I took a step toward him — that was involuntary — then wheeled and went and closed the door to the hall, and returned. At a glance, from the description Caroline had given me, it was Sidney Karnow. He was dressed, but without a jacket or tie. I squatted and slipped a hand inside his shirt and held my breath; nothing doing. I picked a few fibers from the rug and put them over his nostrils; they didn’t move. I got the lashes of his right eye between finger and thumb and pulled the lid partly down; it came stiffly and didn’t want to go back. I lifted his hand and pressed hard on the fingernail, and then removed the pressure; it stayed white. Actually I was overdoing it, because the temperature of the skin of his chest had been enough.
I stood up and looked down at him. It was unquestionably Karnow. I looked at my wristwatch and saw 7:22. Through the open door beyond him I could see the glitter of bathroom tiles and fittings, and, detouring around his outstretched arm, I went and squatted again for a close-up of two objects on the floor. One was a GI sidearm, a.45. I didn’t touch it. The other was a big wad of bathtowels, and I touched it enough to learn, from a scorched hole and powder black, that it had been used to muffle the gun. I had seen no sign on the body of a bullet’s entrance or exit, and to find it I would have had to turn him over, and what did it matter? I got erect and shut my eyes to think. It is my habit, long established, when I open doors where I haven’t been invited, to avoid touching the knob with my fingertips. Had I followed it this time? I decided yes. Also, had I flipped the light switch with my knuckle? Again yes. Had I made prints anywhere else? No.
I crossed to the switch and used my knuckle again, got out my handkerchief to open the door and pull it shut after me, took an elevator down to the lobby floor, found a phone booth and dialed a number. The voice that answered belonged to Fritz. I told him I wanted Wolfe.
He was shocked. “But Archie, he’s at dinner!”
“Yeah, I know. Tell him I’ve been trapped by cannibals and they’re slicing me, and step on it.”
It was a full two minutes before Wolfe’s outraged voice came. “Well, Archie?”
“No, sir. Not well. I’m calling from a booth in the Churchill lobby. I left the clients in the bar, went up to Karnow’s room, found the door unlocked, and entered. Karnow was on the floor, dead, shot with an army gun. The gun’s there, but it wasn’t suicide, the gun was muffled with a wad of towels. How do I earn that five grand now?”
“Confound it, in the middle of a meal.”
If you think that was put on, you’re wrong. I know that damn fat genius. That was how he felt, and he said it, that’s all.
I ignored it. “I left nothing in the room,” I told him, “and I had no audience, so we’re fancy free. I know it’s hard to talk with your mouth full, but—”