He has a personal slant on women.
Back to the show. It lasted over two hours, and for some of the numbers the applause was unrestrained, and it looked to me as if the Daumery and Nieder profits were likely to go on swelling up. Cynthia, in my opinion, was the star, and others seemed to agree with me. The numbers she modeled got much more applause than the rest of the line, and I admit I furnished my share, which was as it should be since I was her guest. Remarks from my neighbor on the right, who was evidently in the know, informed me that Cynthia's numbers had all been designed by herself, whereas the others were the work of Ward Roper, who had been Paul Nieder's assistant and was merely a good imitator and adapter.
In the office that evening I explained that to Wolfe, too, partly because I knew it would bore and irritate him, and partly because I wanted to demonstrate that I hadn't been asleep although my report of results had had no bodice at all and a very short skirt.
A breath and a half had done it. 'I got in by following Cynthia's instructions, found a seat in the fifth row, and sat down after doing a survey of the two hundred customers and seeing no whiskers. Miss Nieder made fourteen appearances and did not signal me. When she came out front after the show she was immediately encircled by people, and I beat it, again following instructions, went down to the sidewalk, told Saul nothing doing, and handed Herb Aronson a ten-dollar bill.'
Wolfe grunted. 'What next?'
'That requires thought, which is your department. We can't sick the cops on him because the client doesn't want that. We can buy a gross of combs and comb the city. Or we can try again at their next show for buyers, which, as you know, will be Thursday morning at ten. Or you may remember what the client said about her uncle's private file.'
Wolfe poohed. 'She doesn't even know whether it exists. She thinks Jean Daumery took it and locked it up, and that the nephew, Bernard Daumery, is hanging onto it. She thinks she may possibly be able to find it.'
'Okay, you admit she thinks, so why not you? You're merely objecting, not thinking. Think.'
That was before dinner. If he did put his brain in motion there were no visible or audible results. After dinner, back in the office again, he started reading a book. That disgusted me, because after all we had a case, and for the sake of appearances I started in on a blow-by-blow account of the Daumery and Nieder show. The least I could do was to make it hard for him to read. I went on for over an hour, covering the ground, and then branched out into commentary.
'Imagine it!' I said. 'After the weddings I will of course have to take a good-sized apartment…'
I've already told about that.
The next morning, Tuesday, he was still shirking. When we have a job on he usually has breakfast instructions for me before he goes up to the plant rooms for his nine-to-eleven session with Theodore and the orchids, but that day there wasn't a peep out of him, and when he came down to the office at eleven o'clock he got himself comfortable in his chair behind his desk, rang for Fritz to bring beer – two short buzzes – and picked up his book. Even when I showed him the check from Cynthia which had come in the morning mail, two thousand smackers, he merely nodded indifferently. I snorted at him and strode to the hall and out the front door, on my way to the bank to make a deposit. When I got back he was on his second bottle of beer and deep in his book. Apparently his idea was to go on reading until Thursday's show for buyers.
For one o'clock lunch in the dining room, which was across the hall from the office, Fritz served us with chicken livers and tomato halves fried in oil and trimmed with chopped peppers and parsley, followed by rice cakes and honey. I took it easy on the livers because of my attitude toward Fritz's rice cakes. I was on my fifth cake, or maybe sixth, when the doorbell rang. During meals Fritz always answers the door, on account of Wolfe's feeling that the main objection to atom bombs is that they may interrupt people eating. Through the open door from the dining room to the hall I saw Fritz pass on his way to the front, and a moment later his voice came, trying to persuade someone to wait in the office until Wolfe had finished lunch. There was no other voice, but there were steps, and then our visitor was marching in on us – a man about Wolfe's age, heavy-set, muscular, red-faced, and obviously aggressive.
It was our chum Inspector Cramer, head of Homicide. He advanced to the table before he stopped and spoke to Wolfe.
'Hello. Sorry to break in on your meal.'
'Good morning,' Wolfe said courteously. For him it was always morning until he had finished his lunch coffee. 'If you haven't had lunch we can offer you -'
'No, thanks, I'm busy and in a hurry. A woman named Cynthia Nieder came to see you yesterday.'
Wolfe put a piece of rice cake in his mouth. I had a flash of a thought: Good God, the client's dead.
'Well?' Cramer demanded.
'Well what?' Wolfe snapped. 'You stated a fact. I'm eating lunch.'
'Fine. It's a fact. What did she want?'
'You know my habits and customs, Mr. Cramer.'
Wolfe was controlling himself. 'I never talk business at a meal. I invited you to join us and you declined. If you will wait in the office -'
Cramer slapped a palm on the table, rattling things. My guess was that Wolfe would throw the coffee pot, since it was the heaviest thing handy, but I couldn't stay for it because along with the sound of Cramer's slap the doorbell rang again, and I thought I'd better not leave this one to Fritz. I got up and went, and through the one-way glass panel in the front door I saw an object that relieved me. The client was still alive and apparently unhurt. She was standing there on the stoop.
I pulled the door open, put my finger on my lips, muttered at her, 'Keep your mouth shut,' and with one eye took in the police car parked at the curb, seven steps down from the stoop. The man seated behind the wheel, a squad dick with whom I was acquainted, was looking at us with an expression of interest. I waved at him, signaled Cynthia to enter, shut the door, and elbowed her into the front room, which faces the street and adjoins
