I looked through the panel.
It was a rugged-looking guy well past middle age in a loose-hanging tweed suit, with a red face, straight eyebrows over tired gray eyes, and no lobe on his right ear.
Even without the ear I would have recognized him from the Times picture.
I opened the door and asked him, what he wanted and he said in a wounded tone,
“I’d like to see Mr. Nero Wolfe.
Lord Clivers.”
Chapter 13
I nodded.
“Right.
Hop the sill.”
I proceeded to tax the brain.
Before I go on to describe that, I’ll make a confession.
I had not till that moment seriously entertained the idea that the Marquis of Clivers had killed Harlan Scovil.
And why not?
Because like most other people, and maybe especially Americans, there was a sneaky feeling in me that men with noble titles didn’t do things like that.
Besides, this bird had just been to Washington and had lunch at the White House, which cinched it that he wasn’t a murderer.
As a matter of fact, I suspect that noblemen and people who eat lunch at the White House commit more than their share of murders compared to their numerical strength in the total population.
Anyhow, looking at this one in the Sesh, and reflecting that he carried a pistol and knew how to use one, and considering how well he was fixed in the way of motive, and realizing that since Harlan Scoyil had been suspicious enough to make an advance call on Nero Wolfe he might easily have done the same on the Marquis of Clivers, I revised some of the opinions I had been forming.
It looked wide open to me.
That flashed through my mind.
Also, as I disposed of his hat and stick and gloves for him, I wondered if it might be well to arrange a little confrontation between Muir and the marquis, but I didn’t like to decide that myself.
So I escorted him to a seat in the front room, telling him Wolfe was engaged, and then returned to the hall and wrote on a piece of paper,
“Old man Clivers,” and went to the office and handed the paper to Wolfe.
Wolfe glanced at it, looked at me, and winked his right eye.
I sat down.
Muir was talking, much calmer but just as stubborn.
They passed it back and forth for a couple of minutes without getting anywhere, until Wolfe said,
“Futile, Mr. Muir.
I won’t do it.
Tell Mr. Perry that I shall proceed with the program I announced to him this morning.
That’s final.
I’ll accept nothing less than complete and unconditional exoneration of my client.
Good day, sir. I have a caller waiting.”
Muir stood up.
He wasn’t trembling, and his jaw seemed to be back in place, but he looked about as friendly as Mussolini talking to the world.
He didn’t say anything.
He shot me a mean glance and looked at Wolfe for half a minute without blinking, and then stooped to pick up his hat and straightened up and steered for the door.
I followed and let him out, and stood on the stoop a second watching him start off down the sidewalk as if he had half a jag on.
He was like the mule in the story that kept running into trees; he wasn’t blind, he was just so mad he didn’t give a damn.
I stood shaking my head more in anger than in pity, and then went back to the office and said to Wolfe,
“I would say you hit bottom that time.
He’s staggering.
If you called that foxy, what would you say if you saw a rat?”
Wolfe nodded faintly.
I resumed,
“I showed you that paper because I thought you might deem it advisable to let Clivers and Muir see each other.
Unexpected like that, it might have been interesting.
It’s my social instinct.”
“No doubt.
But this is a detective bureau, not a fashionable salon.