so damn particular about accepting jobs and clients, and also I had got a replacement for my check. She had served my purpose, so why not bounce her? But evidently something about her, maybe the way she packed a suitcase, had made an impression on me, for I found myself taking a line.
I told Wolfe that, acting as his agent, I had practically promised her that he would see her. He only grunted. I told him that he could probably get her to can the mystery and tell her name and describe her troubles, and if so the resulting fee might provide for my salary checks for a year. Another grunt.
I gave up. 'Okay,' I said, 'she'll have to find some bacalhau somewhere else. Maybe East Harlem- there's a lot of Portuguese around there. I shouldn't have mentioned it to her.'
'Bacalhau?' he demanded.
'Yeah. I happened to mention we were having it for dinner, and she asked what it was and I told her, and she said salt cod couldn't possibly be fit to eat no matter how it was cooked, not even if it was an adaptation of a Portuguese recipe by you and Fritz.' I shrugged. 'Skip it. She may be a murderess anyhow. What's the difference if we break a precedent by turning her out hungry just at mealtime? What if I did sell her on salt cod and now have to evict her unfed? Who am I?'
I got up and picked up the seven fifties from his desk. 'This,' I said regretfully, 'puts us back where we started. Since this is to be returned to her, I have contributed nothing to the bank account, and the situation regarding my salary check snaps back to last Friday. That leaves me no alternative.' I reached to my desk for the check he had signed as replacement, took it at the middle of its top edge with thumbs and forefingers-
'Archie!' he roared. 'Don't tear that!'
I still do not know what the decision would have been about the roomer upstairs if it had been left to us. Because Wolfe did not like the idea of sending anyone from his house hungry, because of his instinctive reaction to the challenge that salt cod couldn't be made edible, and because of my threat to tear up another check, the roomer was not bounced before dinner, and the tray that was prepared for the south room was inspected personally by Wolfe before Fritz took it up. But except for the preparation and dispatch of the tray, no decision was put into words; the question was ignored. Wolfe and I ate together in the dining room as usual; the salt cod with Portuguese trimmings was so good that I had no room for the veal and not much for the walnut pudding; and when we were through with coffee and I followed Wolfe back into the office I assumed that the first item on the agenda would be Miss or Mrs. X. But he didn't even call a meeting. After a full meal, which our dinner always is, it takes him four or five minutes to get adjusted in his chair to his complete satisfaction. With that accomplished that Monday evening, he opened his book and started to read.
I had nothing to complain about, since it was certainly his move. She was still up there, fed and locked in, and it was up to him. He could just pass it and let her stay, which was unthinkable, or he could have me bring her down for a talk, which he would hate, or he could tell me to put her out, which might or might not get my prompt cooperation. In any case, I didn't intend to give him an opening, so when he started reading I sat regarding him silently for a couple of minutes and then got up and headed for the door.
His voice came at me from behind. 'You're not going out?'
I turned and was bland. 'Why not?'
'That woman you smuggled in. The arrangement was that you would get rid of her after dinner.'
It was a barefaced lie; there had been no such arrangement, and he knew it. But he had unquestionably squared off and feinted with a jab, and it was my turn. The disposal of our roomer would probably have been settled quickly and finally if it hadn't been for an interruption. The doorbell rang. It was only two steps from where I stood to the hall, and I took them.
After dark I never open the outside door to a ring without first flipping on the stoop light and taking a look through the one-way panel. That time a glance was enough. He was alone, about twice my age, tall and bony with a square jutting jaw, with a dark gray felt hat firmly on his head and a briefcase under his arm. I pulled the door open and asked him how he did. Ignoring that question, he said his name was Perry Helmar and that he wanted to see Nero Wolfe, urgently. Ordinarily, when Wolfe is in the office and a stranger calls, I let the caller wait while I go in to check, but now, welcoming a chance to give Wolfe another tack to sit on, and also perhaps to postpone a showdown on the roomer until bedtime, I invited the guy in, hung his hat on the rack, and escorted him to the office.
I thought for a second that Wolfe was going to get up and march out without a word. I have known him to do that more than once, upon deciding that someone, not always me, is not to be borne. The idea did dart into his mind-I know that look only too well-but it wasn't strong enough to overcome his reluctance to leave his chair. So he sat and surveyed the visitor with a resentful scowl.
'I should explain,' Helmar explained, 'that I came to you immediately not only because I know something of your record and reputation, but also because I know my friend Dick Williamson's opinion of you- Richard A. Williamson, the cotton broker. He says you once performed a miracle for him.'
Helmar paused politely to give Wolfe a chance to insert an acknowledgment of this flattering preamble. Wolfe did so by inclining his head a full eighth of an inch.
'I don't ask for a miracle,' Helmar resumed, 'but I do need speed, boldness, and sagacity.' He was in the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe's desk, with his briefcase on the little table at his elbow. His voice was a raspy oratorical baritone, hard and bony like him. He was going on. 'And discretion-that is essential. You have it, I know. As for me, I am a senior partner in a law firm of the highest repute, with offices at Forty Wall Street. A young woman for whom I am responsible has disappeared, and there is reason to fear that she is doing something foolish and may even be in jeopardy. She must be found as quickly as possible.'
I opened a drawer to get out a notebook, and reached for my pen. What could be sweeter? A missing person, and a senior member of a Wall Street firm of high repute so bothered that he came trotting to us at night without even stopping to phone in advance. I glanced at Wolfe and suppressed a grin. His lips were tightened in resigned acceptance of the inevitable. Work was looming, work that he could probably find no rational excuse for rejecting, and how he hated it!
'I have a definite proposal,' Helmar was saying. 'I will pay you five thousand dollars and necessary expenses if you will find her, and put me in communication with her, by June twenty-ninth-six days from now. I will pay double that, ten thousand, if you will produce her in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth.'
My eyes were on him in fitting appreciation when he spoke of five grand, and then ten grand; but I lowered them to my notebook when I heard that date, June 30. It could have been a coincidence, but I had a good sharp hunch that it wasn't, and I have learned not to sneer at hunches. I lifted my eyes enough to get Wolfe's face,
