hall. Eyes followed her, but no one said anything; then, as she passed out of sight, Barry
Rackham got up and, without a glance for any of us, including his hostess, tramped from the room.
The remaining three guests exchanged looks. Leeds and Pierce left their chairs.
Tm sorry, Annabel, Leeds said gruffly. “But didn't I tell you about Goodwin?
She didn't reply. She only stood and breathed. Leeds went, with not as much spring to his step as I had seen, and Pierce, mumbling a good night, followed.
Dana Hammond went to Annabel, had a hand out to touch her arm, and then let it drop.
“My dear, he said, appealing to her, “it was no good. It couldn't be. If you had consulted me-
Til remember next time, Dana. Good night.
“I want to talk with you, Annabel. I want to-
“For God's sake, let me alone! Go!
He backed away a step and scowled at me, as if I were to blame for everything. I lifted my right brow at him. It's one of my few outstanding talents, lifting one brow, and I save it for occasions when nothing else would quite serve the purpose.
He walked out of the room without another word.
Annabel dropped on to the nearest chair, put her elbows on her knees, and buried her face in her hands.
I stood looking down at her. “It was not, I told her sympathetically, “what I would call a success, but anyhow you tried. Not to try to make you feel better, but for future guidance, it might have been wiser, instead of calling a convention, to tackle them one at a time. And it was too bad you picked Leeds to sell first, since he has a grudge against me. But the truth is you were licked before you started. The shape their nerves are in, touching them with a feather wouldn't tickle them, it would give them a stroke. Thanks all the same for asking me.
I left her. By the time I got out to the parking space the cars of the other guests were gone. Rolling down the curving driveway, I was thinking my first incoming phone call hadn't been so damned magnificent after all.
Chapter Twelve
One or two of my friends have tried to tell me that some of my experiences that summer are worth telling about, but even taking them at their word, I'm not going to drag it in here. However, it is true that after I ran an ad in the
Gazette and word got around I soon quit keeping count of the incoming calls. All
I'll do here is summarise it by months:
May. Woman with pet cat stolen. Got it back; fifty dollars and expenses. Guy who got rolled in a joint on Eighth Avenue and didn't want to call the cops. Found her and scared most of it out of her. Two C.s for me. Man who wanted his son pried loose from a blonde sharpie. Shouldn't have tried it; fell on my nose; took a C. above expenses anyhow. Restaurant with a dumb cashier with sticky fingers; took only one afternoon to hook her; client beefed about my request for sixty-five dollars but paid it.
June. Spent two full weeks handling a hot insurance case for Del Bascom and damn near got my skull cracked for good. Cleaned it up. Del had the nerve to offer me three C.s; demanded a grand and got it. My idea was to net more per week than I had been getting from Wolfe, not that I cared for the money, but as a matter of principle. Found a crooked bookie for a man from Meadville, Pa. A hundred and fifty dollars. Man wanted me to find his vanished wife, but it looked dim and he could pay only twenty bucks a day, so I passed it. Girl unjustly accused, she said, of giving secret business dope to a rival firm, and fired from her job, pestered me into tackling it. Proved she was right and got her job back, doing five hundred dollars' worth of work for a measly hundred and twenty paid in instalments. Her face wasn't much, but she had a nice voice and good legs. Got an offer of a job from the F.B.I., my ninth offer from various sources in six weeks, and turned it down.
July. Took a whirl at supervising ten men for a bunch of concessionaires at
Coney Island; caught one of them taking a cut from some of the booths; he jumped me with a cooler and I broke his arm. Got tired of looking at a thousand acres of bare skin, mostly peeling, practically all non- seductive, and quit. Eight fifty for seventeen days. Had passed up at least two thousand worth of little chores. Screwball woman on Long Island had had jewellery stolen, uninsured, thought cops were in on it and stalling. Two things happened: I got some breaks, and I did a damn' good piece of work. It took me into August. I got all the jewellery back, hung it on an interior decorator's assistant with proof, billed her for thirty-five hundred gross, and collected.
August. I had drawn no pay from Wolfe's chequebook since May sixth, I had not gone near my personal safe deposit box, and my personal bank balance had not only, not sunk, it had lifted. I decided I had a vacation coming. The most I had ever been able to talk Wolfe out of was two weeks, and I thought I should double that at least. A friend of mine, whose name has appeared in print in connection with one of Wolfe's cases, had the idea that we should take a look at Norway, and her point of view seemed sound.
Slow but sure, I was working myself around to an attitude towards life without
Nero Wolfe on a permanent basis. One thing that kept it slow was the fact that early in July Marko Vukcic had asked me to bring him another cheque for five grand drawn to cash. Since if you wanted to eat in his restaurant you had to reserve a table a day in advance, and then pay six bucks for one helping of guinea-hen, I
