“So you took Nero Wolfe on,” I remarked, as to a comparative stranger.
“Don’t be aloof,” she said. She reached to put her fingers around my arm, three inches below the shoulder, and press. “Don’t pay any attention to that. It doesn’t mean anything. Once in a while I like to feel a man’s arm, that’s all.”
“Okay, I’m a man.”
“So I suspected.”
“When this is over I’d be glad to teach you how to play pool or look up words in the dictionary.”
“Thanks.” I thought she shivered. “When this is all over.”
When we stopped for a light in the upper Forties she said, “You know, I believe I’m going to be hysterical. But don’t pay attention to that either.”
I looked at her, and there certainly wasn’t any sign of it in her voice or her face. I never saw anyone act less hysterical. When I pulled up at the curb at her address, she hopped out before I could move and stuck her hand in.
“Good night. Or what is the protocol? Does a detective shake hands with one of the suspects?”
“Sure.” We shook. It fitted nicely. “To get her off her guard.”
She disappeared inside, probably to give the doorman a brief glance on her way to the elevator, to strengthen his motive.
When I got back home, after putting the car away, and stopped in the office to make sure the safe was locked, there was a scribbled note lying on my desk:
Which gave me a rough idea of the state of confusion he was in, the way the note contradicted itself. Saul Panzer’s rate was thirty bucks a day, and Bill Gore’s was twenty, not to mention expenses, and his committing himself to such an outlay was absolute proof that there would be no retainer refund. He was merely appealing for my sympathy because he had taken on such a hard job. I went up two flights to my room, glancing at the door of his as I passed it on the first landing, and noting that the little red light was on, showing that he had flipped the switch for the alarm connection.
Chapter 12
I REALIZED ALL THE more how hard the job was likely to be when, the next morning after Wolfe came down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock, I heard him giving Saul Panzer and Bill Gore their instructions.
To anyone seeing him but not knowing him, Saul Panzer was nothing but a little guy with a big nose who never quite caught up with his shaving. To the few who knew him, Wolfe and me for instance, those details meant nothing. He was the one free-lance operative in New York who, year in and year out, always had at least ten times more jobs offered him than he had the time or inclination to take. He never turned Wolfe down if he could possibly help it. That morning he sat with his old brown cap on his knee, taking no notes because he never had to, while Wolfe described the situation and told him to spend as many hours or days at the Waldorf as might be necessary, milking and gathering eggs. He was to cover everything and everybody.
Bill Gore was full size and unpolished, and one glance at the top of his head showed that he was doomed. He would be bald in another five years. His immediate objective was the NIA office, where he was to compile certain lists and records. Erskine had been phoned to and had promised co-operation.
After they had departed I asked Wolfe, “Is it really as bad as that?”
He frowned at me. “As bad as what?”
“You know darned well what. Fifty dollars a day for the dregs. Where is there any genius in that?”
“Genius?” His frown became a scowl. “What can genius do with this confounded free-for-all? A thousand people, all with motive and opportunity, and the means at hand! Why the devil I ever let you persuade me-”
“No, sir,” I said loudly and firmly. “Don’t try it! When I saw how tough this was going to be, and then when I read that note you left for me last night, it was obvious you would try to blame it on me. Nothing doing. I admit I didn’t know how desperate it was until I heard you telling Saul and Bill to dive into the holes the cops have already cleaned out. You don’t have to admit you’re licked. You can wriggle out. I’ll draw a check to the NIA for their ten thousand, and you can dictate a letter to them saying that on account of having caught the mumps, or perhaps it would be better-”
“Shut up,” he growled. “How can I return money I haven’t received?”
“But you have. The check was in the morning mail and I’ve deposited it.”
“Good God. It’s in the bank?”
“Yes, sir.”
He pushed the button, savagely, for beer. He was as close to being in a panic as I remembered seeing him.
