Community Health Center, and that might have floored me, with her probably up on the lingo. To my surprise, Wolfe helped out by hopping all over the place, asking Beulah about her courses and other concerns, talking about himself and cases he had handled, and even trying to draw Schane out-he actually called him Morton, in a paternal tone-regarding his philosophies and ambitions.
“I don’t really know anything,” Morton told him while Fritz was passing the salad plates, “except law. That’s the worst of a specialized education, it leaves you comparatively ignorant in all other fields. That is certainly regrettable.”
“It is indeed.” Wolfe reached for the bowl of dressing. “But not as regrettable as their ignorance in their own field. I hope, Morton, that you are prepared to face the fact that very few people like lawyers. I don’t. They are inveterate hedgers. They think everything has two sides, which is nonsense. They are insufferable wordstretchers. I had a lawyer draw up a tort for me once, a simple conveyance, and he made it eleven pages! Two would have done it. Have they taught you to draft torts?”
Morton was too well mannered to take offense at his dinner host. “Naturally, sir, that’s in the course. I try not to put in more words than necessary.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, keep it brief. A little more dressing, Harold?”
I nearly muffed that one because my mind was on something else. It wouldn’t hurt, I thought, to make a delivery of some kind to Dazy Perrit, and in my opinion we had something to deliver. He certainly didn’t know his daughter was engaged to be married, since it had just happened, and he would probably appreciate being told about it. I decided that as soon as we left the table I would excuse myself, go to my room two flights up, ring Wolfe on the house phone and get his okay, and then call Perrit from the extension in my room. That worked all right except for the little detail that I couldn’t reach Perrit. I tried all five of the numbers he had given me, following instructions by saying it was Goodyear calling, and got nothing but not in. I left word everywhere for Perrit to call Goodyear and went downstairs to join them in the office, where they were having coffee.
Wolfe and Beulah were singing songs. At least it was as close to singing as I had ever seen him get. She was really pouring it out in words that were strangers to me, apparently songs she had mentioned at dinner that she had learned from a fellow student from Ecuador, and Wolfe was moving a finger to keep time and evidently humming. For him that was drunken revelry, and I would have merely sat and enjoyed it if I had had no worries. But it was past ten o’clock, and the situation called for my driving them home, and I didn’t want to miss Violet, who might beat the gun and arrive before eleven-thirty. So I stayed on my feet.
It wasn’t hard to get them out, because Morton was ready to go anyhow. Wolfe behaved like a gentleman, even getting out of his chair to say good night. I suppose that what was itching Morton was anxiety to get home and study, the wine and song having had no visible effect on him, but I was as wrong as I could be.
Out at the curb, as I was opening the door of the convertible, he suddenly put his hand on my shoulder-more intimacy than I had thought him capable of in anything less than a year-and spoke.
“You know, you’re a swell guy, Stevens. That was a swell idea you had. Now I’ve got one, and I don’t think it’s all the wine I drank. Or maybe it is, but so what? Whose car is this?”
“Mr. Wolfe’s. He’s letting me use it.”
“But of course you have a driver’s license?”
The damn lawyer. “Sure,” I said, “I’ve got my license with me.”
“Then, since you wanted to help us celebrate, what do you think of this? You drive us down to Maryland, it will only take four hours, and we’ll get married!”
He turned to Beulah, who was there against him. “How’s that for an idea?”
She said promptly and emphatically, “It stinks.”
“What?” He was surprised. “Why?”
“Because it does. I may not have any father or mother, or even aunts or uncles or cousins, but I don’t have to sneak off to Maryland in the dead of night to get a husband. I’m going to have flowers and white things, and sunshine if I get a break. Anyway, I thought you had to study. What about that test?”
“Very well, I do have to study.”
“And in case it might compromise your standing as a future Justice of the Supreme Court to be seen riding through the streets with an orphan, I’ve got an idea myself.” Beulah was on the lope. “You can take the subway, it will get you home to your work just as quick, and Mr. Stevens and I will go somewhere and talk. Or somewhere and dance.” She put a hand on my arm. “I feel guilty, Mr. Stevens, because we haven’t even mentioned your Community Health Center. Couldn’t we discuss that and dance at the same time?”
For a minute it looked as if I would have to crawl from under, but love found a way. The law student filed objections, motions, demurrers, and protestations, and if she had demanded a stipulation that girls with no parents shall be presumed to be descended from Julius Caesar in direct line she would probably have got it. It ended with us all piling in the convertible and heading uptown.
Somewhere in the Seventies she mentioned health, and I sidetracked it by saying I’d mail her some literature which would give her the address to send a check to if she felt like it. All was serene and even cordial by the time we stopped at her address, where they both got out, and I declined an invitation to come up for a glass of something, and rolled west toward Broadway.
When I entered the office, Wolfe was seated over by the filing cabinets, with one of the drawers open, looking over plant germination records. I sat down at my desk and asked him, “Did our client call Goodyear?”
“No.”
“He’s missing something. And he narrowly missed already having a son-in-law. Morton wanted me to drive them to Maryland to get tied. Tonight. She pretended that she prefers it another way, but her real reason was that now that she has met me she doesn’t want him at all. She suggested he should take the subway and I should take her places. I’ll have to get out of it somehow. I can’t very well explain to her that I don’t want Dazy Perrit for a father-in-law.”
“Pfui. She’s dumpy.”
