Not Quite Dead Enough (The Rex Stout Library)

“Allow me,” I said, getting between him and the door. I inserted the key and turned it.

“Oh.” He was peering at me in the dim light. “Major Goodwin. I’m seeing Mr. Wolfe.”

“Does he know it?”

“Yes-I phoned him-”

“Okay.” I let him in and closed the door. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

Wolfe’s bellow came rolling through the open door to the office. “Archie! Bring him in!”

“Follow the sound waves,” I told Shattuck. Which he did. I entered after him and crossed to my desk.

“You made a quick trip, sir,” Wolfe rumbled. “Sit down. That chair’s the best.”

Shattuck, in dinner clothes with his tie off center and a spot of something on his shirt front, looked a little blowsy. He opened his mouth, then glanced at me and shut it, looked at Wolfe and opened it again.

“General Fife phoned me about Colonel Ryder. I was at that dinner and had to make a speech. I got away as soon as I could and phoned you.” He glanced at me again. “If you’ll excuse me, Major Goodwin, I think it would be better-”

I had crossed to my desk promptly and sat down because I was fully expecting Wolfe to shoo me out, and I wanted to register my opinion of his attitude in advance. But Shattuck put another face on it. He didn’t merely suggest chasing me out, which Wolfe would have resented on principle, he tried to chase me himself without consulting Wolfe at all, which was intolerable.

“Major Goodwin,” Wolfe told him, “is assigned here officially, serving me in a confidential capacity. Why, are you going to tell me something you don’t want the Army to know?”

“Certainly not.” Shattuck bristled. “I don’t know anything I wouldn’t want the Army to know.”

“You don’t?” Wolfe’s brows went up. “Good heavens, I do. There are hundreds of things I wouldn’t want anyone to know. You can’t have as clean a slate as that, Mr. Shattuck, surely. But you want to tell me something about Colonel Ryder?”

“Not tell you. Ask you. Fife told me you were investigating and would report to him tomorrow. Have you got anywhere?”

“Well-some facts appear to be established. You remember that grenade, that pink thing, Colonel Ryder put in his desk drawer this morning-delivered to him by Major Goodwin. It exploded and killed Colonel Ryder. He must have removed it from the drawer, because there is evidence that it was on the desk top, or above it when it exploded. Also there are fragments of it all over the room.”