bought three ham sandwiches and a quart of milk, and transported them to the building and up to my place of employment on the thirty-fourth floor.
There in my room I ate my lunch without being disturbed. By the time it was all down I had arrived at a couple of decisions, the first one being that it was just as well I hadn’t obeyed my impulse to walk out of the Fountain of Health with nothing to show for my trouble but an apple.
CHAPTER Ten
Having two things to do, it would have been in character for me to save the best till the last, and I had it programmed that way, but it didn’t work. The idea was to phone Jasper Pine to arrange to run up to see him at three o’clock, but when I tried it all I got was the word from a Mr. Stapleton that Mr. Pine would not be available until four-fifteen. That compelled me to shift. But before making a call on Miss Livsey I thought it would be well to get in a piece of equipment I needed, so I did what I had been told to do when the occasion arose, called Extension 637 and said I needed a stenographer. In two minutes, not more, one entered with a notebook. She was nothing like my non-speller, but neither was she any evidence against my theory that there was a strong preference at Naylor-Kerr for females who were easy to look at.
After I had got her name I told her, “I have nothing against you, quite the contrary. The trouble is I don’t want you, just your typewriter. Could you bring it in here and let me use it?” From the look on her face it might have been thought I had asked her to bring Mr. Kerr Naylor in handcuffs and set him on my lap. She tried to be nice about it, but what I had asked for was not done and could not be done. I let her go and went to work on the phone, and it wasn’t too long before I had a typewriter, with paper and other accessories. Then I emerged to the arena, crossed to the other side, found the door next to Rosenbaum’s on the left standing open, and entered.
I pushed the door shut, crossed to a chair near the end of her desk, and sat down. Her room was twice as big as mine, but there was just as little free space in it on account of the rows of files. The light from the window filtering through the top layer of her fine brown hair made it look as if someone had crowned her with a wreath of shiny silk mesh. She gave the typewriter a rest and let me have her full face.
“It was simply stinking,” I said. “Mr. Naylor eats oats and shredded bark.” No smile for that, but she nodded. “Yes, he’s famous for that. Someone should have warned you.” “But they didn’t, including you. Are you crowded for time?” “No, I only have eight or nine more letters.” She glanced at her wrist. “It’s only three o’clock.” “Good.” I tipped my chair back, with my hands in my pockets, to show how informal I was. “I guess the best way to start is just to follow the routine.
How long have you been working here?” “Three years. Well-two years and eight months. I’m twenty- four years old, nearly twenty-five, I get fifty dollars a week, and I can do over a hundred words a minute.” “That’s wonderful. What are the three things you dislike most, or like least, about your job?” “Oh, now, really.” Still no smile, but there was a little curving twist to her lips. “May I ask one?” “Go ahead.” “Why did you invite me to lunch?” “Well-what do you want, candor?” “I like it.” “I do too. One look at you, and I seemed to be paralyzed all over, as in a dream. The two sides of my nature there fighting for control. One, the base and evil side, wanted to be alone with you on an island. The other side wanted to write a poem. The lunch thing was a compromise.” “That’s pretty good,” she said, with some sign of appreciation but not enthusiastically. “If that’s candor, let’s have some double talk. Why? You wanted to ask me about Waldo Moore, didn’t you?” “What makes you think so?” “Why, my lord. You practically broadcast it! Asking that girl about him-it was all over the place in no time.” “Okay, say I did. What did I want to ask you about him?” “I don’t know, but here I am, ask me.” “You shouldn’t be a stenographer,” I said admiringly. “You should be a personnel expert or a college president or a detective’s wife. You’re perfectly correct, it would be difficult for me to question you about Moore without giving you a hint of where I got on and what my ticket says. So I won’t try. You and Moore were engaged to marry, weren’t you?” “Yes.” “A long time?” “No, just about a month, a little less.” “And of course his death was an awful blow.” “Yes.” “Would you mind telling me in a general way what kind of a guy he was?” “Why-” She hesitated. “That’s a strange question. He was the kind of guy I wanted to marry.” I nodded. “That settles it for you,” I agreed, “but I’ve only known you about twenty minutes altogether, so it leaves me hazy. You understand, of course, that this is just you and me talking. I represent no authority of any kind and your tongue is yours. Had he been married before?” “No.” “How long had you known him?” “I met him soon after he came to work here.” “What was he-tall, short, handsome, ugly, fat, thin-” She opened a drawer of her desk and got her handbag, took a leather fold out of it, and opened the fold and handed it over.
So she was still carrying his photograph. I gave it a good look. To my eyes he was nothing remarkable one way or another- about my age and build, high forehead, lots of hair worn smooth over his dome. He could have been catalogued as the kind of specimen seen buying motorboats in ads if it hadn’t been for the chin, which started back for his throat too soon.
“Thanks,” I said, handing it back to her. “That clinches it that he didn’t make a play for you as a last resort. First, you are not a last resort. Second, he was apparently nice to look at. I suppose that was the opinion of those who knew him?” “Yes. Every woman who saw him was attracted to him. There wasn’t a girl in the place who wouldn’t have been glad to get him.” I frowned at her. That didn’t sound like my Miss Livsey, that vulgar boasting, but I had never assumed that she was without any defect at all. I followed it up.
“Then a lot of them must have been after him. Unless you reject the theory that girls have been known to chase-” “Of course they do. They did.” “Did it make him very mad?” “No, he loved it.” “Did it make you mad?” She smiled. However, it was not precisely the sort of smile Rosenbaum had had in mind. I smiled back at her.
She asked, “Now we’re getting down to it, aren’t we?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Are we?” As soon as her words were out she had caught her lower lip with her teeth. After holding on for a moment, not long, the teeth let go. “That was silly,” she declared. “No, I don’t think it made me mad. In a way I enjoyed it and in a way I didn’t. Go ahead.” I took my hands from my pockets and clasped them back of my head and regarded her. “I would like very much to go ahead, Miss Livsey, if I only knew which way.
Say we try another door. Have you ever had any reason to suppose or suspect that Moore’s death was anything but a hit-and-run accident?” “No,” she said bluntly.
“But there’s been gossip about it, hasn’t there?” “There certainly has.” “What started the gossip?” “I don’t know what started it back in December, when it happened-I guess it just started itself, the way gossip does. Then it died down, it stopped entirely as far as I know, that was quite a while ago, and just last week it started up again.” “Do you know what started it again?” She looked at me, made sure she had her eyes into mine, and asked, “Do you?” “I’ll say yes if you will.” “It’s a go. Yes.” “Same here. Have you any idea why he put that word on that report?” “No. I don’t know and I can’t imagine. I know I’d like to-” She bit it off.
