by Rex Stout
“You want something?”
“Yes, officer, I do.”
“You’re Archie Goodwin. What do you want?”
“I want to ring that bell, and hand Peckham my card to take to Miss Estey, and enter, and be conducted within, and engage in conversation-”
“Yeah, you’re Goodwin all right.”
That called for no reply, and he merely stood, so I walked past him into the vestibule and pushed the bell. In a moment the door was opened by Peckham. He may have been well trained, but the sight of me was too much for him. Instead of keeping his eyes on my face, as any butler worthy of the name should do, he let his bewilderment show as he took in my brown tropical worsted, light tan striped shirt, brown tie, and tan shoes. In fairness to him, remember it was the day of the funeral.
I handed him a card. “Miss Estey, please?”
He admitted me, but he had an expression on his face. He probably thought I was batty, since from the facts as he knew them that was the simplest explanation. Instead of ushering me down the hall, he told me to wait there, and went to the door to the office and disappeared inside. Voices issued, too low for me to catch the words, and then he came out.
“This way, Mr. Goodwin.”
He moved aside as I approached, and I passed through the door. Jean Estey was there at a desk with my card in her hand. Without bothering with any greeting, she asked me abruptly, “Will you please close the door?”
I did so and turned to her. She spoke. “You know what I told you Saturday, Mr. Goodwin.”
The greenish-brown eyes were straight at me. Below them the skin was puffy, either from too little sleep or too much, and while I still would have called her comely, she looked as if the two days since I had seen her had been two years.
I went to a chair near the end of her desk and sat. “You mean about the police asking you to see Nero Wolfe and pass it on?”
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
“Nothing, only-well-if Mr. Wolfe still wants to see me, I think I might go. I’m not sure-but I certainly wouldn’t tell the police what he said. I think they’re simply awful. It’s been more than two days since Mrs. Fromm was killed, fifty-nine hours, and I don’t think they’re getting anywhere at all.”
I had to make a decision in about one second. With the line she was taking, it was a cinch I could get her down to the office, but would Wolfe want her? Which would he want me to do, get her to the office or follow my instructions? I don’t know what I would have decided if I could have gone into a huddle with myself to think it over, but it had to be a flash vote and it went for instructions.
I spoke. “I’ll tell Mr. Wolfe how you feel, Miss Estey, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it, but I ought to explain that what it says on that card-‘Representing Nero Wolfe’-is not exactly true. I’m here on my own.”
She cocked her head. “On your own? Don’t you work for Nero Wolfe?”
“Sure I do, but I work for me too when I get a good chance. I have an offer to make you.”
She glanced at the card. “It says, ‘To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.’”
“That’s right, that’s what I want to discuss, but just between you and me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You soon will.” I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “You see, I was present during the talk Mrs. Fromm had with Mr. Wolfe. All of it. I have an extremely good memory. I could recite it to you word for word, or mighty close to it.”
“Well?”
“Well, I think you would appreciate hearing it. I have reason to believe you would find it very interesting. You may think I’m sticking my neck out, but I have been Mr. Wolfe’s confidential assistant for a good many years, and I’ve done some good work for him, and I’ve seen to it that he has learned to trust me, and if you call him up when I leave here, or go to see him, and tell him what I said to you, he’ll think you’re trying to pull a fast one. And when he asks me and I tell him you’re a dirty liar, he’ll believe me. So don’t worry about my neck. I’ll tell you about that talk, all of it, for five thousand dollars cash.”
She said, “Oh,” or maybe it was “Uh,” but it was just a noise. Then she just stared.
“Naturally,” I said, “I don’t expect you to have that amount in your purse, so this afternoon will do, but I’ll have to be paid in advance.”
“This is incredible,” she said. “Why on earth should I pay you five cents to tell me about that talk? Let alone five thousand dollars. Why?”
I shook my head. “That would be telling. After you pay and I deliver, you may or may not feel that you got your money’s worth. I’m giving no guarantee of satisfaction, but I’d be a fool to come here with such an offer if all I had was a bag of popcorn.”
Her gaze left me. She opened a drawer to get a pack of cigarettes, removed one, tapped its end several times on a memo pad, and reached for a desk lighter. But the cigarette didn’t get lit. She dropped it and put the lighter down. “I suppose,” she said, her eyes back to me, “I should be insulted and indignant, and I suppose I will, but now I’m too shocked. I didn’t know you were a common skunk. If I had that much money to toss around I’d like to pay you and hear it. I’d like to hear what kind of a lie you’re trying to sell me. You’d better go.” She rose. “Get out of here!”
“Miss Estey, I think-”
“Get out!”
I have seen skunks in motion, both skunks unperturbed and skunks in a hurry, and they are not dignified. I was. Taking my hat from a corner of the desk, I walked out. In the hall Peckham showed his relief at getting rid of a lunatic undertaker without regrettable incident by bowing to me as he held the door open. On the sidewalk the cop thought he would say something and then decided no.
Around the corner I found a phone booth in a drugstore, called Wolfe and gave him a full report as instructed, and flagged a taxi headed downtown.
The address of my second customer, on Gramercy Park, proved to be an old yellow brick apartment house with a uniformed doorman, a spacious lobby with fine old rugs, and an elevator with a bad attack of asthma. It finally got the chauffeur and me to the eighth floor, after the doorman had phoned up and passed me. When I pushed the button at the door of 8B it was opened by a female master sergeant dressed like a maid, who admitted me, took my hat, and directed me to an archway at the end of the hall.
It was a large high-ceilinged living room, more than fully furnished, the dominant colors of its drapes and upholstery and rugs being yellow, violet, light green, and maroon-at least that was the impression gained from a glance around. A touch of black was supplied by the dress of the woman who moved to meet me as I approached. The black was becoming to her, with her ash-blond hair gathered into a bun at the back, her clear blue eyes, and her pale carefully tended skin. She didn’t offer a hand, but her expression was not hostile.
“Mrs. Horan?” I inquired.
She nodded. “My husband will be furious at me for seeing you, but I was simply too curious. Of course I should be sure-you are the Archie Goodwin that works for Nero Wolfe?”
I got a card from my wallet and handed it to her, and she held it at an angle for better light. Then she widened her eyes at me. “But I don’t-’To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe’? With me? Why with me?”
“Because you’re Mrs. Dennis Horan.”
“Yes, I am, of course.” Her tone implied that that angle hadn’t occurred to her. “My husband will be furious!”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Perhaps we might sit over by a window? This is rather private.”
“Certainly.” She turned and found a way among pieces of furniture, and I followed. She took a chair at the far end near a window, and I moved one over close enough to make it cozy.
“You know,” she said, “this is the most dreadful thing. The most dreadful. Laura Fromm was such a fine person.” She might have used the same tone and expression to tell me she liked the way I had my hair cut. She added, �
��Did you know her well?”
“No, I saw her only once, last Friday when she came to consult Mr. Wolfe.”
“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you a detective too?”
“Yes, I work for Mr. Wolfe.”
“It’s simply fascinating. Of course there have been two men here asking questions-no, three-and Saturday more of them at the District Attorney’s office, but they’re really only policemen. You’re truly a detective. I would never have thought a detective would be so-would dress so well.” She made a pretty little gesture. “But here I am babbling along as usual, and you want to discuss something with me, don’t you?”
“That was the idea. What Mrs. Fromm said to Mr. Wolfe.”
“Then you’ll have to tell me what she said. I can’t discuss it until I know what it was. Can I?”
“No,” I conceded, “but I can’t tell you until I know how much you want to hear it.”
“Oh, I do want to hear it!”
“Good. I thought you would. You see, Mrs. Horan, I was in the room all the time Mrs. Fromm and Mr. Wolfe were talking, and I remember every word they said. That’s why I thought you would be extremely curious about it, so I’m not surprised that you are. The trouble is, I can’t afford to satisfy your curiosity as a gift. I should have explained, I’m not here representing Nero Wolfe, that’s why I said it’s rather private. I’m representing just myself. I’ll satisfy your curiosity if you’ll lend me five thousand dollars to be repaid the day it rains up instead of down.”
The only visible reaction was that the blue eyes widened a little. “That’s an amusing idea,” she said, “raining up instead of down. Would it be raining from the clouds up, or up from the ground to the clouds?”
“Either way would do.”
“I like it better up from the ground.” A pause. “What did you say about lending you some money? I beg your pardon, but my mind got onto the raining up.”
I was ready to admit she was too much for me, but I struggled on. I abandoned the rain. “If you’ll pay me five thousand dollars I’ll tell you what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe. Cash in advance.”
Her eyes widened. “Was that what you said? I guess I didn’t understand.”
“I made it fancy by dragging in the rain. Sorry. It’s better that way, plain.”
She shook her pretty head. “It’s not better for me, Mr. Goodwin. It sounds absolutely crazy, unless-oh, I see! You mean she told him something awful about me! That doesn’t surprise me any, but what was it?”
“I didn’t say she said anything about you. I merely-”
“But of course she did! She would! What was it?”
“No.” I was emphatic. “Maybe I didn’t make it plain enough.” I stuck up a finger. “First you give me money.” Another finger. “Second, I give you facts. I’m offering to sell you something, that’s all.”
She nodded regretfully. “That’s the real trouble.”
“What is?”
“Why, you don’t really mean it. If you offered to tell me for twenty dollars that might be different, and of course I’d love to know what she said-but five thousand! Do you know what I think, Mr. Goodwin?”
“I do not.”
“I think you’re much too fine a person to use this kind of tactics to stir up my curiosity just to get me talking. When you walked in I wouldn’t have dreamed you were like that, especially your eyes. I go by eyes.”
I also go by eyes up to a point, and hers didn’t fit her performance. Though not the keenest and smartest I had ever seen, they were not the eyes of a scatterbrain. I would have liked to stay an hour or so to make a stab at tagging her, but my instructions were to put it bluntly, note the reaction, and move on; and besides, I wanted to get in as many as possible before funeral time. So I arose to leave. She was sorry to see me go; she even hinted that she might add ten to her counteroffer of twenty bucks; but I let her know that her remark about my tactics had hurt my feelings and I wanted to be alone.
Down on the street I found a phone booth to report to Wolfe and then took a taxi to Forty-second Street.
I had been informed by Lon Cohen that I shouldn’t mark it against the Association for the Aid of Displaced Persons that they sported an elegant sunny office on the twenty-sixth floor of one of the newer midtown commercial palaces, because Mrs. Fromm owned the building and they paid no rent. Even so, it was a lot of dog for an outfit devoted to the relief of the unfortunate and oppressed. There in the glistening reception room I had an example before my eyes. At one end of a brown leather settee, slumped in weariness and despair, wearing an old gray suit two sizes too large for him, was a typical specimen. As I shot him a glance I wondered how it impressed him, but then I glanced again and quit wondering. It was Saul Panzer. Our eyes met, then his fell, and I went to the woman at the desk, who had a long thin nose and a chin to match.
She said Miss Wright was engaged and was available only for appointments. After producing a card and persuading her to relay not only my name but the message under it, I was told I would be received, but she didn’t like it. She made it clear, with her tight lips and the set of her jaw, that she wanted no part of me.
I was shown into a large corner room with windows on two sides, giving views of Manhattan south and east. There were two desks, but only one of them was occupied, by a brown-haired female executive who looked almost as weary as Saul Panzer but wasn’t giving in to it and didn’t intend to.
She greeted me with a demand. “May I see your card, please?”
It had been read to her on the phone. I crossed and handed it over. She looked at it and then up at me. “I’m very busy. Is this urgent?”
“It won’t take long, Miss Wright.”
“What good will it do to discuss it with me?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to leave that open, whether it does any good or not. I’m speaking strictly for myself, not for Nero Wolfe, and there’s no-”
“Didn’t Nero Wolfe send you here?”
“No.”
“Did the police?”
“No. This is my idea. I’ve had some bad luck and I need some cash, and I’ve got something to sell. I know this is a bad day for you, with Mrs. Fromm’s funeral this afternoon, but this won’t keep-at least I can’t count on it-and I need five thousand dollars as soon as I can get it.”
She smiled with one side of her mouth. “I’m afraid I haven’t that much with me, if this is a stickup. Aren’t you a reputable licensed detective?”
“I try to be. As I said, I’ve had some bad luck. All I’m doing, I’m offering to sell you something, and you can take it or leave it. It depends on how much you would like to know exactly what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe. At five thousand dollars it might be a swell bargain for you, or it might not. You would be a better judge of that than I am, but of course you can’t know until after you hear it.”
She regarded me. “So that’s it,” she said.
“That’s it,” I concurred.
Her brown eyes were harder to meet than Jean Estey’s had been, or Claire Horan’s. My problem was to have the look of a man with a broad streak of rat in him, but also one who could be depended on to deliver as specified. Her straight hard gaze gave me a feeling that I wasn’t dressed right for the part, and I was trying to give orders to my face not to show it. The face felt as if it might help to be doing something, so I used my mouth. “You understand, Miss Wright, this is a bona fide offer. I can and will tell you everything they said.”
“But you would want the money first.” Her voice was as hard as her eyes.
I turned a hand over. “I’m afraid that’s the only way we could do it. You could tell me to go soak my head.”
“So I could.” Her mind was working. “Perhaps we can arrange a compromise.” She got a pad of paper from a drawer and pushed her desk pen across. “Pull up a chair, or use the other desk, and put your offer in writing, briefly. Put it like this: ‘Upon payment to me by Angel
a Wright of five thousand dollars in cash, I will relate to her, in full and promptly, the conversation that took place between Laura Fromm and Nero Wolfe last Friday afternoon.’ And date it and sign it, that’s all.”
“And give it to you?”
“Yes. I’ll return it as soon as you have kept your side of the bargain. Isn’t that fair?”
I smiled down at her. “Now really, Miss Wright. If I were as big a sap as that how long do you think I would have lasted with Nero Wolfe?”
She smiled back. “Would you like to know what I think?”
“Sure.”
“I think that if you were capable of selling secrets you learned in Wolfe’s office he would have known it long ago and would have thrown you out.”
“I said I had some bad luck.”
“Not that bad. I’m not a sap either. Of course you’re right about one thing-that is, Mr. Wolfe is-I would like very much to know what Mrs. Fromm consulted him about. Naturally. I wonder what would actually happen if I scraped up the money and handed it over?”
“There’s an easy way of finding out.”
“Perhaps there’s an easier one. I could go to Mr. Wolfe and ask him.”
“I’d call you a liar.”
She nodded. “Yes, I suppose you would. He couldn’t very well admit he had sent you with such an offer.”
“Especially if he didn’t.”
The brown eyes flashed for an instant and then were hard again. “Do you know what I resent most, Mr. Goodwin? I resent being taken for a complete fool. That’s my vanity. Tell Mr. Wolfe that. Tell him that I don’t mind his trying this little trick on me, but I do mind his underrating me.”
I grinned at her. “You like that idea, don’t you?”
“Yes, it appeals to me strongly.”
“Okay, hang onto it. For that there’s no charge.”
I turned and went. As I passed through the reception room and saw Saul there on the settee I would have liked to warn him that he was up against a mind-reader, but of course had to skip it.
Down in the lobby I found a phone booth and reported to Wolfe and then went to a fountain for a Coke, partly because I was thirsty and partly because I wanted time out for a post-mortem. Had I bungled it, or was she too damn smart for me, or what? As I finished the Coke I decided that the only way to keep feminine intuition from sneaking through an occasional lucky stab was to stay away from women altogether, which wasn’t practical. Anyhow, Wolfe hadn’t seemed to think it mattered, since I had made her the offer and that was the chief point.