Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

I buzzed the plant room extension, got Wolfe, was told by him to listen in, and did so. It was nothing new. All Fife would say on the phone was that he must have a talk with Wolfe, together with Tinkham and Lawson and me, without delay. Wolfe finally said he’d go. When he came downstairs ten minutes later, I told him, on the way out to the car, “One item you may want, in case you’ve got it entered that it was something that was said this morning that made Ryder decide to go to Washington to see Carpenter. He already had his suitcase there packed.”

“I saw it. Confound the blasted Germans. Don’t let it give that jerk when you start. I’m in no humor for pleasantries.”

We were in the lobby at 17 Duncan Street at 3:55, a few minutes ahead of time. Absent-mindedly, from force of habit, I said “ten” to the elevator man, and it wasn’t until after we had got out at the tenth that I woke up. Fife’s office was on the eleventh. Wolfe was starting the usual rigmarole with the corporal. I said, “Hey, our mistake. We’re on the-”

I never finished, because it came at that instant. The noise wasn’t loud, certainly it wasn’t deafening, but there was something about it that hit you in the spine. Or maybe it wasn’t the noise, but the shaking of the building. Everybody agreed later that the building shook. I doubt it. Maybe it was something that happened to the air. Anyhow, for a second everything inside of me stopped working, and, judging from the look on the corporal’s face, him ditto. Then we both stared in all directions. But Wolfe had already started for the door leading to the inner corridor, barking at me, “It’s that thing. Didn’t I tell you?”

I beat him to the door with a skip and a jump, and closed it when we were through. In the corridor people, mostly in uniform, were looking out of doors, and popping out. Some were headed for the far end of the corridor, a couple of them running. Voices came from up ahead, and a curtain of smoke or dust, or both, came drifting toward us, pushing a sour sharp smell in front of it. We went on into it, to the end, and turned right.