'What did you do with it?'
She looked up at me. That way, with her head tilted up, from that angle, she looked kind of pretty.
'What did I-what?'
'That snapshot you took from my desk. It's the only picture I've got of you. Where did you put it?'
'I didn't-' Her mouth closed. 'I didn't!' she said defiantly.
I sat down and shook my head at her. 'Now listen,' I said pleasantly. 'Don't lie to me. We're comrades. Side by side we have sought the chitlin in its lair. The wild boar chitlin. That picture is my property and I want it. Let's say it fluttered into your bag. Look in your bag.'
'It isn't there.' With a new note of spunk in her voice, and a new touch of color on her cheeks, she was more of a person. Her bag was beside her on the chair, and her left hand was clutching it.
'Then I'll look in your bag.' I started for her.
'No!' she said. 'It isn't there!' She put a palm to her stomach. 'It's here.'
I stopped short, thinking for a second she had swallowed it. Then I returned to my chair and told her, 'Okay. You will now return it. You have three alternatives. Either dig it out yourself, or I will, or I'll call in Maryella and hold you while she does. The first is the most ladylike. I'll turn my back.'
'Please.' She kept her palm against her stomach. 'Please! It's my picture!'
'It's a picture of you, but it's not your picture.'
'Miss Huddleston gave it to you.'
I saw no point in denying the obvious. 'Say she did.'
'And she told you… she… she thinks I sent those awful letters! I know she does!'
'That,' I said firmly, 'is another matter which the boss is handling. I am handling the picture. It is probably of no importance except as a picture of the girl who thought up the Stryker dwarf and giant party. If you ask Mr. Wolfe for it he'll probably give it to you. It may even be that Miss Huddleston stole it; I don't know. She didn't say where she got it. I do know that you copped it from my desk and I want it back. You can get another one, but I can't. Shall I call Maryella?' I turned my head and looked like a man about to let out a yell.
'No!' she said, and got out of her chair and turned her back and went through some contortions. When she handed me the snapshot I tucked it under a paperweight on Wolfe's desk and then went to help her collect the breeding cards from the floor where they had tumbled from her lap.
'Look what you did,' I told her, 'mixed them all up. Now you can help me put them in order again…'
It looked for a minute as if tears were going to flow, but they didn't. We spent an hour together, not exactly jolly, but quite friendly. I avoided the letter question, because I didn't know what line Wolfe intended to take.
When he finally got at it there was no line to it. That was after nine o'clock, when we assembled in the office after the hash and trimmings had been disposed of. The hash was okay. It was good hash. Wolfe had three helpings, and when he conversed with Maryella, as he did through most of the meal, he was not only sociable but positively respectful. There was an unpleasant moment at the beginning, when Janet didn't take any hash and Fritz was told to slice some ham for her, and Maryella told her resentfully:
'You won't eat it because I cooked it.'
Janet protested that that wasn't so, she just didn't like corned beef.
In the office, afterwards, it became apparent that there was no love lost between the secretary and the assistant party-arranger. Not that either accused the other of writing the poison-pen letters; there were no open hostilities, but a few glances I observed when I looked up from my notebook, and tones of voice when they addressed each other, sounded as if there might be quite a blaze if somebody touched a match to it. Wolfe didn't get anything, as far as I could see, except a collection of unimportant facts. Both the girls were being discreet, to put it mildly. Bess Huddleston, according to them, was a very satisfactory employer. They admitted that her celebrated eccentricities made things difficult sometimes, but they had no kick coming. Janet had worked for her three years, and Maryella two, and they hadn't the slightest idea who could have sent those dreadful letters, and Bess Huddleston had no enemies that they knew of… oh, of course, she had hurt some people's feelings, but what did that amount to, and there were scores of people who could have got at Janet's stationery during the past months but they couldn't imagine who, and so forth and so on. Yes, they had known Mrs. Jervis Horrocks' daughter, Helen; she had been a close friend of Maryella's. Her death had been a shock. And yes, they knew Dr. Alan Brady quite well. He was fashionable and successful and had a wonderful reputation for his age. He often went horseback riding with one of them or with Bess Huddleston. Riding academy? No, Bess Huddleston kept horses in her stable at her place at Riverdale, and Dr. Brady would come up from the Medical Center when he got through in the afternoon-it was only a ten-minute drive.
And Bess Huddleston had never been married, and her brother Daniel was some kind of a chemist, not in society, very much not, who showed up at the house for dinner about once a week; and her nephew, Larry, well, there he was, that was all, a young man living there and getting paid for helping his aunt in her business; and there were no other known relatives and no real intimates, except that Bess Huddleston had hundreds of intimates of both sexes and all ages…
It went on for nearly two hours.
After seeing them out to their car-I noticed Maryella was driving-I returned to the office and stood and watched Wolfe down a glass of beer and pour another one.
'That picture of the culprit,' I said, 'is there under your paperweight if you want it. She did. I mean she wanted it. In my absence she swiped it and hid it in a spot too intimate to mention in your presence. I got it back-no matter how. I expected her to ask you for it, but she didn't. And if you think you're going to solve this case by-'
