However-” I shrugged. “I understand Mr. Pine, the president of the company, sent for you this morning and you refused to go to see him.” She didn’t move a muscle.
“That’s correct, isn’t it?” I inquired.
She spoke. “Yes. I-yes.” “Will you go to see him now? With me or without me?” She didn’t hesitate. “No.” I frowned at her. “One thing I’m not completely satisfied about. Has anyone tried to put any pressure on you? Since you refused to go to see Pine?” “No.” “Then they gave me that straight. Okay. Their position is this, and you must admit they’ve got a point. I have told them that you told me that you know who killed Waldo Moore. They have been informed that you deny you told me that. They have had a talk with me, and they want to have a talk with you. That seems reasonable. I don’t see how you can escape it. If you prefer not to talk with Pine, it can be someone else. When I say ‘they,’ I don’t mean they want to gang up on you. Just one of them-any of the three vice-presidents will do. Will you go to see one of the vice-presidents?” I suppose she was blinking now and then, since it is supposed to be impossible not to, but I could have sworn she wasn’t.
“I don’t want to,” she said, her voice so thin that it was nearly a squeak.
“Of course you don’t. I can understand that, but will you?” “Yes.” “Now?” “Yes.” “Which one? Who?” “Any-I don’t care.” “But you just refused to go to see Pine.” “I mean-any other.” “Okay. Now it’s like this. Their idea is that you should be willing to discuss this with a representative of the Board of Directors, and they would prefer to have you do it with the man they have hired to work for them and represent them regarding these murders. That man is Nero Wolfe. Will you come with me to see him?” She didn’t reply.
“I’m not urging you,” I declared. “Yesterday I asked you to come and tell him the truth. Now you can tell him anything you want to. They would prefer to have you see Mr. Wolfe, but if you don’t like the idea, take a vice-president. Suit yourself. Why don’t you go ask Hoff about it?” She flushed, and I was glad to see that her blood was still on the job. “I don’t have to ask him,” she said in a voice not so thin. “I don’t have to ask anybody.” Abruptly she pushed her chair back and was on her feet. “All right, I’ll go. Wait till I tell Mr. Rosenbaum.” She left the room, in a minute returned and put on her hat and coat, and we departed. If I had known then that that was the last I would ever see of the Naylor-Kerr stock department I would have given it some kind of parting gesture, but even so I was leaving in a blaze of glory, with Hester Livsey just in front of my elbow and not an eye in the place anywhere except on us.
In the lobby downstairs, as we passed Bill Gore, I gave him a sign to stay put.
It was quite possible that Hester would be back before long, and it was far from certain, anything but, that Wolfe was set for a clean-up.
In the taxi we were strangers. Not a word.
Our welcome from Nero Wolfe was not, I must admit, calculated to make us glow with pleasure. When I escorted her into the office and we approached his desk he growled at me: “What the devil did you bring her here for?” She goggled at him and then at me.
“That,” I told him, “was my own idea. Everything went according to plan. She was willing to talk with anybody except Pine, which was what you wanted to know, and it occurred to me why not you? So I brought her where I’d know where she was. I told the lie that put the bee on her, and I didn’t intend to spend the rest of the day and night wondering whether she was alive or dead. It’s the humanitarian in me.” Wolfe looked at her. “I have work to do, Miss Livsey,” he said in a fairly decent tone, “and I don’t need you. But Mr. Goodwin is correct. Your life is in danger or it may be. You may know more about that than I do, but in any case you ought to stay here. In the south room, Archie?” Hester looked as if she thought we had a screw loose, and I didn’t blame her.
She took it up with me.
“You said they wanted me to talk to him!” I took hold of her arm without either of us realizing that I was doing so. “Just another lie,” I said. “You and I are doing swell on lies. Mr. Wolfe is ready to close in, or thinks he is, and you heard him say he doesn’t need you. Unless you’re ready to start from scratch and tell us all about it?” “No!” “I thought not. You’re very tough, dearie. I also think you’ll be a damn fool if you go back downtown or anywhere else.” “I have decided,” Wolfe said curtly, “that she is not to leave here under any circumstances, now that she knows I am ready to act.” I still had her arm. “See? I don’t want to stuff you in a closet. Upstairs is a nice sunny guest room-” I stopped because she pulled her arm free. She walked across to the corner where the big globe was, with one of the yellow chairs beside it, and sat down in the chair.
“I’ll stay here,” she said.
I told Wolfe, “She’s as stubborn as you are. The only way would be to carry her, and she’d scream and try to kick.” “Let her alone,” he said. “Get Mrs. Pine on the phone.” I went to my desk and dialed the number.
CHAPTER Thirty-Three
I didn’t like it. I thought he was dead wrong and I still think so, in spite of the fact that he got away with it. He had got the giveaway gesture he was after, no doubt of that, but the thing to do now, since at last he had found the trail, was to deploy forces on all sides and make the main advance slow and careful but sure. No, not for him. He was going to bull it through with only one shot in his gun, and that one possibly a blank. If Hester hadn’t been sitting there I would have put up an argument, and a hot one, but she had already heard more than was good for her. So I dialed the number.
I have since wondered what he would have done if Mrs. Pine had been out shopping or looking over the pet situation on Fifth Avenue, but that was a contingency he did not have to meet. An impersonal male voice answered the phone. I told it that Mr. Wolfe wished to speak with Mrs. Pine, and in a moment she was on and I signaled to Wolfe.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pine.” Wolfe was making it bland. “I find myself in a disagreeable position. Certain information has come to me, and the proper thing for me to do would be to communicate with Mr. Cramer -you know, the Police Inspector-and suggest that he should send immediately for your personal staff of servants, and also for all members of the staff of the apartment building where you live who were on duty Friday evening, March twenty-first-the evening your brother was killed.-Please let me finish. I realize that would be a frightful annoyance for you. So there is this alternative. Why don’t you bring them, yourself, to me? At my office. Your own servants, all of them, and also those of the apartment-” Her voice, incisive, pushed in. “What for? What on earth are you talking about?”
