“Here,” I said, “I’ve got a—”
He hauled off and swung with his bare fist, getting his plug out of his system, though not on Durkin. Grabbing an edge of the hole his fist had made, he yanked, and half the panel came. He looked inside and started to stick his hand in, but I shouldered him good and hard and sent him sideways. The others were there, three of them, surrounding me. “We don’t touch it, huh?” I instructed them, and bent down for a look in the radio, and there it was, lodged between a pair of tubes.
“Well?” Wolfe called as I straightened up.
“A good fat roll,” I told him and the world. “The one on the outside is a C. Do you—”
Beaky Durkin, left to himself on the table, suddenly moved fast. He was on his feet and streaking for the door. Joe Eston, who had claimed it was a moral issue, leaped for him as if he had been a blazing line drive trying to get by, got to him in two bounds, and landed with his right. Durkin went down all the way, slamming the floor with his head, and lay still.
“That will do,” Wolfe said, as one who had earned the right to command. “Thank you, gentlemen. I needed help. Archie, get Mr. Hennessy.”
I went to Kinney’s desk and reached for the phone. At the instant my fingers touched it, it rang. So instead of dialing I lifted it and, feeling cocky, told it, “Nero Wolfe’s uptown office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
“That you, Goodwin?”
I said yes.
“This is Inspector Hennessy. Is Durkin there?”