'I haven't formulated one, madam.'
'Of course you have. You're a male.' Her eyes darted to me. 'What's yours, young man?'
'It depends,' I told her. 'The tumor part sounds bad.'
'It smells bad. It's been used for thirty centuries. Musk. In the Garden of Eden, when Eve's face was dirty what did she do? She washed it with good clean water. What do women do today? They rub it in with grease! Look at their lips and fingernails and toes and eyelashes--and other places. The Women's Nature League is the champion and the friend of the natural woman, and the natural woman was Eve, Eve the way God made her. The only true beauty is natural beauty, and I know, because I was denied that wondrous gift. I am not merely unlovely, I am ugly. The well-favored ones have no right to pollute the beauty of nature. I know!'
Her back had bowed a little, and she straightened it. 'That knowledge came to me early, and it has been my staff and my banner all my life. I have always had to work for my bread, but I saved some money, and ten years ago I used some of it to start the League. We have many members, over three thousand, but the dues are small and we are severely limited. Last fall, last September, when I saw the advertisement of the contest, I thought again what I had thought many times before, that it was hopeless because there was too much money against us, millions and millions, and then, sitting there looking at the advertisement, the idea came to me. Why not use their money for us? I considered it and approved of it. A majority of our members live in or near Los Angeles, and most of them are cultured and educated women. I phoned to some and asked them to phone others, and all of them were enthusiastic about it and wanted to help. I organized it, and you don't have to be beautiful to know how to organize. Within two weeks there were over three hundred of us working at it. We had no serious trouble with any of the original twenty, the twenty that were published--except Number Eighteen, and we finally got that. With the second group, to break the tie, with those we had to get five in less than a week, which was unfair because the verses were all mailed at the same time in New York and it took longer for them to get to me, and they were harder, much harder, but we got them, and I mailed them ten hours before the deadline. We're going to get these too.' She tapped her bag, in her lap. 'No question about it. No question at all. We're going to' get it, no matter how hard they are. Half a million dollars. For the League.'
Wolfe was regarding her, trying not to frown and nearly succeeding. 'Not necessarily half a million, madam. You have four competitors.'
'The first prize,' she said confidently. 'Half a million.' Suddenly she leaned forward. 'Do you ever have a flash?'
The frown won. 'Of what? Anger? Wit?'
'Just a flash-of what is coming. I had two of them long ago, when I was young, and then never any more until the day I saw the advertisement. It came on me, into me, so swiftly that I only knew it was there--the certainty that we would get their money. Certainty can be a very sweet thing, very beautiful, and that day if filled me from head to foot, and I went to a mirror to see if I could see it. I couldn't, but it was there, so there has never been any question about it. The first prize. Our budget committee is already working on projects, what to do with it.'
'Indeed.' The frown was there, to stay. 'The five new verses, those that Mr. Dahlmann gave you last evening-- how did you send them to your colleagues? Telephone or telegraph or airmail?'
'Ha,' she said. Apparently that was all.
'Because,' Wolfe observed matter-of-factly, 'you have sent them, naturally, so they could go to work. Haven't you?'
Her back was straight again. 'I fail to see that that is anybody's business. There is nothing in the rules about getting assistance. Nothing was said about it last night. This morning I telephoned my vice-president, Mrs. Charles Draper, because I had to, to tell her I couldn't return today and I didn't know when I could. It was a private conversation.'
Evidently it was going to stay private. Wolfe dropped it and switched. 'Another reason for seeing you, Miss Frazee, was to apologize on behalf of Lippert, Buff and Assa, my clients, for the foolish joke that Mr. Dahlmann indulged in last evening--when he exhibited a paper and said it was the answers to the verses he had just given you. Not only was it witless, it was in bad taste. I tender you the apologies of his associates.'
'So that's how it is,' she said. 'I thought it would be something like that, that's why I came, to find out.' Her chin went up and her voice hardened. 'It won't work. Tel] them that. That's all I wanted to know.' She stood up. 'You think because I'm ugly I haven't got any brains. They'll regret it. I'll see that they regret it.'
'Sit down, madam. I don't know what you're talking about'
'Ha. You're supposed to have brains too. They know that one of them went there and killed him and took the paper, and now they're going--'
'Please! Your pronouns. Are you saying that one of my clients took the paper?'
'Of course not. One of the contestants. That would put them in a hole they couldn't get out of unless they could prove which one took it, so they're going to say it was a joke, there was no such paper, and when we send in the answers they'll award the prizes, and they think that will settle it unless the police catch the murderer, and maybe they never will. But it won't work. The murderer will have the right answers, all five of them, and he'll have to explain how he got them, and he won't be able to. These five are going to be very difficult, and nobody can get them by spending a few hours in a library.'
'I see. But you could explain how you got them. Your colleagues at home are working on them now. You're going?'
She had headed for the door, but turned. 'I'm going back to the hotel for an appointment with a policeman. I use my brains with them too, and I know my rights. I told them I didn't have to go to see them, they could come to see me unless they arrested me, and they don't dare. I wouldn't let them search my room or my belongings. I've told them what I've seen and heard, and that's all I'm going to tell them. They want to know what I thought! They want to know if I thought the paper he showed us really had the answers on it! I fail to see why I should tell them what I thought--but I'll certainly tell you and you can tell your clients…'
She came back to the chair and was sitting down, so I held on to my notebook, but as her fanny touched the leather she said abruptly, 'No, I have an appointment,' got erect, and strode from the room. By the time I got to the rack in the hall she had her coat on, and I had to move to get to the doorknob before her.
