Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 by Over My Dead Body

irritably but mildly, “I don’t see why the devil you resent my client. She seems to be wrapped in a mantle of innocence from head to foot.”
    “Sure, it’s simply beautiful.” Cramer abruptly got up. “But … there’s a couple of little things. So far as is known, she and no one else was in that room with him, and for the purpose of lunging at him with anépée. Then the alibi Faber gives her is one of those neat babies that could be 99 per cent true and still be a phony. All you’d have to subtract would be the part about his seeing and speaking with Ludlow as Miss Tormic left the end room. I don’t claim to know any reason why Faber—”
    The interruption was the entrance of Fritz. Inside the door a pace he halted to get a nod from Wolfe, and then advanced to the desk and extended the card tray. Wolfe took the card, glanced at it, and elevated his brows.
    He told Fritz to stand by, and looked up at Cramer, who was standing, speculatively.
    “You know,” he said, “since you’re leaving anyway, I could easily finesse around you by having this caller shown into the front room until you’re gone. But I really do like to cooperate when I can. One of your ten inmates up there has got loose. Unless they’ve let him go in order to follow him, which I believe is a usual tactic.”
    “Which one?”
    Wolfe glanced at the card again. “Mr. Rudolph Faber.”
    “You don’t say.” Cramer stared at Wolfe’s face for seven seconds. “This is a hell of a time of night for a complete stranger to be making an unexpected call.”
    “It certainly is. Show him in, please, Fritz.”
    Cramer turned to face the door.
    I chalked up one for the chinless wonder. He may have been shy on chin, but his nerve was okay. While there may have been no reason why the unlooked-for sight of Inspector Cramer’s visage should have paralyzed him with terror, it must have been at least quite a surprise, but he did no shrinking or blanching. He merely halted in a manner that should have made hisheels click but didn’t, lifted a brow, and then marched on.
    Cramer grunted something at him, grunted a good night to Wolfe and me, and tramped out. I got up to greet the newcomer, leaving the front hall politeness to Fritz. Wolfe submitted to a handshake and motioned the caller to the chair that was still warm from Cramer. Faber thanked him and blinked at him, and then turned on me and demanded:
    “How did you get away up there? Bribe the cop?”
    I could have told, just looking at him, that that was the tone he would use asking a question. A tone that took it for granted any question he asked was going to be answered just because he asked it. I don’t like it and I know of no way anybody is ever going to make me like it.
    I said, “Write me special delivery and I’ll refer the matter to my secretary’s secretary.”
    His forehead wrinkled in displeasure. “Now, my man—”
    “Not on your life. Not your man. I belong to me. This is the United States of America. I’m Nero Wolfe’s employee, bodyguard, office manager, and wage slave, but I can quit any minute. I’m my own man. I don’t know in what part of the world the door is that your key fits, but—”
    “That will do, Archie.” Wolfe said that without bothering to glance at me; his eyes were on the caller. “Apparently, Mr. Faber, Mr. Goodwin doesn’t like you. Let’s disregard that. What can I do for you?”
    “You can first,” said Faber in his perfect precise English, “instruct your subordinate to answer questions that are put to him.”
    “I suppose I can. I’ll try it some time. What else can I do for you?”
    “There is no discipline in your country, Mr. Wolfe.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There are various kinds of discipline. One man’s flower is another man’s weed. We submit to traffic cops and the sanitary code and so on, but we are extremely fond of certain liberties. Surely you didn’t come here in order to discipline Mr. Goodwin? Don’t try it;