I made my way around to him. When I got there he was holding the pot so that the flowers were only a few inches from his eyes.
“Nice flower,” I said brightly.
He nodded. “What color do you call the sepals?”
“Nankeen yellow.”
He leaned to put the pot back, still choking it. I swiveled my head. The only people in sight, beyond the glass partition between us and the cool room, were Nero Wolfe and a small group of guests, among whom were the Orwin trio and Bill McNab, the garden editor of the Gazette. As I turned my head back to my man he straightened up, pivoted on his heel, and marched off without a word. Whatever else he might or might not have been guilty of, he certainly had bad manners.
I followed him, on into the warm room and through, out to the landing, and down the three flights of stairs. Along the main hall I was courteous enough not to step on his heel, but a lengthened stride would have reached it. The hall was next to empty. A woman, ready for the street in a caracul coat, was standing there, and Saul Panzer was posted near the front door with nothing to do. I followed my man on into the front room, the cloakroom, where Fritz Brenner was helping a guest on with his coat. Of course the racks were practically bare, and with one glance my man saw his property and went to get it. His coat was a brown tweed that had been through a lot more than one winter. I stepped forward to help, but he ignored me without even bothering to shake his head. I was beginning to feel hurt. When he emerged to the hall I was beside him, and as he moved to the front door I spoke.
“Excuse me, but we’re checking guests out as well as in. Your name, please?”
“Ridiculous,” he said curtly, and reached for the knob, pulled the door open, and crossed the sill. Saul, knowing I must have had a reason for wanting to check him out, was at my elbow, and we stood watching his back as he descended the seven steps of the stoop.
“Tail?” Saul muttered at me.
I shook my head and was parting my lips to mutter something back, when a sound came from behind us that made us both whirl around — a screech from a woman, not loud but full of feeling. As we whirled, Fritz and the guest he had been serving came out of the front room, and all four of us saw the woman in the caracul coat come running out of the office into the hall. She kept coming, gasping something, and the guest, making a noise like an alarmed male, moved to meet her. I moved faster, needing about eight jumps to the office door and two inside. There I stopped.
Of course I knew the thing on the floor was Cynthia, but only because I had left her in there in those clothes. With the face blue and contorted, the tongue halfway out, and the eyes popping, it could have been almost anybody. I knelt and slipped my hand inside her dress front, kept it there ten seconds, and felt nothing.
Saul’s voice came from behind. “I’m here.”
I got up and went to the phone on my desk and started dialing, telling Saul, “No one leaves. We’ll keep what we’ve got. Have the door open for Doc Vollmer.” After only two whirs the nurse answered, and put Vollmer on, and I snapped it at him. “Doc, Archie Goodwin. Come on the run. Strangled woman. Yeah, strangled.”
I pushed the phone back, reached for the house phone and buzzed the plant rooms, and after a wait had Wolfe’s irritated bark in my ear. “Yes?”
“I’m in the office. You’d better come down. That prospective client I mentioned is here on the floor, strangled. I think she’s gone, but I’ve sent for Vollmer.”
“Is this flummery?” he roared.
“No, sir. Come down and look at her and then ask me.”
The connection went. He had slammed it down. I got a sheet of thin tissue paper from a drawer, tore off a corner, and went and placed it carefully over Cynthia’s mouth and nostrils. In ten seconds it hadn’t stirred.
Voices had been sounding from the hall. Now one of them entered the office. Its owner was the guest who had been in the cloakroom with Fritz when the screech came. He was a chunky broad-shouldered guy with sharp domineering dark eyes and arms like a gorilla’s. His voice was going strong as he started toward me from the door, but it stopped when he had come far enough to get a good look at the object on the floor.
“My God,” he said huskily.
“Yes, sir,” I agreed.
“How did it happen?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know.”
He made his eyes come away from it and up until they met mine, and I gave him an A for control. It really was a sight.
“The man at the door won’t let us leave,” he stated.
“No, sir. You can see why.”
“I certainly can.” His eyes stayed with me, however. “But we know nothing about it. My name is Carlisle, Homer N. Carlisle. I am the executive vice-president of the North American Foods Company. My wife was merely acting under impulse; she wanted to see the office of Nero Wolfe, and she opened the door and entered. She’s sorry she did, and so am I. We have an appointment, and there’s no reason why we should be detained.”
“I’m sorry too,” I told him. “But one thing, if nothing else — your wife discovered the body. We’re stuck worse than you are, with a corpse here in our office, and we haven’t even got a wife who had an impulse. We got it for nothing. So I guess— Hello, Doc.”
Vollmer, entering and nodding at me on the fly, was panting a little as he set his black case on the floor and knelt beside it. His house was down the street and he had had only two hundred yards to trot, but he was taking on weight. As he opened the case and got out the stethoscope, Homer Carlisle stood and watched with his lips pressed tight, and I did likewise until I heard the sound of Wolfe’s elevator. Crossing to the door and into the hall, I surveyed the terrain. Toward the front Saul and Fritz were calming down the woman in the caracul coat, now Mrs. Carlisle to me. Nero Wolfe and Mrs. Mimi Orwin were emerging from the elevator. Four guests were coming down the stairs: Gene Orwin, Colonel Percy Brown, Bill McNab, and a middle-aged male with a mop of black hair.
I stayed by the office door to block the quartet on the stairs. As Wolfe headed for me, Mrs. Carlisle darted to him and grabbed his arm. “I only wanted to see your office! I want to go! I’m not—”
As she pulled at him and sputtered, I noted a detail. The caracul coat was unfastened, and the ends of a silk scarf, figured and gaily colored, were flying loose. Since at least half of the female guests had sported scarfs, I mention it only to be honest and admit that I had got touchy on that subject.
Wolfe, who had already been too close to too many women that day to suit him, tried to jerk away, but she hung on. She was the big-boned flat-chested athletic type, and it could have been quite a tussle, with him weighing twice as much as her and four times as big around, if Saul hadn’t rescued him by coming in between and prying her loose. That didn’t stop her tongue, but Wolfe ignored it and came on toward me.
“Has Dr. Vollmer come?”
“Yes, sir.”
The executive vice-president emerged from the office, talking. “Mr. Wolfe, my name is Homer N. Carlisle and I insist—”
“Shut up,” Wolfe growled. On the sill of the door to the office, he faced the audience. “Flower lovers,” he said with bitter scorn. “You told me, Mr. McNab, a distinguished group of sincere and devoted gardeners. Pfui! Saul!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you armed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put them all in the dining room and keep them there. Let no one touch anything around this door, especially the knob. Archie, come with me.”