The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

He smiled. "You certainly are not familiar with it. It was some outside deals that I had a hand in. That all came out at the trial. The Bruner people were very nice about it, very nice. The vice-president even arranged for me to see Mrs Bruner herself. That was the second time I saw Althaus, in her office at her house. She was nice too. She believed what I told her. She even paid my lawyer, part of it. You see, she realized that I had got mixed up in a shady deal, but I explained to her that I hadn't known what I was getting into, and she didn't want a man who was working for her company to get a bum deal. I call that nice."

"So do I. I'm surprised you didn't go back to Bruner Realty when you got-when you could."

"They didn't want me.

"That wasn't very nice, was it?"

"Well, it's the philosophy of it. After all, I had been convicted. The president of the company is a pretty tough man. I could have gone to Mrs Bruner, but I have a certain amount of pride, and I heard about this opening with Driscoll." He smiled. "I'm not licked, far from it. There's plenty of opportunity in this business, and I'm still young." He opened a drawer. "You gave me a card, I'll give you one."

He gave me about a dozen, not one, and some information about the Driscoll Renting Agency. They had nine offices in three boroughs and handled over a hundred buildings, and they gave the finest service in the metropolitan area. I received a strong impression that Driscoll was nice. I listened to enough of it to be polite, and thanked him, and on the way out I took the liberty of exchanging glances with the beautiful young lady, and she smiled at me. That was certainly a nice place.

I strolled down the Grand Concourse in the winter sunshine, cooling off; I hadn't been invited to remove my coat. I was listing the items of the coincidence:

1. Mrs Bruner had distributed copies of that book.

2. Morris Althaus had been collecting material for a piece on the FBI.

3. G-men had killed Althaus, or at least had been in his apartment about the time he was killed.

4. Althaus had met Mrs Bruner. He had been in her house.

5. A man who had worked for Mrs Bruner's firm had been jailed (made the goat?) as a result of a piece Althaus had written.