little one. They have settled for either number one or number two, or a combination. They say Thirty-ninth Street between Tenth and Eleventh might easily be that empty from midnight on.” Saul turned his palms up. “You can pay me expenses and forget it.” “Nonsense,” Wolfe said. “I’m not paying you, the client is. A tiger’s eyes can’t make light, Saul, they can only reflect it. You’ve spent the day in the dark.
Come back in the morning. I may have some suggestions.” Saul went.
I yawned. Or rather, I started to, and stopped. It is true that wine always makes me yawn, but it is also true that the after-effect of a series of socks on my jaw and the side of my neck makes me stop yawning. I swiveled my chair around with a swing of my body, not bothering to put my hand on the edge of my desk for an assist. A simultaneous protest came from at least forty muscles, and, since Harry was no longer there, I groaned without restraint.
“I guess I’ll go to bed,” I stated.
“Not yet,” Wolfe objected. “It’s only half-past ten. You have to go to your job in the morning and I haven’t heard your report.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Go ahead.” And three hours later, at half-past one in the morning, we were still there and I was still reporting. I have never known him to be more thorough, wanting every detail and every little word. My face felt stiff as a board, and I hurt further down, especially my left side, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction and pleasure of hearing me groan again, and I didn’t. After I had given him everything he kept coming back for more, and when it was no longer possible to continue that without making it perfectly plain that he was merely trying to see how long it would take me to collapse on the floor there in front of him, he asked: “What do you think?” I tried to grin at him, but I doubt if I put it over.
“I think,” I said, “that the crucial point in this case will come in about a month or six weeks, when we’ll have to decide whether to stop and send in our bill or go on a while longer. It will depend on two things-how much we need the money, and how much Naylor-Kerr will pay for nothing. That’s the problem that confronts us and we must somehow solve it.” “Then you don’t think Mr. Moore was murdered.” “I don’t know. There are at least two hundred people who might have murdered him. If one of them did, and if there were any possible way of finding out which one, naturally I have my favorites. I have mentioned Pine. I like the idea of him because it is always gratifying to call a bullheaded bluff, and if it was him he certainly tried one when he hired you. But if he’s the sort of bird who takes it in his stride when his wife keeps two-legged pets on account of her owning stock in the company that pays his salary, what would ever work him up to murder? Anyhow, she had given Moore the boot. My real favorite is Kerr Naylor.” “Indeed.” “Yes, sir. On account of psychology. Wait till you see him Monday. His last ten incarnations he was a cat, and he always held the world’s record for mouse-playing. Add that to the well-known impulse of a murderer to confess, and what have you got? Although it has all been filed away as a hit-and-run, with the hit- runner not found and not likely to be at this late day, he has got that impulse, so he tells the world, including a Deputy Commissioner of Police, that it was murder. That satisfies the impulse without costing him anything, and also it carries on the tradition of his cat ancestry. Baby, what fun! In this case the mouse is the people in his department, the president of the firm and the Board of Directors, the cops-everybody but him. “Yep, he’s my favorite.” “Any others?” I started to wave a hand but called it back on a word from my shoulder. “Plenty.
Dickerson, for the honor of the Section. Rosenbaum, hipped on Miss Livsey and wanting to save her from a two-bit Casanova. And so on. But this is all academic. We might reach some kind of a conclusion, but what if we do? The waves have washed all the foot-prints away, and as I said before, all we’ll be able to solve is the question when to quit and render a bill. The only consolation is that I’ll get a wife out of it. I’m going to make Miss Livsey forget Waldo.” “Confound it.” Wolfe reached for his beer glass and saw that it was empty, lifted the bottle and found it empty too, and glared at both of them. “I suppose we’d better go to bed. Are you in pain?” “Pain? Why? I thought we might sit and talk a while. This is a very difficult case.” “It may be. Tomorrow I’d like to see Mrs. Pine. She can come at eleven in the morning, or right after lunch. You can arrange it through Mr. Pine.” He gripped the edge of his desk with both hands, the customary preliminary to getting to his feet.
The phone rang. I swiveled my chair, not groaning, and lifted the instrument.
“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” “Oh, Mr. Goodwin? My husband has told me about you. This is Cecily Pine, Mrs.
Jasper Pine.” “Yes, Mrs. Pine.” “I just got home from a theater supper, and my husband told me about your inquiry regarding Waldo Moore. I would like to help, if I can in any way, and I don’t think these things should be put off, so I’ll drive down there now. I have the address.” I tried to keep my voice friendly and sociable. “I’m afraid it would be better to make it tomorrow, Mrs. Pine. It’s pretty late, and Mr. Wolfe-” But he ruined it. He had got on his extension, and broke in, “This is Mr. Wolfe, Mrs. Pine. I think it would be better to come now. An excellent idea. You have the address?” She said she had and would leave right away, and only had to come from Sixty-seventh Street. Wolfe and I hung up.
“It’s unfortunate,” Wolfe said. “You should be in bed, but it may be necessary for you to take notes.” “I’m not sleepy,” I said through my teeth. “I was hoping she would call.”
CHAPTER Fourteen
Considering what I knew of her, I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened the door and let her in. Probably I had unconsciously been expecting something on the order of Hedy Lamarr as she would be with the wrinkles of age, and therefore the sight of her pink smooth-skinned wholesome face and her medium-sized housewife’s chassis, a little plump maybe, but certainly not fat, gave me a shock.
“You’re Archie Goodwin,” she said in a low-pitched educated voice.
I admitted it.
She was openly staring at me, and advanced a step to see better. “What on earth,” she asked, “has happened to your face? It’s all red and bruised!” “Yeah. I got in a fight with a man and he hit me with his fist. Both fists.” “Good heavens! It looks simply awful. Have you got any beefsteak?” I did not believe, considering everything, that she was speaking from experience. She had simply read about it. I told her that it wasn’t bad enough to rate beefsteak at ninety cents a pound, adding pointedly that all I needed was a good long night’s sleep, and ushered her into the office.
Wolfe was on his feet, having probably got up to stretch. Mrs. Pine crossed to him to shake hands, declined the red leather chair because she preferred straight ones, accepted the one I placed for her, let me take her coat of platinum mink or aluminum sable or whatever it was, and sat down.
