“Friends?” Neya’s forehead showed a crease. “No.”
“What’s she like?”
“She is clever, beautiful, selfish and treacherous.”
“Indeed. What does she look like?”
“Well … she is tall. Her arms move like snakes. Her face is like this.” Neya described an oval with her fingers. “Her eyes are as black as mine – sometimes blacker.”
“Is she in Zagreb now?”
“She was when I left. It was said she was going to Paris to see old Prince Peter and then to America.”
“You’re lying.”
She looked straight at him. “Sometimes it is necessary to lie. There are some things I can’t tell.”
“Ha, over your dead body. The curlicues of some old bandit’s trademark engraved on your heart, and what do you get out of it? When do you expect to finish this political errand you’re working on?”
She looked at him, at Carla, back at him, and said nothing.
“Come, come,” he insisted impatiently. “I merely ask when. Is the end in sight?”
“I think so,” she admitted. “I think it will be … Tomorrow.”
“It’s past midnight. Do you mean this day?”
“Yes. But I must have that paper. You have no right to keep it. When that imbecile, that Driscoll, made the trouble about his diamonds being stolen, I thought the police might come and search everything, even my room where I live. I thought of you, the American who had adopted me when I was a baby; I had brought the record of adoption with me when I left Zagreb; Mrs. Campbell had given it to me before she died. So Carla and I decided the paper would be safer with you than anywhere else, and we decided how to do it so she could easily get it again. Then you refused to help me and she had to return and let you know who I am.” She stopped and smiled at him, but she was so anxious that the effort was a little cockeyed. “I must have that paper now! I must!”
“We’ll see. You admit you stole it. So you expect to accomplish your mission this day.”
“Yes.”
“You realize, of course, that the police won’t let you leave New York until they’re satisfied their murder case is solved.”
“But I … you said yourself my alibi –”
“That doesn’t solve the case. Don’t you do anything silly. If you do complete your errand, don’t try sneaking aboard a ship disguised as a Nereid. Who is Madame Zorka?”
They both stared at him in surprise.
“Well?” Wolfe demanded. “You know her, don’t you?”
Carla laughed. It sounded quite natural, as though something really had struck her as funny. Neya said:
“Why … she’s nobody. She’s a dressmaker.”
“So I understand. Where did she get that name? The name of the daughter of King Nikita of Montenegro.”
“But Queen Zorka has been dead –”
“I know that. Where did this dressmaker get the name?”
Carla laughed again. “She must have found it in a book.”
“Who is she?”
Neya shrugged and upturned her palms. “We know nothing about her.”
Wolfe eyed them a moment and then sighed. “All right. It’s late and you ought to be in bed, since you have to get up early to visit Mr. Rowcliff. That smile ought to help with him. When you are through there, come here, and I’ll see you at eleven o’clock and give you that paper.”
“I want it now!”
“You can’t have it now. It isn’t here. I will –”
Neya jumped up. “What did you – where is it?”
“Stop screaming at me. It’s safe. I’ll give it to you at eleven o’clock. Sit down – no, don’t bother to sit down; you’re going. Remember now, don’t do anything silly. As for you, Miss Lovchen, I would advise you to do nothing whatever except eat and sleep. I say that on account of your performance yesterday when you hid that paper in my book – asking Mr. Goodwin if I had read it and did I study it and was he reading it. Unbelievable!”
Carla flushed. “I thought … I was casual –”
“Good heavens! Casual? I still suspect you meant us to find it, though I can’t imagine what for. Well, good night – By the way, Miss Tormic, about your being my client. I’ll return that adoption paper to you in the morning along with the other; it seems likely that it belongs to you; but I am cautious and skeptical and I don’t like misunderstandings. You are my client only so long as it remains established that you are the girl whose ribs I saw in 1921. I am your protector, but if it turns out that you have duped me on that, I shall be your enemy. I don’t like to be fooled.”
“I doubt if I could fool you if I wanted to.” She met his eye and suddenly smiled at him. “You can feel my ribs if you want to, but as for looking at them –”
“Oh, no. No, thank you. Good night. Good night, Miss Lovchen.”
I went with them and extended the courtesies of the hall, and when they were out I shot the night bolt on the door. Then I went back to the office and stood and looked down at Wolfe’s colossal countenance, immobile with closed eyes, and treated myself to an unrestricted stretch and yawn.
“Hvala Bogu,” I declared. “I like Montenegrin girls, but it’s time to go to bed. They’re all right. I offered to take them home and they refused to let me. In spite of which, I have to run up to 48th Street before I turn in, to get the damn roadster I left there. This is a very peculiar case. I’ve got a feeling in my bones that there is going to be a strange romantic twist to it by the time we get through. I have an inner conviction that when the full moon comes I’ll be standing right here in this office asking you formally for the hand of your daughter in marriage. You’ve got something there, gospodar. Only you’ll have to help me break her of lying.”
“Shut up.”
“Shall I go up for the roadster?”
“I suppose you’ll have to.” Wolfe shuddered. Out into the night like that. “What time will Saul be here in the morning?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Phone him and tell him to bring that envelope.”
“Yes, sir. Are you really going to hand it over to her?”
“I am. I want to see what she is going to do with it. Will Fred and Orrie also be here at nine?”
“Yes, sir. Who do you want to tail whom?”
“Tailing may not be necessary. On the other hand it may be, for her protection. Mr. Faber wanted that paper.”
“Not only did he want it, he knew where to look for it.” I yawned. “And since Carla put it there, did she tell him about it? Or did he learn it from a member of your family?”
“I have no family.”
“A daughter is commonly considered to be a member of one’s family. In this case it would hardly be too much to say that a daughter is a family.” I made my voice grave and respectful. “When I marry her I guess it will be unavoidable for me to call you Dad.”
“Archie, I swear by all –”
“And I would be your heir in case you die. I would be the beneficiary on your life insurance. We could play in father and son golf tournaments. Later on you could hold the baby. Babies. When the time comes for the divorce – now what the hell!”
The doorbell was ringing.
Chapter 9
At half past one in the morning, with me yawning my head off and an outside errand still to do, the doorbell should ring.
I went to the front and unlocked, leaving the chain bolt on so that the door only opened to a five-inch crack, and peered through at the male figure standing there.
“Well?”
“I want to see Nero Wolfe.”
“Name, please?”
“Open the door!” He was a bit peremptory.
“Tut tut,” I said. “It’s after office hours. If you don’t like your own name, make up one. But it had better be a good one, at this time of night.”
“My name is Donald Barrett.”
“Oh. Okay. Hold that pose. I’ll be back.”
I went to the office and told Wolfe. He opened his eyes, frowned, muttered something, and nodded. I returned to the front and let the nightwalker in, flunkeyed for him, and escorted him to the office. In the bright light he looked handsome and harassed, with his white tie somewhat crooked and his hair disarranged. He blinked at Wolfe and said he was Donald Barrett.
“So I understand. Sit down.”
“Thanks.” He lodged his sitter on the edge of a chair in a temporary manner. “This is a frightful stink, this thing.”