on a train for Atlantic City. We'll pay your fare both ways and all expenses, such as taxi fare, and your breakfast, and dinner on the train going back. Mr Shepherd, whom I have met, will never know anything about it.” I screwed my lips. “Those are the only choices I can think of, those three.” Nancylee sat down and-another indication of her intelligence – in the red leather chair.
“This is terrible,” Mom said hopelessly. “This is the worst thing…you don't look like a man that would do a thing like this. Are you absolutely sure my husband didn't send the telegram? Honestly?” “Positively not,” I assured her. “He doesn't know a thing about it and never will. There's nothing terrible about it. Long before bedtime you'll be back in that wonderful hotel room.” She shook her head as if all was lost.
“It's not so wonderful,” Nancylee asserted. “The shower squirts sideways and they won't fix it.” Suddenly she clapped a hand to her mouth, went pop-eyed, and sprang from the chair.
“Jumping cats!” she squealed. “Where's your radio? It's Friday! She's broadcasting!” “No radio,” I said firmly. “It's out of order. Here, let me take your coat and hat.”
CHAPTER Ten
During the entire performance, except when we knocked off for lunch, Mrs Shepherd sat with sagging shoulders on one of the yellow chairs. Wolfe didn't like her there and at various points gave her suggestions, such as going up to the south room for a nap or up to the top to look at the orchids, but she wasn't moving. She was of course protecting her young, but I swear I think her main concern was that if she let us out of her sight we might pull another telegram on her signed Al.
I intend to be fair and just to Nancylee. It is quite true that this is on record, on a page of my notebook: W: You have a high regard for Miss Eraser, haven't you, Miss Shepherd?
N: Oh, yes! She's simply utterly!
On another page: W: Why did you leave high school without graduating, if you were doing so well?
N: I was offered a modelling job. Just small time, two dollars an hour not very often and mostly legs, but the cash was simply sweet!
W: You're looking forward to a life of that-modelling?
N: Oh, no! I'm really very serious-minded. Am I! I'm going into radio. I'm going to have a programme like Miss Fraser-you know, human and get the laughs, but worthwhile and good. How often have you been on the air, Mr Wolfe?
On still another page: W: How have you been passing your time at Atlantic City?
N: Rotting away. That place is as dead as last week's date. Simply stagnating.
Utterly!
Those are verbatim, and there are plenty more where they came from, but there are other pages to balance them. She could talk to the point when she felt like it, as for instance when she explained that she would have been suspicious of the telegram, and would have insisted that her mother call her father at the warehouse by long distance, if she hadn't learned from the papers that Miss Fraser had engaged Nero Wolfe to work on the case. And when he got her going on the subject of Miss Fraser's staff, she not only showed that she had done a neat little job of sizing them up, but also conveyed it to us without including anything that she might be called upon either to prove or to eat.
It was easy to see how desperate Wolfe was from the way he confined himself, up to lunch time, to skating around the edges, getting her used to his voice and manner and to hearing him ask any and every kind of question. By the time Fritz summoned us to the dining-room I couldn't see that he had got the faintest flicker of light from any direction.
When we were back in the office and settled again, with Mom in her same chair and Nancylee
