At three minutes past six Wolfe, down from the plant rooms, joined us in the office. By the time Dorothy and I had got there she had made it perfectly plain that as far as I was concerned she was all talked out, our conversation during the ride downtown having consisted of her saying at one point, “Look out for that truck,” and me replying, “I’m driving,” so during the hour’s wait I hadn’t even asked her if she wanted a drink. And when Wolfe had entered and greeted her, and got his bulk adjusted in his chair behind his desk, the first thing she said was, “I want to speak to you privately.” Wolfe shook his head.
“Mr. Goodwin is my confidential assistant, and if he didn’t hear it from you he soon would from me. What is it?”
“But this is very — personal.”
“Most things said in this room by visitors are. What is it?”
“There is no one I can go to but you.” Dorothy was in one of the yellow chairs, facing him, leaning forward to him. “I don’t know where I stand, and I’ve got to find out. A man is going to tell the police that I forged my father’s name to a check. Tomorrow morning.”
Her face was human again, with her eyes pinched.
“Did you?” Wolfe asked.
“Forge the check? Yes.”
I lifted my brows.
“Tell me about it,” Wolfe said.
It came out, and was really quite simple. Her father hadn’t given her enough money for the style to which she wanted to accustom herself. A year ago she had forged a check for three thousand dollars, and he had of course discovered it and had received her promise that she would never repeat. Recently she had forged another one, this time for five thousand dollars, and her father had been very difficult about it, but there had been no thought in his head of anything so drastic as having his daughter arrested.
Two days after his discovery of this second offense he had been killed. He had left everything to his daughter, but had made a lawyer named Donaldson executor of the estate, not knowing, according to Dorothy, that Donaldson hated her. And now Donaldson had found the forged check among Keyes’ papers, with a memorandum attached to it in Keyes’ handwriting, and had called on Dorothy that afternoon to tell her that it was his duty, both as a citizen and as a lawyer, considering the manner of Keyes’ death, to give the facts to the police. It was an extremely painful duty, he had asserted, but he would just have to grin and bear it.
I will not say that I smirked as I got these sordid facts scratched into my notebook, but I admit that I had no difficulty in keeping back the tears.
Wolfe, having got answers to all the questions that had occurred to him, leaned back and heaved a sigh. “I can understand,” he murmured, “that you felt impelled to get rid of this nettle by passing it on to someone. But even if I grasped it for you, what then? What do I do with it?”
“I don’t know.” It is supposed to make people feel better to tell their troubles, but apparently it made Dorothy feel worse. She sounded as forlorn as she looked.
“Moreover,” Wolfe went on, “what are you afraid of? The property, including the bank balance, now belongs to you. It would be a waste of time and money for the District Attorney’s office to try to get you indicted and brought to trial, and it wouldn’t even be considered. Unless Mr. Donaldson is an idiot he knows that. Tell him so. Tell him I say he’s a nincompoop.” Wolfe wiggled a finger at her. “Unless he thinks you killed your father and wants to help get you electrocuted. Does he hate you that much?”
“He hates me,” Dorothy said harshly, “all he can.”
“Why?”
“Because once I let him think I might marry him, and he announced it, and then I changed my mind. He has strong feelings. It was strong when he loved me, and it is just as strong now when he hates me. Any way he can use that check to hurt me, he’ll do it.”
“Then you can’t stop him, and neither can I. The forged check and your father’s memorandum are legally in his possession, and nothing can keep him from showing them to the police. Does he ride horseback?”
“Oh, my God,” Dorothy said hopelessly. She stood up. “I thought you were clever! I thought you would know what to do!” She made for the door, but at the sill she turned. “You’re just a cheap shyster too! I’ll handle the dirty little rat myself!”
I got up and went to the hall to let her out, to make sure that the door was properly closed behind her. When I was back in the office I sat down and tossed the notebook into a drawer and remarked, “Now she’s got us all tagged. I’m a coward, you’re a shyster, and the executor of her father’s estate is a rat. That poor kid needs some fresh contacts.”
Wolfe merely grunted, but it was a good-humored grunt, for the dinner hour was near, and he never permits himself to get irritated just before a meal.
“So,” I said, “unless she does some fancy handling in a hurry she will be gathered in before noon tomorrow, and she was the last we had. All five of them, and also the suspect we were supposed to pin it on. I hope Saul and Orrie are doing better than we are. I have a date for dinner and a show with a friend, but I can break it if there’s anything I can be doing—”
“Nothing, thank you.”
I glared at him. “Oh, Saul and Orrie are doing it?”
“There’s nothing for this evening, for you. I’ll be here, attending to matters.”
Yes, he would. He would be here, reading books, drinking beer, and having Fritz tell anyone who called that he was engaged. It wasn’t the first time he had decided that a case wasn’t worth the effort and to hell with it. On such occasions my mission was to keep after him until I had him jarred loose, but this time my position was that if Orrie Cather could spend the afternoon in my chair he could damn well do my work. So I let it lay and went up to my room to redecorate for the evening out.
It was a very nice evening on all counts. Dinner at Lily Rowan’s, while not up to the standard Fritz had got my palate trained to, was always good. So was the show, and so was the dance band at the Flamingo Club, where we went afterward to get better acquainted, since I had only known her seven years. What with this and that I didn’t get home until after three o’clock, and, following routine, looked in at the office to jiggle the handle of the safe and glance around. If there was a message for me Wolfe always left it on my desk under a paperweight, and there one was, on a sheet from his pad, in his small thin handwriting that was as easy to read as type.
I ran through it.
AG: Your work on the Keyes case has been quite satisfactory. Now that it is solved, you may proceed as arranged and go to Mr. Hewitt’s place on Long Island in the morning to get those plants. Theodore will have the cartons ready for you. Don’t forget to watch the ventilation. NW
I read it through again and turned it over to look at the back, to see if there was another installment, but it was blank.
I sat at my desk and dialed a number. None of my closest friends or enemies was there, but I got a sergeant I knew named Rowley, and asked him, “On the Keyes case, do you need anything you haven’t got?”
“Huh?” He always sounded hoarse. “We need everything. Send it C.O.D.”
“A guy told me you had it on ice.”
“Aw, go to bed.”
He was gone. I sat a moment and then dialed again, the number of the Gazette office. Lon Cohen had gone home, but one of the journalists told me that as far as they knew the Keyes case was still back on a shelf, collecting dust.
I crumpled Wolfe’s message and tossed it in the wastebasket, muttered, “The damn fat faker,” and went up to bed.