Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe by Three at Wolfe's Door

around Zoltan’s feet and Purley’s bulk to get to Carol, and turning to stand looking down at her.
    â€œOn account of what Mr. Wolfe said,” he told her. “He said you injured me, and that is true. It is also true that I wanted him to find you. I can’t speak for Felix, and you tried to kill Zoltan and I can’t speak for him, but I can speak for myself. I forgive you.”
    â€œYou lie,” Carol said.

Method Three
for Murder
I
    When I first set eyes on Mira Holt, as I opened the front door and she was coming up the seven steps to the stoop, she was a problem, though only a minor one compared to what followed.
    At the moment I was unemployed. During the years I have worked for Nero Wolfe and lived under his roof, I have quit and been fired about the same number of times, say thirty or forty. Mostly we have been merely letting off steam, but sometimes we have meant it, more or less, and that Monday evening in September I was really fed up. The main dish at dinner had been pork stewed in beer, which both Wolfe and Fritz know I can get along without, and we had left the dining room and crossed the hall to the office, and Fritz had brought coffee and Wolfe had poured it, and I had said, “By the way, I told Anderson I’d phone and confirm his appointment for tomorrow morning.”
    And Wolfe had said, “No. Cancel it.” He picked up the book he was on, John Gunther’s
Inside Russia Today.
    I sat in my working chair and looked across his deskat him. Since he weighs a seventh of a ton he always looks big, but when he’s being obnoxious he looks even bigger. “Do you suppose it’s possible,” I asked, “that that pork has a bloating effect?”
    â€œNo indeed,” he said, and opened the book.
    If I had been a camel and the book had been a straw you could have heard my spine crack. He knew darned well he shouldn’t have opened it until we had finished with coffee. I put my cup down. “I am aware,” I said, “that you are sitting pretty. The bank balance is fat enough for months of paying Fritz and Theodore and me, and buying pork and beer in car lots, and adding more orchids to the ten thousand you’ve already got. I’ll even grant that a private detective has a right to refuse to take a case with or without a reason. But as I told you before dinner, this Anderson is known to me, and he asked me as a personal favor to get him fifteen minutes with you, and I told him to come at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. If you’re determined not to work because your tax bracket is already too high, okay, all you have to do is tell him no. He’ll be here at eleven.”
    He was holding the book open and his eyes were on it, but he spoke. “You know quite well, Archie, that I must be consulted on appointments. Did you owe this man a favor?”
    â€œI do now that he asked for one and I said yes.”
    â€œDid you owe him one before?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen you are committed but I am not. Since I wouldn’t take the job it would waste his time and mine. Phone him not to come. Tell him I have other engagements.”
    So I quit. I admit that on some other occasions my quitting had been merely a threat, to jolt him into seeingreason, but not that time. When a mule plants its feet a certain way there’s no use trying to budge it. I swiveled, got my memo pad, wrote on it, yanked the sheet off, got up and crossed to his desk, and handed him the sheet.
    â€œThat’s Anderson’s number,” I told him. “If you’re too busy to phone him not to come, Fritz can. I’m through. I’ll stay with friends tonight and come tomorrow for my stuff.”
    His eyes had left the book to glare at me. “Pfui,” he said.
    â€œI agree,” I said. “Absolutely.” I turned and marched out. I do not say that as I got my hat from the rack in the hall my course was clearly mapped for