The telephone rang.
From force of habit I wheeled again and stepped to my desk for it, though I saw that Wolfe had reached for his receiver.
So we both heard it, a voice that sounded far away but thin and tense with excitement.
“Nero Wolfe!
Nero—”
I snapped,
“Yes.
Talking.”
“I’ve got him!
Come up here … Fifty-fifth Street … Mike Walsh this is … I’ve got him covered … come up—”
It was cut off by the sound of a shot in the receiver—a sound of an explosion so loud in my ear that it might have been a young cannon.
Then there was nothing.
I said “Hello, Walsh!
Walsh!” a few times, but there was no answer.
I hung up and turned to Wolfe.
“Well, by Godfrey.
Did you hear anything?”
He nodded.
“I did. And I don’t understand it.”
“Indeed.
That’s a record.
What’s the program, hop up there?”
Wolfe’s eyes were shut, and his lips were moving out and in.
He stayed that way a minute.
I stood and watched him.
Finally he said,
“If Walsh shot someone, who was it?
But if someone shot him, why now?
Why not yesterday or a week ago?
In any case, you might as well go and learn what happened.
It may have been merely a steel girder crashing off its perch; there was enough noise.”
“No.
That was a gun.”
“Very well.
Find out.
If you—ah!
The doorbell.
Indeed. You might attend to that first.
Mr. Perry is punctual.”
As I entered the hall Saul Panzer came out of the kitchen, and I sent him back.
I turned on the stoop light and looked through the panel because it was getting to be a habit, and saw it was Perry.
I opened the door and he stepped inside and put his hat and gloves on the stand.
I followed him into the office.
Wolfe said,
“Good evening sir. I have reflected, Archie, that the less one meddles the less one becomes involved.
You might have Saul phone the hospital that there has been an accident. Oh. no, Mr. Perry, nothing serious, thank you.”
I went to the kitchen and told Saul Panzer:
“Go to Alien’s on Thirtyfourth Street and phone headquarters that you think you heard a shot inside the building construction on Fifty-fifth near Madison and they’d better investigate at once.
If they want to know who you are, tell them King George.
Make it snappy.”