She stared at him. 'Don't be an idiot'
He drank some beer, wiped his lips, and leaned back in his chair. 'Miss Fox. The avoidance of idiocy should be the primary and constant concern ot every intelligent person. It is mine. I am sometimes successful. Take, for instance, your statement that you did not steal that money. Do I believe it? As a philosopher, I believe nothing. As a detective, I believe it enough to leave it behind me, hut am prepared to glance back over my shoulder. As a man, I believe it utterly. I assure you, my reason for the questions I am asking is not idiotic. For one thing, I am observing your face as you reply to them. Bear with me; we shall be getting somewhere, I think. Did you kill anyone this evening between five and six o'clock?'
'No.'
'Did Mr. Walsh or Miss Lindquist do so?'
'Kill anyone?'
Tes.'
She smiled at him. 'As a philosopher, I don't know. I'm not a detective. As a woman, they didn't.'
'If they did, you have no knowledge of it?'
'No.'
'Good. Have you a dollar bill?'
'I suppose I have.'
'Give me one.'
She shook her head, not in refusal, but in resigned perplexity at senseless antics. She looked in her bag and got out a dollar bill and handed it to Wolfe. He took it and unfolded it and handed it across to me.
'Enter it, please, Archie. Retainer from Miss Clara Fox. And get Mr. Perry on the phone.' He turned to her. 'You are now my client.'
She didn't smile. 'With the understanding, I suppose, that I may-'
'May sever the connection?' His creases unfolded. 'By all means. Without notice.'
I found Perry's number and dialed it. After giving my fingerprints by television to some dumb kluck I finally got him on, and nodded to Wolfe to take it.
Wolfe was suave. 'Mr. Perry? This is Nero Wolfe. I have Mr. Goodwin's report of his preliminary investigation. He was inclined to agree with your own attitude regarding the probable innocence of Clara Fox, and he thought we might therefore be able to render some real service to you. But by a curious chance Miss Fox called at our office this evening- she is here now, in fact-and asked us to represent her interests in the matter… No, permit me, please… Well, it seemed to be advisable to accept her retainer… Really, sir, I see nothing unethical…'
Wolfe hated to argue on the telephone. He cut it as short as he could, and rang off, and washed it down with beer. He turned back to Clara Fox. 'Tell me about your personal relations with Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir.'
She didn't answer right away. She was sitting there frowning at him. It was the first time I had seen her brow wrinkled, and I liked it better smoothed out. Finally she said, 'I supposed you had already taken that case for Mr. Perry. I had gone to a lot of trouble deciding that you were the best man for us- Miss Lindquist and Mr. Walsh and Mr. Scovil and me- and I had already telephoned on Saturday and made the appointment with you, before I heard anything about the stolen money. I didn't know until two hours ago that Mr. Perry had engaged you, and since we had the appointment I thought we might as well go through with it. Now you tell Mr. Perry you're acting for me, not the Seaboard, and you say I've given you a retainer for that. That's not straight. If you want to call that a retainer, it's for the business I came to see you about, not that silly rot about the money. That's nonsense.'
Wolfe inquired, 'What makes you think it's nonsense?'
'Because it is. I don't know what the truth of it is, but as far as I'm concerned it's nonsense.'
Wolfe nodded. 'I agree with you. That's what makes it dangerous.'
'Dangerous? How? If you mean I'll lose my job, I don't think so. Mr. Perry is the real boss there, and he knows I'm more than competent, and be can't possibly believe I took that money. If this other business is successful, and I believe it will be, I won't want the job anyhow.'
'But you will want your freedom.' Wolfe sighed. 'Really, Miss Fox, we are wasting time that may be valuable. Tell me, I beg you, about Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir. Mr. Muir hinted this afternoon that Mr. Perry is enjoying the usufructs of gallantry. Is that true?'
'Of course not.' She frowned, and then smiled. 'Calling it that, it doesn't sound bad at all, does it? But he isn't. I used to go to dinner and the theater with Mr. Perry fairly frequently, shortly after I started to work for Seaboard. That was during my adventuress phase. I was going to be an adventuress.'
'Did something interrupt?'
'Nothing but my disappointment. I have always been determined to get somewhere, not anywhere in particular, just somewhere. My father died when I was nine, and my mother when I was seventeen. She always said I was like my father. She paid for my schooling by sewing fat women's dresses. I loved my mother passionately, and hated the humdrum she was sunk in and couldn't get out of.'
'She couldn't find George Rowley.'
'She didn't try much. She thought it was fantastic. She wrote once to Harlan Scovil, but the letter was returned. After she died I tried various things, everything from hat-check girl to a stenographic course, and for three years I studied languages in my spare time because I thought I'd want to go all over the world. Finally, by a stroke of luck, I got a good job at the Seaboard three years ago. For the first time I had enough money so I could spend a little trying to find George Rowley and the others mentioned in father's letter-1 realized I'd have to find
