The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

Not bothering to resent it, he got at a phone and did some talking and listening, hung up, told me, "Wait here," and cocked his head at me. He was probably deciding how much of a job it would be to take me. To show him I wasn't fazed I turned my back and went to inspect a picture on the wall, a photograph of a sprawling two-story building with the inscription EVERS ELECTRONICS DAYTON PLANT. I had about finished counting the windows when a door opened to admit a woman who pronounced my name and told me to come, and I followed her down a hall and around a corner to a door that had MR EVERS on it. She opened it and I entered, but she didn't.

He was at a desk between two windows, taking a bite from a sandwich. Two steps in I stopped and said, "But I don't want to butt in on your lunch."

He chewed the bite, sizing me up through his rimless cheaters. His neat little face was the kind that doesn't register unless you make a point of it. When the bite was down he took a sip of coffee from a paper cup and said, "Someone always butts in. What's this about Nero Wolfe and information? What kind of information?" He took a bite of the sandwich, lox on white toast.

I went to a chair near the end of his desk and sat. "You may already have it," I said. "It's in connection with a government contract."

He chewed and swallowed and asked, "Is Nero Wolfe working for the government?"

"No. He's working for a private client. The client is interested in the fact that after a security check of an officer of your company the government has canceled a contract, or is about to. That's a matter of public interest, and-"

"Who is the client?"

"I can't name him. It's confidential, and-"

"Is it anyone connected with this company?"

"No. Not in any way. As I was saying, Mr Evers, the public interest is involved, you realize that. If the right to make security checks is being abused so that the personal or property rights of citizens are being violated, that isn't just a private matter. Mr Wolfe's client is concerned with that aspect of it. Anything you tell me will be strictly confidential and will be used only with your permission. Naturally you don't want to lose your contract, we understand it's a big one, but also as a citizen you don't want to see any injustice done. From the standpoint of Mr Wolfe's client, that's the issue.

He had put the sandwich down, what was left of it, and was eying me. "You said you had information. What?"