The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"I'd know more about you if you danced with me. I don't mean about the possibility that you're playing with the FBI. If they had you, right here in the house, they wouldn't be dogging her and the whole family. The only reason I-"

The client showed at the door. I hadn't heard her footsteps. That was bad. Miss Dacos was attractive, but not enough to keep me from hearing footsteps, even though I was talking. That could only mean that my opinion of the job wouldn't let me get fully on it, all of me, and that wouldn't do. As I went and followed the client to the front my jaw was set. The man in black opened the door, and I got the vestibule door, and we were out in the January wind. We headed east, toward Park Avenue, and stopped at the corner.

"We can talk better standing," I said. "First, our getting you in a hurry if we have to. There's absolutely no telling what's going to happen. It's even possible that Mr Wolfe and I will have to leave his house and hole up somewhere. If you get a message, by phone or otherwise, no matter how, that the pizza is sour, go at once to the Churchill Hotel and find a man named William Coffey. He's a house dick there-an assistant security officer. You can do that openly. He'll have something for you, either to tell you or give you. Pizza is sour. Churchill Hotel, William Coffey. Remember it. Don't write it down."

"I won't." She was frowning. "I suppose you're sure you can trust him?"

"Yes. If you knew Mr Wolfe better, and me, you wouldn't ask that. Have you got it?"

"Yes." She pulled the collar of her coat, not the sable, something else, closer.

"Okay. Now your getting us if you have to, for something not to be spilled. Go to a phone booth and ring Mr Wolfe's number and tell whoever answers that Fido is sick, just that, and hang up. Wait two hours and go to the Churchill and William Coffey. Of course this is just for something they are not to know. For anything they have done or already know about, just ring us. Fido is sick."

She was still frowning. "But they'll know about William Coffey after the first time if I go to him openly."