“This is Friday,” I stated. “So this is your fifth and last day here. Huh?” “Well-” She looked demure.
“I am naturally magnanimous,” I went on, “and how would you like to spell that one? And I don’t mind a little kidding, some of my best friends are kidders, including me. Besides, my suddenly sitting on the corner of your desk and firing questions at you about Waldo Moore must have given you a jolt, considering that you had been-well, I don’t want to be outspoken about it-say you and he had been propinquitous. P-R-O-P-I-” “Don’t spell it,” she said, with her voice a little less musical and not at all sweet. “Just tell me what it means. If it means what I think it does it’s a lie and I know who told you.” “Prove it. Who?” “Hester Livsey. And you believed her! You wouldn’t stop to consider my reputation, a girl’s reputation, oh no, that wouldn’t matter! Not if Hester Livsey told you, because she’s a section head’s secretary and she wouldn’t lie, oh no! What did she say? Exactly what words did she say?” I was shaking my head. “Nope. Bad guess. Miss Livsey hasn’t mentioned you, and anyhow I want no part of the idea that a section head’s secretary never tells a lie.” I looked at her as man to woman. “Why don’t I forget that anyone has told me anything, and let you straighten me out? You did know Moore, didn’t you?” “Certainly, everybody did.” Her voice was back to normal. It changed as often and as fast as the weather. “No matter what a girl’s character was she stood a fat chance of not knowing him!” “Yeah, I understand he was very sociable. Did you go out with him much?” “No, not-” She bit that off. A tiny wrinkle appeared on her lovely smooth forehead. “Oh, he took me to a couple of shows, that was about all. Once we were out in his car, out on Long Island, and there was an accident and I got a little cut on a part of my body. Of course everyone heard about that.” “I’ll bet they did. But you weren’t especially intimate with him?” “Good lord no, intimate? I should say not!” “Then I suppose his death wasn’t a particularly hard blow for you.” “No, I scarcely noticed it.” She caught herself up. “Of course I don’t mean-I mean, I noticed it. But more on account of my character than on account of him.
What I mean about my character, I mean I don’t like death. I just don’t like it, no matter who it is.” I nodded. “I feel the same way about it. You mean it would have been a much harder blow if it had been, for instance, Ben Frenkel.” She jerked her chin up, and, as though it had been synchronized, her skirt simultaneously jerked itself back above the knee. She demanded, “Who the hell mentioned Ben Frenkel?” “I did. Just now. He came to see me yesterday and we had a talk. Isn’t he a friend of yours?” “We’re not intimate,” she said defiantly. “Did he say we are?” “No no, he’s not that kind of guy. I was just using him as an illustration of how little you noticed the death of Moore. What’s your opinion of this gossip that’s going around, about Moore being murdered?” “I think it’s terrible and I won’t listen to it. Gossip is so cheap!” “But of course you’ve heard it?” “Mighty little. I just won’t listen!” “Aren’t you interested? Or curious? I thought intelligent women were curious about everything, even murder.” She shook her angelic head. “Not me. I guess it isn’t a part of my character.” “That’s funny. It really surprises me, because when I found out it was you who came in here on the sly and went through that cabinet, and looked through my folders, and read my reports about Moore, I said to myself, sure, I might have expected that, all it means is that Gwynne Ferris is a beautiful and intelligent young woman who got so curious about it that she couldn’t resist the temptation.
And now you say you’re not curious at all. It certainly is funny.” I am no Nero Wolfe at reading faces, but I know what I see, and it was a bet that during my brief speech she had decided three times to call me a liar, and had thrice changed her mind and made a grab for some better idea. When I stopped purposely without asking a question, and sat and waited for her to bat it back, what she said was: “It certainly is.” I nodded. “So since you’re not curious I suppose you had some special reason for wanting to know how far I had got. The reason I’m speaking to you about it like this, alone with you, is because I think it’s much better this way than it would be if I made a report of it and you got a bunch of nitwits barking at you-you know what the police are like…” I let it fade out because she had made up her mind. With a charming impulsive movement she was out of her chair and standing in front of me, leaning over, getting my hands in hers. In the close little room with the door shut she smelled like a new name for a perfume, but there was no time to invent one then and there.
“You don’t believe that,” she said, not much more than a whisper, into my face.
“Do you honestly think I’m that sort of girl, honestly? Do my hands feel like the kind of hands that would do mean things like that? Are you going to believe everything mean you hear about me? Just because someone says they saw me coming in your room or going out again-can you honestly look at me and tell me you believe it? Can you?” “No,” I said. “Impossible.” I was going on, but couldn’t for the moment, because she thought I had earned a citation and was proceeding to bestow it when the door of the room swung open, and with my right eye, the only one that could see anything past her ear, I observed Kerr Naylor walking in.
At the sound my seducer jerked away and whirled to face the door.
“It’s past quitting time, Miss Ferris,” Naylor said.
I batted for her. “I sent for Miss Ferris,” I told the glint in his eyes, “and we’re having a talk which has at least an hour to go and maybe more. She was taking a mote out of my eye. Can I help you with something?” Naylor smiled, stepped to the chair that was still warm from Gwynne, and sat down. “Perhaps I can help you instead,” he piped. “I’ll be glad to take part in the talk if you’ll limit it to an hour.” I shook my head at him emphatically. “Much obliged, but it’s strictly private.– No, Miss Ferris, don’t leave. You stay here.– So if all you came for was to say good night, good night.” “This is my department, Mr. Truett.” “Not the part of it I’m in at any given moment. Yours is the stock department.
Mine is the murder department. Good night-unless you came for something else.” He was speechless with fury. Not that it showed on his little wax face, but he was speechless, and nothing short of fury could have done that to him. He stood up, stared at Gwynne, who did not stare back, and finally transferred it to me.
“Very well. The question of your status here can be settled on Monday-if you are here Monday. I came to tell you something, and while Miss Ferris is not ideal for the purpose, it is just as well to have a witness. I am told you have reported that I told you I know the name of the person who murdered Waldo Moore.
Is that true?” “Yep, that’s true.” “Then you reported a lie. I have not made that statement to you, nor any statement that could possibly be so construed. I have no idea why you reported such a lie, and I don’t intend to waste time trying to find out.” He walked to the door, turned, and smiled at us. “You can now resume the conversation I interrupted. Good night.” He was gone, closing the door behind him. I sat still to listen, and in the silence of the depopulated arena heard his footsteps receding, fading into the silence.
Gwynne approached and began, “You see? No matter who said they saw me sneaking into your room, you wouldn’t believe it, and no matter who said you had told a lie, I wouldn’t believe-” “Shut up, pet. Shut up and sit down while I sharpen a wit.” She did so. I gazed at the neighborhood of her chin, found that distracting, and switched to something neuter. On a quick and concentrated survey, this latest impetuosity of Kerr Naylor looked like the beginning of his big retreat. Once started backward he would probably keep going, and by the middle of next week would be taking the position that Moore hadn’t been killed at all, maybe not even hurt.
I spoke to Gwynne. “What makes it chilly in here is the cold feet of Mr. Kerr Naylor. They are practically frozen. To go back to you, or should I say us, when Naylor came I was about to tell you that you were wasting a lot of ammunition, and damn good ammunition, because nobody told me they saw you coming in here or going out. It’s fingerprints. You left about five dozen scattered all over, on the folders and the reports. I’m going to keep them to remember you by. Now what? Were you walking in your sleep? Try that.” She was wrinkling her forehead in profound concentration, as if I had been giving instructions for an intricate typing job and she was
