Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 25 by Before Midnight

Mr. Heery. Your interest is as deeply engaged astheirs, and as you say, the money they pay me will have come from you. At a minimum you have a claim to get my reports firsthand. Do you want me to phone them for authority to give them to you? That shouldn’t be an intolerable strain on the thread of your relations. I shall tell them that it seems to me your desire is natural and proper.”
    “It would be something,” Heery said grudgingly.
    “Shall I proceed?”
    “Yes.”
    The phone rang. I answered it, exchanged some words with the caller, asked him to hold on, and turned to tell Wolfe that Rudolph Hansen wished to speak to him. He reached for his instrument, changed his mind, left his chair, and made for the door. As he rounded the corner of his desk he pushed air down with his palm, which meant that I was to hang up when he was on—presumably to leave me free to chat with the company. A faint squeak that came via the hall reminded me that I had forgotten to oil the kitchen door. When I heard Wolfe’s voice in my ear I cradled the phone.
    Heery and I didn’t chat. He looked preoccupied, and I didn’t want to take his mind off his troubles. We passed some minutes in silent partnership before Wolfe returned, crossed to his chair, and sat.
    He addressed Heery. “Mr. Hansen was with Mr. Buff, Mr. O’Garro, and Mr. Assa. They wanted my report and I gave it to them. They have no objection to my reporting to you freely, at any time.”
    “That’s damned sweet of them,” Heery said, not appreciatively. “Did
they
have anything to report?”
    “Nothing of any consequence.”
    “Then I’m back where I started. Have you got anywhere?”
    “Now I can answer you. No.”
    “Why not?”
    Wolfe stirred. “Mr. Heery. I tell you precisely what I told Mr. Hansen. If my talks with the contestants had led me to any conclusions, I might be ready to disclose them and I might not, but I have formed no conclusions. Conjectures, if I have any, are not fit matter for a report unless I need help in testing them, and I don’t. You interrupted the digestion not only of my dinner, but also of the information and impressions I have gathered in a long and laborious day. Those four men wanted to come here. I told them either to let me alone until I have something worth discussing or hire somebody else.”
    “But there’s no time! What do you do next?”
    It took another five minutes to get rid of him, but finally he went. After escorting him to the door I went back to my desk, got at the typewriter, and resumed where I had left off on my notes of the Frazee interview. They should all be done before I went to bed, and it was after ten o’clock, so I hammered away. There were one or two remarks I had for Wolfe, and several questions I wanted to ask, but I was too busy, and besides, he was deep in a book. When I returned after seeing Heery out he had already been to the bookshelves and was back at his desk, with
Beauty for Ashes
, by Christopher La Farge, opened to his place, and the wall light turned on. That may not be the way you go about settling down to work on a hard job with a close deadline, but you’re not a genius.
    I had finished Frazee and was well along with Wheelock when the doorbell rang. As I started for the hall I offered five to one that it was LBA and their lawyer, disregarding Wolfe’s demand to be let alone, but I was wrong. When I flipped the switch of thestoop light, one glance through the panel was enough. Stepping back into the office, I told Wolfe:
    “Too bad to disturb you—”
    “No one,” he growled. “No one on earth.”
    “Okay. It’s Cramer.”
    He lowered the book, with his lips tightened. Slowly and neatly, he dog-eared a page and closed the book on the desk. “Very well,” he said grimly. “Let him in.”
    The doorbell rang again.

 Chapter 10 
    W olfe and Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide West have never actually come to blows, though there have been times when Cramer’s big red