Yugoslavia, by Henderson, from the shelf and asked if you've read it, and do you stoody it, and am I reading it and so on. She's down there with her pretty nose in it. But, as I say, her eyes look worried. I had a notion to tell her that because of the healthy condition of the bank account…'
I turned it off, because he was ignoring me and giving his attention to the cards. Reflecting that that was an unusually childish gesture even for him, since it lacked only three minutes till eleven o'clock, the hour when he invariably proceeded from the plant rooms to the office, I snorted audibly, wheeled, and went for the stairs.
The immigrant was still in the chair, reading, but had abandoned the book for a magazine. I looked around for it to return it to the shelf, but saw that she had already done so; it was back in its place, and I gave her a good mark for that, because I've noticed that most girls are so darned untidy around a house. I told her Wolfe would be down soon, and had just got my notes cleared away and the typewriter lowered when I heard the door of his personal elevator clanging, and a moment later he entered. A pace short of his desk he arrested his progress to acknowledge the visitor's presence with a little bow which achieved only one degree off the perpendicular, then continued to his chair, got deposited, glanced at the vase of cattleyas and the morning mail under the weight, put his thumb to the button to summon beer, leaned back and adjusted himself, and sighed. The visitor, with the magazine closed on her lap, was gazing at him through long, lowered lashes.
Wolfe said abruptly and crisply, 'Lovchen? That is not your name. It is no one's name.'
Her lashes fluttered. 'My name,' she said with a half-smile, 'is what I say it is. Would you call it a convenience? Not to irritate the Americans with a name like Kraljevitch?'
'Is that yours?'
'No.'
'No matter.' Wolfe sounded testy-as far as I could see, for no reason. 'You came to see me?'
Her lips parted for a soft little laugh. 'You sound like a Tsernagore,' she declared. 'Or a Montenegrin if you prefer it, as the Americans do. You don't look like one, since Tsernagores grow up and up, not out and all around like you. But when you talk I feel at home. That's exactly how a Tsernagore speaks to a girl. Is it what you eat?'
I turned my head to enjoy a grin. Wolfe demanded, almost bellowing at her, 'What can I do for you, Miss Lovchen?'
'Oh yes.' Her eyes showed the worry again. 'I was forgetting on account of seeing you. You are a famous man, I know that, of course, but you don't look famous. You look more like-' She stopped, made a little circle with her lips, and went on, 'Anyway, you're famous, and you have been in Montenegro. You see, I know much about you. Hvala Bogu. Because I want to engage you on account of some trouble.'
'I'm afraid-'
'Not my trouble,' she continued rapidly. 'It's, a friend of mine, a girl who came with me to America not long ago. Her name is Neya Tormic.' The long black lashes flickered. 'Just as mine is Carla Lovchen. We work together at the studio of Nikola Miltan on 48th Street. You know, perhaps? Dancing and fencing are taught there. You know him?'
'I've met him,' Wolfe admitted gruffly, 'at the table of my friend Marko Vukcic. But I'm afraid I'm too busy at present-'
She swept on in front. 'We're good fencers, Neya and I. Corsini in Zagreb passed us with foils, йpйe, and sabre. And the dancing, of course, is easy. We learn the Lambeth Walk in twenty minutes, we teach it to rich people in five lessons, and they pay high, and Nikola Miltan takes the money and pays us only not so high. That is why, in this foolish trouble Neya has got into, we can pay you not so much as you might expect from some people, but we can pay you a little, and added to that is the fact that we are from Zagreb. It's not a little trouble Neya has got into, it's a big one, through no fault of hers, because she is not a thief, as anyone but an American fool would be aware. They'll put her in jail, and you must act quickly, at once-'
Wolfe's face was set in a grimace, showing that he was in the throes of an agitation away beyond his chronic reluctance to bother his mind about business when the bank balance was up in five figures. Displaying a palm at her, he tried to expostulate:
'I tell you I'm too busy-'
She hopped right over it. 'I came instead of Neya because she has important lessons this morning, and it is necessary we should keep our jobs. But you will have to see her, of course, so you will have to go there, and anyway Miltan is arranging for everyone to be there together to-day, this afternoon, to settle it. It's the biggest nonsense anyone could imagine to suppose that Neya would put her hand in a man's pocket and steal diamonds, but it will be terrible if it happens the way Miltan says it will happen if the diamonds are not returned-but wait-you must let me tell you-'
My mouth was standing open in astonishment. After two hours on his feet in the plant rooms, when he came to the office at eleven o'clock and got lowered into his chair, with me there to annoy him pleasantly and the beer-tray freshly delivered by Fritz Brenner, Wolfe was ordinarily as immovable as a two-ton boulder. But now he was rising; he was risen. With a mutter that might have been taken either for an excuse or an imprecation, and with no glance at either of us, he stalked out of the room, by the door that led to the hall. We watched him go and then the immigrant turned and let me have her eyes wide open.
'He gets sick?' she demanded.
I shook my head. 'Eccentric,' I explained. 'I suppose you might call it a form of sickness, but it's nothing tangible like concussion of the brain or whooping-cough. Once when a respectable lawyer was sitting in that very chair you're in now- Yes, Fritz?'
The door which Wolfe had closed behind him had opened again and Fritz Brenner stood there with a bewildered look on his face.
'In the kitchen a moment, please, Archie.'
I got up and excused myself and went to the kitchen. Preliminary preparations for lunch were scattered around on the big linoleum-covered table, but it was obvious that Wolfe had not been suddenly seized with a violent curiosity about food. He stood at the far side of the refrigerator, facing me in a determined manner that seemed entirely uncalled for, and told me abruptly as I entered:
