to give me but didn't like to be interrupted, and I said neither did I. At 11:25 he got up and went to the kitchen, probably to sample the chestnut soup, in which he and Fritz had decided to include tarragon for the first time. At 11:30 I went to the front room and got the package. Nuts to her, if she couldn't be punctual for an appoint-
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ment. She would get her package back, at the door, and that would be all. I was straightening up after fishing it from under the couch when the bell rang, and had it in my hand when I went to the hall.
It was her all right, but through the one-way glass panel I noticed a couple of changes as I stepped to the door: there was a button on her coat where one had been been missing, and her face needed washing even more than it had before. Her whole right cheek was a dark smudge. Touched by the button, I decided to hear her excuse for being late, if any, but as I opened the door she collapsed. No moan, no sound at all, she just crumpled. I jumped and grabbed her, so she didn't go clear down, but she was out, dead weight. I tightened my right arm around her to free my left to toss the package into the hall and then gathered her up, crossed the sill, and kicked the door shut.
As I was turning to the front room Wolfe's voice came. 'What the devil is that?'
'A woman,' I said, and kept going. On her feet I would have guessed her at not more than a hundred and fifteen pounds, but loose and sagging she was a good deal heavier. I put her on the couch, on her back, straightened her legs, and took a look. She was breath- ing shallow, but no gasping. I slipped a hand under her middle and lifted, and stuffed a couple of cushions be- neath her hips. As I took her wrist and put a finger on her pulse Wolfe's voice came at my back.
'Get Doctor Vollmer.'
I turned my head. He had meant it for Fritz, who had appeared at the door. 'Hold it,' I said. 'I think she just fainted.'
'Nonsense,' Wolfe snapped. 'Women do not faint.'
I had heard that one before. His basis for it was not medical but personal; he is convinced that unless she has a really good excuse, like being slugged with a club, any woman who passes out is merely putting on an act-a subhead under his fundamental principle that every woman is always putting on an act. Ignoring it, I checked her pulse, which was weak and slow but not too
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bad, asked Fritz to bring my overcoat and open a win- dow, and went to the lavatory for the smelling salts. I was waving the bottle under her nose and Fritz was spreading the coat over her when her eyes opened. She blinked at me and started to lift her head, and I put my hand on her brow.
'I know you,' she said, barely audible. 'I must have made it.'
'Only to the door,' I told her. 'You flopped on the stoop and I carried you in. Lie still. Shut your eyes and catch up on your breathing.'
'Brandy?' Fritz asked me.
'I don't like brandy,' she said.
'Tea?'
'I don't like tea. Where's my bag?'
'Coffee,' I told Fritz. 'She must like something.' He went. Wolfe had disappeared. 'Sniff this,' I told her, handing her the bottle, and went to the hall. The pack- age was over by the rack, and her handbag was on the floor near the wall. I didn't know how it got there, and I still don't, but since I reject Wolfe's fundamental prin- ciple I assume that a fainting woman can hang onto something. Returning to the patient, I was just in time to keep her from rolling off the couch. She was trying to pull the cushions out from under her middle. When I put a hand on her shoulder she protested, 'Pillows are for heads, Buster. Can't you tell my head from my fanny? Give me the bag.'
I handed it to her and she turned onto her side, propping on her elbow, to open it. Apparently her con- cern was for a particular item, for after a brief glance inside she was closing it, but I said, 'Here, put this in,' and offered the package.
She didn't take it. 'So I'm still alive,' she said. 'I'm froze stiff, but I'm alive. Don't Nero Wolfe believe in heat?'
'It's seventy in here,' I told her. 'When you faint your blood does something. Here's your package.'
'Did you open it?'
'No.'
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'I knew you wouldn't. I'm still dizzy.' Her head went back down. 'You're such a detective, maybe you can tell me what he was going to do if he killed me. He would have had to stop the car and get out to get the bag. Wouldn't he?'
'I should think so. If it was the bag he wanted.'
'Of course it was.' She took a deep breath, and another. 'He thought the package was in it. Anyhow, it was your fault I was there, what you said about the button. I've been intending to sew that button on for a month, and when you said to have one put on and charge it to you, that was too much. I hadn't done anything about my clothes on account of a man for twenty years, and here was a man offering to buy me a button. So I went home and sewed it on.'
She stopped to breathe. I stuck the package in my pocket. 'Where is home?' I asked.
'Forty-seventh Street. Between Eighth and Ninth. So that's why I was there, but you keep your head,
