4. On the floor between the two front legs of the washstand, a cylinder of metal with a “2” on it. It was Tingley’s paperweight.
5. Farther away, out beyond the edge of the screen, a woman’s snakeskin handbag. I had seen that before, too, when Amy Duncan called at Wolfe’s office.
Circling around the mess again, I picked up the handbag and stuffed it in my pocket, and took a look at the rest of the room. I didn’t touch anything, but someone else had. A drawer of the rolltop desk had been jerked out onto the floor. The door of the enormous old safe was standing wide open. Things on the shelves had been pulled off and scattered. Tingley’s felt hat was on the wall hook at the left of his desk, but his overcoat was in a heap on the floor.
I looked at my watch. It was 8:22. I would have liked to do a little more inspecting, but if Amy Duncan should come to and beat it...
She hadn’t. When I got back downstairs she was still there stretched out. I felt her pulse again, buttoned up her coat, made sure her hat was fastened on, and picked her up. I opened the door and got through without bumping her, navigated the steps, and crossed the sidewalk to the car, and stood there with her in my arms a moment, thinking the rain on her face might revive her. The next thing I knew I damn’ near needed reviving myself. Something socked me on the side of the jaw from behind.
I went down, not from compulsion but from choice, to get rid of my burden. When I bobbed up again I left Amy on the sidewalk and leaped aside as a figure hurled itself at me. When I side-stepped he lost balance, but recovered and tore at me again. I feinted with my left and he grabbed for it, and my right took him on the button.
He went down and didn’t bounce. I dashed back to the stone steps and closed the door, returned, and opened the rear door of the car and lifted Amy in, and wheeled as he regained his feet, started for me, and yelled for help and police, all at once. He obviously knew as much about physical combat as I did about pearl diving, so I turned him around and from behind locked his arms with my left one and choked his throat with my right, and barked into his ear, “One more squawk and out go the lights! You have one chance to live. Behave yourself and do what I tell you to.” I made sure he had no gun before I loosened the hook on his neck. He didn’t vocalize, so I released him. “Open that car door—”
I meant the front door, but before I could stop him he had the rear one open and most of himself inside and was bleating like a goat, “Amy! Good God, she’s — Amy—”
I reached in for a shoulder and yanked him out and banged the door and opened the front one. “She’s alive,” I said, “but you won’t be in five seconds. Get in there and fold yourself under the dash. I’m taking her to a doctor and you’re going along.”
He got in. I pushed him down and forward, disregarding his sputtering, wriggled back of him to the driver’s seat, pulled the door to, and started the car. In two minutes we were at 35th Street, and in another two we rolled to the curb in front of Wolfe’s house. I let him come up for air.
“The program,” I said, “is as follows: I’ll carry her, and you precede me up those steps to that door. If you cut and run I’ll drop her—”
He glared at me. His spirit was ’way ahead of his flesh. “I’m not going to cut and run—”
“Okay. Me out first.”
He helped me get her out and he wanted to carry her, but I shooed him on ahead through the rain and told him to push the button. When the door opened Wolfe, himself, stood there. At sight of the stranger his colossal frame blocked the way, but when he saw me he fell back and made room for us to enter.
The stranger began, “Are you a doc—?”
“Shut up!” I told him. I faced Wolfe, and observed that he was sustaining his reputation for being impervious to startlement. “I suppose you recognize Miss Duncan. She’s been hit on the head. If you will please phone Doc Vollmer? I’ll take her up to the south room.” I made for the elevator, and when the stranger tagged along I let him. In the south room, two flights up, we got her onto the bed and covered up.
The stranger was still standing by the bed staring down at her when Doc Vollmer arrived. After feeling her pulse and glancing under her eyelid, Doc said he thought it would be a long time till the funeral and we wouldn’t be needed for a while, so I told the stranger to come on. He left the room with me and kindly permitted me to close the door, but then announced that he was going to stay right there outside the door until the doctor had brought her to.
“You,” I said, “might as well learn to face facts. You know damn’ well I could throw you downstairs. If I do you’ll have to go to bed, too. March!”
He marched, but he sure hated it. I followed him down, and into the office. Wolfe was there at his desk, looking imperturbable, but when he saw us he started rubbing his chin, which meant he was boiling inside.
“Sit down,” I told the stranger. “This is Mr. Nero Wolfe. What’s your name?”
“None of your damned business!” he informed me. “This is the most outrageous—!”
“You bet it is. When you rushed me from behind, you must have come from inside the building. Didn’t you?”
“That’s none of your business, either!”
“You’re wrong, brother. But I’ll try again. Why did you kill Arthur Tingley?”
He gawked at me. “Are you crazy?”
“Not a bit. Stop me if you’ve heard it before. I went there to get Tingley and bring him here to see Mr. Wolfe. Amy Duncan was there on the stairs looking doubtful. She fell and I caught her, and left her on the hall floor while I went up to investigate. Tingley was on the floor of his office with his throat cut. After a brief inspection I returned to Amy and carried her out, and was putting her in the car when you attacked me from behind. You must have come from somewhere. Why not from inside the building? The idea appeals to me.”
The stranger had decided he could use a chair, and sank into one. “You say—” He swallowed. “Are you telling the truth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tingley — with his throat cut? Dead?”
“Very dead.” I turned to Wolfe: “He pretended to be going on the theory that I was kidnapping Amy. He’s all for Amy. I brought him along because I thought you might need him.”
Wolfe was glaring at me. “And why should I need him?”
“Well, he was there. He must have come out of that building. He probably murdered Tingley—”
“And what if he did?”
“Oh. So that’s how you feel about it.”
“It is. I am under no obligation to catch murderers indiscriminately. Phone the police. Tell them Miss Duncan and this gentleman are here and they can—”
“No!” the stranger blurted.
“No?” Wolfe lifted a brow at him. “Why not?”
“Because it’s — Good God! And Amy— You can’t—”
“Hold it,” I commanded him. “I’m doing this.” I grinned at Wolfe. “Okay, boss; I’ll call the cops. I merely thought you might like to chat with this bird first, since it seemed likely that whoever killed Tingley also put quinine in your food.”
“Ah,” Wolfe murmured. “That abominable—” He wiggled a finger at the victim. “Did you poison that liver pâté?”
“I did not.”
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Cliff. Leonard Cliff.”
“Indeed. You’re a vice-president of the Provisions & Beverages Corporation. Mr. Tingley, himself, suspected you of adulterating his product.”
“I know he did. He was wrong. So is this man wrong when he says I must have come out of that building. I wasn’t inside the building at all.”