Rex Stout_Nero Wolfe 07 by Over My Dead Body Read Free Book Online

Mr. Driscoll has not arrived. It is very disagreeable, asking you to wait. He should be here. Mr. Ludlow has something to say.”
    Percy Ludlow looked around at the faces with complete aplomb. “Well,” he observed in a conversational tone, “really I don’t quite see that we should hang around waiting for Driscoll. It’s his row, you know. I’ve an explanation to make that I’d like you all to hear, because all of you know of Driscoll’s absurd accusation regarding Miss Tormic. You’ll understand it better if you’ll observe the clothes I’m wearing. This is the suit I had on yesterday. Didn’t any of you notice anything peculiar about it?”
    “Certainly,” said a voice promptly, fluttering the
r
like a moth on a marathon. “I did.”
    He smiled at her. “What did you notice, Madame Zorka?”
    “I noticed that the material is of the same pattern, perfectly, as the one Mr. Driscoll was wearing.”
    Two additional female voices chimed in simultaneously, “So did I,” and other voices murmured.
    Ludlow nodded. “Apparently Driscoll agrees with me on tailors.” His tone sounded as if there weresomething about that faintly deplorable. “The fabric is identical. I wondered that none of you mentioned it yesterday. Perhaps you did, but not to me. Of course the coincidence explains why, when Miss Tormic went to my locker to get my cigarettes from my coat, and Driscoll saw her, he thought the coat was his own. My locker adjoined his.”
    There was a round of ejaculations. Eyes moved from his face to that of Neya Tormic and back again. I felt Carla Lovchen’s fingers gripping my elbow, but I didn’t react because I was trying to keep my brain cleared for action.
    Ludlow continued in the same easy tone, “Yesterday when Miss Tormic was suddenly confronted with Driscoll’s ugly accusation, naturally she was flustered. Impulsively and perhaps foolishly, she denied having been in the locker room. Hearing that denial, I was a little flustered myself. It would have produced a most unfortunate impression if I had contradicted her on the spot, so I temporized and confirmed her statement that she had been With me continuously in the end room. But as it turned out, that was no go. Driscoll was positive that it was Miss Tormic he had seen with his coat. Miss Reade and Mr. Gill both declared that they had seen her in the hall near the door of the locker room shortly prior to four thirty. So it was clear that the only thing for it was the truth, which is that while we were fencing yesterday the strap of my pad broke and I had to change it, and we felt like a cigarette and found that we had none, and while I was changing the pad she took my key and went to the locker room for my cigarettes.”
    I had left his face and was concentrating on Neya’s, but I couldn’t read it. It wasn’t alarmed nor angry nor pleased; I would have said it was more puzzled thananything else; but that seemed unlikely, so I scored myself zero. There was a buzz around the room which stopped when Miltan remarked, more to space than to any audience, “So! So she was there!”
    Ludlow nodded negligently. “Oh, yes, she was there, but it was my coat she had, not Driscoll’s. No doubt of it, because she returned with my cigarette case and lighter. We had a few puffs together, and we were fencing again when word came that Miltan wished to see Miss Tormic—”
    He stopped, and lost his audience. The door had opened, and two men entered. The one in front was a gray-haired guy with a full cargo of dignity and an air that invited respect, and behind him, practically hiding behind him, was a plump specimen about fifty-one years old with thick lips and bald eyebrows. They came on in and Miltan met them.
    “We’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Driscoll—”
    “I’m sorry,” the plump one stammered, edging around. “Very sorry … unh … this is Mr. Thompson, my lawyer—Mr. Miltan …”
    As the gray-haired one extended a hand for the shake he