“First you,” Wolfe said. “Where were you Saturday morning?”
“I was at home all morning and until about three o’clock. We had guests for lunch.”
“If pressed, could you account for every half-hour from eight o’clock to noon?”
“I think so. There were phone calls.”
“Could your wife?”
“Why the devil should she?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Don’t start that. You have held your poise admirably; don’t spoil it. I don’t drag your wife in, circumstances do. Did she know of your association with Miss Kerr?”
“No.”
“How sure are you?”
“Completely. I have taken great precautions.”
Wolfe frowned. “You see how difficult it is. It may be highly desirable for Mr. Goodwin or me to see your wife, but with what excuse, without involving you? It must be managed somehow, and Mr. Goodwin –”
“It will not be managed! You will not see my wife!”
“Your poise. As you said, you’re in a trap; don’t thrash about. If it wasn’t you or your wife, who was it? I must have a fact, a hint, a name. You spent many intimate hours with her. You may have to spend hours with me. She told you of places she went and people she knew. Tell me.”
A muscle on Ballou’s neck was twitching. “I insist, I insist, that my wife is not to be disturbed. You expect to be paid, naturally. I never ‘thrash about.’ How much?”
Wolfe nodded. “Naturally for you. Men with money always assume there is no other medium of exchange. I am engaged on behalf of Mr. Cather, and you can’t hire me or pay me. I am coercing you, certainly, but only to get information. We shall disturb your wife only if it is requisite. From you I want all the facts, all –”
The phone rang. I turned and got it. “Nero Wolfe’s –”
“Saul, Archie. I’m –”
“Hold it.” I put it down and moved, to the hall and on to the kitchen, and took the phone.
“We have company. Okay, shoot.”
“You’re going to have more company. I’m licked. I have met my match. Julie Jaquette. I would give a week’s pay to know if you could have handled her. The trouble is partly that Nero Wolfe’s a celebrity, so she says, but mostly it’s the orchids. If he will show her his orchids she’ll tell him all about Isabel Kerr. She won’t tell me a damn thing. Nothing.”
“Well, well. It might have taken me a whole ten minutes.”
“Go soak it. I said a week’s pay. She –”
“Where are you?”
“A booth on Christopher Street. The one at the Ten Little Indians had a line waiting. She’s working. She’ll be off until eight and then from nine-ten to ten-fifteen.”
“Then it’s simple. Bring her at nine-ten.”
“Like hell it’s simple.” It clicked and he was gone.
I don’t expect you to believe me when I report the first words I heard as I re-entered the office, but you have a right to know why we got about as little from Avery Ballou as Saul had got from Julie Jaquette. The words, uttered by Ballou, were, “Rudyard Kipling.” As I crossed to my desk my head kept turning to have my eyes on him. As I sat, Wolfe asked him, “The poems?”
“Mostly the poems,” Ballou said, “but some of the stories too. And Robert Service and Jack London. A little of some others, but of those three, Kipling and Service and London, I had complete sets there, bound in leather. There’s something I have wanted to ask about, but haven’t, and you would know. Can they get my fingerprints from those bindings? The leather isn’t smooth, it’s rippled.”
Wolfe’s head turned. “Archie?”
“Probably not,” I told Ballou, “from rippled leather, but your prints must be on other surfaces there. Are they on file anywhere?”
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”
Wolfe’s shoulders went up a quarter of an inch and down. “Then on that you can only abide. But this isn’t easy to believe, Mr. Ballou, that you spent ten hours or more a week there, five hundred hours a year for three years, and Miss Kerr never spoke of how she spent the other – let’s see – nearly twenty-five thousand hours. The places she went, the people she saw.”
“I have told you,” Ballou said, “under coercion. Except for physical intimacy there was no sharing of experience. But I did not read those poems and stories just to hear myself. I did not impose them on her. She understood them and enjoyed them, and we discussed them. You realize that I am not enjoying this. This is the first time in my life that I have wanted to tell a man to go to hell and can’t.”
“I still find it hard to believe. Did she never speak of her sister?”
“Yes. Speak of her, yes, but casually and rarely.”
“You didn’t know that her sister strongly disapproved of her association with you?”
“No. I don’t know it now.”
“She did and does. Did Miss Kerr ever mention this name: Julie Jaquette?”
“I don’t think so. If she did it was only casual and I don’t remember it.”
“Remarkable. You were with her, close, frequently, for a period of three years. I wanted and expected names, and you have supplied three: Jack London, Robert Service, and Rudyard Kipling.” Wolfe pushed his chair back. “A question: why did you want to know when Mr. Cather first learned your name?”
“Oh … I was curious.”
“You said it may not be important now. When would it have been important, and why?”
“I meant important to me, not to you, not for what you are trying to do. What are you going to do? You say I can’t hire you or pay you, but why not? There’s no conflict between Cather’s interest and mine, as you tell it. Ten thousand now as a retainer? Twenty thousand?”
“No.” Wolfe rose. “I’m committed.” He walked out.
Chapter 8
At a quarter past nine we were back in the office and Fritz had taken the coffee things out; so, though I didn’t know it yet, the stage was set for one of the most impressive floor shows the old brownstone has ever seen. After letting Ballou out I had gone to the kitchen and told Wolfe about Saul’s phone call. Of course he would have enjoyed the onion soup and Kentucky burgoo more if I had waited, but it would have created an atmosphere if I had sprung it on him with the coffee. The question was which could stand it best, appetite or digestion, and it takes a lot to make a serious dent in his appetite.
It is true that digestion was getting it too. He had drunk more coffee than usual, emptying the pot, and now that it was gone, and I was there – I’m usually out on Tuesday evenings – he was making a stab at continuing the dinner conversation, which had been mostly about Viet Nam, but just then he wasn’t really interested in Viet Nam. He was going to tackle not only a woman, which was bad enough, but also a night-club singer, which was preposterous. A hell of a way to spend an evening. When the doorbell rang he glared at me, though he should have saved it for Saul, and I told him so as I got up to go.
Even through the one-way glass, as I approached the door, she took the eye. She was two inches taller than Saul, and if the coat was real sable it must have taken at least a hundred sables. As she entered she gave me a dazzling three-inch smile, and another one when I turned after hanging her coat up. Saul was trying not to grin. She took my arm and asked, “Where is he, Archie?” in a rich cuddly voice, and she kept the arm down the hall and into the office, but then she broke away, danced to the middle of the room and faced Wolfe’s desk, let her handbag fall to the floor, and burst into song:
“Big man, go-go,
Big man, go big,
Talk big, act big,
Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove big!
Go-go-go-go-go-go,
Big man, big man,
Be big, do big,
Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove big,
Go!”
She extended two long, bare, well-shaped arms to him and said, “Now the orchids. Show me!”
It was impressive. So, I admit, was Wolfe. He was giving her exactly the same scowl I have often seen him give a crossword puzzle that had him stumped. He switched the scowl to me and demanded, “Did you suggest this?”
“No,” she said. “Nobody ever suggests anything to me; they don’t have to. Now the orchids, big man. Go!”
“Miss Jackson,” he said.
“Not here,” she said. “I’m Julie Jaquette.”
“Not here,” he said. “It’s conceivable that long ago, in different circumstances, I might have appreciated your performance, but not here and –”
“It’s not a performance, man, it’s me.”