3. “I beg your pardon.” That was for a yawn.
She neither spoke to me nor looked at me. Jensen was about as bad. I don’t remember any two hours in my experience with a lower score on joviality.
So I appreciated the break in the monotony when, a little before nine, I heard the doorbell. Since the door from the front room to the hall was also soundproof, that was all I got out of it except for the faint vibration of footsteps and an even fainter sound of voices. But in about three minutes the door to the hall opened and Fritz came in. He shut the door behind him and spoke, not very loud.
“Archie, Mr. Wolfe wants you in the office. Inspector Cramer is there with Sergeant Stebbins. I am to stay here.”
He held out his hand for the gun. I gave it to him and went.
If the situation in the front room had been unjovial, the one in the office was absolutely grim. One glance at Wolfe was enough to see that he was in a state of uncontrollable fury, because his forefinger was making the same circle, over and over, on the surface of his desk. Sergeant Purley Stebbins was standing by the wall, looking official. Inspector Cramer was in the red leather chair, with his face about the color of the chair. Nobody bothered to glance at me.
Wolfe snapped, “Your notebook.”
I crossed to my desk and got book and pencil and sat down. “This,” I observed, “Is what comes of my not attending to the doorbell. If we didn’t want company—”
“Pfui.” Wolfe tapped a piece of paper on his desk. “Look at this.”
I arose and looked. It was a search warrant. “The premises... owned and inhabited by said Nero Wolfe... situate...”