The most specific statement Wolfe could drag out of her was that her brother was peculiar, and she had already told us that, and we knew it anyway.
Finally Wolfe got hold of the edge of his desk, pushed his chair back, and stood up. Mrs. Pine arose too, and I went and helped her on with her coat.
In the hall, with my hand on the knob of the front door, she stood where I couldn’t open it without banging her toe, and told me sympathetically, “I hope your face is better tomorrow.” “Thanks. So do I.” “And you didn’t answer my question about how much it would take for you to start your own business.” “That’s right, I didn’t. I’ll figure it up.” “Do you like symphony concerts?” “Yes, some, when I’m lying down. I mean on the radio.” She laughed. “Anyway, it’s nearly April. Boating? Golf? Baseball?” “Baseball. I go as often as I can get away.” “It’s a wonderful game, isn’t it? Yankees or Giants?” “Both. Either one, whichever’s in town.” “I’ll send you season tickets. Frankly, Archie, I think my brother is crazy.
Don’t tell Mr. Wolfe I said that.” “I never tell him anything.” “Then that’s our first secret. Good night.” I escorted her out, down the stoop and to the curb, but didn’t get to open the car door for her because her chauffeur was already attending to that. As I reascended the steps I was telling myself that I mustn’t forget to phone Lon Cohen in the morning and inform him that the job was practically mine but nothing doing on his ten per cent because I was landing it strictly on merit.
Back in the house I made a beeline for the stairs, taking no chances, but found it desirable to mount one step at a time. My room was two flights up. On the first landing I turned and yelled back down, “I’m going up and figure how much it will set her back to furnish my office! Good night!”
CHAPTER Fifteen
The next morning, Thursday, the arena of the stock department was a different place as far as I was concerned. Whenever I showed my face, coming and going, the change could be seen, felt, and tasted. Wednesday morning I had been a combination of a new male, to be given the once over and labeled, and an intruder from outside who could be expected to regard the lovely little darlings merely as units of personnel. Thursday morning I was a detective after a murderer. That’s what they all thought, and they all showed it. Whether Kerr Naylor had started another ball rolling, or whether it was just seepage from various leaks, I didn’t know, but the reaction that greeted me wherever I went left no doubt of the fact.
The bits of tobacco in the folder had not been disturbed. That was no great disappointment, since I had no good reason to suppose that anyone in the place was sitting on tacks, and I left the set-up intact. At ten o’clock I got Jasper Pine on the phone and gave him a report of the Mr. and Mrs. Harold Anthony episode.
I also said, “Your wife came to see us last night.” “I know she did,” he replied, and let it go at that. It was a fair guess that his position was that there was no point in asking what she had said because she had already said everything to him about everything. When I told him that the whole department apparently had me tagged as a bloodhound he said grimly that in that case I might as well act like one and gave me the run of the pasture.
My first gallop was out of the pasture entirely, up to the Gazetee office to see Lon Cohen, having first called him. I had a healthy curiosity not only about Pine’s attitude toward his wife’s fondness for pets, but also about her and Moore. Wanting the low-down, I came away, after a session with Lon and talks with a couple of legmen, satisfied that I had it. Either Pine had years ago adopted the philosophy that a wife’s personal habits are none of a husband’s business, and really didn’t give a damn, and Mrs. Pine had completely lost interest in Moore early in 1946, except to see that he got a job, or the Gazetee boys were living in a dream world, which didn’t seem likely.
I bought them a lunch at Pietro’s and then returned to William Street. There was nothing in my office for me, no message from Wolfe or Pine or even Kerr Naylor, and the drawer of the cabinet hadn’t been touched. I was still without a bridle and could pick my own directions. Across the arena to Miss Livsey’s room was, I thought, as good as any.
Her door was open and she was inside, typing. I entered, shut the door, lowered myself onto the chair at the end of her desk, and inquired, “What thoughts have you got about Rosa Bendini?” “What on earth,” she inquired back, “have you been doing with your face?” She was gazing at it.
“You may think,” I said, “that you’re changing the subject, but actually you’re not. There’s a connection. It was Rosa’s husband who embroidered my face. What’s your opinion of her in ten thousand words?” “Does it hurt?” “Come on, come on. Being sweet and womanly when you haven’t even started to forget that Moore? Quit stalling.” She showed a hint of color, very faint, but the first I had seen of it. “I’m not stalling,” she denied. “If you can’t feel it you ought to look in a mirror and see it. What about Rosa Bendini?” I grinned at her to show her that the muscles worked, no matter how it looked.
“So you’re asking me instead. Okay. She calls Moore Wally. She says that he never had any intention of marrying you, and that you went crazy—these are her words—when you found out that he was still seeing her, and that you have never recovered. I may add that I don’t believe everything I hear, because if you have never recovered you must be crazy now, and on that I vote no.” The color had gone. She had held her working pose in front of her typewriter, her fingertips resting on the frame of the machine, implying that I had just dropped in to say hello and would soon drop out again, but now her torso and head came square to me to meet my eyes straight. The tone of her voice matched the expression of her eyes.
“You should have asked me to give you a list of the best ones to go to for gossip, but maybe you didn’t need to, because, if you had, Rosa would have been near the top, and you’ve already found her yourself. When you’ve found the others, please don’t bother repeating it to me. I have a lot of work to do.” Her body pivoted back to its working position, she looked at the paper in the machine and then at her notebook, and her fingers hit the keys.
I had my choice of several remarks, among them being that Rosa had found me, not me her, but it would have had to be a loud yawp to carry over the din of the typewriter, so I saved my breath and departed.
The day was more than half gone and I hadn’t made a beginning on the names I had got from Rosa. I returned to my room, got the head of the reserve pool on the phone, said I would like to have a talk with Miss Gwynne Ferris of his section, and asked if he would send her to see me. He said he was sorry, Miss Ferris was busy at the moment taking dictation from a section head whose secretary was absent for the day, and would a little later do? I told him sure, any time at his and her convenience, and as I pushed the phone back I became aware that my doorway was being darkened.
The darkener was a tall bony young man with a lot of undisciplined hair that could have used a comb or even a barber’s scissors. He looked like a poet getting very deep into something, and since his eyes were unmistakably fastened on me, evidently I was what was being probed.
“May I come in, Mr. Truett?” he inquired in a rumble like low thunder from the horizon.
When I told him yes he entered, closed the door, crossed to a chair in three huge strides, sat, and informed me, “I’m Ben Frenkel. Benjamin Frenkel. I understand you’re here looking for the murderer of Waldo Moore.” So if I didn’t have Gwynne Ferris I had the next best thing, the intense young man who, according to Rosa, had been beckoned and promised by her until he didn’t know which way was south.