Read Gambit for Free Online Page B

onto the job how could I expect to sick him'I got up and went to the kitchen to ask Fritz if there had been any phone calls, though I knew there hadn’t, since there had been no note on my desk.
    However, there were three calls in the next hour, before dinner, and two during dinner - the Times, the Daily News, and the Post, and two of the networks, CBS and NBC. With all of them I confirmed the item in the Gazette and told them we had nothing to add. The News was sore because I had given it to the Gazette, and of course the Times tried to insist on speaking with Wolfe. When the last trumpet sounds the Times will want to check with Gabriel himself, and for the next edition will try to get it confirmed by even Higher Authority.
    I had returned to the dining room after dealing with CBS, to deal with my second helping of papaya custard, when the doorbell rang. During meals Fritz answers it. He came from the kitchen, went down the hall to the front, and in a minute came back, entered, and said, “Mr. Ernst Hausman. He said you would know the name.”
    Wolfe looked at me, not as a friend or even a trusted assistant. “Archie. This is your doing.”
    I swallowed custard. “No, sir. Yours. The Gazette, I merely followed instructions. You said the murderer might think it necessary to do something,
    and here he is.”
    “Pfui. Through a blizzard?”
    He really meant it. On a fine day he would venture out to risk his life in the traffic only on a strictly personal errand, and this was night and snow was falling.
    “He had to,” I said. “With you on it he knew he was done for and he came to confess.” I pushed my chair back and left it. A man coming without an appointment before we had had our coffee - he was capable of telling Fritz to tell him to come tomorrow morning.
    “Okay, Fritz,”I said,”I’ll do it.”

Nero Wolfe 37 - Gambit
    CHAPTER FOUR
    We always have our after-dinner coffee in the office, mainly because the chair behind his desk is the only one that Wolfe can get his bulk really comfortable in, and of course the guest had to be invited to partake. He said he’d try it,
    he was very particular about coffee, and when Fritz put a cup on the stand by the red leather chair and was going to pour he said the cup was too small and told Fritz to bring a larger one. Ideal company. He must have been fun at dinner parties.
    He didn’t look his seventy-two years, and I had to admit he didn’t look like a murderer, but murderers seldom do. One thing was sure, if he murdered at all he would use poison, because with a gun or knife or club he might get spots on his perfectly tailored three-hundred-dollar suit or his sixty-dollar shoes or his twenty-dollar tie, or soil his elegant little hands, or even spatter blood on his neat little face with its carefully barbered mustache.
    He lifted the larger cup and took a sip. “Quite good,” he conceded. He had a thin finicky voice. He took another sip. “Quite good.” He looked around. “Good room. For a man in your line of work quite unexpected. That globe over there - I noticed it when I came in. What’s its diameter'Three feet?”
    “Thirty-two and three-eighths inches.”
    “The finest globe I ever saw. I’ll give you a hundred dollars for it.”
    “I paid five hundred.”
    Hausrnan shook his head and sipped coffee. “Not worth it. Do you play chess?”
    “Not now. I have played.”
    “How good were you?”
    Wolfe put his cup down. “Mr. Hausman. Surely you didn’t come through a snowstorm at night for this.” He reached for the pot.
    “Hardly.” He showed his teeth, It wasn’t a grin; it was simply that his lips suddenly parted enough for his teeth to show and then closed again. “But before I go into matters I have to be satisfied about you. I know you have a reputation, but that doesn’t mean anything. How far can you be trusted?”
    “That depends.” Wolfe put the pot down. “I trust myself implicitly. Anyone else will do well to make certain of our