'Then it won't surprise you to hear that I am being followed day and night. I believe 'tailed' is the word. So is my son, and my daughter, and my secretary, and my brother. My telephones are tapped, and my son thinks his is-he's married and has an apartment. Some of the employees at the Bruner Corporation have been questioned. It occupies two floors of the Bruner Building and there are more than a hundred employees. Does that surprise you?'
'No.' Wolfe grunted. 'Did you send letters with the books?'
'Not letters. My personal card with a brief message.'
'Then you shouldn't be surprised.'
'Well, I am. I was. I'm not just a congressman, or someone like an editor or a broadcaster or a college professor, with a job I can't afford to lose. Does that megalomaniac think he can hurt me?'
'Pfui. He is hurting you.'
'No. He's merely annoying me. Some of my associates and personal friends are being questioned- discreetly, of course, careful excuses, of course. It started about two weeks ago. I think my phones were tapped about ten days ago. My lawyers say there is probably no way to stop it, but they are considering it. They are one of the biggest and best firms in New York, and even they are afraid of the FBI! They disapprove; they say it was 'ill-advised' and 'quixotic,' my sending the books. I don't care what they say. When I read that book I was furious. I called the publishers and they sent a man to see me, and he said they had sold less than twenty thousand copies. In a country with nearly two hundred million people, and twenty-six million of them had voted for Goldwater! I thought of paying for some ads, but decided it would be better to send the books, and I got a forty-per-cent discount on them.' She curled her fingers over the chair arms. 'Now he's annoying me and I want him stopped. I want you to stop him.'
Wolfe shook his head. 'Preposterous.'
She reached to the stand at her elbow for her brown leather bag, opened it, took out a checkfold and a pen, opened the fold on the stand, no hurry, and wrote, the stub first, with care. Methodical. She tore the check out, got up and put it on Wolfe's desk, and returned to the chair. 'That fifty thousand dollars,' she said, 'is only a retainer. I said there would be no limit.'
Wolfe didn't even give the check a glance. 'Madam,' he said, 'I am neither a thaumaturge nor a dunce. If you are being followed, you were followed here, and it will be assumed that you came to hire me. Probably another has already arrived to start surveillance of this house; if not, it will be started the instant there is any indication that I have been ass enough to take the job.' His head turned. 'Archie. How many agents have they in New York?'
'Oh…' I pursed my lips. 'I don't know, maybe two hundred. They come and go.'
He went back to her. 'I have one. Mr Goodwin. I never leave my house on business. It would-'
'You have Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather.'
Ordinarily that would have touched him, her rattling off their names like that, but not then. 'I wouldn't ask them to take the risk,' he said. 'I wouldn't expect Mr Goodwin to take it. Anyway, it would be futile and fatuous. You say 'stop him.' You mean, I take it, compel the FBI to stop annoying you?'
'Yes.'
'How?'
'I don't know.'
'Nor do I.' He shook his head. 'No, madam. You invited it, and you have it. I don't say that I disapprove of your sending the books, but I agree with the lawyers that it was quixotic. The don endured his afflictions; so must you. They won't keep it up forever, and, as you say, you're not a congressman or a drudge with a job to lose. But don't send any more books.'
She was biting her lip. 'I thought you were afraid of nobody and nothing.'
'Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear.'
'I said no other man alive could do it.'
'Then you're in a box.'
She got her bag and opened it, took out the checkfold and pen, wrote again, the stub first as before, stepped to his desk and picked up the first check and replaced it with the new one, and returned to the chair.
'That hundred thousand dollars,' she said, 'is merely a retainer. I will pay all expenses. If you succeed, your fee, determined by you, will be in addition to the retainer. If you fail, you will have the hundred thousand.'
He leaned forward to reach for the check, gave it a good look, put it down, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Knowing him, I knew what he was considering. Not the job; as he had said, it was preposterous; he was looking at the beautiful fact that with a hundred grand in the till on January fifth he would need, and would accept, no jobs at all for the rest of the winter, and the spring, and even into the summer. He could read a hundred books and propagate a thousand orchids. Paradise. A corner of his mouth twisted up; for him that was a broad grin. He was wallowing. That was okay for half a minute, a man has a right to dream, but when it got to a full minute I coughed, loud.
He opened his eyes and straightened up. 'Archie? Have you a suggestion?'
So it had bit him good. It was conceivable that he might even commit himself, partially at least, and of course that wouldn't do. The best way to prevent it was to get her out of there quick.
'Not offhand,' I said. 'No suggestion. I have a comment. You said that if she's being tailed she was followed here, but if her phone's tapped they didn't have to bother to tail her because they heard her secretary making the appointment.'
He frowned. 'And this house is under surveillance.'
