase and its contents, also on the floor, were over near the door to the anteroom, the contents strewn around, the suitcase twisted and riddled so that for a second I didn’t recognize it. Everywhere, in all directions, were little pieces of metal, as small as the head of a pin or as big as a thumbnail, black on one side and pink on the other. Anyone anywhere in that room when the thing exploded would have stopped at least a dozen of them — and they would have stopped him. I dropped a couple in my pocket to add to my collection in a drawer at home.
I also acquired another souvenir. A piece of folded paper in the jumble of the contents of the suitcase looked familiar. Wolfe and Tinkham were at the other side of the room. I stooped and snared the paper, saw at a glance that it was the anonymous letter to Shattuck that had started the morning’s conference, and slipped it into my inside breast pocket.
We were still poking around, observing and commenting, and Tinkham was still acting as chaperon, when I became aware that company had arrived next door. I stepped through to the anteroom. Sergeant Bruce was standing there, frowning at a tennis racket she held in her hand.
“Damaged?” I inquired brightly.
“No, sir.”
Nuts, I thought, this sir stuff is worse than a suit of armor. She put the racket into a fiber shipping carton that stood on the floor with its end flaps open, and moved around behind her desk. The place was thick with dust, and things were displaced, but nothing seemed to be hurt much.
“Can I help?”
“No, sir, thanks.”
Some day, I said to myself grimly, or rather to her but not audibly, matters will be so arranged that, whether you’re worth it or not, sir will be as far from your mind as—
“Archie!” It was a bellow.
“At ease,” I told her gruffly, and faded.
Wolfe and Tinkham were at the other end of the room, over by the corporal.
“Take me home,” Wolfe said.
There was never any dillydallying when Wolfe had decided to go home. The look on Tinkham’s face gave me the impression that he either had some questions he would like to ask, or that he had got no answers to some he had already asked, but all he did get was a request from Wolfe to inform General Fife that he would communicate with him in the morning.
There was a crowd down on the sidewalk, and a bigger one across the street. Any broken glass that had descended from the tenth floor two hours ago had been cleaned up. As we made our way through to where the car was parked, I heard a man tell a girl, “A big bomb exploded and killed eighty people and two generals.” That was a little surprising, but driving home, going up Varick Street, Wolfe said something that was much more so. From the back seat he told me plainly, “Go a little faster, Archie.” That flammed me. As I said, he never talked while undergoing the hazards of motorized movement, and him asking for more speed was about the same as a private asking for more K.P. Anyhow, I obliged.
He muttered under his breath, probably a prayer of thanks, as we stopped in front of the house, and then, as I opened my door and started to wriggle from behind the wheel, he spoke. “Don’t get out. You’re going somewhere.”
“Oh. I am.”
“Yes. Back downtown. General Fife said that place will be cleaned up tonight. They may start at any moment, and I want that suitcase. Get it and bring it here. Just the case. I don’t want the contents. Exactly as it is; don’t bend it or do any tampering with it.”
I had twisted around to glare at him. He had opened his door and was climbing out. “You mean,” I demanded, “Ryder’s suitcase?”
“I do.” He was on the sidewalk. “It’s important. Also it is doubly important that no one should see you taking it. Especially Lieutenant Lawson, Colonel Tinkham, General Fife, or Miss Bruce, but preferably no one.”
I seldom sputter, but I sputtered. “That suitcase — from under their noses — listen. Will you settle for the moon? Glad to get the moon for you. Do you realize—”
“Certainly I realize. It’s a difficult errand. I doubt if there is another man anywhere, in the Army or out, who could safely be entrusted with it.”
He sure wanted that suitcase, to be ladling it out like that.
“Bushwah,” I said, and opened my door and crawled out, and headed for the stoop.
He snapped after me. “Where are you going?”
“To get a receptacle!” I called over my shoulder. “Do you think I’m going to hang it around my neck?”
Three minutes later I was on my way back to Duncan Street, the rear seat occupied not by Wolfe but by a man-size suitcase that I had got from the closet in his room. I had one of my own just as big, but I wasn’t going to risk my personal property in addition to my career as a warrior. I was sorry I hadn’t read up more fully on the regulations about courts-martial. Not that I wasted the minutes en route being sorry. I used them to consider ways and means. My watch said 6:30, and at that hour of the day I couldn’t tell what I would be up against until I had executed a patrol. You never knew around there; anyone might be out or in; anyone might leave for the day any time between four and midnight. I had my mind started on about three and a half different plans, but by the time I got to Duncan Street I had decided that I couldn’t lay out a campaign until I had looked the ground over and done a reconnaissance on the enemy.