coffee refills were being attended to and that cigarettes and matches were at hand for everyone, I resumed.
'Next I'm going to spill something. If it gets printed the cops won't like it, and they sure won't like me, but they don't anyhow. A girl named Rachel Abrams was a public stenographer and typist with a little one-room office on the seventh floor of a building up on Broadway. Day before yesterday she went out the window and smashed to death on the sidewalk. More excitement for me as a detective, which is what I'm supposed to be talking about. It would probably have been called suicide or an accident if I hadn't happened to walk into her office two or three minutes after she had gone out the window. In a drawer of her desk I found a little brown book in which she had kept a record of her receipts and expenses. Under receipts there were two entries showing that last September she had been paid ninety-eight dollars and forty cents by a man named Baird Archer.'
'Ah,' Dolly Harriton said. There were other reactions.
'I'll be dreaming about Baird Archer,' Nina Perlman muttered.
'I am already,' I told her. 'As you can see, here's a job for a detective if there ever was one. I won't try to tell you how the cops are going at it, of course one or more of them has talked with all of you the past two days, but here's how we see it, and how we'll go on seeing it unless something shows we're wrong. We believe that Dykes's death was somehow connected with the manuscript of that novel. We believe that Joan Wellman was killed because she had read that manuscript. We believe that Rachel Abrams was killed because she had typed that manuscript. So naturally we want Baird Archer, and we want the manuscript. We've got to find one or both, or we're licked. Any suggestions?'
'Good lord,' Sue Dondero said.
'Get a copy of the novel,' Portia Liss offered.
Someone snickered.
'Look,' I said impulsively, 'unless you object I'm going to do something. There are a couple of people connected with this case upstairs now, waiting to see Mr. Wolfe. I think it would be interesting if they came down and told you about it.' I pressed the floor button with my toe. 'Unless you've had enough?'
'Who are they?' Mrs. Adams wanted to know.
'The father of Joan Wellman and the mother of Rachel Abrams.'
'It won't be very gay,' Dolly Harriton commented.
'No, it won't. Things and people mixed up with detectives are seldom gay.'
'I want to see 'em,' Helen Troy said loudly. 'It's human nature.'
Fritz had entered, and I spoke to him. 'Where are Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman, Fritz? In the south room?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Will you please ask them to be good enough to come down here?'
'Yes, sir.'
He went. I inquired about drinks and got three orders.
9
BLANCHE DUKE darned near ruined it. When Wellman and Mrs. Abrams were ushered in by Fritz, ten pairs of eyes were focused on them, though in two or three cases the focusing required a little effort. I arose, performed the introductions, and brought them to the two chairs I had placed, one on either side of me. Mrs. Abrams, in a black silk dress or maybe rayon, was tight-lipped and scared but dignified. Wellman, in the same gray suit or its twin, was trying to take in all their faces without seeming to. He sat straight, not touching the back of the chair. I had my mouth open to speak when Blanche beat me to it.
'You folks need a drink. What'll you have?'
'No, thanks,' Wellman said politely. Mrs. Abrams shook her head.
'Now listen,' Blanche insisted, 'you're in trouble. I've been in trouble all my life, and I know. Have a drink. Two jiggers of dry gin, one jigger of dry vermouth-'
'Be quiet, Blanche,' Mrs. Adams snapped.
'Go to hell,' Blanche snapped back. 'This is social. You can't get Corrigan to fire me, either, you old papoose.'
I would have liked to toss her out a window. I cut in. 'Did I mix that right, Blanche, or didn't I?'
'Sure you did.'
'Call me Archie.'
'Sure you did, Archie.'
'Okay, and I'm doing this right too. I do everything right. Would I let Mrs. Abrams and Mr. Wellman go without drinks if they wanted them?'
'Certainly not.'
'Then that settles it.' I turned to my right, having promised Mrs. Abrams that Wellman would be called on first. 'Mr. Wellman, I've been telling these ladies about the case that Mr. Wolfe and I are working on, and they're interested, partly because they work in the office where Leonard Dykes worked. I told them you and Mrs. Abrams were upstairs waiting to see Mr. Wolfe, and I thought you might be willing to tell them something about your daughter Joan. I hope you don't mind?'
'I don't mind.'
