Wolfe, who had just come down from the plant rooms, did him the honour of reaching for the phone on his desk to listen in.
'So far,' Saul reported, 'we’re only scouting. Marjorie Betz lives with Mrs Elaine Usher at the address on Eighty-seventh Street. Mrs Usher is the tenant. I got in to see Miss Betz by one of the standard lines, and got nowhere. Mrs Usher left Wednesday night, and she doesn’t know where she is or when she’ll be back. We have seen two elevator men, the janitor, five neighbours, fourteen people in local shops and stores, and a hackie Mrs Usher patronizes, and Orrie is now after the maid, who left at five-thirty. Do you want Mrs Usher’s description?'
Wolfe said no and I said yes simultaneously. 'Very well,' Wolfe said, 'oblige him.'
'Around forty. We got as low as thirty-three and as high as forty-five. Five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds, blue eyes set close, oval face, takes good care of good skin, hair was light brown two years ago, now blonde, wears it loose, medium cut. Dresses well but a little flashy. Gets up around noon. Hates to tip. I think that’s fairly accurate, but this is a guess with nothing specific, that she has no job but is never short of money, and she likes men. She has lived in that apartment for eight years. Nobody ever saw a husband. Six of them knew the daughter, Faith, and liked her, but it has been four years since they last saw her and Mrs Usher never mentions her.'
Wolfe grunted. 'Surely that will do.'
'Yes, sir. Do we proceed?'
'Yes.'
'Okay. I’ll wait to see if Orrie gets anywhere with the maid, and if not I have a couple of ideas. Miss Betz may go out this evening, and the lock on the apartment door is only a Wyatt.'
'The hackie she patronizes,' I said. 'She didn’t patronize him Wednesday night?'
'According to him, no. Fred found him. I haven’t seen him. Fred thinks he got it straight.'
'You know,' I said, 'you say only a Wyatt, but you need more than a paper clip for a Wyatt. I could run up there with an assortment, and we could go into conference-'
'No,' Wolfe said firmly. 'You’re needed here.'
For what, he didn’t say. After we hung up all he did was ask how I had disposed of Laidlaw and then ask for a report of the hour and a quarter I had spent with him, and I could have covered that in one sentence just by saying it had been a washout. But he kept pecking at it until dinner time. I knew what the idea was, and he knew I knew. It was simply that if I had gone to help Saul with an illegal entry into Elaine Usher’s apartment there was a chance, say one in a million, that I wouldn’t be there to answer the phone in the morning.
But back in the office after dinner he decided it was about time he exerted himself a little, possibly because he saw my expression when he picked up his book as soon as Fritz had come for the coffee service.
He lowered the book. 'Confound it,' he said, 'I wait to see Mrs Usher not merely because her daughter said she hated her. There is also the fact that she has disappeared.'
'Yes, sir. I didn’t say anything.'
'You looked something. I suppose you are reflecting that we have had two faint intimations of the possible identity of the person who sent that communication to the District Attorney.'
'I wasn’t reflecting. That’s your part. What are the two intimations?'
'You know quite well. One, that Austin Byne told Laidlaw that he had seen Faith Usher at Grantham House. He didn’t name her, and Laidlaw did not regard his tone or manner as suggestive, but it deserves notice. Of course, you couldn’t broach it with Byne, since that would have betrayed our client’s confidence. You still can’t.'
I nodded. 'So we file it. What’s the other one?'
'Miss Grantham. She gave Laidlaw a bizarre reason for refusing to marry him, that he didn’t dance well enough. It is true that women constantly give fantastic reasons without knowing that they are fantastic, but Miss Grantham must have known that that one was. If her real reason was merely that she didn’t care enough for him, surely she would have made a better choice for her avowed one, unless she despises him. Does she despise him?'
'No.'
'Then why insult him? It is an insult to decline a proposal of marriage, a man’s supreme capitulation, with flippancy. She did that six months ago, in September. It is not idle to conjecture that her real reason was that she knew of his experience with Faith Usher. Is she capable of moral revulsion?'
'Probably, if it struck her fancy.'
'I think you should see her. Apparently you do dance well enough. You should be able, without disclosing our engagement with Mr Laidlaw-'
The phone rang, and I turned to get it, hoping it was Saul to say he needed some keys, but no. Saul is not a soprano. However, it was someone who wanted to see me, with no mention of keys. She just wanted me, she said, right away, and I told her to expect me in twenty minutes.
I hung up and swivelled. 'The timing,' I told Wolfe, 'couldn’t have been better. Satisfactory. I suppose you arranged it with her while I was out getting Laidlaw. That was Celia Grantham. She wants to see me. Urgently. Presumably to tell me why she insulted Laidlaw when he asked her to marry him, though she didn’t say.' I arose. 'Marvellous timing.'
'Where?' Wolfe growled.
'At her home.' I was on my way, and turned to correct it. 'I mean her mother’s home. You have the number.' I went.
Since there were at least twenty possible reasons, excluding personal ones, why Celia wanted to see me, and she had given no hint which it was, and since I would soon know anyhow, it would have been pointless to
