about women, because your grand- father told Mr. Wolfe that your father often asked your advice about things. That's why I think he might have told you something about a man who gave him a hundred dollars for a slip of paper.'
'He never asked my advice. He just wanted to see what I would say.'
I gave up. I wanted to ask her what the difference was between asking her advice and wanting to see what she would say, just to see what she would say, but we were expecting company at the office at eleven o'clock or soon after and I should be there. So I gave up on her, and I had finished the job on the room, since it wasn't likely that he had pried up a floorboard or taken the back off a picture frame. I will concede that she had fairly good manners. She went to the hall with me and opened the door and told me good night. Apparently Mr. Ducos and the white apron had both gone to bed.
It was ten after eleven when I mounted the stoop of the old brownstone, found the bolt wasn't on so I didn't need help to get in, and went to the office. Wolfe would be deep in either a book or a crossword puzzle, but he wasn't. In one of my desk drawers I keep street maps of all five New York boroughs, and he had them, with Manhattan spread out covering his desk blotter and then some. To my knowledge it was the first time he had ever given it a look. It might be supposed that I wondered what he was after, but I didn't because I had learned long ago that wondering what a genius was after was a waste of time. If it really meant anything, which I doubted, he would tell me when he felt like it. As I swiveled my chair and sat to face him, he started folding it up, his fingers quick and nimble and precise, as they always were. Of course they had a lot of practice up in the plant rooms, from nine to eleven mornings and two to four afternoons, but that day he hadn't been there at all As he folded he spoke. 'I was calculating distances -the restaurant, and Pierre's home, and here. He arrived here at ten minutes to one. Where had he been? Where had his coat been?'
'I'll have to apologize,' I said, 'to his daughter. I told her that if that kind of detecting will do it they won't need your help. Does it look that bad?'
'No. As you know, I prefer not to read when I may be interrupted at any moment. What did she tell you?'
'Nothing. It's possible she has nothing to tell, but I don't believe it. She sat for an hour with her eye on me while I went over Pierre's room, to make sure I didn't pinch a pair of socks. She's an anomaly-I think that's the word I want. Or make-' 'It isn't. A person can't be an anomaly.'
'All right, she's a phony. A woman who has those books with her name in them wants men to stop making women sex symbols, and if she really wants them to stop she wouldn't keep her skin like that, and her hair, and blow her hard-earned pay on a dress that sets her off. Of course she can't help her legs. She's a phony. Since Pierre said it was a man, I admit she probably didn't put the bomb in his pocket, but I would buy it that he told her about the slip of paper and showed it to her, and she knows who killed him and is going to put the squeeze on him, or try to. And she'll get killed and well have that too. I suggest that we put a tail on her. If you have other plans for me, get Fred or Orrie, or maybe even Saul. Do you want it verbatim?'
'Do I need it?'
'No.'
'Then just the substance.'
I crossed my legs. 'First she interpreted for me with her grandfather while I asked for permission to take a look at Pierre's room, and the other points you wanted covered. Of course she could have hashed that-with an interpreter you never know for sure. Then she went with me-' The doorbell rang, and I got up and went. We had expected Philip around eleven and Felix a little later, but they were both there. And from the look on their faces, they weren't speaking. They spoke to me as I let them in and took their coats, but apparently not to each other. In the office, when they were seated after being greeted by Wolfe's most exaggerated nod, a full half-inch-of course Felix in the red leather chair near the end of Wolfe's desk-Philip sat stiff with no mouth showing on his dark-skinned square face because his lips were pressed so tight, and Felix didn't really sit, he just got his rump on the edge of the chair and blurted, 'I kept Philip there, Mr. Wolfe, because he lied to me. As you know, I-' 'If you please.'
Of course Felix had often heard that tone when Wolfe had been his boss as trustee. 'You're upset. I suppose you've had a hard day, but so have I. I'll have beer. Brandy for you?'
'No, sir. Nothing.'
'Philip?'
Philip shook his head. I detoured around him on my way to the kitchen. When I came back, Felix was sitting, not perching, and was talking: '… eight of them. They kept coming and going all afternoon and evening. I got their names. It was the worst day we have ever had since the day Mr. Vukcic died. The first two came just at the end of lunch, three o'clock, and it never stopped, right on through dinner. It was terrible. Everybody, even the dishwasher. The main thing with them was the dump room-you know, Mr. Vukcic called it that, so we do-the room in the back where the men leave their things. They took everybody there, one at a time, and asked about Pierre's coat. What is it about Pierre's coat?'
'You'll have to ask them.'
The foam in the glass had reached the right level, and Wolfe picked it up and drank. 'You have me to thank for the day they gave you. Because he was killed here, in my house. But for that it would be mere routine for them. Did they arrest anyone?'
'No, sir. I thought one of them was going to arrest me. He said he knew there was something special between you and Pierre, and Mr. Goodwin too, and he said I must know about it. He told me to get my coat and hat, but then he changed his mind. He was the same with-' 'His name was Rowcliff.'
'Yes, sir.'
Felix nodded. 'It may be true that you know everything. Mr. Vukcic told me that you thought you did. That man was the same with Philip because I told him that he was Pierre's best friend.'
He looked at Philip, not as a friend, and went back to Wolfe. 'Philip may have lied to him, I don't know, I know he lied to me. You remember what Mr. Vukcic told Noel that time when he fired him. He told him it wasn't because he stole a goose, anyone might steal a goose, it was because he lied about it. He said he could keep it a good restaurant even if some of them stole things sometimes, but not if anybody lied to him, because he had to know what happened. I always remember that and I will not permit them to lie to me, and they know it. If I don't know what happened, it won't be a good restaurant. So when the last one left, I took Philip upstairs and told him I had to know everything about Pierre that he knew, and he lied. I have learned to tell when one of them is lying. I'm not as good at it as Mr. Vukcic was, but I can nearly always tell. Look at him.'
