“All here.”
The two bunches of eminent visitors were putting on a first class exhibition of bad manners; neither had expected to see the other.
Cramer looked around at them, slowly from one face to another, and then looked at me with a gleam in his eyes.
Hombert was grumbling something to Perry.
Skinner turned and croaked at me,
“What kind of damn nonsense is this?”
I just shook my head at him, and then I heard the creak of the elevator, and a moment later the door of the office opened and Wolfe entered with another visitor whom none of them had expected to see.
They approached.
Wolfe stopped, and inclined his head.
“Good morning, gentlemen.
I believe some of you have met Lord Clivers.
Not you, Mr. Perry?
No.
Mr. Muir.
Mr. Skinner, our District Attorney.
I want to thank all of you for being so punctual….”
I was seeing a few things.
First, Clivers stood staring directly at Perry, reminding me of how Harlan Scovil had stared at him two days before, and Clivers had thrust his right hand into the side pocket of his coat and didn’t take it out.
Second, Perry was staring back, and his temples were moving and his eyes were small and hard.
Third, Inspector Cramer had put his weight forward in his chair and his feet back under him, but he was sitting too far away, the other side of Skinner, to get anywhere quick.
I swiveled and opened a drawer unostentatiously and got out my automatic and laid it on the desk at my elbow.
Hombert was starting to bellyache.
“I don’t know, Wolfe, what kind of a high-handed procedure you think—”
Wolfe, who had moved around the desk and into his chair, put up a palm at him.
“Please, Mr. Hombert.
I think it is always advisable to take a shortcut when it is feasible.
That’s why I requested a favor of Lord Clivers.”
He looked at Clivers.
“Be seated, sir.
And tell us, have you ever met Mr. Perry before?”
Clivers, with his hand still in his pocket, lowered himself into his chair, which was between Hombert and me, without taking his eyes off Perry.
“I have,” he said gruffly. “By gad, you were right.
He’s Coleman.
Rubber Coleman.” Perry just looked at him.
Wolfe asked softly,
“What about it, Mr. Perry?”
You could see from Perry’s chin that this teeth were damped.
His eyes went suddenly from Clivers to Wolfe and stayed there; then he looked at me, and I returned it.
His shoulders started going up, slowly up, high, as he took in a long breath, and then slowly they started down again. When they touched bottom he looked at Wolfe again and said,
“I’m not talking.
Not just now.
You go on.”
Wolfe nodded.
“I don’t blame you, sir.
It’s a lot to give up, to surrender that old secret.”
He glanced around the circle.
“You gentlemen may remember, from Miss Fox’s story last night, that Rubber Coleman was the man who led that little band of rescuers forty years ago.
That was Mr. Perry here.
But you do not yet know that on account of that obligation Lord Clivers, in the year 1906, twenty-nine years ago, paid Coleman—Mr. Perry—the sum or one million dollars.
Nor that this Coleman-Perry has never, to this day, distributed any of that sum as he agreed to do.”