The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

When I finished and went to the office Wolfe was standing over by the globe, turning it and scowling at it. The man who gave him that globe, the biggest one I have ever seen, couldn't have known what a big help it would be. Whenever a situation gets so ticklish that he wishes he were somewhere else, he can walk over to the globe and pick spots to go to. Wonderful. As I entered he asked if I had anything, and when I nodded he went to his desk and I turned on the radio, took a yellow chair around near his elbow, and reported. It didn't take long, since there had been no conversation to speak of, just the action. I didn't mention the phone call to Lily Rowan because it had been purely personal. Having read the poetry twice, he handed the photograph back to me and said she had an ear for meter.

"I told you she wasn't a sap," I said. "Pretty neat, doing that with the last four lines of the second stanza of Keats's 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.' "

His eyes narrowed at me. "How the deuce do you know that? You don't read Keats."

I shrugged. "Back in Ohio in my boyhood days. As you know, I have quite a memory. I don't brag about that, but I have a brag coming about this." I tapped the photograph. "We know why she lied. She's involved. Possibly not too deep; it could be that she merely didn't want to admit she was close with him, close enough for him to tell her about the FBI. Or possibly very deep. 'Ever, ever shalt thou kiss.' And 'Forever wilt thou love.' But he told her he was going to marry another girl, so she shot him, probably with his own gun. The second alternative, which we prefer by far. It would be hard to nail her. She might be able to prove she was at that lecture but not what time she left. Possibly she wasn't there at all. She spent the evening at Sixty-three Arbor Street, having it out with the bold lover, and she shot him before the G-men arrived. Does that appeal to you?"

"As conjecture, yes."

"Then I should look into the lecture question. She might have a tight alibi. According to Cramer, the G-men left about eleven o'clock, and of course they had combed the place, whether they killed him or not; they got the material he had gathered. So they arrived not later than ten-thirty, or even make it ten-forty. If she shot him she was out before they came. The New School is on Twelfth Street. If anyone saw her at the lecture as late as ten-twenty, or even a quarter past, she's clear. I'll start asking."

"No."

"No?"