I went to the phone and started dialing Watkins 9-8241. Doc Vollmer came out of his corner and went to get his black case from the floor and put it on a chair. Wolfe was pathetic. He moved around behind his desk and lowered himself into his own oversized custom-made number, the only spot on earth where he was ever completely comfortable, but there smack in front of him was the object on the floor, so after a moment he made a face, got back onto his feet, grunted like an outraged boar, went across to the other side of the room to the shelves, and inspected the backbones of books.
But even that pitiful diversion got interrupted. As I finished with my phone call and hung up, sudden sounds of commotion came from the hall. Dashing across, getting fingernails on the edge of the door and pulling it open, and passing through, I saw trouble. A group was gathered in the open doorway of the dining room, which was across the hall. Saul Panzer went bounding past me toward the front. At the front door Colonel Percy Brown was stiff-arming Fritz Brenner with one hand and reaching for the doorknob with the other. Fritz, who is chef and housekeeper, is not supposed to double in acrobatics, but he did fine. Dropping to the floor, he grabbed the colonel’s ankles and jerked his feet out from under him. Then I was there, and Saul with his gun out; and there with us was the guest with the mop of black hair.
“You damn fool,” I told the colonel as he sat up. “If you’d got outdoors Saul would have winged you.”
“Guilt,” said the black-haired guest emphatically. “The compression got unbearable and he exploded. I was watching him. I’m a psychiatrist.”
“Good for you.” I took his elbow and turned him. “Go back in and watch all of ’em. With that wall mirror you can include yourself.”
“This is illegal,” stated Colonel Brown, who had scrambled to his feet and was short of breath.
Saul herded them to the rear. Fritz got hold of my sleeve. “Archie, I’ve got to ask Mr. Wolfe about dinner.”
“Nuts,” I said savagely. “By dinnertime this place will be more crowded than it was this afternoon. Company is coming, sent by the city. It’s a good thing we have a cloakroom ready.”
“But he has to eat; you know that. I should have the ducks in the oven now. If I have to stay here at the door and attack people as they try to leave, what will he eat?”
“Nuts,” I said. I patted him on the shoulder. “Excuse my manners, Fritz, I’m upset. I’ve just strangled a young woman.”