Chapter 1

In Nero Wolfe’s old brownstone house on West Thirty-fifth Street that Monday afternoon in June, the atmosphere was sparky. I mention it not to make an issue of Wolfe’s bad habits, but because it is to the point. It was the atmosphere that got us a roomer.

What had stirred it up was a comment made by Wolfe three days earlier. Each Friday morning at eleven, when he comes down to the office on the first floor from the plant rooms on the roof, Wolfe signs the salary checks for Fritz and Theodore and me, hands me mine, and keeps the other two because he likes to deliver them personally. That morning, as he passed mine across his desk, he made a remark.

“Thank you for waiting for it.”

My brows went up. “What’s the matter? Bugs on the orchids?”

“No. But I saw your bag in the hall, and I note your finery. Straining as you are to be gone, it is gracious of you to wait for this pittance, this meager return for your excessive labors in the week nearly ended. Especially since the bank balance is at its lowest point in two years.”

I controlled myself. “That deserves an answer, and here it is. As for finery, I am headed for a weekend in the country and am dressed accordingly. As for straining, I am not.” I glanced at my wrist. “I have ample time to get the car and drive to Sixty-third Street to get Miss Rowan. As for pittance, right. As for excessive labors, I have had to spend most of my time recently sitting on my prat only because you have seen fit to turn down four offers of jobs in a row. As for the week nearly ended, meaning that I am dashing off to carouse before the week is out for which I am being paid, you’ve known about it for a month, and what’s here to keep me? As for the bank balance, there I admit you have a point. I’m the bookkeeper and I know, and I’m willing to help. It’s only a pittance anyway, what the hell.”

I took my check, with thumbs and forefingers at the middle of its top edge, tore it across, put the halves together and tore again, dropped the shreds into my wastebasket, and turned and started for the door. His bellow came at me.

“Archie!”

I wheeled and glared at him. He glared back. “Pfui,” he said.

“Nuts,” I said, and turned and went.

That was what created the atmosphere. When I returned from the country late Sunday night he had gone up to bed. By Monday morning the air might possibly have cleared if it hadn’t been for the torn-up check. We both knew the stub would have to be voided and a new check drawn, but he wasn’t going to tell me to do it without being asked, and I wasn’t going to do it without being told. A man has his pride. With that between us, the stiffness Monday morning lasted through lunch and beyond, into the afternoon.

Around 4:30 I was at my desk, working on the germination records, when the doorbell rang. Ordinarily, unless instructions have been given, Fritz answers it, but that day my legs needed stretching and I went. Swinging the door open, I took in a sight that led me to an agreeable conclusion. The suitcase and hatbox could have held a salesman’s samples, but the young woman in the light peach-colored dress and tailored jacket was surely no peddler. Calling on Nero Wolfe with luggage, ten to one she was a prospective client from out of town, and, coming straight from the station or airport, in a hurry. Such a one was welcome.

With the hatbox dangling from her hand, she crossed the threshold, brushed past me, and said, “You’re Archie Goodwin. Will you bring my suitcase in? Please?”

I did so, closed the door, and deposited the suitcase against the wall. She put the hatbox down beside it and straightened to speak.

“I want to see Nero Wolfe, but of course he’s always up in the plant rooms from four to six. That’s why I picked this time to come, I want to see you first.” Her eyes moved. “That’s the door to the front room.” Her eyes moved again, aimed the length of the hall. “That’s the stairs, and the door to the dining room on the right and to the office on the left. The hall’s wider than I expected. Shall we go to the office?”

I had never seen eyes like hers. Either they were brownish gray flecked with brownish yellow, or brownish yellow flecked with brownish gray. They were deep in, wide apart, and moved fast.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

That was phony. She must have been used to people, at first sight of those eyes, staring at them; she probably expected it. I told her nothing was the matter, took her to the office and gave her a chair, sat at my desk, and observed, “So you’ve been here before.”

She shook her head. “A friend of mine was here a long while ago, and then of course I’ve read about it.” She looked around, twisting her head to the right and then to the left. “I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t known a good deal about it, and about Nero Wolfe and you.” She leveled the eyes at me, and, finding it difficult to meet them casually, I met them consciously. She went on, “I thought it would be better to tell you about it first because I’m not sure I would know how to put it to Nero Wolfe. You see, I’m trying to work something out. I wonder — do you know what I think I need right now?”

“No. What?”

“A Coke and rum with some lime and lots of ice. I don’t suppose you’ve got Meyer’s?”

It seemed to me she was crowding a little, but I said sure, we had everything, and got up to step to Wolfe’s desk and ring for Fritz. When he had come and got the order, and I was back in my chair, she spoke again. “Fritz looks younger than I expected,” she said.

I leaned back and clasped my hands behind my head. “You’re welcome to a drink, even a Coke and rum,” I told her, “and I’m enjoying your company, that’s okay, but if you want me to tell you how to put something to Mr. Wolfe maybe you’d better start.”

“Not till I’ve had the drink,” she said firmly.

She not only had the drink, she made herself at home. After Fritz had brought it and she had taken a couple of sips, she murmured something about its being warm and removed the jacket and dropped it on the seat of the red leather chair. Furthermore, she took off the straw thing she had on her head, fingered her hair back, and got a mirror from her bag and gave herself a brief look. Then, with her glass in her hand, and sipping intermittently, she moved to my desk for a glance at the germination cards, crossed to the big globe and gave it a gentle spin, and went to the shelves and looked at titles of books. When her glass was empty she put it on a table, went to her chair and sat, and gave me the eyes.

“I’m beginning to get myself together,” she told me.

“Good. Don’t rush it.”

“I won’t. I’m not a rusher. I’m a very cautious girl — believe me, I am. I never rushed but one thing in my life, and that one was enough. I’m not sure I’m over it yet. I think maybe I should have another drink.”

I decided against it. I couldn’t deny that the effect Coke and rum had on her was pleasant; it tuned her up and emphasized her charms, which were fair enough without the emphasis. But this was office hours, and I wanted to find out if she had any potential as a client. So I decided to dodge the drink problem with a polite suggestion, but before I had it framed she demanded, “Does the door of the south room on the third floor have a bolt on the inside?”

I frowned at her. I was beginning to suspect she was something we couldn’t use, like for instance a female writer getting material for a magazine piece on a famous detective’s home, but even so she was not the kind to be led out by the ear and rolled off the stoop down the steps to the sidewalk. There was no good reason, considering the eyes, why she shouldn’t be humored up to a point.

“No,” I said. “Why, do you think it needs one?”

“Maybe not,” she conceded, “but I thought I’d feel better if it had. You see, that’s where I want to sleep.”

“Oh? You do? For about how long?”

“For a week. Possibly a day or two more, but certainly for a week. I would rather have the south room than the one on the second floor because it has its own bath. I know how Nero Wolfe feels about women, so I knew I’d have to see you first.”

“That was sensible,” I agreed. “I like gags, and I’ll bet this is a pip. How does it go?”

“It is not a gag.” She wasn’t heated, but she was earnest. “For a certain reason I had to be — I had to go away. I had to go somewhere and stay there until June thirtieth — some place where no one would know and no one could possibly find me. I didn’t think a hotel would do, and I didn’t think — anyhow, I thought it over and decided the best place would be Nero Wolfe’s house. Nobody knows I came; nobody followed me here, I’m sure of that.”

She got up and went to the red leather chair for her bag, which she had left there with her jacket. Back in her seat, she opened the bag and took out a purse and let me have the eyes again. “One thing you can tell me,” she said, as if I not only could but naturally would, “—about paying. I know how he charges just for wiggling his finger. Would it be better for me to offer to pay him or to go ahead and pay you now? Would fifty dollars a day be enough? Whatever you say. I’ll give you cash instead of a check, because that way he won’t have to pay income tax on it, and also because a check would have my name on it, and I don’t want you to know my name. I’ll give it to you now if you’ll tell me how much.”

“That won’t do,” I objected. “Hotels and rooming houses have to know names. We can make one up for you. How would Lizzie Borden do?”

She reacted to that crack as she had to the Coke and rum — she flushed a little. “You think it’s funny?” she inquired.

I was firm. “So far,” I declared, “the over-all effect is comical. You aren’t going to tell us your name?”

“No.”

“Or where you live? Anything at all?”

“No.”

“Have you committed a crime or been accessory to one? Are you a fugitive from justice?”

“No.”

“Prove it.”

“That’s silly! I don’t have to prove it!”

“You do if you expect to get bed and board here. We’re particular. Altogether four murderers have slept in the south room — the last one was a Mrs. Floyd Whitten, some three years ago. And I am personally interested, since that room is on the same floor as mine.” I shook my head regretfully. “Under the circumstances, there’s no point in continuing the chinning, which is a pity, since I have nothing special to do and you are by no means a scarecrow, but unless you see fit to open up—”

I stopped short because it suddenly struck me that in any case I could do better than shoo her out. Even if she couldn’t be cast as a client, I could still use her.

I looked at her. “I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “Tell me your name.”

“No,” she said positively.

“Why not?”

“Because — what good would it do unless you checked on it? How would you know it was my real name? And I don’t want you checking on it. I don’t want anyone to have the faintest idea where I am for a week — until June thirtieth.”

“What happens on June thirtieth?”

She shook her head, smiling at me. “You’re good at asking questions, I know that, so I’m not going to answer any at all. I don’t want you to do anything, or Nero Wolfe either, except to let me stay here for a week, right in that room, for my meals too. I think I’ve already talked too much. I think I should have said — no, I guess that wouldn’t have worked.” She laughed a little, a low running ripple. “If I had said I had read about you and seen a picture of you, and you fascinated me, and I wanted to be near you for one wonderful week, you’d have known I was lying.”

“Not necessarily. Millions of women feel like that, but they can’t afford the fifty bucks a day.”

“I said I would pay more. Whatever you say.”

“Yeah, I know. Let’s get this settled. Are you going to stick to this — no naming or identifying?”

“I certainly intend to.”

“Then you’d better leave Mr. Wolfe to me.” I glanced at my wrist. “He’ll be coming down in three-quarters of an hour.” I left my chair. “I’ll take you up and leave you there, and when he comes down I’ll tackle him. With no tag on you it’s probably hopeless, but I may be able to persuade him to listen to you.” I picked up her jacket and turned. “It might help if he saw the cash. Sometimes the sight of money has an effect on people. Say three hundred and fifty, as you suggested? With the understanding, of course, that it’s not a deal until Mr. Wolfe accepts it.”

Her fingers were quick and accurate as they ticked off seven new fifties from the stack she got from her purse. She had enough left. I stuck our share in my pocket, went to the hall for the suitcase and hatbox, and led the way up the stairs, two flights. The door to the south room was standing open. Inside I put the luggage down, went and pulled the cords of the Venetian blinds for light, and cranked a window open.

She stood, taking a look around. “It’s a big room,” she said approvingly. She lifted a hand as if to touch my sleeve, but let it drop. “I appreciate this, Mr. Goodwin.”

I grunted. I was not prepared to get on terms with her. Putting the suitcase on the rack at the foot of one of the twin beds, and the hatbox on a chair, I told her, “I’ll have to watch you unpack these.”

Her eyes widened. “Watch me? Why?”

“For the kick.” I was slightly exasperated. “There are at least a thousand people in the metropolitan area who think Nero Wolfe has lived long enough, and one or more of them might have decided to take a hand. His room, as you apparently know, is directly below this. What I expect to find is a brace and bit in the suitcase and a copperhead or rattler in the hatbox. Are they locked?”

She regarded me to see if I was kidding, decided I wasn’t, and stepped over and opened the suitcase. I was right there. On top was a blue silk negligee, which she lifted and put on the bed.

“For the kick,” she said indignantly.

“It hurts me worse than it does you,” I assured her. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

I’m not a lingerie expert, but I know what I like, and that was quite a collection. There was one plain white folded garment, sheer as gossamer, with the finest mesh I had ever seen. As she put it on the bed I asked politely, “Is that a blouse?”

“No. Pajama.”

“Oh. Excellent for hot weather.”

When everything was out of the suitcase I picked it up for a good look, pressing with my fingertips on the sides and ends, inside and out. I wasn’t piling it on; among the unwanted articles that had been introduced into that house in some sort of container were a fer-de-lance, a tear-gas bomb, and a cylinder of cyanogen. But there was nothing tricky about the construction of the suitcase, or the hatbox either; and as for the contents, you couldn’t ask for a prettier or completer display of the personal requirements of a young woman for a quiet and innocent week in a private room of the house of a private detective.

I backed off. “I guess that’ll do,” I granted. “I haven’t inspected your handbag, nor your person, so I hope you won’t mind if I lock the door. If you sneaked down to Mr. Wolfe’s room and put a cyanide pill in his aspirin bottle, and he took it and died, I’d be out of a job.”

“Certainly.” She hissed it. “Lock it good. That’s the kind of thing I do every day.”

“Then you need a caretaker, and I’m it. How about a drink?”

“If it isn’t too much bother.”

I said it wasn’t and left her, locking the door with the key I had brought along from the office. Downstairs, after stopping in the kitchen to tell Fritz we had a guest locked in the south room, to ask him to take her up a drink, and to give him the key, I went to the office, took the seven fifties from my pocket, worked them into a fan, and put them under a paperweight on Wolfe’s desk.

Chapter 2

At one minute past six, when the sound came of Wolfe’s elevator descending, I got so busy with things on my desk that I didn’t have time to turn my head when he entered the office. I followed him by ear — crossing to his chair behind his desk, getting his four thousand ounces seated and adjusted in comfort, ringing for beer, grunting as he reached for the book he was reading, left there by him two hours earlier, his place marked by a counterfeit ten-dollar bill which had been autographed in red ink by a former Secretary of the Treasury in appreciation of services rendered. I also caught, by ear, Wolfe speaking to Fritz when he brought the beer.

“Did you put this money here, Fritz?”

Of course that forced me. I swiveled. “No, sir, I did.”

“Indeed. Thank you, Fritz.” He got his eighteen-carat opener from the drawer, uncapped a bottle, and poured. Fritz departed. Wolfe let the foam subside a little, not too much, lifted the glass, and took two healthy swallows. Putting the glass down, he tapped the new non-counterfeit fifties, still in a fan under the paperweight, with a fingertip, and demanded, “Well? Flummery?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what?”

I bubbled with eager frankness. “I admit it, sir, what you said Friday about my excessive labors and the bank balance — that really hurt. I felt I wasn’t doing my share, with you sweating it out four hours a day up with the orchids. I was sitting here this afternoon mulling over it, some of the hardest mulling I’ve ever done, when the doorbell rang.”

He was reacting to my opening as expected. Turning to his place in the book, he started reading. I went right on.

“It was a human female in her twenties, with unprecedented eyes, a fine wholesome figure, a highly polished leather suitcase, and a hatbox. She tooted her knowledge of the premises and you and me, bragging about her reading. I brought her in here and we chatted. She wouldn’t tell her name or anything else about herself. She wants no advice, no information, no detective work, no nothing. All she wants is board and room for one week, with meals served in her room, and she specified the south room, which, as you know, is on the same floor as mine.”

I made a little gesture signifying modesty. With his eyes on the book, he didn’t see it, but I made it anyway. “With your trained mind, naturally you have already reached the conclusion that I was myself compelled to accept, on the evidence. Not only has she read about me, she has seen my picture, and she can’t stand it not to be near me — as she put it, for one wonderful week. Luckily she is supplied with lettuce, and she paid for the week in advance, at fifty bucks a day. That’s where that came from. I told her I was taking it only tentatively, awaiting your okay, and took her up to the south room and helped her unpack, and locked her in. She’s there now.”

He had turned in his chair for better light on his book, practically turning his back on me. I went on, unruffled. “She said something about having to go somewhere and stay until June thirtieth, where no one could find her, but of course she had to put some kind of face on it. I made no personal commitments, but I won’t object to some sacrifice of time and convenience, provided I average eight hours’ sleep. She seems educated and refined and will probably want me to read aloud to her, so I’ll have to ask you to lend me some books, like Pilgrim’s Progress and Essays of Elia. She also seems sweet and unspoiled and has fine legs, so if we like her and get used to her one of us could marry her. However, the immediate point is that, since I am responsible for that handy little contribution of cash, you may feel like signing a replacement for the check I tore up Friday.”

I got it from a drawer, where I had it ready, and got up to put it on his desk. He put his book down, took his pen from the stand, signed the check, and slid it across to me.

He regarded me with what looked like amiable appreciation. “Archie,” he told me, “that was an impressive performance. Friday I spoke hastily and you acted hastily, and the fait accompli of that torn check had us at an impasse. It was an awkward problem, and you have solved it admirably. By contriving one of your fantastically and characteristically puerile inventions, you made the problem itself absurd and so disposed of it. Admirable and satisfactory.”

He removed the paperweight from the fifties, picked them up, jiggled the edges even, and extended his hand with them, telling me, “I didn’t know we had fifties in the emergency cash reserve. Better put them back. I don’t like money lying around.”

I didn’t take the dough. “Hold it,” I said. “We’re bumping.”

“Bumping?”

“Yes, sir. That didn’t come from the safe. It came from a visitor as described, now up in the south room. I invented nothing, puerile or not. She’s a roomer for a week if you want her. Shall I bring her down so you can decide?”

He was glaring at me. “Bah,” he said, reaching for his book.

“Okay, I’ll go get her.” I started for the door, expecting him to stop me with a roar, but he didn’t. He thought he knew I was playing him. I compromised by going to the kitchen to ask Fritz to come in a minute, and let him precede me back to the office. Wolfe didn’t glance at us.

“A little point of information,” I told Fritz. “Mr. Wolfe thinks I’m exaggerating. Our lady visitor you took a drink to up in the south room — is she old, haggard, deformed, ugly, and crippled?”

“Now, Archie,” Fritz reproved me. “She is quite the opposite. Precisely the opposite!”

“Right. You left her locked in?”

“Certainly. I brought you the key. You said she would probably have her dinner—”

“Yeah, we’ll let you know. Okay, thanks.”

Fritz darted a look at Wolfe, got none in return, wheeled, and left. Wolfe waited for the sound of the kitchen door closing, then put his book down and spoke. “It’s true,” he said in a tone that would have been fitting if he had just learned that I had been putting thrips on his plants. “You have actually installed a woman in a room of my house?”

“Not installed exactly,” I objected. “That’s too strong a word. And it implies that I have personal—”

“Where did you get her?”

“I didn’t get her. As I told you, she came. I wasn’t inventing. I was reporting.”

“Report it in full. Verbatim.”

That order was easy, compared to some I have had to fill. I gave him words and actions complete, from opening the front door to let her in through to locking the south room door to keep her in. He leaned back with his eyes closed, as he usually does when I’m reporting at length. When I finished he had no questions, not one. He merely opened his eyes and snapped at me, “Go up and give her back her money.” He glanced at the wall clock. “It’ll be dinnertime in twenty minutes. Get her out of the house in ten. Help her pack.”

Here I hit a snag. Looking back at it, it would seem that my natural and normal course would have been to obey instructions. My double mission had been accomplished. I had taken a backhanded crack at his being so damn particular about accepting jobs and clients, and also I had got a replacement for my check. She had served my purpose, so why not bounce her? But evidently something about her, maybe the way she packed a suitcase, had made an impression on me, for I found myself taking a line.

I told Wolfe that, acting as his agent, I had practically promised her that he would see her. He only grunted. I told him that he could probably get her to can the mystery and tell her name and describe her troubles, and if so the resulting fee might provide for my salary checks for a year. Another grunt.

I gave up. “Okay,” I said, “she’ll have to find some bacalhau somewhere else. Maybe East Harlem — there’s a lot of Portuguese around there. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to her.”

“Bacalhau?” he demanded.

“Yeah. I happened to mention we were having it for dinner, and she asked what it was and I told her, and she said salt cod couldn’t possibly be fit to eat no matter how it was cooked, not even if it was an adaptation of a Portuguese recipe by you and Fritz.” I shrugged. “Skip it. She may be a murderess anyhow. What’s the difference if we break a precedent by turning her out hungry just at mealtime? What if I did sell her on salt cod and now have to evict her unfed? Who am I?”

I got up and picked up the seven fifties from his desk. “This,” I said regretfully, “puts us back where we started. Since this is to be returned to her, I have contributed nothing to the bank account, and the situation regarding my salary check snaps back to last Friday. That leaves me no alternative,” I reached to my desk for the check he had signed as replacement, took it at the middle of its top edge with thumbs and forefingers—

“Archie!” he roared. “Don’t tear that!”

I still do not know what the decision would have been about the roomer upstairs if it had been left to us. Because Wolfe did not like the idea of sending anyone from his house hungry, because of his instinctive reaction to the challenge that salt cod couldn’t be made edible, and because of my threat to tear up another check, the roomer was not bounced before dinner, and the tray that was prepared for the south room was inspected personally by Wolfe before Fritz took it up. But except for the preparation and dispatch of the tray, no decision was put into words; the question was ignored. Wolfe and I ate together in the dining room as usual; the salt cod with Portuguese trimmings was so good that I had no room for the veal and not much for the walnut pudding; and when we were through with coffee and I followed Wolfe back into the office I assumed that the first item on the agenda would be Miss or Mrs. X. But he didn’t even call a meeting. After a full meal, which our dinner always is, it takes him four or five minutes to get adjusted in his chair to his complete satisfaction. With that accomplished that Monday evening, he opened his book and started to read.

I had nothing to complain about, since it was certainly his move. She was still up there, fed and locked in, and it was up to him. He could just pass it and let her stay, which was unthinkable, or he could have me bring her down for a talk, which he would hate, or he could tell me to put her out, which might or might not get my prompt cooperation. In any case, I didn’t intend to give him an opening, so when he started reading I sat regarding him silently for a couple of minutes and then got up and headed for the door.

His voice came at me from behind. “You’re not going out?”

I turned and was bland. “Why not?”

“That woman you smuggled in. The arrangement was that you would get rid of her after dinner.”

It was a barefaced lie; there had been no such arrangement, and he knew it. But he had unquestionably squared off and feinted with a jab, and it was my turn. The disposal of our roomer would probably have been settled quickly and finally if it hadn’t been for an interruption. The doorbell rang. It was only two steps from where I stood to the hall, and I took them.

After dark I never open the outside door to a ring without first flipping on the stoop light and taking a look through the one-way panel. That time a glance was enough. He was alone, about twice my age, tall and bony with a square jutting jaw, with a dark gray felt hat firmly on his head and a briefcase under his arm. I pulled the door open and asked him how he did. Ignoring that question, he said his name was Perry Helmar and that he wanted to see Nero Wolfe, urgently. Ordinarily, when Wolfe is in the office and a stranger calls, I let the caller wait while I go in to check, but now, welcoming a chance to give Wolfe another tack to sit on, and also perhaps to postpone a showdown on the roomer until bedtime, I invited the guy in, hung his hat on the rack, and escorted him to the office.

I thought for a second that Wolfe was going to get up and march out without a word. I have known him to do that more than once, upon deciding that someone, not always me, is not to be borne, The idea did dart into his mind — I know that look only too well — but it wasn’t strong enough to overcome his reluctance to leave his chair. So he sat and surveyed the visitor with a resentful scowl.

“I should explain,” Helmar explained, “that I came to you immediately not only because I know something of your record and reputation, but also because I know my friend Dick Williamson’s opinion of you — Richard A. Williamson, the cotton broker. He says you once performed a miracle for him.”

Helmar paused politely to give Wolfe a chance to insert an acknowledgment of this flattering preamble. Wolfe did so by inclining his head a full eighth of an inch.

“I don’t ask for a miracle,” Helmar resumed, “but I do need speed, boldness, and sagacity.” He was in the red leather chair beyond the end of Wolfe’s desk, with his briefcase on the little table at his elbow. His voice was a raspy oratorical baritone, hard and bony like him. He was going on. “And discretion — that is essential. You have it, I know. As for me, I am a senior partner in a law firm of the highest repute, with offices at Forty Wall Street. A young woman for whom I am responsible has disappeared, and there is reason to fear that she is doing something foolish and may even be in jeopardy. She must be found as quickly as possible.”

I opened a drawer to get out a notebook, and reached for my pen. What could be sweeter? A missing person, and a senior member of a Wall Street firm of high repute so bothered that he came trotting to us at night without even stopping to phone in advance. I glanced at Wolfe and suppressed a grin. His lips were tightened in resigned acceptance of the inevitable. Work was looming, work that he could probably find no rational excuse for rejecting, and how he hated it!

“I have a definite proposal,” Helmar was saying. “I will pay you five thousand dollars and necessary expenses if you will find her, and put me in communication with her, by June twenty-ninth — six days from now. I will pay double that, ten thousand, if you will produce her in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth.”

My eyes were on him in fitting appreciation when he spoke of five grand, and then ten grand; but I lowered them to my notebook when I heard that date, June 30. It could have been a coincidence, but I had a good sharp hunch that it wasn’t, and I have learned not to sneer at hunches. I lifted my eyes enough to get Wolfe’s face, but there was no sign that the date had smacked him as it had me.

He sighed good and deep, surrendering with fairly good grace to the necessity of work. “The police?” he inquired, not hopefully.

Helmar shook his head. “As I said before, discretion is essential.”

“It usually is, for people who hire a private detective. Tell me about it briefly. Since you’re a lawyer you should know what I need to decide whether 111 take the job.”

“Why shouldn’t you take it?”

“I don’t know. Tell me about it.”

Helmar shifted in his chair and leaned back, but not at ease. I decided that his lacing and unlacing of his fingers was not merely a habit; he was on edge. “In any case,” he said, “this is confidential. The name of the young woman who has disappeared is Priscilla Eads. I have known her all her life and am her legal guardian, and also I am the trustee of her property under the will of her father, who died ten years ago. She lives in an apartment on East Seventy-fourth Street, and I was to call there this evening to discuss some business matters with her. I did so, arriving a little after eight, but she wasn’t there, and the maid was alarmed, as she had expected her mistress home for an early dinner and there had been no word from her.”

“I don’t need that much,” Wolfe said impatiently.

“Then I’ll curtail it. I found on her writing desk an envelope addressed to me. Inside was a handwritten note.” He reached for his briefcase and opened it. “Here it is.” He took out a folded sheet of blue-tinted paper, but put it down to get a spectacle case from a pocket and put on black-rimmed glasses. He retrieved the paper, “It reads, ‘Dear Perry—’”

He stopped, lifting his chin to glance at me and then at Wolfe. “She has called me by my first name,” he stated, “ever since she was twelve years old and I was forty-nine. Her father suggested it.”

Apparently he invited comment, and Wolfe obliged. “It is not actionable,” he muttered.

Helmar nodded. “I only mention it. It reads:

“Dear Perry: I hope you won’t be too mad at me for standing you up. I’m not going to do anything loony. I just want to be sure where I stand. I doubt if you will hear from me before June 30th, but you will then all right. Please, and I mean this, please don’t try to find me. Love, Pris.”

Helmar folded the note and returned it to the briefcase. “Perhaps I should explain the significance of June thirtieth. That will be my ward’s twenty-fifth birthday, and on that day, under the terms of her father’s will, the trust terminates and she takes complete possession of the property. That is the basic position, but there are complications, as there always are. One is that the largest single item of the property is ninety per cent of the stock of a large and successful corporation, and there is some feeling among part of the managing and directing personnel about my ward’s taking control. Another is my ward’s former husband.”

Wolfe frowned. “Alive?” he demanded. He refuses to touch marital messes.

“Yes.” Helmar was frowning too. “That was my ward’s one disastrous blunder. She ran away with him when she was nineteen, to South America, and left him three months later, and divorced him in nineteen forty-eight. There was no further communication between them, but two weeks ago I received a letter from him, sent to me as the trustee of the property, claiming that, under the provisions of a document she had signed shortly after their marriage, half of the property legally belonged to him. I doubt—”

I horned in. I had stood the suspense long enough. “You say,” I blurted, “her name is Priscilla Eads?”

“Yes, she took her maiden name. The husband’s name is Eric Hagh. I doubt—”

“I think I’ve met her. I suppose you’ve got a picture for us?” I got up and crossed to him. “I’d like to see.”

“Certainly.” He didn’t care much for an underling butting in, but condescended to reach for his briefcase and finger in it. “I have three good pictures of her I brought from her apartment. Here they are.” I took them and stood looking them over.

He went on. “I doubt if his claim has any legal validity, but morally — that may be a question. It is indubitably a question with my ward. His letter came from Venezuela and I think she may have gone there to see him. She fully intended — she intends — to be here on June thirtieth, but how long does it take to get from New York to Caracas by plane? Not more than twenty hours, I think. She has a wild streak in her. The first thing to do will be to check all plane passengers to Venezuela, and if it’s humanly possible I want to reach her before she sees that man Hagh.”

I handed the photographs to Wolfe. “She’s worth looking at,” I told him. “Not only the pictures, but, as I thought, I’ve seen her. Just recently. I forget exactly where and when, but I remember from something somebody said, it was the day we had bacalhau for dinner. I don’t—”

“What the devil are you gibbering about?” Wolfe demanded.

I looked him in the eye. “You heard me,” I said, and sat down.

Chapter 3

One of Wolfe’s better performances was his handling of Perry Helmar after my disclosure that Priscilla Eads was upstairs in the south room. The problem was to get Helmar out of there reasonably soon with his conviction of his need for Wolfe’s services intact, without any commitment from us to take his job. Wolfe broke it by telling Helmar that he would sleep on it, and that if he decided to tackle it I would call at Helmar’s office at ten in the morning for further details. Of course Helmar blew up. He wanted action then and there.

“What would you think of me,” Wolfe asked him, “if, solely on information furnished by you here and now, I accepted this case and started to work on it?”

“What would I think? That’s what I want!”

“Surely not,” Wolfe objected. “Surely you would be employing a jackass, I have never seen you before. Your name may be Perry Helmar, or it may be Eric Hagh; I have only your word for it. All that you have told me may be true, or none of it. I would like Mr. Goodwin to call on you at your office, and I would like him to visit your ward’s apartment and talk with her maid. I am capable of boldness, but not of temerity. If you want the kind of detective who will dive in heedlessly on request from a stranger, Mr. Goodwin will give you some names and addresses.”

Helmar was fairly stubborn and had objections and suggestions. For his identity and bona fides we could phone Richard A. Williamson. For visiting his ward’s apartment and talking with her maid, tonight would do as well as tomorrow. But according to Wolfe I couldn’t possibly be spared until morning because we were jointly considering an important problem, and the sooner Helmar left and let us do our considering, the better. Finally he went. He returned the photographs to the briefcase before tucking it under his arm, and in the hall he let me get his hat from the rack and open the door for him.

I went back to the office but didn’t get inside. As I was stepping over the sill Wolfe barked at me, “Bring her down here!”

I stopped. “Okay. But do I brief her?”

“No. Bring her here.”

I hesitated, deciding how to put it. “She’s mine, you know. My taking her up and locking her in was a gag, strictly mine. You would have tossed her out if I had consulted you. You have told me to refund her dough and get rid of her. She is mine. With the dope that Helmar has kindly furnished, you will probably be much too tough for her. I reserve the right, if and when I see fit, to go up and get her luggage and take her to the door and let her out.”

He chuckled audibly. He doesn’t do that often, and after all the years I’ve been with him I haven’t got the chuckle tagged. It could have been anything from a gloat to an admission that I had the handle. I stood eying him for three seconds, giving him a chance to translate if he wanted it, but apparently he didn’t, so I turned and strode to the stairs, mounted the two flights, inserted the key in the hole, turned it, and knocked, calling my name. Her voice told me to come in, and I opened the door and entered.

She was right at home. One of the beds had been turned down, and its coverlet, neatly folded, was on the other bed. Seated at a table near a window, under a reading lamp, doing something to her nails, she was in the blue negligee and barefooted. She looked smaller than she had in the peach-colored dress, and younger.

“I had given you up,” she said, not complaining. “In another ten minutes I’ll be in bed.”

“I doubt it. You’ll have to get dressed. Mr. Wolfe wants you down in the office.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Why can’t he come up here?”

I looked at her. In that getup, to me she was a treat; to Wolfe, in his own house, she would have been an impudence. “Because there’s no chair on this floor big enough for him. I’ll wait outside.”

I went to the hall, pulling the door to. I was not prancing or preening. True, it was I who had hooked onto something that had turned out to be worth ten grand to us, but I saw no acceptable way of cashing it in, and I had no idea what line Wolfe was going to take. I had stated my position, and he had chuckled.

It didn’t take her long to dress, which scored another point for her. When she emerged, back in the peach color, she came to me, asking, “Is he very mad?”

I told her nothing alarming. The stairs are wide enough for two abreast, and we descended side by side, her fingers on my arm. That struck me as right and appropriate. I had told Wolfe that she was mine, thereby assuming a duty as well as claiming a privilege. I may have stuck out my chest some as we entered the office together, though it was involuntary.

She marched across to his desk, extended a hand, and told him cordially, “You look exactly right! Just as I thought! I would—”

She broke it off because she was getting a deep freeze. He had moved no muscle, and the expression on his face, while not belligerent, was certainly not cordial. She drew back.

He spoke. “I don’t shake hands with you because you might later think it an imposition. We’ll see. Sit down, Miss Eads.”

She did all right, I thought. It’s not a comfortable spot, having an offered hand refused, whatever the explanation may be. After drawing back, she flushed, opened her mouth and closed it, glanced at me and back at Wolfe, and, apparently deciding that restraint was called for, moved toward the red leather chair. But short of it she suddenly jerked around and demanded, “What did you call me?”

“Your name. Eads.”

Flabbergasted, she stared. She transferred the stare to me. “How?” she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? But how?”

“Look,” I appealed to her, “you had a jolt coming, and what did it matter whether from him or me? Sit down and take it.”

“But you couldn’t possibly...” It trailed off. She moved and sat. Her remarkable eyes went to Wolfe. “Not that it makes much difference. I suppose I’ll have to pay you more, but I was willing to anyhow. I told Mr. Goodwin so.”

Wolfe nodded. “And he told you that he was taking the money you gave him tentatively, conditional on my approval. Archie, get it, please, and return it to her.”

I had expected that, naturally, and had decided not to make an issue of it. If and when I took a stand I wanted to be on the best ground in sight. So I arose and crossed to the safe and opened it, got the seven new fifties, went to Priscilla, and proffered them. She didn’t lift a hand.

“Take it,” I advised her. “If you want to balk, pick a better spot.” I dropped it on her lap and returned to my chair. As I sat down, Wolfe was speaking.

“Your presence here, Miss Eads, is preposterous. This is neither a rooming house nor an asylum for hysterical women; it is my—”

“I’m not hysterical!”

“Very well, I withdraw it. It is not an asylum for unhysterical women; it is my office and my home. For you to come here and ask to be allowed to stay a week, sleeping and eating in the room directly above mine, without revealing your identity or any of the circumstances impelling you, was grotesque. Mr. Goodwin knew that, and you would have been promptly ejected if he had not chosen to use you and your fantastic request as a means of badgering me — and also, of course, if you had not been young and attractive. Because he did so choose, and you are uncommonly attractive, you were actually taken up to a room and helped to unpack, refreshments were taken up to you, a meal was served you, my whole household was disrupted. Then—”

“I’m sorry.” Priscilla’s face was good and red, no faint pink flush. “I’m extremely sorry. I’ll leave at once.” She was rising.

Wolfe showed her a palm. “If you please. There has been a development. We have had a visitor. He left here only half an hour ago. A man named Perry Helmar.”

She gasped. “Perry!” She dropped back into the chair, “You told him I’m here!”

“No.” Wolfe was curt. “He had been to your apartment and found you gone, and had found the note you left for him — you did leave a note for him?”

“I — yes.”

“Finding it, and learning you had scooted, he came straight here. He wanted to hire me to find you. He told me of your approaching twenty-fifth birthday, and of the communication he received recently from your former husband, now in Venezuela, regarding a document you once signed, giving him half of your property, You did sign such a document?”

“Yes.”

“Wasn’t that a foolish thing to do?”

“Yes, but I was a fool then, so naturally I was foolish.”

“Well. When Mr. Goodwin looked at photographs of you Mr. Helmar had brought, of course he recognized you, and he managed to inform me without informing Mr. Helmar. But Mr. Helmar had already made a definite proposal. He offered to pay me ten thousand dollars and expenses if I would produce you in New York, alive and well, by the morning of June thirtieth.”

“Produce me?” Priscilla laughed, but not merrily.

“That was his phrase.” Wolfe leaned back and rubbed his lip with a fingertip. “The moment Mr. Goodwin recognized the photographs and informed me, I was of course in an anomalous situation. I earn a living and maintain an expensive establishment by working as a private detective. I can’t afford quixotism. When I am offered a proper fee for a legitimate job in the field I cover, I don’t refuse it. I need the money. So. A man I’ve never seen before comes and offers me ten thousand dollars to find and produce a certain object by a certain date, and by chance — by chance alone — that object is locked in a room of my house. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t disclose it to him and collect my fee?”

“I see,” She pressed her lips together. In a moment the tip of her tongue showed, going from left to right and back again. “That’s how it is, It was lucky he brought the photographs for Mr. Goodwin to recognize, wasn’t it?” Her eyes moved to me. “I suppose I should congratulate you, Mr. Goodwin?”

“It’s too early to tell,” I growled. “Save it.”

“I admit,” Wolfe told her, “that if I had accepted a commission from you, or if Mr. Goodwin, acting as my agent, had taken money from you unconditionally, I would be bound to your interest and therefore unable to consider Mr. Helmar’s offer. But there is no such bond. I am not committed to you in any way. There was no legal, professional, or ethical obstacle to prevent my disclosing you to him and demanding payment — but, confound it, there was my self-esteem. And is. I can’t do it. Also there is Mr. Goodwin. I have rebuked him for installing you and told him to get rid of you, and if I now collect ransom for you he will be impossible to live with or work with.”

Wolfe shook his head. “So it is by no means my good fortune that you chose my house as a haven. If you had gone anywhere else, Mr. Helmar would have come to hire me to find you, I would have taken the job, and I would surely have earned the fee. If my self-esteem will not let me profit by your presence here, through chance and Mr. Goodwin, neither will my self-interest permit me to suffer loss by it — so substantial a loss — and I have two suggestions to offer — alternative suggestions. The first is simple. When you were arranging with Mr. Goodwin to stay here you told him in effect that there was no limit to the amount you would pay. Your words, as he reported them to me, were, ‘Whatever you say.’ You were speaking to him as my agent, and therefore to me. I now say ten thousand dollars.”

She goggled at him, her brows high. “You mean I pay you ten thousand dollars?”

“Yes. I submit this comment: I suspect that the money will come from you in any case, directly or indirectly. If, as the trustee of your property, Mr. Helmar has wide discretion, as he probably has, it is more than likely that the payment for finding and producing you would come from that property, so actually—”

“This is blackmail!”

“I doubt if you can properly—”

“It’s blackmail! You’re saying that if I don’t pay you ten thousand dollars you’ll tell Perry Helmar I’m here and get it from him!”

“I’m saying no such thing.” Wolfe was being patient. “I said I had an alternative suggestion. If you don’t like that one here’s the other.” He looked at the wall clock. “It’s ten minutes past eleven. Mr. Goodwin helped you unpack; he can help you pack. You can be out of here in five minutes, with your luggage, and there will be no surveillance. We will not even so much as spy from a window to see which way you turn. We will forget you exist for ten hours and forty-five minutes. At the end of that period, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, I shall phone Mr. Helmar, take his job on the terms he proposed, and start after you.”

Wolfe fluttered a hand. “It was distasteful to me, having to offer to take the money direct from you instead of through Mr. Helmar, but I felt you merited that consideration. I’m glad you contemn it as blackmail, since I like to pretend that I earn at least a fraction of what I collect; but the offer stands until ten in the morning, should you decide that you prefer it to this hide-and-seek.”

“I’m not going to pay you any ten thousand dollars!” She had her chin up.

“Good.”

“It’s ridiculous!”

“I agree. Also, of course, the alternative is ridiculous for me. Leaving here, you can go straight home, phone Mr. Helmar that you are there and will see him in the morning, and go to bed, leaving me to go whistle for my dinner. I’ll have to risk that; there’s no way around it.”

“I’m not going home, and I’m not going to phone anyone.”

“As you please.” Wolfe glanced at the clock. “It’s a quarter past eleven, and you have no time to lose if you expect to make it a job for me. Archie, will you bring her luggage down, please?”

I arose, in no hurry. The situation was highly unsatisfactory, but how could I change it? Priscilla wasn’t waiting. She was out of her chair, saying, “I can manage, thanks,” and on her way.

I watched her crossing the hall and starting up, and then turned to Wolfe. “It reminds me more of ‘run sheep run,’ as we called it in Ohio. That’s what the shepherd yelled — ‘run sheep run!’ It ought to be an exciting game and lots of fun, but I think I should tell you before she leaves, I’m not absolutely sure I’ll want to play. You may have to fire me.”

He only muttered, “Get her out of here.”

I took my time mounting the stairs, thinking she wouldn’t want my help folding things. The door to the south room was standing open. From the landing I called, “May I come in?”

“Don’t bother,” her voice came. “I’ll make out.”

She was moving around, I. went to the threshold. The suitcase, open on the rack, was three-fourths packed. That girl would have been a very satisfactory traveling companion. Without a glance at me, she finished the suitcase, swift and efficient, and started on the hatbox.

“Watch your money,” I said. “You have plenty. Don’t give it to a stranger to hold.”

“Sending little sister off to camp?” she asked, without giving me the eyes. It may have been banter, but it wasn’t any too light.

“Yeah. Down there you said you supposed you should congratulate me, and I asked you to save it. I doubt if I deserve it.”

“I guess you don’t. I take it back.”

She pulled the zipper all the way around the hatbox, got her jacket and hat and put them on, and took her handbag from the table. She reached for the hatbox, but I already had it, and also the suitcase. She went first, and I followed. Down in the lower hall she didn’t glance into the office as we passed by, but I did, and saw Wolfe at his desk, leaning back with his eyes closed. When I had the front door open she made to take the luggage, but I hung on to it. She persisted but so did I, and since I weighed more I won. At the foot of the stoop we turned east, walked to Tenth Avenue, and crossed to the other side.

“I will not,” I told her, “file the brand and number of the taxi, or if I do I won’t report it or refer to it. However, I am making no promise that I will permanently forget your name. Some day I may think of something I’ll want to ask you. If I don’t see you before June thirtieth, happy birthday.”

We parted on those terms — not exactly gushy, but not implacable. After watching her taxi roll off uptown, I walked back to the house, expecting an extended session with Wolfe, and not with any uncontrollable glee. It was an interesting situation, I was willing to hand him that, but I wasn’t at all sure I liked my part. However, I found that I was to be allowed to sleep on it. By the time I got back Wolfe had gone to bed, which suited me fine.

The next morning, Tuesday, there was a clash. I was having orange juice and griddle cakes and grilled Georgia ham and honey and coffee and melon and more coffee in the kitchen, as usual, when Fritz came back down from taking Wolfe’s breakfast tray up to him and said I was wanted. That was according to precedent. Since Wolfe didn’t come downstairs before going up to the plant rooms at nine o’clock, his habit was to send for me if he had morning instructions not suited to the house phone. Fritz said nothing had been said about urgency, so I finished my second cup of coffee without gulping and then went up the one flight to Wolfe’s room, directly under the one Priscilla had not slept in. He had finished breakfast and was out of bed, standing by a window in his two acres of yellow pajamas, massaging his scalp with his fingertips. I wished him good morning, and he was good enough to reciprocate.

“What time is it?” he demanded.

There were two clocks in the room, one on his bed table and one on the wall not ten feet from where he was standing, but I humored him, looking at my wrist.

“Eight thirty-two.”

“Please get Mr. Helmar at his office sharp at ten o’clock and put him through to me upstairs. It would be pointless for you to go there, since we are more up-to-date than he is. Meanwhile it won’t hurt to ring Miss Eads’s apartment to learn if she’s at home. Unless you already have?”

“No, sir.”

“Then try it. If she’s not there we should be prepared to waste no time. Get after Saul, Fred, and Orrie at once, and tell them to be here by eleven o’clock if possible.”

I shook my head, regretfully but firmly. “No, sir. I warned you that you may have to fire me. I don’t refuse to play, but I will not help with any fudging. You told her that we would forget her existence until ten this morning. I have done so. I have no idea who or what you’re talking about. Do you want me to come upstairs at ten o’clock to see if you have any instructions?”

“No,” he snapped, and headed for the bathroom, Reaching it and opening the door, he yelled at me over his shoulder, “I mean yes!” and disappeared within. To save Fritz a trip, I took the breakfast tray down with me.

Ordinarily, unless there is a job on, I don’t go to the office until the morning mail comes, somewhere between 8:45 and nine o’clock. So when the doorbell rang a little before nine I was still in the kitchen, discussing the Giants and Dodgers with Fritz. Going through to the hall and proceeding toward the front, I stopped dead when I saw through the one-way glass who it was.

I’m just reporting. As far as I know, no electrons had darted in either direction when I first laid eyes on Priscilla Eads, nor had I felt faint or dizzy at any point during my association with her, but the fact remains that I have never had swifter or stronger hunches than the two that were connected with her. Monday evening, before Helmar had said much more than twenty words about his missing ward, I had said to myself, “She’s upstairs,” and knew it. Tuesday morning, when I saw Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide on the stoop, I said to myself, “She’s dead,” and knew it. Halting, I stood three seconds before advancing to open the door.

I greeted him. He said, “Hello, Goodwin,” strode in and past me, and on to the office. I followed and crossed to my desk, noting that instead of going for the red leather chair he was taking a yellow one, indicating that I and not Wolfe was it this time. I told him that Wolfe would not be available for two hours, which he knew already, since he was as familiar with the schedule as I was.

“Will I do?” I asked.

“You will for a start,” he growled. “Last night a woman was murdered, and your fresh fingerprints are on her luggage. How did they get there?”

I met his eye. “That’s no way to do it,” I objected. “My fingerprints could be found on women’s luggage from Maine to California. Name and address and description of luggage?”

“Priscilla Eads, Six-eighteen East Seventy-fourth Street. A suitcase and a hatbox, both light tan leather.”

“She was murdered?”

“Yes. Your prints were fresh. How come?”

Inspector Cramer was no Sir Laurence Olivier, but I would not previously have called him ugly. At that moment it suddenly struck me that he was ugly. His big round face always got redder in the summertime, and seemed to be puffier, making his eyes appear smaller but no less quick and sharp. “Like a baboon,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I swiveled and buzzed the plant rooms on the house phone, and in a moment Wolfe answered.

“Inspector Cramer is here,” I told him. “A woman named Priscilla Eads has been murdered, and Cramer says my fingerprints are on her luggage and wants to know how come. Have I ever heard of her?”

“Confound it.”

“Yes, sir. I double. Do you want to come down here?”

“No.”

“Shall we go up there?”

“No. You know all that I do.”

“I sure do. So I unload?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“Yeah, why not. She’s dead.”

I hung up and turned to Cramer.

Chapter 4

I am inclined to believe that Cramer has a fairly good understanding of Wolfe in most respects, but not all. For instance, he exaggerates Wolfe’s appetite for dough, which I suppose is natural, since if he goes on being an honest cop, which he is, the most he can ever expect to get is considerably less than Wolfe pays me, whereas Wolfe’s annual take is well up in six figures. I admit Wolfe is not in business for my health, but he is quite capable of letting a customer leave the premises with a dime for carfare or even a buck for a taxi.

However, Cramer is not under that impression, and therefore, when he learned that we had no client connected in any way with Priscilla Eads, now that she was dead, and apparently no prospect of any, and hence no fee to build up and safeguard, he started calling me Archie, which had happened before, but not often. He expressed appreciation for the information I provided, taking a dozen pages of notes in his small neat hand, and asking plenty of questions, not to challenge but just to elucidate. He did offer a pointed comment about what he called our dodge with Helmar, with his ward upstairs, and I rebutted.

“Okay,” I told him, “you name it. She came here uninvited, and so did he. We had made no engagement with either one. They couldn’t both have what they wanted. Let’s hear how you would have handled it.”

“I’m not a genius like Wolfe. He could have been too busy to consider taking Helmar’s job.”

“And use what to meet his payroll? Speaking of busy, are you too busy to answer a question from a citizen in good standing?”

He looked at his wrist. “I’m due at the DA’s office at ten-thirty.”

“Then we’ve got hours — anyhow, minutes. Why did you want to make it so tight about the time Helmar left here? It was shortly after ten, and it was more than an hour later that Miss Eads left.”

“Uh-huh.” He got out a cigar. “What paper do you read?”

“The Times, but today I’ve seen only page one and sports.”

“It didn’t make the Times. A little after one o’clock last night the body of a woman was found in a vestibule on East Twenty-ninth Street. She had been strangled with some kind of cord, not very thick. There was trouble identifying her because her bag had been taken, but she lived in a nearby tenement and it didn’t take too long. Her name was Margaret Fomos, and she worked as a maid at the apartment of Miss Priscilla Eads on Seventy-fourth Street. It was a full-time job, but she lived on Twenty-ninth Street with her husband. She usually got home around nine, but last evening she phoned her husband that she wouldn’t arrive until eleven. He says she sounded upset, and he asked her why, and she said she would tell him when she saw him.”

“So she was killed about eleven o’clock?”

“Not known. The building on Seventy-fourth Street is a private house done over into luxes, one to a floor, except Miss Eads — she had the two top floors — and the elevator is self-service, so there is no staff around to see people coming and going. The ME puts it between ten-thirty and midnight.”

Cramer glanced at his wrist, stuck the cigar between his teeth at the left corner of his mouth, and clamped down on it. He never lit one. “I was home in bed. Rowcliff took it. He had four men on it, following routine, and around four o’clock one of them, a young fellow named Auerbach, decided he had brains and he might as well give ’em a chance. It occurred to him that he had never heard of a bag-snatcher going so far as to strangle the victim, and there was no evidence of any attempt at rape. What was there about her, or about the bag, that called for strangling? According to the husband, nothing about her, nor the bag either. But listing the contents of the bag as well as he could with the husband’s help, one item struck Auerbach as worth considering — Mrs. Fomos’s key to the apartment where she worked.”

“He’ll have your job someday.”

“He’s welcome to it now. He went to Seventy-fourth Street and rang the bell to the Eads apartment and got no answer. He got the janitor and had him open the door and take a look. The body of Priscilla Eads was there on the floor, half in a bathroom and half in a hall. She had been hit on the side of the head with the poker from her fireplace and then strangled with some kind of cord, not very thick. Her hat was lying near her, and she had her jacket on, so he had probably been there waiting for her when she came in. We’ll know more about that when we find the hackie, which should be soon with what you gave me. The ME puts it between one and two.”

“Then she didn’t go straight home. As I told you, I put her in the taxi about twenty to twelve.”

“I know. Auerbach got Rowcliff, and the boys moved in. The crop of prints was below average — I guess Mrs. Fomos was a good cleaner and duster — and the best of the lot were some nice fresh ones on the luggage. When the word came that they were yours Rowcliff phoned me, and I decided to drop by here on my way downtown. He doesn’t know how to handle Wolfe at all, and you have the same effect on him as a bee on a dog’s nose.”

“Some day I’ll describe the effect he has on me.”

“I’d rather not.” Cramer looked at his wrist. “I had it in mind to have a word with Wolfe, but I know how he is about being disturbed up there about a little thing like a homicide, and I’d just as soon take it from you, so long as I get it.”

“You’ve got it all right.”

“I believe you, for a change.” He left his chair. “Especially since he has no client, and none in sight that I can see. He’ll be in one hell of a humor, and I don’t envy you. I’ll be going. You understand you’re a material and you’ll be around.”

I said I would.

When I went back down the hall after letting Cramer out I started to re-enter the office, but suddenly braked at the door, pivoted, and made for the stairs. Two flights up, I went into the south room, stood in its center, and looked around. Fritz hadn’t been in it yet, and the bed was turned down as Priscilla had left it, with the folded coverlet on the other bed. I went and lifted the coverlet to look under it and dropped it again. I raised the pillow on the turned-down bed and glanced under that. I crossed to the large bureau between the windows and started opening and closing drawers.

I was not being completely cuckoo. I was a trained and experienced detective, there had been a murder that I was interested in and wanted to know more about, and the closest I could get to it at the moment was this room in which Priscilla had expected to sleep and eat her breakfast. I hadn’t the slightest expectation of finding anything helpful, and so wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t; and I did find something at that. On a shelf in the bathroom was a toothbrush and a soiled handkerchief. I took them to my room and put them on my dresser, and I still have them, in a drawer where I keep a collection of assorted professional relics.

There was no point in going up to the plant rooms and starting a squabble, so I went down to the office and opened the morning mail and fiddled around with chores. Somewhat later, when I became aware that I was entering a germination date of Cymbidium holfordianum on the card of Cymbidium pauwelsi, I decided I wasn’t in the mood for clerical work, returned things to the files, and sat and stared at my toes. There were four thousand things I wanted to know, and there were people I might have started asking, like Sergeant Purley Stebbins or Lon Cohen of the Gazette, but after all this was Nero Wolfe’s office and phone.

At eleven o’clock he came down, entered and crossed to his desk, got himself settled in his chair, and glanced through the little stack of mail I had put there under a paperweight. There was nothing of much interest and certainly nothing urgent. He cocked his head, focused on me, and stated, “It would have been like you to come up at ten o’clock for instructions as arranged.”

I nodded. “I know, but Cramer didn’t leave until five after, and I knew how you would react. Do you care to hear the details?”

“Go ahead.”

I gave him what I had got from Cramer. When I had finished he sat frowning at me with his eyes half closed, through a long silence. Finally he spoke. “You reported in full to Mr. Cramer?”

“I did. You said to unload.”

“Yes. Then Mr. Helmar will soon know, if he doesn’t already, of our stratagem, and I doubt if it’s worth the trouble to communicate with him. He wanted his ward alive and well, so he said, and that’s out of the question.”

I disagreed, not offensively. “But he’s our only contact, and, no matter how sore he is, we can start with him. We have to start somewhere with someone?”

“Start?” He was peevish. “Start what? For whom? We have no client. There’s nothing to start.”

The simple and direct thing to do would have been to blow my top, and it would have been a satisfaction — but then what? I refused to boil, and kept my voice even. “I don’t deny,” I told him, “that that’s one way to look at it, but only one, and there is at least one other. Like this. She was here and wanted to stay, and we kicked her out, and she got killed. I should think that would have some bearing on your self-esteem, which you were discussing last night. I should think that you do have something to start — a murder investigation. And you also have a client — your self-esteem.”

“Nonsense!”

“Maybe.” I stayed calm. “I would like to explain at length why I think it’s up to us to get the guy that killed Priscilla Eads, but I don’t want to waste your time or my breath just for the hell of it. Would it do any good?”

“No.”

“You won’t even consider it?”