“That’s the spirit,” I approved. “Loyalty or bust. You’ll get pie in the sky when you die. I suppose your personal specialty is getting the subject in a corner in Peacock Alley and charming it out of him. If you ever feel like practicing on me I might consider it, only I don’t charm very easy.”
She straightened her head to meet eye to eye. Hers were dark blue. “You might be a little tough, at that,” she said. “It might take a full hour to break you wide open.”
The coffee came and interrupted. By the time we got to the elevator I had a return ready, a crusher, but there was company and I had to save it, and back in the room with our colleagues was no good either. She served Nero Wolfe first and I served Dol Bonner. After the others had been attended to I joined the ladies in their corner, but I didn’t want to demolish Sally in front of her boss, so we merely discussed how much longer we might have to wait. That was soon decided – for me, anyhow. There was still coffee in my container when a man entered and announced that Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin were wanted. Wolfe heaved a sigh for all to hear, put his container down on a chair, arose, and headed for the door, and I followed, as a murmur went around. The man led us twenty paces down the hall, opened a door and went in, and fingered to us to enter. The staff of the secretary of state needed training in manners.
It was a medium-sized room with three large windows, all weather-dirty. In the center was a big walnut table surrounded by chairs, and against the walls were a desk and a smaller table and more chairs. A man seated at one end of the big table, with a stack of folders at his right, motioned us to chairs at his left. The one who had brought us closed the door and took a nearby chair against the wall.
The man at the table gave us a look, neither cordial nor hostile. “I guess there’s no question of identity with you,” he told Wolfe, meaning either that he was famous or that no one else was so big and fat, take your pick. He glanced at a folder open before him on the table. “I have your statements here, yours and Mr. Goodwin’s. I thought it would expedite matters to have you in together. I am Albert Hyatt, special deputy of the secretary of state for this inquiry. The proceeding is informal and will remain so unless circumstances arise that seem to call for a record.”
I was taking him in. Not far from forty, one way or the other, he was smooth all over – smooth healthy skin, smooth dark hair, smooth pleasant voice, smooth brisk manner, and smooth gray gabardine. I had of course checked on the two deputies who were handling the inquiry and had reported to Wolfe that this Hyatt was a partner in a big law firm with offices in midtown New York, that he had mixed a good deal in politics, that he had some reputation as a trial man, which meant that he liked to ask people questions, and that he was a bachelor.
He glanced at the folder again. “In April of last year, nineteen-fifty-five, you arranged for a tap on the private telephone of Otis Ross, at his apartment on West Eighty-third Street, Manhattan, New York City. Is that correct?”
“I have so stated,” Wolfe conceded grumpily.
“So you have. Under what circumstances did you make that arrangement?”
Wolfe moved a finger to aim it at the folder. “If that’s my statement before you, and Mr. Goodwin’s, you have it there.”
“Yes, I have your statement, but I’d like to hear it. Please answer the question.”
Wolfe started to make a face, realized it wouldn’t help matters any, and suppressed it. “On April fifth, nineteen-fifty-five, a man called on me at my office, gave his name as Otis Ross, and said he wanted to have his home telephone tapped. I told him I never dealt with marital difficulties. He said that his difficulty wasn’t marital, that he was a widower, that he had diversified business and financial interests and handled them from his home, that he had recently begun to suspect his secretary of double dealing, that he was away frequently for a day or two at a time, that he wanted to find out whether his suspicions of his secretary were warranted, and to that end he wanted his phone tapped.”
Wolfe tightened his lips. He hated to be reminded of that affair, let alone retell it. For a second I thought he was going to balk, but he went on. “I knew, of course, that it was legally permissible for a man to have his own wire tapped, but I declined the job on the ground that I had had no experience in that line. Mr. Goodwin, who was present, as he always is at conversations in my office, interposed to say that he knew of a man who could handle the technical problem. He so interposed for two reasons: first, because of the novelty and diversion a wiretapping operation would offer him personally; and second, because he thinks it necessary to badger me into earning fees by taking jobs which I would prefer to reject. I confess that he is sometimes justified. Would you like him to interpose now for corroboration?”
Hyatt shook his head. “When you’re through. Go ahead.”
“Very well. Mr. Ross put a thousand dollars in cash on my desk – ten hundred-dollar bills – as a retainer and advance for expenses. He said he couldn’t pay by check because his secretary must not know he had hired me, and also, for the same reason, no reports or other matter could be mailed to him; he would call for them at my office or make other arrangements to get them. And I was not to phone him at his home because he suspected that his secretary, on occasion, impersonated him on the telephone. Therefore he wanted reports of all conversations on his wire, since when he himself was presumed to be speaking at his end it might actually be his secretary.”
Wolfe tightened his lips again. He was having to squeeze it out. “Naturally not only had my curiosity been aroused, but also my suspicions. It would have been useless to ask him for documentary evidence of his identity, since documents can be forged or stolen, so I told him that I must be satisfied of his bona fides, and I suggested that Mr. Goodwin might call on him at his home. You don’t need to tell me how witless that suggestion was; I have told myself. He acquiesced at once, having, of course, anticipated it, saying only that it should be at an hour when his secretary would not be on the premises, since he – that is, his secretary – might possibly recognize Mr. Goodwin. So it was arranged. At nine o’clock that evening Mr. Goodwin went to the address on West Eighty- third Street and up to Mr. Ross’s apartment. He gave the maid who admitted him a name – an alias that had been agreed upon – and asked to see Mr. Ross, and was taken by her to the living room, where he found my client seated under a lamp, reading a book and smoking a cigar.”
Wolfe tapped the table with a fingertip. “I designate him ‘my client’ deliberately because I earned the ignominy – confound it, he
“No, you can skip that.” Hyatt passed a palm over his smooth dark hair. “It’s in Goodwin’s statement.”
“I know very little about it anyway. The tap was made, and Mr. Goodwin had a new toy. He couldn’t spend much time with it, since I need him at the office more or less continually, and most of the listening was done by men provided by the technician. I didn’t even look at the reports, for which Mr. Ross called at my office
