“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 teargas 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.