Pat Lowell at a desk, working with papers. She looked up to nod and went on working.
'Listen a minute,' I said. 'We're here on a desert island, and for months you have been holding me at arm's length, and I'm desperate. It is not mere propinquity. In rags and tatters as you are, without make-up, I have come to look upon you--'
'I'm busy,' she said emphatically. 'Go play with a coconut.'
'You'll regret this,' I said savagely and went to the hall and looked through the glass of the front door at the outside world. The view was nothing to brag about, and the radios were still at my eardrums, so I went upstairs. Looking through the archway into the room at the left, and seeing no one but the monkey in its cage, I crossed to the other room and entered. It was full of furniture, but there was no sign of life. As I went up the second flight of stairs it seemed that the sound of the radios was getting louder instead of softer, and at the top I knew why. A radio was going the other side of one of the closed doors. I went and opened the door to the room where I had talked with Koven; not there. I tried another door and was faced by shelves stacked with linen. I knocked on another, got no response, opened it, and stepped in. It was a large bedroom, very fancy, with an oversized bed. The furniture and fittings showed that it was co-ed. A radio on a stand was giving with a soap opera, and stretched out on a couch was Mrs. Koven, sound asleep. She looked softer and
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not so serious, with her lips parted a little and relaxed fingers curled on the cushion, in spite of the yapping radio on the bedside table. I damn well intended to find Koven, and took a couple of steps with a vague notion of looking under the bed for him, when a glance through an open door at the right into the next room discovered him. He was standing at a window with his back to me. Thinking it might seem a little familiar on short acquaintance for me to enter from the bedroom where his wife was snoozing, I backed out to the hall, pulling the door to, moved to the next door, and knocked. Getting no reaction, I turned the knob and entered.
The radio had drowned out my noise. He remained at the window. I banged the door shut. He jerked around. He said something, but I didn't get it on account of the radio. I went and closed the door to the bedroom, and that helped some.
'Well?' he demanded, as if he couldn't imagine who I was or what I wanted.
He had shaved and combed and had on a well-made brown homespun suit, with a tan shirt and red tie.
'It's going on four o'clock,' I said, 'and I'll be going soon and taking my gun with me.'
He took his hands from his pockets and dropped into a chair. Evidently this was the Koven personal living room, from the way it was furnished, and it looked fairly livable.
He spoke. 'I was standing at the window thinking.'
'Yeah. Any luck?'
He sighed and stretched his legs out. 'Fame and fortune,' he said, 'are not all a man needs for happiness.'
I sat down. Obviously the only alternatives were to wrangle him into it or call it off.
'What else would you suggest?' I asked brightly.
He undertook to tell me. He went on and on, but I won't report it verbatim because I doubt if it contained any helpful hints for you?I know it didn't for me. I grunted from time to time to be polite. I listened to him for a while and then got a little relief by listening to the soap opera on the radio, which was muffled some by the closed door but by no means inaudible. Eventually, of course, he got around to his wife,
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first briefing me by explaining that she was his third and they had been married only two years. To my surprise he didn't tear her apart. He said she was wonderful. His point was that even when you added to fame and fortune the companionship of a beloved and loving wife who was fourteen years younger than you, that still wasn't all you needed for happiness.
There was one interruption--a knock on the door and the appearance of Byram Hildebrand. He had come to show the revise on the third frame of Number 728. They discussed art some, and Koven okayed the revise, and Hildebrand departed. I hoped that the intermission had sidetracked Koven, but no; he took up again where he had left off.
I can take a lot when I'm working on a case, even a kindergarten problem like that one, but finally, after the twentieth sidewise glance at my wrist, I called a halt.
'Look,' I said, 'this has given me a new slant on life entirely, and don't think I don't appreciate it, but it's a quarter past four and it's getting dark. I would call it late afternoon. What do you say we go ahead with our act?'
He closed his trap and frowned at me. He started chewing his lip. After some of that he suddenly arose, went to a cabinet, and got out a bottle.
'Will you join me?' He produced two glasses. 'I'm not supposed to drink until five o'clock, but I'll make this an exception.' He came to me. 'Bourbon all right? Say when.'
I would have liked to plug him. He had known from the beginning that he would have to drink himself up to it but had sucked me in with a noon appointment. Anything I felt like saying would have been justified, but I held in. I accepted mine and raised it with him, to encourage him, and took a swallow. He took a dainty sip, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and then emptied the glass at a gulp. He picked up the bottle and poured a refill.
'Why don't we go in there with the refreshment,' I suggested, 'and go over it a little?'
'Don't rush me,' he said gloomily. He took a deep breath, swelling his chest, and suddenly grinned at me, showing the
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teeth. He lifted the glass and drained it, reached for the bottle and tilted it to pour, and changed his mind.
'Come on,' he said, heading for the door. I stepped around him to open the door, since both his hands were occupied, closed it behind us, and followed him down the hall. At the farther end we entered the room where we
