by Rex Stout
In my pocket was a plain white envelope, sealed, on which I had written by hand:
Mrs. Morton Sorell Personal and Confidential
and inside it was a card, also handwritten:
We were seen that evening in the lunchroom as we sat in the booth. It would be dangerous to phone you or for you to phone me. You can trust the bearer of this card.
No signature. It was twelve minutes to eleven when I handed the envelope to the charge d’affaires at the lobby desk and asked him to send it up, and it still lacked three minutes of eleven when he motioned me to the elevator. Those nine minutes had been tough. If it hadn’t worked, if word had come down to bounce me, or no word at all, I had no other card ready to play. So as the elevator shot up I was on the rise in more ways than one, and when I stepped out at the thirtieth floor and saw that she herself was standing there in the doorway my face wanted to grin at her but I controlled it.
She had the card in her hand. “You sent this?” she asked.
“I brought it.”
She looked me over, down to my toes and back up. “Haven’t I seen you before? What’s your name?”
“Goodwin. Archie Goodwin. You may have seen my picture in the morning paper.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Of course.” She lifted the card. “What’s this about? It’s crazy! Where did you get it?”
“I wrote it.” I advanced a step and got a stronger whiff of the perfume of her morning bath-or it could have come from the folds other yellow robe, which was very informal. “I might as well confess, Mrs. Sorell. It was a trick. I have been at your feet for years. The only pictures in my heart are of you. One smile from you, just for me, would be rapture. I have never tried to meet you because I knew it would be hopeless, but now that you have left your husband I might be able to do something, render some little service, that would earn me a smile. I had to see you and tell you that, and that card was just a trick to get to you. I made it up. I tried to write something that would make you curious enough to see me. Please-please forgive me!”
She smiled the famous smile, just for me. She spoke. “You overwhelm me, Mr. Goodwin, you really do. You said that so nicely. Have you any particular service in mine?”
I had to hand it to her. She knew darned well I was a double-breasted liar. She knew I hadn’t made it up. She knew I was a licensed private detective and had come on business. But she hadn’t batted an eye-or rather, she had. Her long dark lashes, which were home-grown and made a fine contrast with her hair, the color of corn
silk just before it starts to turn, also home-grown, had lowered for a second to veil the pleasure I was giving her. She was as good offstage as she was on, and I had to hand it to her.
“If I might come in?” I suggested. “Now that you’ve smiled at me?”
“Of course.” She backed up and I entered. She waited while I removed my hat and coat and put them on a chair and then led me through the foyer to a large living room with windows on the east and south, and across to a divan.
“Not many people ever have a chance like this,” she said, sitting. “An offer of a service from a famous detective. What shall it be?”
“Well.” I sat. “I can sew on buttons.” “So can I.” She smiled. Seeing that smile, you would never have dreamed that she was a champion blood-sucker. I was about ready to doubt it myself. It was pleasant to be on the receiving end of it.
“I could walk along behind you,” I offered, “and carry your rubbers in case it snows.”
“I don’t walk much. It might be better to carry a gun. You mentioned my husband. I honestly believe he is capable of hiring someone to kill me. You’re handsome-very handsome. Are you brave?”
“It depends. I probably would be if you were looking on. By the way, now that I’m here, and this is a day I’ll never forget, I might as well ask you something. Since you saw my picture in the paper, I suppose you read about what happened in Nero Wolfe’s office yesterday. That woman murdered. Bertha Aaron. Yes?”
“I read part of it.” She made a face. “I don’t like to read about murders.”
“Did you read who she was? Private secretary of Lamont Otis, senior partner ofOtis, Edey, Heydecker, and Jett, a law firm?” She shook her head. “I didn’t notice.” “I thought you might because they are your husband’s attorneys. You know that, of course.”
“Oh.” Her eyes had widened. “Of course. I didn’t notice.”
“I guess you didn’t read that part. You would have noticed those names, since you know all four of them. What I wanted to ask, did you know Bertha Aaron?”
“No.”
“I thought you might, since she was Otis’s secretary and they have been your husband’s attorneys for years
and they handled a case for you once. You never met her?”
“No.” She wasn’t smiling. “You seem to know a good deal about that firm and my husband. You said that so nicely, about being at my feet and my pictures in your heart. So they sent you, or Nero Wolfe did, and he is working for my husband. So?”
“No. He isn’t.”
“He’s working for that law firm, and that’s the same thing.”
“No. He’s working for nobody but himself. He-” “You’re lying.”
“I only allow myself so many lies a day and I’m careful not to waste them. Mr. Wolfe is upset because that woman was killed in his office, and he intends to get even. He is working for no one, and he won’t be until this is settled. He thought you might have known Ber-tha Aaron and could tell me something about her that would help.” “I can’t.”
“That’s too bad. I’m still at your feet.” “I like you there. You’re very handsome.” She smiled. “I just had an idea. Would Nero Wolfe work for me?”
“He might. He doesn’t like some kinds of jobs. If he did he’d soak you. If he has any pictures in his heart at all, which I doubt, they are not of beautiful women-or even homely ones. What would you want him to do?” “I would rather tell him.”
She was meeting my eyes, with her long lashes lowered just enough for the best effect, and again I had to hand it to her. You might have thought she hadn’t the faintest idea that I was aware that she was ignoring anything, and that I was ignoring it too. She was so damn good that looking at her, meeting her eyes, I actually considered the possibility that she really thought I had made up that card from nothing.
“For that,” I said, “you would have to make an appointment at his office. He never leaves his house on business.” I got a card from my case and handed it to her. “There’s the address and phone number. Or if you’d like to go now I’d be glad to take you, and he might stretch a point and see you. He’ll be free until one o’clock.”
“I wonder.” She smiled.
“You wonder what?”
“Nothing. I was talking to myself.” She shook her head. “I won’t go now. Perhaps��� I’ll think it over.” She stood up. “I’m sorry I can’t help, I’m truly sorry, but I had never met that-what was her name?”
“Bertha Aaron.” I was on my feet.
“I had never heard of her.” She glanced at the card, the one I had handed her. “I may ring you later today. I’ll think it over.”
She went with me to the foyer, and as I reached for the doorknob she offered a hand and I took it. There was nothing flabby about her clasp.
When you leave an elevator at the lobby floor of the Churchill Towers you have three choices. To the right is the main entrance. To the left and then right is a side entrance, and to the left and left again is another. I left by the main entrance, stopped a moment on the sidewalk to put my coat on and pull at my ear, and turned downtown, in no hurry. At the corner I was joined by a little guy with a big nose who looked, at first sight, as if he might make forty bucks a week waxing floors. Actually Saul Panzer was the best operative in the metro-politan area and his rate was ten dollars an hour.
“Any sign of a dick?” I asked him.
“None I know, and I think none I don’t know. You saw her
?”
“Yeah. I doubt if they’re on her. I stung her and she may be moving. The boys are covering?”
“Yes. Fred at the north entrance and Orrie at the south. I hope she takes the front.”
“So do I. See you in court.”
He wheeled and was gone, and I stepped to the curb and flagged a taxi. It was 11:40 when it rolled to the curb in front of the old brownstone on 35th Street.
After mounting the seven steps to the stoop, using my key to get in, and putting my hat coat on the rack in the hall, I went to the office. Wolfe would of course be settled in his chair behind his desk with his current book, since his morning session in the plant rooms ended at eleven o’clock. But he wasn’t. His chair was empty, but the red leather one was occupied, by a stranger. I kept going for a look at his front, and said good morning. He said good morning.
He was a poet above the neck, with deep-set dreamy eyes, a wide sulky mouth, and a pointed modeled chin, but he would have had to sell a lot of poems to pay for that suit and shirt and tie, not to mention the Parvis of London shoes. Having given him enough of a glance for that, and not caring to ask him where Wolfe was, I returned to the hall and turned left, toward the kitchen;
and there, in the alcove at the end of the hall, was Wolfe, standing at the hole. The hole was through the wall at eye level. On the office side it was covered by a picture of a waterfall. On this side, in the alcove, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only hear through but also see through.
I didn’t stop. Pushing the two-way door to the kitchen, I held it for Wolfe to enter and then let it swing back.
“You forgot to leave a necktie on your desk,” I told him.
He grunted. “We’ll discuss that some day, the necktie. That is Gregory Jett. He has spent the morning at the District Attorney’s office. I excused myself because I wanted to hear from you before talking with him, and I thought I might as well observe him.”
“Good idea. He might have muttered to himself, ‘By golly, the rug is gone.’ Did he?”
“No. Did you see that woman?”
“Yes, sir. She’s a gem. There is now no question about Bertha Aaron’s basic fact, that a member of the firm was with Mrs. Sorell in a lunchroom.”
“She admitted it?”
“No, sir, but she confirmed it. We talked for twenty minutes, and she never mentioned the card after the first half a minute, when she merely said it was crazy and asked me where I got it. She told me I was handsome twice, she smiled at me six times, she said she had never heard of Bertha Aaron, and she asked if you would work for her. She may phone for an appointment. Do you want it verbatim now?”
“Later will do. The men are there?”
“Yes. I spoke with Saul when I left. That’s wasted. She’s not a fool, anything but. Of course it was a blow to learn that that meeting in the lunchroom is known, but she won’t panic. Also of course, she doesn’t know how we got onto it. She may not have suspected that there was any connection between that meeting and the mur-der of Bertha Aaron. It’s even possible she doesn’t suspect it now, though that’s doubtful. If and when she does she will also suspect that the man she was with in the lunchroom killed Bertha Aaron, and that will be hard to live with, but even then she won’t panic. She is a very tough article and she is still after thirty million bucks. Looking at her as she smiled at me and told me I was handsome, which may have been her honest opinion in spite of my flat nose, you would never have guessed that I had just sent her a card announcing that her pet secret had been spilled. She’s a gem. If I had thirty million I’d be glad to buy her a lunch. What’s biting Gregory Jett?”
“I don’t know. We shall see.” He pushed the door open and passed through and I followed.
As Wolfe detoured around the red leather chair Jett spoke. “I said my business was urgent. You’re rather cheeky, aren’t you?”
“Moderately so.” Wolfe got his mass adjusted in his seat and swiveled to face him. “If there is pressure, sir, it is on you, not on me. Am I concerned?”
“You are involved.” The deep-set dreamy eyes came to me. “Is your name Goodwin? Archie Goodwin?”
I said yes.
“Last night you gave a statement to the police about your conversation with Bertha Aaron, and you gave a copy of it to Lamont Otis, the senior member of my firm.”
“Did I?” I was polite. “I only work here. I only do what Mr. Wolfe tells me to. Ask him.”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling.” He returned to Wolfe. “I want to know what is in that statement. Mr. Otis is an old man and his heart is weak. He was under shock when he came here, from the tragic news of the death of his secretary, who was murdered here in your office, in circumstances which as far as I know them were certainly no credit to you or Goodwin. It must have been obvious that he was under shock, and it was certainly obvious that he is an old man. To show him that statement was irresponsible and reprehensible. As his associate, his partner, I want to know what is in it.”
Wolfe had leaned back and lowered his chin. “Well. When cheek meets cheek. You are manifestly indomi-table and I must buckle my breastplate. I choose to deny that there is any such statement. Then?”
“Poppycock. I know there is.”
“Your evidence?” Wolfe wiggled a finger. “Mr. Jett. This is fatuous. Someone has told you the statement exists or you would be an idiot to come and bark at me. Who told you, and when?”
“Someone who-in whom I have the utmost confidence.”
“Mr. Otis himself?”
“No.”
“Her name?”
Jett set his teeth on his lower lip. After chewing on it a little he shifted to the upper lip. He had nice white teeth.
“You must be under shock too,” Wolfe said, “to suppose you could come with that demand without disclosing the source of your information. Is her name Ann Paige?”
“I will tell you that only in confidence.”
“Then I don’t want it. I will take it as private information entrusted to my discretion, but not in confidence. I am still denying that such a statement exists.”
“Damn you!” Jett hit the arm of his chair. “She was here with him! She saw Goodwin hand it to him! She saw him read it!”
Wolfe nodded. “That’s better. When did Miss Paige tell you about it? This morning?”
“No. Last night. She phoned me.”
“At what hour?”
“Around midnight. A little after.”
“Had she left here with Mr. Otis?”
“You know damn well she hadn’t. She had climbed out a window.”
“And phoned you at once.” Wolfe straightened up. “If you are to trust my discretion you must give it ground. I may then tell you what the statement contains, or I may not. I reject the reason you have given, or implied, for your concern-solicitude for Mr. Otis. Your explanation must account not only for your concern but also for Miss Paige’s flight through a window. You-”
“It wasn’t a flight! Goodwin had locked the door!”
“He would have opened it on request. You said your business is urgent. How and to whom? You are trying my patience. With your trained legal mind, you know it is futile to feed me inanities.”
Jett looked at me. I set my jaw and firmed my lips to show him that I didn’t care for inanities either. He went back to Wolfe.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll trust your discretion, since there is no alternative. When Otis told Miss Paige she had to leave, she suspected that Miss Aaron had told Goodwin something about me. She thought-”
“Why about you? There had been no hint of it.”
“Because he said to her, ‘I couldn’t trust you on this.’ She thought he knew that she couldn’t be trusted in a matter that concerned me. That is true-I hope it is true. Miss Paige and I are engaged to marry. It has not been announced, but our mutual interest is probably no secret to our associates, since we have made no effort to conceal it. Added to that was the fact that she knew that Miss Aaron might hav
e had knowledge, or at least suspicion, of a certain-uh-episode in which I had been involved. An episode of which Mr. Otis would have violently disapproved. You said my explanation must account both for my concern and for Miss Paige’s leaving through a window. It does.”
“What was the episode?”
Jett shook his head. “I wouldn’t tell you that even in confidence.”
“What was its nature?”
“It was a personal matter.”
“Did it bear on the interests of your firm or your partners?”
“No. It was strictly personal.”
“Did it touch your professional reputation or integrity?”
“It did not.”
“Was a woman involved?”
“Yes.”
“Her name?”
Jett shook his head. “I’m not a cad, Mr. Wolfe.”
“Was it Mrs. Morton Sorell?”
Jett’s mouth opened, and for three breaths his jaw muscles weren’t functioning. Then he spoke. “So that was it. Miss Paige was right. I want-I demand to see that statement.”
“Not yet, sir. Later, perhaps-or not. Do you main-tain that the episode involving Mrs. Sorell had no relation to your firm’s interests or your professional integrity?”
“I do. It was purely personal, and it was brief.”
“When did it occur?”
“About a year ago.”
“When did you last see her?” “About a month ago, at a party. I didn’t speak with her.”
“When were you last with her tete-a-tete?”
“I haven’t been since-not for nearly a year.”
“But you are still seriously perturbed at the chance that Mr. Otis has learned of the episode?”
“Certainly. Mr. Sorell is our client, and his wife is our opponent in a very important matter. Mr. Otis might suspect that the episode is-was not merely an episode. He has not told me of the statement you showed him, and I can’t approach him about it because he has ordered Miss Paige not to mention it to anyone, and she didn’t tell him she had already told me. I want to see it. I have a right to see it!”