'Excuse me,' Wolfe put in. 'Will it save time to tell you that I don't do industrial surveillance?'
'No, that's not it,' she said, waving it away. 'I know you don't. It's about him, my uncle. Uncle Paul.'
She frowned, and was looking at the window beyond Wolfe's desk as if she were seeing something. Then her shoulders lifted and dropped again, and she went back to Wolfe.
'You need some background,' she told him. 'At least I think it would be better. Daumery was the business head of the firm, the organizer and manager and salesman, and Uncle Paul was the designer, the creator. If it hadn't been for him Daumery wouldn't have had anything to manage and sell. They owned it together – a fifty-fifty partnership. It was my uncle's half that I inherited when my uncle killed himself – anyway, that's how it was announced, that he committed suicide – a little over a year ago.'
That gave me two thoughts: one, that I had been right about her having the price of a fee; and two, that we were probably in for another job of translating a suicide into a murder.
'I suppose I should tell about me,' Cynthia was saying. 'I was born and brought up out West, in Oregon. My father and mother died when I was fourteen, and Uncle Paul sent for me, and I came to New York and lived with him. He wasn't married. We didn't get along very well together, I guess because we were so much alike, because I'm creative too; but it wasn't really so bad, we just fought all the time. And when it came down to it he let me have my way. He was determined about my going to college, but I knew I was creative and it would be a waste of time. We fought about it every day, and finally he said if I didn't go to college I would have to earn my living, and then what do you think he did? He gave me a job modeling for Daumery and Nieder at top salary! That's what he was like! Actually he was wonderful. He gave me the run of the place too, to catch on about designing, but of course he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't known I had unusual talent.'
'What kind of talent?' Wolfe asked skeptically.
'As a clothes designer, of course,' she said, as if that were the only talent worth mentioning. 'I was only eighteen – that was three years ago – and completely without training, and for two years I only modeled and caught onto things, but I had a few little chances to show what I could do. I was surprised that my uncle was willing to help me along, because most established designers are so jealous; but he did. Then he went West on a vacation, and then the word came that he had killed himself. Maybe I ought to tell you why I wasn't surprised that he had killed himself.'
'Maybe,' Wolfe conceded.
'Because I knew how unhappy he was. Helen Daumery had died. A horse she was riding had gone crazy and thrown her off on some stones and killed her. She was Daumery's wife – the wife of my uncle's partner – and my uncle was in love with her. She had been one of their models – she was much younger than Daumery – and I think she was the only woman Uncle Paul ever loved – anyhow he certainly loved her. She didn't love him because she didn't love anybody but herself, but I think she probably gave him the cherry out of her cocktail just because she enjoyed having him like that when no other woman could get him. She would.'
I didn't put it in my notes that Miss Nieder had disapproved of Mrs. Daumery, but I could have, and signed it.
'Helen's death broke my uncle up completely,' Cynthia went on. 'I never saw anything like it. I was still living in his apartment. He didn't say a word to me for three days – not a single word – nor to anyone else, and he didn't leave the apartment day or night – right in the middle of getting ready for the showings of the fall line – and then he said he was going away for a rest, and he went. Four days later the news came that he had committed suicide, and under the circumstances it didn't occur to me to question it.'
When she paused Wolfe inquired, 'Do you question it now?'
'I certainly do,' she said emphatically. 'I wasn't surprised, either, at the way he did it. He was always keyed up and dramatic, about everything. He was by far the best designer in New York, and he was the best showman, too. So you would expect him to do something startling about killing himself, no matter how unhappy he was. He took all his clothes off and jumped into a geyser in Yellowstone Park.'
Wolfe let out a mild grunt. I gave her an admiring eye for her calm voice and manner in dishing out a fact like that, but of course it was a year old for her.
'Under the surface of that geyser,' she said, 'down below, the pressure in the pipe from above keeps the temperature far above the boiling point, according to an article about it I read in a newspaper.'
'That seems conclusive,' Wolfe murmured. 'Why do you now question it?'
'Because he didn't die. Because he's not dead. I saw him last week, here in New York, alive.'
III
I felt myself relaxing. It had seemed that we were about to be tagged for the chore of ripping the false face off of a murder disguised as a suicide, and at the smell of murder I always go tight all over. In the detective business that's the center ring in the big tent. The headline MAN DEAD gets the eye good, but Cynthia Nieder had scrapped that and changed it to MAN ALIVE, which was quite a comedown. Another thought had struck me: that if Uncle Paul was alive her inheriting half the business was out the window and her ability to pay a good exorbitant fee was open to question. My attitude toward her personally remained intact; she rated high priority on looks, voice, and other observable factors. But professionally I was compelled to grade her way down in the little routine items.
So I relaxed and tossed my notebook on my desk, which is so placed that a half-turn of my swivel chair puts me facing Wolfe, and with another half-turn I am confronting the red leather chair beyond the end of his desk where a lone visitor is usually seated. Some visitors clash with it, but Cynthia, in a deep-toned yellow dress, maybe silk, a jacket in brown and yellow checks, flaring open, and a little brown affair slanting on her head, looked fine. Having learned one or two little things about women's clothes from Lily Rowan and other reliable sources, I decided that if Cynthia had designed that outfit Wolfe should eat his skepticism about her talent.
