'You said you did Wednesday evening.'
She waved a hand. 'It gets Eleanor Gruber's goat. She's crazy about O'Malley. I don't think that at all. I think Len Dykes committed suicide.'
'Oh. Whose goat does that get?'
'Nobody's. It might get Sue's, but I like her, so I don't say it, I just think it.'
'Sue Dondero? Why her?'
'Well-' Blanche frowned. 'Of course you didn't know Len Dykes.'
'No.'
'He was a funny duck. He was a nice guy in a way, but he was funny. He had inhibitions about women, but he carried a picture of one in his wallet, and who do you think it was? His sister, for God's sake! Then one day I saw him-'
She stopped abruptly. The band had struck up a conga. Her shoulders moved to the beat. There was only one thing to do. I stood up and extended a hand, and she came, and we edged through to the floor. A quarter of an hour later we returned to the table, sat, and exchanged glances of unqualified approval.
'Let's get the dragging over with,' I suggested, 'and then we can do some serious dancing. You were saying that one day you saw Dykes-doing what?'
She looked blank a moment, then nodded. 'Oh, yes. Do we really have to go on with this?'
'I do.'
'Okay. I saw him looking at Sue. Brother, that was a look! I kidded him about it, which was a mistake, because it made him decide to pick me to tell about it. It was the first time-'
'When was this?'
'A year ago, maybe more. It was the first time he had ever put an eye on a woman, at his age! And he had fallen for her so hard he might as well have had an ulcer. He kept it covered all right, except with me, but I certainly got it. He tried to date her, but nothing doing. He asked me what to do, and I had to tell him something, so I told him Sue was the kind of girl who was looking for glamour, and he ought to get famous somehow, like getting elected senator or pitching for the Yankees or writing a book. So he wrote a book, and the publishers wouldn't take it, and he killed himself.'
I showed no excitement. 'He told you he wrote a book?'
'No, he never mentioned it. Along about then he stopped talking about her, and I never brought it up because I didn't want to get him started again. But it was one of the things I suggested, and there's all this racket about a book that got rejected, so why can't I put two and two together?'
I could have objected that suicide by Dykes in December wouldn't help to explain the murder of Joan Wellman and Rachel Abrams in February, but I wanted to get to the point before the band started up again. I took a sip of my drink.
I smiled at her to keep it friendly. 'Even if you're right about the suicide, what if you're shifting the cast? What if it was you instead of Sue he put his eye on?'
She snorted. 'Me? If you mean that for a compliment, try.. again.'
'I don't.' My hand went to my breast pocket and came out with a folded paper. 'This is a memorandum on office expenses prepared by Dykes, dated last May.' I unfolded it. 'I was going to ask you why he scribbled your home phone number on it, but now you can just say it was while he was telling you about Sue and asking your advice, so what's the use.' I started to refold it.
'My phone number?' she demanded.
'Yep. Columbus three, four-six-two-oh.'
'Let me see it.'
I handed it to her, and she took a look. She held it to her right to get more light and looked again. 'Len didn't write that,' she declared.
'Why not?'
'It's not his writing.'
'Whose is it? Yours?'
'No. It's Corrigan's. He writes square like that.' She was frowning at me. 'What is this, anyhow? Why should Corrigan be putting my phone number on this old memo?'
'Oh, forget it.' I reached and took the paper from her fingers. 'I thought maybe Dykes had written it and just thought I'd ask. Corrigan may have wanted to phone you about something after office hours.' A rattle came from the drum, and the band slid into a trot. I put the memo in my pocket and stood up. 'Skip it. Let's see how we like this.'
We liked it fine.
When I got home, around two, Wolfe had gone up to bed. I slid the bolts on the front and back doors, twirled the knob of the safe, and drank a glass of milk before ascending. People are never satisfied. What was on my mind as I pulled the covers up was the contrariness of life. Why couldn't it have been Sue who danced like that instead of Blanche? If a man could figure out some way of combining…
The Sunday schedule at Wolfe's house was different since Marko Vukcic, his closest friend and the owner of Ruster-man's Restaurant, had talked him into installing a pool table in the basement. It was now routine for Wolfe to spend Sunday morning in the kitchen with Fritz, preparing something special. At one-thirty Marko would arrive to help appreciate it, after which they would go to the basement for a five-hour session with the cues. I rarely took part, even when I was around, because it made Wolfe grumpy when I got lucky and piled up a big run.
