He lifted his hand to his glasses, but only shifted them a little on his nose. 'Does that suggest anything to you?'
'No,' Wolfe said emphatically.
'It does to me. Not any detail of it, but the flavor. I have no idea what her name was, but I think I know where to find her. I may be wrong, but I doubt it, and if not, there's one right off.'
He probably had it. Either he had had a lucky hunch, or he knew a lot about flavors, or he had got the paper from Dahlmann's wallet and was preparing the ground for a later explanation of how and where he got the answers. I could certainly have impressed him by asking if the book he would go to first would be Jacques Casanova's Memoirs, but he might have suspected me if I had also told him her name was Christine and he should try Volume Two, pages one hundred seventy-two to two hundred one, of the Adventures edition.
Wolfe said abruptly, 'Then I mustn't keep you, if you're going to work. I wouldn't care to stir the choler of a demon.' He put his hands on the desk edge to push his chair back, and arose. 'I hope to see you again, Mr. Rollins, but I shall try to interfere as little as may be with your labors. You will excuse me.' He headed for the door and was gone.
Rollins looked at me. 'What was that, pique? Or did I betray myself and he has gone for handcuffs?'
'Forget it.' I stood up. 'Don't you smell anything?'
He sniffed. 'Nothing in particular. What is it?'
'Of course,' I conceded, 'you're not a bloodhound. It's shad roe in casserole with parsley, chervil, shallot, marjoram, bay leaf, and cream. That's his demon, or one of them. He has an assortment. You're going? If you don't mind, what was Number Nine? I think it was. It goes:
'By the law himself had earlier made
I could not be his legal wife;
The law he properly obeyed
And loved me all my life.'
He had turned at the door, and his smile was super-superior. 'That was palpable. Aspasia and Pericles.'
'Oh, sure. I should have known.'
We went to the hall and I held his coat. As I opened the door he inquired, 'Wasn't that Miss Tescher here when I came?'
I told him yes.
'Who were the three men?'
'Advisers she brought along. You should have heard them. They talked Mr. Wolfe into a corner.'
He thought he was going to ask me more, vetoed it, and went. I shut the door and started for the kitchen to tell Wolfe about Aspasia and Pericles, but the phone ringing pulled me into the office. I answered it, bad a brief exchange with the caller, and then went to the kitchen, where Wolfe was in conference with Fritz, and told him:
'Talbott Heery will be here at a quarter past nine.'
Already on edge, he roared. 'I will not gallop through my dinner!'
I told him, apologetically, that I was afraid he'd have to. He only had an hour and a half.
Chapter 9
The subject of discussion at Wolfe's dinner table, whether we had company or not, might be anything from politics to polio, so long as it wasn't current business. Business was out. That evening was no exception, strictly speaking, but it came close. Apparently at some time during the day Wolfe had found time to gallop through the encyclopedia article on cosmetics, and at dinner he saw fit, intermittently, to share it with me. He started, when we had finished the chestnut soup and were waiting for Fritz to bring the casserole, by quoting verbatim a bill which he said had been introduced into the English Parliament in 1770. It ran, he said:
'All women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether virgins, maids, or widows, that shall, from and after this Act, impose upon, seduce, and betray into matrimony, any of His Majesty's subjects, by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, high heeled shoes, bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanors and the marriage, upon conviction, shall stand null and void.'
I asked him what Spanish wool was, and had him. He didn't know, and because he can't stand not knowing the meaning of any word or phrase he sees or hears, I asked why he hadn't looked hi the dictionary, and he said he had but it wasn't there. Another item was that Mary Queen of Scots bathed in wine regularly, and so did the elder ladies of the court, but the younger ones couldn't afford it and had to use milk. Another was that when they found unguent vases in old Egyptian tombs they had dug into, the aromatics in them were still fragrant, after thirty-five hundred years. Another, that Roman fashion leaders at the time of Caesar's wife bleached their hair with a kind of soap that came from Gaul. Another, that Napoleon liked Josephine to use cosmetics and got them for her from Martinique. Another, that Cleopatra and other Egyptian babes painted the under side of their eyes green, and the lid, lashes, and eyebrows black. For the black they used kohl, and put it on with an ivory stick.
I admitted it was very interesting, and made no remark about how helpful it would be in finding out
