The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

"Balls. He wouldn't know flattery if it had labels pasted all over it, and neither would you. Goodwin, I'm going to tell you something that's for you and Wolfe, and that's all. No Lou Cohen or Saul Panzer or Lily Rowan. Is that understood?"

"I don't know why you drag in Miss Rowan, she's merely a personal friend. And there's no point in telling me something if we can't use it."

"You'll use it all right. But it did not come from me. Never, to anybody."

"Okay. Mr Wolfe isn't here to cinch it by giving you his word of honor, so I'll do it for him. For us. Our word of honor."

"That'll have to do. You won't have to take notes, with your tape-recorder memory. Does the name Morris Althaus mean anything to you?" He spelled it.

I nodded. "I read the papers. One that you haven't cracked. Shot. In the chest. Late November. No gun."

"Friday night, November twentieth. The body was found the next morning by a cleaning woman. Died between eight p.m. Friday and three a.m. Saturday. One shot, in at his chest and through the middle of his pump and on out at the back, denting a rib. The bullet went on and hit the wall forty-nine inches above the floor, but it was spent and only nicked it. He was on his back, legs stretched out, left arm straight at his side and right arm crossing his chest. Dressed but no jacket, in his shirtsleeves. No disorder, no sign of a struggle. As you said, no gun. Am I going too fast?"

"No."

"Stop me if you have questions. It was the living room of his apartment on the third floor at Sixty-three Arbor Street-two rooms, kitchenette, and bath. He had been living there three years, alone, single, thirty-six years old. He was a free-lance writer, and in the last four years he had done seven articles for Tick-Tock magazine. He was going to be married in March to a girl named Marian Hinckley, twenty-four, on the staff of Tick-Tock. Of course I could go on. I could have brought the file. But there's nothing in it about his movements or connections or associates that would help. It hasn't helped us."

"You left out a little detail, the caliber of the bullet."

"I didn't leave it out. There was no bullet. It wasn't there."

My eyes widened. "Well. A damned neat murderer."