I poked it at her. She rubbed its tip gently with the tip of her own. “I wondered if it had a callus. After [garbled] dialing my number five times in less than five hours. Are you trying to win some kind of a bet? Or did you dream about me?” She sipped her Tom Collins, bending her head to get her lips to the straw. A strand of her hair slipped forward over an eye and a cheek, and I reached across and used the same finger to put it back in place.
“I took that liberty,” I told her, “because I wish to have an unobstructed view of your lovely phiz. I want to see if you turn pale or your eyes get glassy.”
“Overwhelmed by you so near?”
“No, I know that reaction-I correct for it. Anyhow I doubt if I’m magnetic right now because I’m sore at you for making me miss a train.”
“I didn’t phone you this time. You phoned me.”
“Okay.” I drank. “You said on the phone that you still don’t like Nero Wolfe and you wouldn’t go to see him unless you knew what for and maybe not even then. So this is what for. He wants to ask you whether you intend to kill him yourself or hire the same gang that you got to kill Jensen and Doyle. So he’ll know what to expect.”
“Mercy.” She looked my face over. “You’d better put your humor on a diet. It’s taking on weight.”
I shook my head. “Ordinarily I would enjoy playing catch with you, as you are aware, but I can’t miss all the trains. I’m not even trying to be funny, let alone succeeding. I was instructed to tell you this if necessary. Because Wolfe’s life has been threatened in the same manner as Jensen’s was, the supposition is that Jensen was murdered for revenge, for what he did to Captain Root. Because of the cutting remarks you made when Root was trapped, and your general attitude, there is a tendency to want to know what you have been doing lately. Wolfe wants to ask you. If you wonder why I didn’t start with some grade A detecting by finding out where you were last night between eleven and twelve, that wouldn’t help any because what if you hired-”
“Stop.” She stopped me. “I’m dreaming.”
“I’m not.”
“It’s fantastic.”
“Sure. Lots of things are.”
“Nero Wolfe seriously thinks I-did that? Or had it done?”
“I didn’t say so. He wants to discuss it with you.”
Her eyes flashed. Her tone took on an edge. “It is also extremely corny. And the police? Have you kindly arranged that when Wolfe finishes with me I proceed to headquarters? Would you be good enough to phone my boss in the morning and let him know where I am? I can’t begin to tell you-”
“Listen, Tiger-eyes.” She let me cut her off, which was a pleasant surprise. “Have you noticed me sneaking up on you from behind? If so, draw it for me. I have explained a situation. Your name has not been mentioned to the police, though they have consulted us. You are, let us assume, as innocent as a cheeping chick, which you do not, however, resemble in visible physical aspects.”
“Thank you.” The edge was even sharper.
“You’re welcome. But since the police are onto the Root angle they are apt to get a steer in your direction without us, and it wouldn’t hurt if Wolfe had already satisfied himself that you wouldn’t kill a fly.”
“By what process?” She was scornful. “I suppose he asks me if I ever committed murder, and I smile and say no, and he apologizes and gives me an orchid.”
“Not quite. He’s a genius. He asks you questions like do you bait your own hook when you go fishing, and you reveal yourself without knowing it.”
“It sounds fascinating.” Her eyes suddenly changed, and the line of her lips. She had been struck with an idea. “I wonder,” she said.
“What is it, and we’ll both wonder.”
“Sure.” Her eyes had changed more. “This wouldn’t by any chance be a climax you’ve been working up to? You with a thousand girls and women so that you have to issue ration books so many minutes to a coupon, and yet finding so much time for me? Leading up, heaven knows why, and I don’t care to go to heaven to find out, to this idiotic frame-”
“Turn that one off,” I broke in, “or I’ll begin to get suspicious myself. You know darned well why I have found time for you, having a mirror as you do. I have been experimenting to test my emotional reaction to form, color, touch, and various perfumes, and I have been deeply grateful for your cooperation. For you to pretend to imagine that the experiment we have been carrying on was on my part preparation for a frame-up for murder is an insult both to my intelligence and my emotional integrity.”
“Ha, ha.” She stood up, her eyes not softening nor her tone melting. “I am going to see Nero Wolfe. I welcome an opportunity to reveal myself to Nero Wolfe. Do I go or are you taking me?”
I took her. I paid the check and we went out and got a taxi.
During the brief ride downtown and cross-town she got more realistic. She said, among other things, “I was taken in by Peter Root. I thought he was innocent and was being made the goat. So I expressed myself accordingly, and why shouldn’t I? But I am over all that, as you know unless you are a two-faced subhuman Pithecanthropus, and this business about the murder of that Jensen, which I read about in the morning paper, is utter poppycock. I’m a working girl. After my experience with the charming, irresistible Peter I wouldn’t marry a combination of Winston Churchill and Victor Mature. I wouldn’t even marry you. I have a future. I intend to become the first female vice-president of the biggest advertising agency in the country. I never will, or anyway not for years, if my name is made public as a suspect in a murder case. The publicity about me in the Peter Root business didn’t help me any, and this would about finish me.”
“Don’t,” I advised her, “take that line with Nero Wolfe. His attitude toward women as business executives is a little peculiar, not to mention his attitude toward women.”
