In the first place, my hunch was still alive and kicking, and in the second place, she wasn't a good liar, even with a common conventional lie like that. I got out my memo pad and wrote on it:
'If you don't want the cops busting in here in about two minutes looking for your fencing teacher, let's have a little talk. And, for God's sake, don't let her show her face in the hall.
'A.G.'
I grinned at the employee to show there was no hard feeling; and indeed there wasn't. 'May I have an envelope?'
She got one and handed it to me, and I inserted the note and licked the flap and sealed it. 'Here,' I said, 'take this to Mr Driscoll, there's a good girl, and don't argue. Do I look like a man who would come all this way to see him unless I knew he was here?'
Without saying a word, she pressed a button. A boy entered from a door on the left, and she gave him the envelope and told him to deliver it to Mr Driscol's desk. I said, 'Deliver it to him.' And then, as the boy disappeared, I went to the entrance door and opened it and stood there where I could see the hall in both directions. There were several passers-by, but no sign of any frantic dash for freedom. I must have stood there for all of three minutes before I saw, about fifty feet down the hall, the top of a head and then a pair of eyes protruding beyond the edge of a door-jamb. I called in a tone of authority:
'Hey, back in there!'
The head disappeared. It had not shown again when I heard the employee's voice calling my name. I turned. The boy was there holding a door open. He said, 'This way, sir,' and I followed him into an inner corridor and past three doors to one at the end, which he opened.
The room I entered was at least five times as big as the ante-room and six times as prosperous. I realized that in my one swift glance as I started to where Nat Driscoll stood at the corner of a large and elegant desk, telling him, 'If you sneaked her out while I was coming in here, the cops will have her inside of a minute.'
With one hand gripping the edge of the desk hard enough to bleach the knuckles, he said, 'Unh.' He looked as bewildered and terrified as a corpulent uncle who had been inveigled into taking a ride on the Ziparoo at Coney Island.
I looked around. 'Where is she?'
He said, 'Unh.'
There were two doors besides the one I had entered by. I trotted across and opened one, and saw only gleaming tiles and a washbowl and sittery. I closed that and went and opened the other one, and looked into a small room with filing cabinets, a bookcase, and a de luxe secretary's desk. The secretary sat there staring at me with big round blue eyes, and a more glittering stare was bestowed on me from a chair in a corner occupied by Carla Lovchen.
She didn't say anything, just goggled at me. My elbow was grabbed from behind, and I was agreeably surprised to find that Nat Driscoll could grip like that. I pulled away, and we were both inside the small room, and I shut the door.
I demanded, 'What did you figure on doing? Keeping her here till after the funeral?'
Carla asked in a low, tense voice, without altering her stare, 'Where's Neya?'
'She's all right. For a while, anyhow. You were tailed to this building-'
'Tailed?'
'Shadowed. Followed by policemen. There are a dozen of them downstairs now, covering all the elevators and exits.'
Driscoll dropped on to a chair and groaned. The blue-eyed secretary inquired in a cool, business-like tone:
'Are you Archie Goodwin of Nero Wolfe's office?'
'I am. Pleased to meet you.' I met Carla's stare. 'Did you kill Rudolph Faber?'
'No.' A shiver ran over her, and she controlled it and sat rigid again.
Driscoll mumbled at me, 'You mean Ludlow. Percy Ludlow.'
'Do I? I don't.' I fired at the secretary, 'What time did Driscoll get here this morning?'
'Ask him,' she said icily.
'I'm asking you. Let me tell you folks something. I may not be your best and dearest friend, but I'm quite a pal compared to the guys downstairs I mentioned. Otherwise I would have brought them up here. That can be done at any moment. What time did Driscoll get here this morning?'
'About half past eleven.'
'That was his first appearance here to-day?'
'Yes.'
'What time did he leave?'
