And Be a Villain by Rex Stout Read Free Book Online Page A

“But the applicants who didn’t get tickets, not being there, do not concern us. An essential element of the picture which I haven’t mentioned is not yet visible. Behind the closed door of an electric refrigerator over against the wall are eight bottles of Hi-Spot. How did they get there?”
    An answer came from the couch, from Fred Owen. “We always have three or four cases in the studio, in a locked cab—”
    “If you please, Mr. Owen.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at him. “I want to hear as much as I can of the voices of these six people.”
    “They were there in the studio,” Tully Strong said. “In a cabinet. It’s kept locked because if it wasn’t they wouldn’t be there long.”
    “Who had taken the eight bottles from the cabinet and put them in the refrigerator?”
    “I had.” It was Elinor Vance, and I looked up from my notebook for another glance at her. “That’s one of my chores every broadcast.”
    One trouble with her, I thought, is overwork. Script writer, researcher, bartender—what else?
    “You can’t carry eight bottles,” Wolfe remarked, “at one time.”
    “I know I can’t, so I took four and then went back for four more.”
    “Leaving the cabinet unlocked—no.” Wolfe stopped himself. “Those refinements will have to wait.” His eyes passed along the line again. “So there they are, in the refrigerator.—By the way, I understand that the presence at the broadcast of all but one of you was routine and customary. The exception was you, Mr. Traub. You very rarely attend. What were you there for?”
    “Because I was jittery, Mr. Wolfe.” Traub’s advertising smile and smooth low-pitched voice showed no resentment at being singled out. “I still thought having a race tout on the program was a mistake, and I wanted to be on hand.”
    “You thought there was no telling what Mr. Orchard might say?”
    “I knew nothing about Orchard. I thought the whole idea was a stinker.”
    “If you mean the whole idea of the program, I agree—but that’s not what we’re trying to decide. We’ll go on with the broadcast. First, one more piece of the picture. Where are the glasses they’re going to drink from?”
    “On a tray at the end of the table,” Deborah Koppel said.
    “The broadcasting table? Where they’re seated at the microphones?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who put them there?”
    “That girl, Nancylee Shepherd. The only way to keep her back of the line would be to tie her up. Or of course not let her in, and Miss Fraser will not permit that. She organized the biggest Fraser Girls’ Club in the country. So we—”
    The phone rang. I reached for it and muttered into it.
    “Mr. Bluff,” I told Wolfe, using one of my fifteen aliases for the caller. Wolfe got his receiver to his ear, giving me a signal to stay on.
    “Yes, Mr. Cramer?”
    Cramer’s sarcastic voice sounded as if he had a cigar stuck in his mouth, as he probably had. “How are you coming up there?”
    “Slowly. Not really started yet.”
    “That’s too bad, since no one’s paying you on the Orchard case. So you told me yesterday.”
    “This is today. Tomorrow’s paper will tell you all about it. I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer, but I’m busy.”
    “You certainly are, from the reports I’ve got here. Which one is your client?”
    “You’ll see it in the paper.”
    “Then there’s no reason—”
    “Yes. There is. That I’m extremely busy and exactly a week behind you. Good-by, sir.”
    Wolfe’s tone and his manner of hanging up got a reaction from the gate-crashers. Mr. Walter B. Anderson, the Hi-Spot president, demanded to know if the caller had been Police Inspector Cramer, and, told that it was, got critical. His position was that Wolfe should not have been rude to the Inspector. It was bad tactics and bad manners. Wolfe, not bothering to draw his sword, brushed him aside with a couple of words, but Anderson leaped for his throat. He had not yet, he said, signed any agreement, and if that was going to be