I thought it better-ah!
Get it, Archie.”
It was the phone.
I swiveled and took it, and found myself exchanging greetings with Mr. Panzer.
I told Wolfe,
“Saul.”
He nodded, and got brisk.
“Give Mr. Skinner your chair.
If you would please take that receiver, Mr. Skinner? I want you to hear something.
And you, Mr. Cramer, take mine—here—the cord isn’t long enough, I’m afraid you’ll have to stand.
Kindly keep the receiver fairly snug on your ear.
Now, Mr. Skinner, speak into the transmitter,
‘Ready.’
That one word will be enough.”
Skinner, at my phone, croaked,
“Ready.”
The next development was funny.
He gave a jump, and turned to glare at Wolfe, while Cramer, at Wolfe’s phone, jerked a little too, and yelled into the transmitter, “HeyS Hey, you!”
Wolfe said,
“Hang up, gentlemen, and be seated. Mr. Skinner, please!
That demonstration was really necessary.
What you heard was Saul Panzer in a telephone booth at the druggist’s on the next comer.
There, of course, the instrument is attached to the wall.
What he did was this.”
Wolfe reached into his pocket and took out a big rubber band.
He removed the receiver from his French phone, looped the band over the transmitter end, stretched it out, and let it Sip.
He replaced the receiver.
“That’s all,” he announced. “That was the shot Mr. Goodwin and I heard over the telephone.
The band must be three-quarters of an inch wide, and thick, as I learned from experiments this morning– On this instrument, of course, it is nothing; but on the transmitter of a pay-station phone, with the impact and jar and vibration simultaneous, the effect is startling. Didn’t you find it so, Mr. Skinner?”
“I’ll be damned,” Cramer muttered. “I will be damned.”
Skinner said,
“It’s amazing.
I’d have sworn it was a gun.”
“Yes.” Wolfe’s eyes, half shut, were on Perry. “I must congratulate you, sir.
Not only efficient, but appropriate.
Rubber Coleman.
The Rubber Band.
I fancy that was how the idea happened to occur to you.
Most ingenious, and ludicrously simple.
I wish you would tell us what old friend or employee you got to help you try it out, for surely you took that precaution.
It would save Mr. Cramer a lot of trouble.”
Wolfe was over one hurdle, anyway.
He had Skinner and Hombert and Cramer with him, sewed up.
When he had begun talking they had kept their eyes mostly on him, with only occasional glances at Perry; then, as he had uncovered one point after another, they had” gradually looked more at Perry; and by now, while still listening to Wolfe, they weren’t bothering to look at him much. Their gaze was on Perry, and stayed there, and, for that matter, so was mine and Muir’s and Clivers’.
Perry was obviously expecting too much of himself.
He had waited too long for a convenient spot to open up with indignation or defiance or a counter-attack, and no doubt Wolfe’s little act with the rubber band had been a complete surprise to him.
He was by no means ready to break down and have a good cry, because he wasn’t that kind of a dog, but you could see he was stretched too tight.
Just as none of us could take our eyes off him, he couldn’t take his off Wolfe.
From where I sat I could see his temples moving, plain.
He didn’t say anything.