A few details needed attention. Miss Frazee had copped the red leather chair, which was reserved for Inspector Cramer, and I had to talk her into moving. Buff and Hansen were in a huddle at the wall end of the couch, where Wolfe would have to look through me to see them, and I got them to transfer to chairs, Buff stopping on the way for a refill of his highball glass. Hibbard was seated beside Miss Tescher in the front row, and when I asked him to move to the rear I thought he was going to speak at last, but he controlled it and went without a word. Vernon Assa bothered me. He was standing backed up against the far wall, staring straight ahead, an Old-Fashioned glass in his hand, presumably holding Pernod. When I went to him he turned his eyes on me and I didn’t like them. He could have been high, too high, but when I suggested that he come and take a chair he said in a perfectly good voice that he was all right where he was. As I turned to leave him Wolfe and Cramer and Stebbins entered.
Wolfe walked across to his desk. Cramer stood a moment taking in the crowd and then went to the red leather chair and sat. I had put a chair for Purley against the wall, so he would be facing the audience, and he didn’t need to be told it was his. The talking had stopped, and all eyes went to Wolfe as he rested his claspd hands on the desk and moved his head from left to right and back again.
He took a breath. “Ladies and gentlemen. I must first, explain the presence of Inspector Cramer of the New York Police Department. He is here by invitation, not to—”
Two sounds came almost simultaneously from the rear of the room—first from a throat, part gurgle and part scream, and then a bang as something hit the floor. Everybody jerked around by reflex, so we all saw Vernon Assa stagger toward us with the fingers of both hands clutching at his mouth, and then he went down. By the time he touched the floor I was there, but Purley Stebbins was right behind me, and Cramer behind him, so I dived back to my desk for the phone and dialed Doc Vollmer’s number. At the second buzz he answered and I told him to come on the jump. As I hung up Cramer called to me to get a doctor and I told him I had one. He stood up, saw Susan Tescher and Hibbard crossing the sill into the hall, and sang out, “Get back in here!” He came to me. “I’ll call downtown. Put ’em all in the dining room and stay there with ’em. Understand? No gags.” He was at the phone.
I looked around. They were behaving pretty well, except Susan Tescher and her silent partner, who had apparently had the notion of fading. There had been no shrieks. Wolfe was sitting straight, his lips pressed tight, his eyes narrowed to slits. He didn’t meet my glance. O’Garro and Heery and Hansen had gone to the prostrate Assa, but Purley, kneeling there, had ordered them back. I went to the doorway to the hall and turned.
“Everybody this way,” I said. No one moved. “I’d rather not yell,” I said, “because the inspector’s phoning. He wants you out of this room, and four of the men will please bring chairs.”
That helped, giving them something to do. Philip Younger picked up a chair and came, and the others after him. I opened the door to the dining room, and they filed across and in. Fritz was at my elbow, and I told him there would be lots of company and he might as well leave the bolt off. The doorbell rang, and he went and admitted Doc Vollmer, and I waved Doc to the office.
Leaving the door from the dining room to the hall wide open and standing just inside, I surveyed my herd. Mrs. Wheelock had flopped onto a chair, and so had Philip Younger. I hoped Younger wasn’t having a paroxysm. Most of the others were standing, and I told them they might as well sit down.
The only one who put up a squawk was Rudolph Hansen. He confronted me. “Vernon Assa is my client and my friend, and I have a right to see that he gets proper—”
“He’s already got. A doctor’s here, and a good one.” I raised my voice. “Just take it easy, everybody, and it would be better if you’d shut up.”
“What happened to him?” Gertrude Frazee demanded.
“I don’t know. But if you want something to occupy your minds, just before Mr. Wolfe entered he was standing by the wall with a glass in his hand and there was liquid in the glass. You heard the glass hit the floor, but I saw no sign of spilled liquid. You might turn that over and see what you think of it.”
“It was Pernod in the glass,” Patrick O’Garro said. “I saw him pour it. He always drank Pernod. He put the glass down on the table when Hansen called to him, and went—”
“Hold it, Pat,” Hansen snapped at him. “This may be —I hope not—but this may be a very grave matter.”
“You see,” I told the herd. “I advised you to shut up, and Mr. Hansen, who is a lawyer, agrees with me.”
“I want to telephone,” Heery said.
“The phone’s busy. Anyway, I’m just a temporary watchdog. I’ll be getting a relief, and you can—”
I broke it off to stretch my neck for a look at the newcomers Fritz was admitting—two city employees in uniform. They came down the hall and headed for me, but I pointed across to the office and they right-angled. From there on it was a parade. A minute later two more in uniform came, and then three in their own clothes, two of whom I knew, and before long one with a little black bag. My herd had more or less settled down, and I had decided I didn’t need to catch Doc Volhner on his way out for a look at Younger. Two more arrived, and when I saw one of them was Lieutenant Rowcliff a little flutter ran over my biceps. He affects me that way. He and his pal went to the office, but pretty soon appeared again, heading for the dining room, and I sidestepped to keep from being trampled.
They entered, and the pal closed the door, and Rowcliff faced the herd. “You will remain here under surveillance until otherwise notified. Vernon Assa is dead. I am Lieutenant George Rowcliff, and for the present you are in my custody as material witnesses.”
That was like him. In fact, it was him. What the hell did they care whether he was George Rowcliff or Cuthbert Rowcliff? Also he had said it wrong. If they were in his custody they were under arrest, and in that case they could demand to be allowed to communicate with their lawyers before answering any questions as a matter of ordinary prudence, which would stop the wheels of justice for hours. I was surprised that neither Hansen nor Hibbard picked it up, but they could have thought it would sound like soliciting business and didn’t want to be unethical. Lawyers are very delicate.
I was in an anomalous position again. I wanted to open the door to leave, (a) to see if Wolfe wanted me, (b) to watch the scientists at work, and (c) to get a rise out of Rowcliff in case he had the notion that I was in his custody too, but on the other hand it seemed likely that a specimen who had had the nerve to commit a murder in Wolfe’s office, right under his nose, was there in the dining room, and I didn’t like to leave him with only a baboon like Rowcliff to keep an eye on him. I was propped against the wall, considering it, when the door opened and Inspector Cramer walked in. Short of the table he stopped and sent his eyes around. “Mr. Buff,” he said. “Buff and O’Garro and Hansen- and I guess Heery. You four men come here please.” They moved. “Stand there in front of me. I’m going to show you something and ask if you can identify it. Look at it as close as you want to, but don’t touch it. You understand? Don’t touch it.”
They said they understood, and he lifted a hand. The thumb and forefinger were pinching the corner of a brown leather wallet. The quartet gazed at it. O’Garro’s hand started toward it and he jerked it back. No one spoke.
“The initials ‘LD’ are stamped on the inside,” Cramer said, “and it contained items with Louis Dahlmann’s name on them, but I’m asking if you can identify it as the wallet Dahlmann was carrying at that meeting last Tuesday evening.”