'Have you told anyone else? My aunt?'
'No. Certainly not her. I was doing you a favour, wasn’t I?'
'Yes, and I appreciate it. You know that, Archie, I appreciate it.'
'Good. We all like to be appreciated. I would appreciate knowing what it is you want to talk over.'
'Well.' He clasped his hands behind his head, showing how casual it was, just a pair of pals chatting free and easy. 'To tell the truth, I’m in a mess too. Or I will be if you’d like to see me squirm. Would you like to see me squirm?'
'I might if you’re a good squirmer. How do I go about it?'
'All you have to do is spill it about my faking a cold. No matter who you spill it to it will get to my aunt, and there I am.' He unclasped his hands and leaned forward. 'Here’s how it was. I’ve gone to those damn annual dinners on my uncle’s birthday the last three years and I was fed up, and when my aunt asked me again I tried to beg off, but she insisted, and there are reasons why I couldn’t refuse. But Monday night I played poker all night, and yesterday morning I was fuzzy and couldn’t face it. The question was who to tap. For that affair it can’t be just anybody. The first two candidates I picked were out of town, and the next three all had dates. Then I thought of you. I knew you could handle yourself in any situation, and you had met my aunt. So I called you, and you were big-hearted enough to say yes.'
He sat back. 'That’s how it was. Then this morning comes the news of what happened. I said I was sorry I got you into it, and I am, I’m damned sorry, but frankly, I’m damned glad I wasn’t there. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience, and I’m just selfish enough to be glad I missed it. You’ll understand that.'
'Sure. Congratulations. I didn’t enjoy it much myself.'
'I’ll bet you didn’t. So that’s what I wanted, to explain how it was so you’d see it wouldn’t help matters any for anyone to know about my faking a cold. It certainly wouldn’t help me, because it would get to my aunt sooner or later, and you know how she’d be about a thing like that. She’d be sore as hell.'
I nodded. 'I don’t doubt it. Then it’s an ideal situation. You want something from me, and I want something from you. Perfect. We’ll swap. I don’t broadcast about the phoney cold, and you get me an audience at Grantham House. What’s that woman’s name? Irving?'
'Irwin. Blanche Irwin.' He scratched the side of his neck with a forefinger. 'You want to swap, huh?'
'I do. What could be fairer?'
'It’s fair enough,' he conceded. 'But I told you on the phone I’m not in a position to do that.'
'Yeah, but then I was asking a favour. Now I’m making a deal.'
His neck itched again. 'I might stretch a point. I might, if I knew what you want with her. What’s the idea?'
'Greed. Desire for dough. I’ve been offered five hundred dollars for an eye-witness story on last night, and I want to decorate it with some background. Don’t tell Mrs Irwin that, though. She’s probably down on journalists by now. Just tell her I’m your friend and a good loyal citizen and have only been in jail five times.'
He laughed. 'That’ll do it all right. Wait till you see her.' He sobered. 'So that’s it. It’s a funny world, Archie. A girl gets herself in a fix she sees only one way out of, to kill herself, and you’re there to see her do it just because I had had all I wanted of those affairs, and here you’re going to collect five hundred dollars just because you were there. It’s a funny world. So I didn’t do you such a bad turn after all.'
I had to admit that was one way of looking at it. He said he felt like saluting the funny world with a drink, and wouldn’t I join him, and I said I’d be glad to. When he had gone and brought the requirements, a scotch and water for me and bourbon on the rocks for him, and we had performed the salute, he got at the phone and made a person-to-person call to Mrs Irwin at Grantham House. Apparently there was nothing at all wrong with his position; he merely told her he would appreciate it if she would see a friend of his, and that was all there was to it. She said morning would be better than afternoon. After he hung up we discussed the funny world while finishing the drinks, and when I left one more step had been taken towards the brotherhood of man.
Back home, the conference was over, the trio had gone, and Wolfe was at his desk with his current book, one he had said I must read, World Peace through World Law, by Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn. He finished a paragraph, lowered it, and told me to enter expense advances to Saul and Fred and Orrie, two hundred dollars each. I went to the safe for the book and made the entries, returned the book, locked the safe, and asked him if I needed to know anything about their assignments. He said that could wait, meaning that he wanted to get on with his reading, and asked about mine. I told him it was all set, that he wouldn’t see me in the morning because I would be leaving for Grantham House before nine.
'I now call Austin Byne ‘Dinky’,' I told him. 'I suppose because he’s an inch over six feet, but I didn’t ask. I should report that he balked and I had to apply a little pressure. When he phoned yesterday he tried to sound as if his tubes were dogged, but he boggled it. He had no cold. He now says that he had been to three of those affairs and had had enough, and he rang me only after he had tried five others and they weren’t available. So we made a deal. He gets me in at Grantham House, and I won’t tell his aunt on him. He seems to feel that his aunt might bite.'
Wolfe grunted. 'Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman. Is he guileless?'
'I would reserve it. He is not a dope. He might be capable of knowing that someone was going to kill Faith Usher so that it would pass for suicide, and he wanted somebody there alert and brainy and observant to spot it, so he got me, and he is now counting on me, with your help, to nail him. Or her. Or he may be on the level and merely pitiable.'
'You and he have not been familiar?'
'No, sir. Just acquaintances. I have only seen him at parties.'
'Then his selecting you is suggestive per se.'
