'What is this phone number?' he demanded. 'Mrs Robilotti? That woman?'
'Yes, sir. The one who didn’t want to pay you twenty grand but did.'
'What does she want now?'
'Me. That’s where you can get me this evening from seven o’clock on.'
'Mr Hewitt is coming this evening to bring a Dendrobium and look at the Renanthera. You said you would be here.'
'I know, I expected to, but this is an emergency. She phoned me this morning.'
'I didn’t know she was cultivating you, or you her.'
'We’re not. I haven’t seen her or heard her since she paid that bill. This is special. You may remember that when she hired you and we were discussing her, I mentioned a piece about her I had read in a magazine, about the dinner party she throws every year on her first husband’s birthday. With four girls and four men as guests? The girls are unmarried mothers who are being rehabil-'
'I remember, yes. Buffoonery. A burlesque of hospitality. Do you mean you are abetting it?'
'I wouldn’t say abetting it. A man I know named Austin Byne phoned and asked me to fill in for him because he’s in bed with a cold and can’t go. Anyhow, it will give me a fresh outlook. It will harden my nerves. It will broaden my mind.'
His eyes had narrowed. 'Archie.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?'
'Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you don’t, so go right ahead.'
'I am not intruding. If it is your whim to lend yourself to that outlandish performance, very well. I merely suggest that you demean yourself. Those creatures are summoned there for an obvious purpose. It is hoped that they, or at least one of them, will meet a man who will be moved to pursue the acquaintance and who will end by legitimating, if not the infant already in being, the future produce of the womb. Therefore your attendance there will be an imposture, and you know it. I begin to doubt if you will ever let a woman plant her foot on your neck, but if you do she will have qualities that would make it impossible for her to share the fate of those forlorn creatures. You will be perpetrating a fraud.'
I was shaking my head. 'No, sir. You’ve got it wrong. I let you finish just to hear it. If that were the purpose, giving the girls a chance to meet prospects, I would say hooray for Mrs Robilotti, and I wouldn’t go. But that’s the hell of it, that’s not it at all. The men are from her own social circle, the kind that wear black ties six nights a week, and there’s not a chance. The idea is that it will buck the girls up, be good for their morale, to spend an evening with the cream and get a taste of caviar and sit on a chair made by Congreve. Of course-'
'Congreve didn’t make chairs.'
'I know he didn’t, but I needed a name and that one popped in. Of course that’s a lot of hooey, but I won’t be perpetrating a fraud. And don’t be too sure I won’t meet my doom. It’s a scientific fact that some girls are more beautiful, more spiritual, more fascinating, after they have had a baby. Also it would be an advantage to have the family already started.'
'Pfui. Then you’re going.'
'Yes, sir. I’ve told Fritz I won’t be here for dinner.' I left my chair. 'I have to see to something. If you want to answer letters before lunch I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.'
I had remembered that Saturday evening at the Flamingo someone had spilled something on the sleeve of my dinner jacket, and I had used cleaner on it when I got home, and hadn’t examined it since. Mounting the two flights to my room, I took a look and found it was okay.
Chapter Two
I was well acquainted with the insides of the Grantham mansion, now inhabited by Robilottis, on Fifth Avenue in the Eighties, having been over every inch of it, including the servant’s quarters, at the time of the jewellery hunt; and, in the taxi on my way uptown, preparing my mind for the scene of action, I had supposed that the pre-dinner gathering would be on the second floor in what was called the music room. But no. For the mothers, the works.
Hackett, admitting me, did fine. Formerly his manner with me as a hired detective had been absolutely perfect; now that I was an invited guest in uniform he made the switch without batting an eye. I suppose a man working up to butler could be taught all the ins and outs of handling the hat-and-coat problem with different grades of people, but it’s so darned tricky that probably it has to be born in him. The way he told me good evening, compared with the way he had formerly greeted me, was a lesson in fine points.
I decided to upset him. When he had my hat and coat I inquired with my nose up, 'How’s it go, Mr Hackett?'
It didn’t faze him. That man had nerves of iron. He merely said, 'Very well, thank you, Mr Goodwin, Mrs Robilotti is in the drawing-room.'
'You win, Hackett. Congratulations.' I crossed the reception hall, which took ten paces, and passed through the arch.
The drawing-room had a twenty-foot ceiling and could dance fifty couples easily, with an alcove for the orchestra as big as my bedroom. The three crystal chandeliers that had been installed by Albert Grantham’s mother were still there, and so were thirty-seven chairs-I had counted them one day-of all shapes and sizes, not made by Congreve, I admit, but not made in Grand Rapids either. Of all the rooms I had seen, and I had seen a lot, that was about the last one I would pick as the place for a quartet of unwed mothers to meet a bunch of strangers and relax. Entering and casting a glance around, I took a walk-it amounted to that-across to where Mrs Robilotti was standing with a group near a portable bar. As I approached she turned to me and offered a hand.
