The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

He nodded. "That's what we must explore. You will start now, as you think best. Perhaps with his family. My recollection is that his father, David Althaus, makes clothes for women."

"Right. Seventh Avenue." I slid off of the pool table and was on my feet. "Since we prefer it that he wasn't killed by a G-man, I suppose we're not interested in what he had collected on the FBI."

"We're interested in everything." He made a face. "And if you find anyone you think I should see, bring him." He made a face again and added, "Or her."

"With pleasure. My first stop will be the Gazette, to go though the file, and Lon may have some facts that haven't been printed. As for bringing people, the house may be covered front and back. How do I get them in and out?"

"The door. We are investigating a murder with which the FBI is not concerned. So Mr Wragg told Mr Cramer. And for once Mr Cramer won't complain."

"Then I don't bother about tails?"

"No."

"That's a relief." I went.

6

My watch said 4:35 as I entered a drugstore near Grand Central, consulted the Manhattan phone book, went to a booth and shut the door, and dialed a number.

From the Gazette files, and from Lon Cohen by word of mouth off the record, I had filled a dozen pages of my notebook.

I have it here now, but all of it in print would also take a dozen pages, so I'll report only what you need to understand what happened. Here are the principal names:

MORRIS ALTHAUS, deceased, 36, height 5 feet 11, weight 175, dark complexion, handsome, liked all right by men but more than liked by women. Had had a two-year affair, 1962 and 1963, with a certain stage personality, name not given here. Had earned from his writing around ten grand a year, but it had probably been augmented by his mother without his father's knowledge. Not on record when he and Marian Hinckley had decided to tie up, but as far as known he had had no other girlfriend for several months. Three hundred and eighty-four typewritten pages of an unfinished novel had been found in his apartment. No one at the Gazette, including Lon, had any firm guess who had killed him.

No one there had known, before the murder, that he had been collecting material for a piece on the FBI, and Lon thought that was a disgrace to journalism in general and to the Gazette personnel in particular. Apparently Althaus had used rubber soles.