to Zorka or pop goes the weasel.'
The taxi bumped across Sixth Avenue and scooted ahead for Fifth, along Bryant Park. Nearing the library, he called to the driver, 'Stop at the kerb and leave the meter on.' As we rolled to a standstill I said, 'You'd better kept the rest of your dough to pay the fare with.'
He sat and glared at me in silence. Finally he blurted, 'Look here, I can't take you to her. I can't do that. I'll tell you what I'll do: You wait right here, and I'll take another cab and be back here with her inside of twenty minutes.'
I stared at him. 'The reason I don't talk,' I told him, 'is because I'm speechless. Holy heaven!'
'What's wrong with that? I give you my word-'
'I don't want it. Cut the comedy and let's go.'
He glared some more. I permitted it for a full minute and then got impatient. 'I'll count up to twenty-nine,' I said, 'one for each year of my life and one to grow on and one to get married on, and then-'
'Wait a minute.' He was approaching the pleading stage. 'The reason I can't take you to her is a personal reason. I don't intend to try any deception; I can't. You know damn well the hole I'm in. What about this? You go with me to a phone booth, and I'll call her up and tell her to meet us-'
I shook my head emphatically. 'No. A thousand times no. Quit trying to wiggle off the hook. How do I know but what you've got a code with her to use in emergencies? Remember I'm ignorant. I don't even know but what Wolfe has got it figured out that she killed Ludlow and, in that case…' I shrugged. 'I'm only a puppet and I'm under orders. For God's sake, shut up and let's go.'
He curled his fingers to make fists. 'I can just open this door and beat it. You know?'
'Go ahead. Don't let me stop you. Then I could phone Wolfe and go on home.'
'But, goddam it, if you hear me phone-'
'Shut up! I'm bored stiff.'
He gave me one more good long glare and then leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Madison Avenue, not ten blocks away. The driver nodded and got going again.
He had enough left to pay the fare. It wasn't a modern apartment house we stopped in front of, but an older building whose days of pride were in the past. The ground floor was a trinket shop, dark, of course. Barrett got out a key and unlocked a door that let us into a small public corridor, went to the rear of it, and with another key admitted us into a miniature elevator of the drive-it-yourself variety. That took us up five storeys, and then we had to climb a flight of stairs. The layout wasn't exactly shabby, though it was far from ostentatious. From the top of the stairs he preceded me through a sort of vestibule and used a third key on a wide, solid-looking door. I followed him in and he shut the door and turned to call out:
'Yoohoo!'
An answer came: 'Back here, Donnybonny!'
I could already smell perfume, and the temperature even there in the foyer must have been close to ninety. I copied his example when he took off his coat, but when he scowled at me and said, 'Wait here a minute,' I disregarded it and went along behind him into a large and dazzling room full of heat, synthetic smells, thick rugs, divans and cushions, miscellaneous fluff, and a pair of damsels. They were sprawled out, one on a divan and the other on a chaise-longue.
Zorka, a loose red thing around her, started a wave of greeting at Barrett and then halted in mid-air as she saw me. Belinda Reade, nothing at all around her, called, 'How's my Donny- Oh!' and grabbed for a pale blue neglig233;e that was draped over the back of the divan.
Chapter Eleven
Barrett growled at me, 'Didn't I ask you to wait?'
'It doesn't matter,' I soothed him. 'When my mind is on business-'
'Why,' Belinda Reade cried in innocent delight, 'it's the detective man! Have a drink?'
She was working on one herself, and the ingredients for plenty more were handy on a little table. Zorka was having one, too. She had raised herself to her elbow on the chaise-longue and was smiling at me foolishly, without any intention, apparently, of saying anything.
Barrett said, 'Be quiet, Bel. This fellow came…' He turned to Zorka. 'He came for you. My God, look at you-both of you.' He frowned at her and switched at me: 'You explain it to her.'
'Thees ees no time,' Zorka declared in an injured tone, 'for explanations.'
'Have a drink,' Miss Reade insisted. 'I have never had a drink with a detective, and especially such a darned good-looking detective.' She patted the divan and tugged at the negligйe to cover a knee. 'Sit here by me and have a drink.'
'Don't be a damned fool,' Barrett told her.
Zorka tittered. 'She only wants to make you jealous, Donald. Because you make her jealous of the Tormic girl.'
'Bah,' said Miss Reade. 'Have a drink! What's your name?'
