“It doesn’t matter what I want, does it?”
“It matters to Mr. Wolfe. The police can say to anybody involved, ‘Answer this one, or else,’ but he can’t. He wants to talk with you and sent me to bring you to his office, and I can persuade you to come only by one of three methods. I could threaten you if I had a good menace handy, but I haven’t. I could bribe you if I knew what to use for bait, but I don’t. All that’s left is to say that Mrs. Fromm came to see him and gave him that check, and he has reason to think that her death was connected with the matter she hired him to work on and therefore he feels obliged to investigate it, and he wants to start by talking with you. The question is whether you want to help. Naturally I should think you would, without any threats or bribes, even if I had some in stock. Our office is on Thirty-fifth Street. The cop out front will flag a taxi for us, and we can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“You mean go now?”
“Sure.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I have to-I couldn’t.” She was back in control, with all signs of the attack gone. “You say the question is whether I want to help, but that’s not it, it’s how I can help.” She hesitated, studying me. “I think I’ll tell you something.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“I told you two policemen, detectives, left here half an hour ago.”
“Yes.”
“Well, while they were here, not long before they left, there was a phone call for one of them, and after he hung up he said I might be contacted by Nero Wolfe, probably through his assistant, Archie Goodwin, and I might be asked to go to see Nero Wolfe, and if so he hoped I would cooperate by going and then tell the police exactly what Wolfe said.”
“That’s interesting. Did you agree to cooperate?”
“No. I didn’t commit myself.” She got up, went to a desk, got a pack of cigarettes from a drawer, lit one, and took two healthy drags. She stood looking down at me. “The reason I told you that is purely selfish. I happen to think that Nero Wolfe is smarter than any policeman, but whether he is or not, Mrs. Fromm went to consult him yesterday and gave him that check, and I don’t know what for. Since I’m her secretary of course I’m involved in this, I can’t help that, but I’m not going to do anything to get more involved, and I certainly would be if I went to see Nero Wolfe. If I didn’t tell the police what Wolfe said they would never let up on me, and if I did tell them-what if he asked me about something that Mrs. Fromm had told him confidentially and wouldn’t want the police to know?”
She took another drag at the cigarette, went to a desk and mashed it in a tray, and came back. “So I told you. I’m just a sweet innocent small-town girl from Nebraska, I don’t think. If ten years on your own in New York don’t teach you how to avoid collisions in heavy traffic, nothing will. Here I am in this mess, but I’m not going to say or do anything to make it worse than it is-for me. I’m going to have to get a job. I don’t owe Mrs. Damon Fromm anything-I worked for her, and she paid me, and nothing extravagant, either.”
My head was tilted back to look up at her, with my face, if it was obeying orders, earnest and sympathetic. The starched collar was engraving the back of my neck. “You won’t get an argument from me, Miss Estey,” I assured her. “I’ve been in New York ten years too, and then some. You say the police wanted you to tell them what Nero Wolfe said, but how about Archie Goodwin? Did they ask you to tell them what I say?”
“I don’t think so. No.”
“Good. Not that I have anything special to say, but I would like to ask a few questions if you’ll sit down.”
“I’ve been sitting answering questions all afternoon.”
“I’ll bet you have. Such as, where were you last night from ten o’clock to two o’clock?”
She stared. “You’re asking me that?”
“No, just giving a sample of the kind of questions you’ve been answering all afternoon.”
“Well, here’s a sample of the kind of answers I gave. Yesterday between five and six Mrs. Fromm dictated about a dozen letters. A little after six she went up to dress, and I started on some phone calls she had told me to make. A little after seven, after she had gone out, I had dinner alone, and after dinner I typed the letters she had dictated and went out to mail them at the box at the corner. That was around ten o’clock. I came right back and told Peckham, the butler, I was tired and was going to bed, and went up to my room and turned on WQXR for the music, and went to bed.”
“Fine. Then you live here?”
“Yes.”
“Another example. Where were you Tuesday afternoon from six o’clock to seven?”
She went and sat down and cocked her head at me. “You’re right, they asked me that too. Why?”
I shrugged. “I’m just showing you that I know the kind of questions cops ask.”
“You are not. What is it about Tuesday afternoon?”
“First how did you answer it?”
“I couldn’t until I thought back. That was the day Mrs. Fromm went to a meeting of the Executive Committee of Assadip-the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons. She let me take a car-the convertible-and I spent the afternoon and evening chasing all over town trying to find a couple of refugees that Assadip wanted to help. I never found them, and I got home after midnight. I’d have a hard time accounting for every minute of that afternoon and evening, and I don’t intend to try. Why should I? What happened Tuesday between six and seven?”
I regarded her. “How about a trade? Tell me where Mrs. Fromm was yesterday afternoon from
