on his desk, at the right edge of the pad, in front of the vase of orchids. That day’s orchids were a raceme of Miltonia vexillaria, brought by him as usual when he had come down from the plant rooms at eleven o’clock. “Ummmp,” he said. “I was merely testing a conjecture.”
“Any good?”
“Yes.” He opened the book to his place and swiveled, giving me his acre or so of back. If I wanted to test a conjecture I would have to use one of my own. A visitor was due in ten minutes, and since according to him the best digestive is a book because it occupies the mind and leaves the stomach in privacy, he darned well was going to get a few pages in. And when, a quarter of an hour later, I having spent most of it inspecting the note from Mr Knapp with occasional glances at my typewriter keyboard, the doorbell rang, and I went to the hall and returned with the visitor, and pronounced her name, and put her in the red leather chair, Wolfe stuck with his book until I had gone to my desk and sat. Then he marked his place and put it down, looked at her, and said, “Are you an efficient secretary, Miss Utley?”
Her eyes widened a little, and she smiled. If she had been doing any crying along with her employer it had certainly left no traces. At sight I had guessed her age at thirty, but that might have been a couple of years short.
“I earn my salary, Mr Wolfe,” she said.
She was cool-cool eyes, cool smile, cool voice. With some cool ones the reaction is that it would be interesting to apply a little heat and see what happens, and you wouldn’t mind trying, but with others you feel that they are cool clear through, and she was one of them, though there was nothing wrong with her features or figure. You could even call her a looker.
Wolfe was taking her in. “No doubt,” he said. “As you know, Mrs Vail phoned you from here. I heard her tell you not to tell me what Mr Knapp said to her on the phone yesterday, but you may feel that she is under great strain and your judgment on that point is better than hers. Do you?”
“No.” Very cool. “I’m in her employ.”
“Then I won’t try to cajole you. Do you always open Mrs Vail’s mail?”
“Yes.”
“Everything that comes?”
“Yes.”
“How many items were there in yesterday morning’s mail?”
“I didn’t count them. Perhaps twenty.”
“The envelope with that note in it, did you open it first or further along in the process?”
Of course that tactic is three thousand years old, maybe more, asking for a detail of a reported action, looking for hesitation or confusion. Dinah Utley smiled. “I always sort it out first, leaving circulars and other obvious stuff until later. Yesterday there were four-no, five-that I opened at once. The envelope with that note was the third one I opened.”
“Did you show it to Mrs Vail at once?”
“Certainly. I took it to her room.”
“Were you present Sunday night when she phoned to the country to ask about her husband?”
“No. I was in the house, but I was in bed.”
“What time yesterday did the call come from Mr Knapp?”
“Eight minutes after four. I knew that might be important somehow, and I made a note of it.”
“You listened to that conversation?”
“Yes. Mrs Vail had told me to take it down, and I did.”
“Then you know shorthand?”
“Of course.”
“Are you a college graduate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you type with two fingers, or four?”
She smiled. “All of them. By touch.” She turned a hand over. “Really, Mr Wolfe. Isn’t this rather silly? Is it going to get Mr Vail back alive?”
“No. But it may conceivably serve a purpose. Naturally you want to be with Mrs Vail, and she wants you; I won’t keep you much longer. There’s no point now in asking you about that man’s voice and diction; even if I got a hint that suggested another wording for the notice it’s too late. But you will please let Mr Goodwin take samples of your fingerprints. Archie?”
That roused her a little. “
“Not to get Mr Vail back alive. But they may be useful later on. It’s barely possible that Mr Knapp or an accomplice inadvertently left a print on that note. To your knowledge, has anyone handled it besides Mrs Vail and you?”
“No.”
“And Mr Goodwin and me. We shall get Mrs Vail’s. Mr Goodwin is an expert on prints, and even if Mr Vail returns safely, as I hope he will, we’ll want to know if there are any unidentifiable prints on that note. Do you object to having your prints taken?”
