me one dollar as a retaining fee.'
I opened my eyes at him. The guy must be cuckoo. For fee shipments that office was strictly a one- way street.
'Not an appealing suggestion,' Wolfe said drily. 'You have a brief for it?':
'Certainly. As you know, a conversation between a lawyer and his client is a privileged communication and its disclosure may not be compelled. I wish to establish that confidential relationship with you, lawyer and client, and then tell you of certain circumstances which have led these gentlemen to seek your help. Obviously that will be no protection against voluntary disclosure by you, since you may end the relationship at any moment, but you will be able to refuse a disclosure at the demand of any!authority without incurring any penalty. They and I will be at your mercy, but your record and reputation give us complete confidence in your integrity and discretion. I suggest that you retain me for a specific function: to advise you on the desirability of taking a case about to be offered to you by the firm of Lippert, Buff and Assa.'
'What is that firm?'
'You must have heard of it. The advertising agency.'
Wolfe's lips were going left to right and back again. It was his kind of smile. 'Very ingenious. I congratulate you. But as you say, you will be at my mercy. I may end the relationship at any moment, with no commitment whatever.'
'Just a minute,' O'Garro put in, his clever bright brown eyes darting from Wolfe to Hansen. 'Must it be like that?'
'It's the only way, Pat,' the lawyer told him. 'If you hire him, you either trust him or you don't.'
'I don't like it… but if it's the only way…'
'It is. Oliver?'
Buff said yes.
'Vern?'
Assa nodded.
'Then you retain me, Mr. Wolfe? As specified?
'Yes. – -Archie, give Mr. Hansen a dollar.'
I got one from my wallet, suppressing a pointed comment which the transaction certainly deserved, crossed to the attorney-at-law, and handed it over.
'I give you this,' I told him formally, 'as the agent for Mr. Nero Wolfe.'
Chapter 3
'It's a long story,' Hansen told Wolfe, 'but well have to make it as short as possible. These gentlemen have appointments at the District Attorney's office. I speak as your counsel of matters pertinent to the case to be offered you about which you seek my advice. Have you heard of the murder of Louis Dahlmann?'
'No.'
'It was on the radio.'
'I don't listen to the radio in the morning. Neither does Mr. Goodwin.'
'To hell with the radio,' Assa snapped. 'Get on, Rudolph.'
'I am. One of LBA's big accounts--we call Lippert, Buff and Assa LBA--is Heery Products, Incorporated. One of the Heery products is the line of cosmetics that they call Pour Amour. They introduced it some years ago and it was doing fairly well. Last spring a young man on the LBA staff named Louis Dahlmann conceived an idea for promoting it, and he finally succeeded in getting enough approval of the idea to have it submitted to the Heery people, and they decided they liked it, and it was scheduled to start the twenty-seventh of September. It was a prize contest, the biggest in history, with a first prize of five hundred thousand dollars in cash, second prize two hundred and fifty thousand, third prize one hundred thousand, and fifty-seven smaller prizes. I have to explain it to you. Each week for twenty weeks there appeared in newspapers and magazines a four-line verse, from which-'
'I can save you that,' Wolfe told him. 'I know about it.'
'Did you enter?' O'Garro demanded.
'Enter the contest? Good heavens, no.'
'Get on,' Assa snapped.
Hansen did so. 'The deadline was February fourteenth. The answers had to be postmarked before midnight February fourteenth. There were over two million contestants, and Dahlmann had trained three hundred men and women to handle the checking and recording. When they finished they had seventy-two contestants who had identified all twenty of the women correctly. Dahlmann had more verses ready, and on March twenty-eighth he sent five of them to each of the seventy-two contestants, by airmail to those at a distance, and the answers had to be postmarked before midnight April fourth. It came out a quintuple tie. Five of them correctly identified the five new ones, and Dahlmann telephoned them and arranged for them to come to New York. They would land the first three prizes, the big three, and also two of the ten-thousand-dollar prizes. They came, and last evening he had them to dinner in a private room at the Churchill. Talbott Heery of Heery Products was there, and so were Vernon Assa and Patrick O'Garro. Dahlmann was going to give them five more verses, with a week to solve them, but a
