“They’re good timekeepers too,” Huck, said, beaming.
Without being too vulgar I managed to get enough of a look to see that the presents were all wristwatches, apparently just alike, and if the red stones were Burma rubies Sylvia’s coo was no exaggeration. Paul Thayer, looking flabbergasted, poured rum into his glass and gulped it down. Mrs. O’Shea, her little box clasped tightly in her hand, hustled from the room, and in a moment I heard the faint hum of the elevator. Before long I heard it again, and the wide door of the room opened and Mrs. O’Shea reappeared, pushing the stainless steel portable oven on rubber tires; it was nearly as tall as she was, and much bigger around. Miss Marcy moved the bar away, and Mrs. O’Shea put the oven there, beside Huck’s chair.
“I’ll just serve the soup?” she suggested.
“Now you know,” Huck reproached her, “I’d rather do it myself.” He swung a shelf of the chair around to make a table, and reached to a rack attached to the oven for a napkin.
There was a general movement toward the door, and I joined it. In the hall Thayer and I were in the rear, and he muttered at me, “The damn old goat’s got a caliph complex. All three of ’em!”
Going to the stairs to descend, we passed within a few feet of the door to Lewent’s room. As far as I could tell, no one gave it a glance.
5
At ten minutes to eight, with the meal nearly over for the five of us at table, I said I didn’t care for coffee, which wasn’t true, excused myself on a pretext, and went up to the third floor, opened the door of Lewent’s room, and entered.
I had decided to discover the body. They had all been agreeable enough at dinner, except Thayer, who was sulking about something, but it was plain that they were humoring me only because Huck had said his brother-in-law must be humored. No one said or did anything that gave me the slightest feeling of a hunch, and as dessert was being served and I took them in — Thayer scowling, and Mrs. O’Shea cold and cocky, and Dorothy Riff smirking at her new wristwatch, and Sylvia Marcy smiling at me like a sympathetic nurse — I had a strong feeling that it would be gratifying to arrange, for each of them, a prolonged interview with a cop, especially a good Homicide man. Also I had to admit that I had got nowhere with my idea of investigating a murder without disclosing that there had been one.
But now, in the narrow passage with the door closed, looking down at the corpse, I was doubling up my fists and setting my jaw. I would never have claimed that I was such a holy terror as a sleuth that no one had better risk a misdemeanor within a mile of me, but someone in this house had certainly had one hell of a nerve to perform on Wolfe’s client like that with me wandering all over the premises. He looked pitiful there on the floor, and even smaller than when he was on his feet and breathing. I was more than willing for the performer to get tagged, the sooner the better, but not by a horde of city employees with me off in a corner being grilled by Lieutenant Rowcliff. On the other hand, at my rate of progress for the past two and a half hours, I would reach first base about a week from Tuesday.