A remarkable thing; with a strong light on her, that was best, and with a dim one, that was best. 'I beg your pardon,' I said. 'As you know, I'm a detective, and detectives have bad habits. How many times have you been in the room on the top floor?' 70 Rex Stout 'I'm not allowed,' she said. 'Would I tell you? So you could tell my mother? Excuse me, I shut the door.' She did, and I didn't block it. A nice long talk with her would be desirable, but it would have to wait. I went to the elevator and used the other key, stepped in, and was lifted. You have expectations even when you're not aware of them. I suppose I was expecting to find a scared or indignant female sitting on a couch or chair and Fred near at hand with an eye on her. It wasn't like that. Fred was standing in the center of the room holding up his pants, with two red streaks down his cheek. For a second I thought she wasn't there; then I saw her head sticking out of the bundle on the floor. It was the yellow silk coverlet from the bed, and she was wrapped in it, with Fred's belt strapped around the middle. I went and looked down at her, and she glared up at me. 'She's not hurt any,' Fred said. 'I wish she was. Look at me.' The red of the streaks on his cheek was blood. He lifted a hand with a handkerchief and dabbed at it. 'You said I wouldn't have to touch her unless she started it. She started it all right. Then when I went for the phone she went for the elevator, and when I went to head her off she went for the phone. So I had to wrap her up.' 'Have you told her who you are?' 'No. I wouldn't do her that favor. That's her bag there.' He pointed to a chair. 'I haven't looked in it.' A voice came from the bundle on the floor. 'Who are you?' it demanded. I ignored her and went and got the bag and Too Many Clients 71 opened it. With the other usual items, it contained four that were helpful: credit cards from three stores and a driver's license. The name was Julia McGee, with an address on Arbor Street in the Village. She was twenty-nine years old, five feet five inches, white, brown hair and brown eyes. I put the stuff back in the bag and the bag on the chair, and went to her. 'I'll unwrap you in a minute, Miss McGee,' I said. 'His name is Fred Durkin and mine is Archie Goodwin. You may have heard of Nero Wolfe, the private detective. We work for him. Mr. Durkin is camped here because Mr. Wolfe wants to have a talk with anyone who comes to this room. I'll be glad to take you to him. I ask no questions because I'd only have to tell him what you said, and it will be simpler to let him ask them.' 'Let me up!' she demanded. 'In a minute. Now that I know who you are and where to find you the situation is a little different. If you grab your bag and head for the elevator I won't try to stop you, but I advise you to count to ten first. There are keys in your bag to the door downstairs and the elevator. If and when the police get to this room they will of course be interested in anyone who had keys and could have been here Sunday night. So it might be a mistake to decline my invitation. Think it over while I'm unwrapping you.' I squatted to unbuckle the belt and pull it from under her, and Fred came and took it. I couldn't stand her up to unwrap her because her feet were inside too. 'The easiest way,' I told her, 'is to roll out while I hold the end.' She rolled. That thing was ten feet square, and I never have asked Fred how 72 Rex Stout he managed it. When she was out she bounced up and was on her feet. She was quite attractive, perhaps more than normally with her face flushed and her hair tousled. She shook herself, yanked her coat around into place, went and got her bag, and said, 'I'm going to phone.' 'Not here,' I told her. 'If you're leaving alone, there's a booth at the corner. If you're going with me, there's a phone in Mr. Wolfe's office.' She looked more mad than scared, but that's always a guess with a strange face. 'Do you know whose room this is?' she demanded. 'I know whose it was. Thomas G. Yeager's.' 'What are you doing here?' 'Skip it. I not only won't ask questions, I won't answer them.' 'You have no right . . .' She let that go. 'I am Mr. Yeager's secretary. I was. I came to get a notebook I left here, that's all.' 'Then you have nothing to fear. If and when the police get to you, just tell them that and they'll apologize for bothering you.' 'If I don't go with you, you're going to tell the police?' 'I haven't said so. Mr. Wolfe makes the decisions. I'm just the errand boy.' She moved. I thought she was bound for the phone, but she kept straight on, to the far end, to the door to the bathroom, and on through. I went and took a look at Fred's cheek. He had his belt back on. 'So this was Yeager's room,' he said. 'Now since I know that--' 'You don't. You don't know anything. I lied to her and she fell for it. Your job is merely to be here to welcome callers. There's no harm done. Your Too Many Clients 73 cheek looks worse than it is, and there's stuff in the bathroom for it. You would have had to take the coverlet off anyway when you go to bed. I'll help you fold it.' I took one end and he took the other. He asked how long he would have to hang on there, and I said until further notice, and what better could he ask? Any man with a feeling for the finer things of life would consider it a privilege to be allowed to shack up in such an art gallery as that, and he was getting paid for it, twenty-four hours a day. He said even the TV had caught it; when he turned it on what he had got was a woman in a bathtub blowing soap bubbles. As he put the folded coverlet on a couch Julia McGee reappeared. She had adjusted the neck of her dress, put her hair in order, and repaired her face. She wasn't at all bad-looking. She came up to me and said, 'All right, I'm accepting your invitation.'
t ..i Chapter 7
'hen you enter the hall of the old brownstone on West 35th Street, the first door on your left is to what we call the front room, and the one beyond it is to the office. Both of those rooms are soundproofed, not as perfectly as Yeager's bower of carnality, but well enough, including the doors. I took Julia McGee to the front room, had my offer to take her coat declined, and went through the connecting door to the office, closing it behind me. Wolfe was in his favorite chair with his book. He is not a fast reader, and that book has 667 pages, with about 600 words to the page. When I crossed to his desk and told him I had brought company he finished a paragraph, closed the book on a finger, and scowled at me. w I went on. 'Her name is Julia McGee. She says she was Yeager's secretary, which is probably true because it can be easily checked. She says she went there tonight to get a notebook she had left there, which is a lie and not a very good one. There is no notebook in that room. When she entered and saw Fred she went for him and drew blood on his face, and he had to wrap her up in a bed cover so he could 76 Rex Stout use the phone. After I got her name and address from things in her bag I told her she could either go now and explain to the police later or she could come here with me, and she came with me. I made a concession, I told her she could use the phone as soon as she got here, with us present.' He said, 'Grrrrh.' I gave him two seconds to add to it, but apparently that was all, so I went and opened the door to the front room and told her to come in. She came on by me, stopped to glance around, saw the phone on my desk, crossed to it, sat in my chair, and dialed. Wolfe inserted his bookmark, put the book down, leaned back, and glared at her. She told the receiver, 'I want to speak to Mr. Aiken. This is Julia McGee. . . . That's right. . . . Thank you.' A one-minute wait. 'Mr. Aiken? . . . Yes. . . . Yes, I know, but I had to tell you, there was a man there and he attacked me and . . . No, let me tell you, another man came and said they were working for Nero Wolfe, the detective. . . . Yes, Nero Wolfe. The second one, Archie Goodwin, said Nero Wolfe wanted to talk with anyone who came to that room and wanted me to go with him, and that's where I am now, in Nero Wolfe's office. . . . Yes. . . . No, I don't think so, they're both right here, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. ... I don't know. . . . Yes, of course, but I don't know. . . . Wait, I'll ask.' She turned to me. 'What's this address?' I told her, and she went back to the phone. 'Six-eighteen West Thirty-fifth Street. . . . That's right. . . . Yes, I will.' She hung up, swiveled, told Wolfe, 'Mr. Aiken will be here in twenty minutes,' and wriggled her coat off. E^ Too Many Clients 77 Wolfe asked, 'Who is Mr. Aiken?' Her look was what you would get from the Yankee batboy if you asked him who is Mr. Stengel. 'Mr. Benedict Aiken. The president of Continental Plastic Products.' That changed my mind. Wanting my own chair, I had been about to move her to the red leather one, but she would only have to move again when the president came, so I brought one of the yellow ones for her, facing Wolfe's desk, and put her coat on the couch. As she changed to it Wolfe lifted his head to sniff. His opinion of perfume may be only a part of his opinion of women. He always thinks he smells it when there's a woman in the room. I had been closer to Julia McGee than he had, and she wasn't scented. He eyed her. 'You told Mr. Goodwin that you went to that room this evening to get a notebook you had left there. When did you leave it?' She was meeting his eyes. 'I'll wait until Mr. Aiken gets here.' Wolfe shook his head. 'That won't do. I can't prevent his coming, but he'll enter only if it suits me. I want some facts before he arrives. When did you leave the notebook?' She opened her mouth and closed it again. In a moment she spoke. 'I didn't. That was a?that wasn't true. I went there this evening because Mr. Aiken asked me to.' 'Indeed. To get something he had left?' 'No. I'd rather wait until he's here, but it doesn't matter. You know that place was Mr. Yeager's, so it doesn't matter. Mr. Aiken sent me there to see if there was anything there that would 78 Rex Stout connect Mr. Yeager with it, that would show it was his place.' 'Mr. Aiken gave you keys?' 'No, I had keys. I had been there a few times to take dictation from Mr. Yeager. I was his secretary.' Wolfe grunted. 'I haven't seen that room, but Mr. Goodwin has described it. Did you think it a suitable milieu for business dictation?' 'It wasn't my place to think it was suitable or wasn't. If he thought it was?he was my boss.' Wolfe looked at me. I raised my brows. One brow up meant no, even money. Two brows up meant no, five to one. He returned to her. 'If you had found something that showed it was Mr. Yeager's place, what were you going to do with it?' 'I was going to take it.
