“Mr. Jarrell said to take you around, sir.”
“You can do that later, if you can work it in. At the moment I need a room. I want to gargle.”
“Yes, sir. This way, sir.”
I followed him down the corridor and around a corner to an elevator. I asked if there were stairs and was told that there were three, one off the lounge, one in the corridor, and one for service in the rear. Also three elevators. The one we were in was gold-plated, or possibly solid. On the upper floor we went left, then right, and near the end of the hall he opened a door and bowed me in. He followed, to tell me about the phones. A ring would be for the green one, from the outside world. A buzz would be for the black one, from somewhere inside, for instance from Mr. Jarrell. I would use that one to get Steck when I was ready to be taken around. I thanked him out.
The room was twelve by sixteen, two windows with Venetians, a little frilly but not bad, mostly blue and lemon-yellow except the rugs, which were tan with dark brown stripes. The bed was okay, and so was the bathroom. Under ordinary circumstances I would have used the green phone to ring Wolfe and report arrival, but I skipped it, not wanting to rub it in. After unpacking, taking my time, deciding not to shave, washing my hands, and straightening my tie, I got out my notebook, sat by a window, and turned to the list of names:
Mrs. Otis Jarrell (Trella)
Lois Jarrell, daughter by first wife
Wyman Jarrell, son by ditto
Mrs. Wyman Jarrell (Susan)
Roger Foote, Trella’s brother
Nora Kent, stenographer
James L. Eber, ex-secretary
Corey Brigham, friend of family who queered deal
The last two didn’t live there, but it seemed likely that they would need attention if I was going to get anywhere, which was doubtful. If Susan was really a snake, and if the only way to earn a fee was to get her bounced out of the house and the family, leaving her husband behind, it would take a lot of doing. My wristwatch said there was still forty minutes before cocktail time. I returned the notebook to my bag, the small one, which contained a few personal items not appropriate for Alan Green, locked the bag, left the room, found the stairs, and descended to the lower floor.
It would be inaccurate to say I got lost five times in the next quarter of an hour, since you can’t get lost when you have no destination, but I certainly got confused. Neither of the architects had had any use for a straightaway, but they had had conflicting ideas on how to handle turns and corners. When I found myself passing an open door for the third time, recognizing it by the view it gave of a corner of a grand piano, and the blah of a radio or TV, with no notion of how I got there, I decided to call it off and make for the front terrace, but a voice came through to my back. “Is that you, Wy?”
I backtracked and stepped through into what, as I learned later, they called the studio.
“I’m Alan Green,” I said. “Finding my way around.”
She was on a couch, stretched out from the waist down, with her upper half propped against cushions. Since she was too old for either Lois or Susan, though by no means aged, she must be Trella, the marital affliction. There was a shade too much of her around the middle and above the neck-say six or eight pounds. She was a blue-eyed blonde, and her face had probably been worthy of notice before she had buried the bones too deep by thickening the stucco. What showed below the skirt hem of her blue dress-from the knees on down-was still worthy of notice. While I noticed it she was reaching for a remote-control gadget, which was there beside her, to turn off the TV.
She took me in. “Secretary,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I acknowledged. “Just hired by your husband-if you’re Mrs. Otis Jarrell.”
“You don’t look like a secretary.”
“I know, it’s a handicap.” I smiled at her. She invited smiles. “I try to act like one.”
She put up a hand to pat a yawn-a soft little hand. “Damn it, I’m still half asleep. Television is better than a pill, don’t you think so?” She patted the couch. “Come and sit down. What made you think I’m Mrs. Otis Jarrell?”
I stayed put. “To begin with, you’re here. You couldn’t be Miss Lois Jarrell because you must be married. You couldn’t be Mrs. Wyman Jarrell because I’ve got the impression that my employer feels a little cool about his daughter-in-law and it seemed unlikely he would feel cool about you.”
“Where did you get the impression?”
“From him. When he told me not to discuss his business affairs with anyone, including members of the family, I thought he put some emphasis on his daughter-in-law.”
“Why must I be married?”
I smiled again. “You’ll have to pardon me because you asked. Seeing you, and knowing what men like, I couldn’t believe that you were still at large.”
“Very nice.” She was smiling back. “
I felt that a little braking was required. It was all very well to get on a friendly basis with the mistress of the house as soon as possible, since that might be useful in trapping the snake, and the smiling and sit-downing was very nice, but her concern about feeding the new secretary right after only three minutes with him was going too far too quick. Since I didn’t look a secretary or talk like one, I thought I had better at least act like one, and I
