All the seats were taken but one, the outside of a double near the front, and I nodded down at the occupant of the seat next to the window, a man with spectacles and a tired face, stuffed my hat and coat on the shelf, and lowered myself. In another minute we were taxiing down the runway, turning, vibrating, rolling, picking it up, and in the air. Just as I unfastened my seat belt, dainty female fingers gripped the seat arm, a female figure stopped, and the profile of a female head with fine blond hair was there in front of me, speaking across to the man with spectacles:
“Would you mind changing seats with me? Please?”
Not wanting to make a scene, there was nothing for me to do but scramble out of the way to permit the transfer. The man got out, the female got in and settled herself, and I sat down again just as the plane tilted for a bank.
She patted my arm and said, “Escamillo darling. Don’t kiss me here. Good heavens, you’re handsome in uniform.”
“I haven’t,” I said coolly, “any intention of kissing you anywhere.”
Her blue eyes were not quite wide open and a corner of her mouth was turned up a little. Viewed objectively, there was nothing at all wrong with the scenery, but I was in no frame of mind to view Lily Rowan objectively. I have told elsewhere how I met her just outside the fence of an upstate pasture. The episode started with me in the pasture along with a bull, and the situation was such that when I reached the fence considerations of form and dignity were minor matters. Anyhow, I got over, rolled maybe ten yards and scrambled to my feet, and a girl in a yellow shirt and slacks clapped her hands sarcastically and drawled at me. “Beautiful, Escamillo! Do it again!”
That was Lily. One thing had led to another. Several others. Until finally …
But now—
She squeezed my arm and said, “Escamillo darling.”
I gazed straight at her and said, “Lookit. The only reason I don’t get up and ask one of our fellow passengers to change seats with me is that I am in uniform and the service has notions about dignity in public places, and I know quite well that you are capable of acting like a lunatic. I am going to read the paper.”
I unfolded the Times. She was laughing in her throat, which I had once thought was an attractive sound, and she arranged herself in her seat so that her arm was against mine.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I wish that bull had got you that day three years ago. I never dreamed, when I saw you tumbling over that fence, that it would ever come to this. You haven’t answered my letters or telegrams. So I came to Washington to find out where you were, intending to go there — and here I am. Me, Lily Rowan! Escamillo, look at me!”
“I’m reading the paper.”
“Good heavens, you’re wonderful in uniform. Very rugged. Doesn’t it impress you that I found out you were taking this plane and got on before you did? Am I a smart girl or not?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Answer me,” she said with an edge to her voice.
She was capable of anything. “Yeah,” I said, “you’re smart.”
“Thank you. I’m also smart enough to know that your being mad at me because I said that Ireland shouldn’t give up any naval or air bases is phony. My father came here from Ireland and made eight million dollars building sewers — and I’m Irish and you know it, so your going sour on me on account of that is the bunk. I think you think you’re tired of me. I have palled on you. Well?”
I kept my eyes on the paper. “I’m in the Army now, pet.”
“So you are. Haven’t I sent you forty telegrams offering to go and be near you and read aloud to you? Thinking you might be sick or something, haven’t I been three times to see Nero Wolfe to find out if he was hearing from you? Which reminds me, what the dickens is the matter with him? He refuses to see me. And he likes me.”
“He does not like you. He likes no woman.”
“Well, he likes my being interested in his orchids. And besides, I wrote him that I had a case for him and would pay him myself. He wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone.”
I looked at her. “What kind of a case?”
A corner of her mouth went up. “Like to know?”
“Go to the devil.”
“Now, Escamillo. Am I your bauble?”
“No.”
“I am too. I like the way your nose twitches when you smell a case. This is about a friend of mine, or anyway a girl I know, named Ann Amory. I was worried about her.”
“I can’t see you being worried about a girl named Ann Amory, or any girl except one named Lily Rowan.”
Lily patted my arm. “That sounds more like you. Anyway, I wanted an excuse to see Nero Wolfe, and Ann was in trouble. All she really wanted was advice. She had found out something about somebody and wanted to know what to do about it.”
“What had she found out about who?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Her father used to work for my father, and I helped her out when he died. She works at the National Bird League and gets thirty dollars a week.” Lily shivered. “Good lord, think of it, thirty dollars a week! Of course that’s no worse than thirty dollars a day; you couldn’t possibly live anyhow. She came and asked me to send her to a lawyer and she certainly was upset. All she would tell me was that she had learned something terrible about someone, but from several things she let slip I think it’s her fiancé. I thought Nero Wolfe would be better for her than any lawyer.”
“And he wouldn’t see you?”
“No.”
“Ann didn’t mention any names at all?”
“No.”
“Where does she live?”
“Downtown, not far from you — 316 Barnum Street.”
“Who is her fiancé?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Lily patted my arm. “Listen, you big rugged hero. Where shall we have dinner tonight? My place?”
I shook my head. “I’m on duty. Your attitude on bases in Ireland is subversive. For all I know, you’re an Irish spy. I regard you as irresistible, but I’ve got my honor to think of. I warned you that day in the Methodist tent that my spiritual side—”
She cut me off and so it went. So it went for another hour, until we touched ground again at LaGuardia Airport. I wasn’t able to duck her there. For the sake of decorum I split a taxi with her to Manhattan, but in front of the Ritz, where she had her own tower, and where I knew she would be disinclined to tear up sidewalks. I got myself transferred to another taxi with my bags and gave the driver the address of Wolfe’s house on 35th Street.
In spite of the encounter with Lily, as I rolled downtown and then turned west, I’m here to tell you it was okay with me. I don’t know why it seemed as if I’d been away a lot longer than two months, but it did. I recognized stores and buildings, as if I owned them, that I didn’t remember ever bothering to look at before. I hadn’t sent a wire because I thought it would be fun to surprise them, and naturally I was looking forward to seeing Theodore up in the plant rooms with the orchids, and Fritz in the kitchen stirring things in bowls and sniffing and tasting, and Nero Wolfe himself seated at his desk, frowning at a page of the atlas or maybe growling at a book he was reading— No, he wouldn’t be in the office. He didn’t come down from the plant rooms until six o’clock, so he would be up there with Theodore. I would say hello to Fritz in the kitchen and then sneak up to my room and wait until after I heard the elevator descending, bringing Wolfe down to the office.