'I have a carbon,' I said, and handed it to her. By gum, she read it through. Well trained by her husband, or by the lawyers after he died. She took a pen from a stand and signed the original, and I reached for it.
'So that's why Mr Wolfe wanted you to come this morning,' she said.
I nodded. 'Partly. He wanted me to ask Miss Dacos a few questions about being tailed, and I have. I saw your tail yesterday. When you left a car followed you, close, with two men in it, and I got the license number. They were FBI. They want you to know. From here on we probably won't have anything to ask you or tell you unless and until there's a break, but we might, and there should be an arrangement. Since you have read that book, you know what 'bugged' means. Do you know if this room is bugged?'
'No, I don't. Of course I've thought about it, and we have examined it several times. I'm not sure. They have to get in, don't they? Put something in it?'
'Yes. Unless electronics has come up with something that isn't being mentioned, and I doubt it. I don't want to overplay it, Mrs Bruner, but I don't think any part of this house is a good place to talk. It's cold out, but a little fresh air will do you good. If you'll get a coat?'
She nodded. 'You see, Mr Goodwin. In my own house. All right.' She got up. 'Wait here.' She went.
Sarah Dacos was smiling at me. 'You could have gone upstairs,' she said. 'I can't hear through walls or even though keyholes.'
'No?' I looked her up and down, glad to have an excuse. She was very lookable. 'You may be wired for sound, and there would be only one way to make sure, and you wouldn't enjoy it.'
The hazel eyes laughed. 'How do you know I wouldn't?'
'My knowledge of human nature. You're the squeamish type. You haven't walked up to your tail and said what's your name and what do you want.'
'Why, do you think I should?'
'No. But you haven't. May I ask, do you dance?'
'Sometimes.'
'I'd know more about you if you danced with me. I don't mean about the possibility that you're playing with the FBI. If they had you, right here in the house, they wouldn't be dogging her and the whole family. The only reason I-'
The client showed at the door. I hadn't heard her footsteps. That was bad. Miss Dacos was attractive, but not enough to keep me from hearing footsteps, even though I was talking. That could only mean that my opinion of the job wouldn't let me get fully on it, all of me, and that wouldn't do. As I went and followed the client to the front my jaw was set. The man in black opened the door, and I got the vestibule door, and we were out in the January wind. We headed east, toward Park Avenue, and stopped at the corner.
'We can talk better standing,' I said. 'First, our getting you in a hurry if we have to. There's absolutely no telling what's going to happen. It's even possible that Mr Wolfe and I will have to leave his house and hole up somewhere. If you get a message, by phone or otherwise, no matter how, that the pizza is sour, go at once to the Churchill Hotel and find a man named William Coffey. He's a house dick there-an assistant security officer. You can do that openly. He'll have something for you, either to tell you or give you. Pizza is sour. Churchill Hotel, William Coffey. Remember it. Don't write it down.'
'I won't.' She was frowning. 'I suppose you're sure you can trust him?'
'Yes. If you knew Mr Wolfe better, and me, you wouldn't ask that. Have you got it?'
'Yes.' She pulled the collar of her coat, not the sable, something else, closer.
'Okay. Now your getting us if you have to, for something not to be spilled. Go to a phone booth and ring Mr Wolfe's number and tell whoever answers that Fido is sick, just that, and hang up. Wait two hours and go to the Churchill and William Coffey. Of course this is just for something they are not to know. For anything they have done or already know about, just ring us. Fido is sick.'
She was still frowning. 'But they'll know about William Coffey after the first time if I go to him openly.'
'We may use him only once. Leave that to us. Actually, Mrs Bruner, you're more or less out of it now, the operation. We'll be working for you, but not on you or about you. We probably won't need to make contact with you at all. All this is just a precaution in case. But there's something we ought to know now. You said you came to Mr Wolfe and gave him that six-figure check merely because you're being annoyed. Of course you're a very wealthy woman, but that's hard to believe. It's a good guess that there's something buried somewhere-about you or yours-that you don't want dug up, and you're afraid they will. If that's so we ought to know it-not what it is, but how urgent it is. Are they getting close?'
A gust of wind slapped her and she bent her head and hunched a shoulder. 'No,' she said, but the wind swept it away and she said it louder. 'No.'
'But of course they might.'
Her eyes were focused on me, but the wind made it a squint. 'We won't discuss that, Mr Goodwin,' she said. 'I suppose every family has its… something. Perhaps I didn't consider that risk enough when I sent those books, but I did it, and I don't regret it. They're not 'getting close' to anything, as far as I know. Not yet.'
'That's all you want to say about it?'
'Yes.'
'Okay. If and when you want to say more you know what to do. What is sour?'
'The pizza.'
'Who is sick?'
'Fido.'
