“Well, that’s something.” I was hopeful. “That ought to get you somewhere.”
“Probably stolen. They usually are.” The dick had his hat in his hand. “Gang stuff, it looks like. Much obliged to you folks anyhow.”
“Don’t mention it. Slim.”
I went to the hall with him, and saw him out the front door, and shut it after him and slid the bolt. Before I returned to the office I stopped at the kitchen and told Fritz that I’d answer any doorbells that might ring for the rest of the evening.
I crossed to Wolfe’s desk and grinned at him. “Ha-ha. The damn police were here.”
Wolfe looked at the clock, which said ten minutes past seven. He reached out and pushed the button, and, when Fritz came, leaned back and sighed.
“Fritz.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A calamity. We cannot possibly dine at eight as usual. Not dine, that is. We can eat, and I suppose we shall have to. You have filets of beef with sauce Abano.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wolfe sighed again. “You will have to serve it in morsels, for five persons. By adding some of the fresh stock you can have plenty of soup. Open Hungarian petits poissons. You have plenty of fruit? Fill in as you can. It is distressing, but there’s no help for it.”
“The sauce is a great success, sir. I could give the others canned chicken and mushrooms-”
“Confound it, no! If there are to be hardships, I must share them. That’s all. Bring me some beer.”
Fritz went, and Wolfe turned to me. “Bring Clara Fox.”
I unlocked the door to the front room. Fritz hadn’t turned on all the lights, and it was dim. The two women were side by side on the divan, and Mike Walsh was in a chair, blinking at me as if he had been asleep.
I said, “Mr. Wolfe would like to speak to Miss Fox.”
Mike Walsh said, “I’m hungry.”
Clara Fox said, “To all of us.”
“First just you. Please. There’ll be some grub pretty soon, Mr. Walsh. If you’ll wait in here.”
Clara Fox hesitated, then got up and preceded me. I shut the door, and she went back to her chair in front of Wolfe, the one the dick had sat in. Wolfe had emptied a glass and was filling it up again.
“Will you have some beer. Miss Fox?”
She shook her head. “Thank you. But I don’t like to discuss this with you alone, Mr. Wolfe. The others are just as much-”
“To be sure. Permit me.” He wiggled a finger at her. “They shall join us presently. The fact is, I wish to touch on something else for a moment. Did you take that money from Mr. Muir’s desk?”
She looked at him steadily. “We shouldn’t let things get confused. Are you acting now as the agent of the Seaboard Products Corporation?”
“I’m asking you a question. You came here to consult me because you thought I had abilities. I have; I’m using them. Either answer my question or find abilities elsewhere. Did you take that money?”
“No.”
“Do you know who took it?”
“No.”
“Do you know anything about it?”
“No. I have certain suspicions, but nothing specific about the money itself.”
“Do you mean suspicions on account of the attitude of Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir toward you personally?”
“Yes. Chiefly Mr. Muir.”
“Good. Now this: Did you kill anyone this evening between five and six o’clock?”
She stared at him. “Don’t be an idiot”
He drank some beer, wiped his lips, and leaned back in his chair. “Miss Fox. The avoidance of idiocy should be the primary and constant concern ot every intelligent person. It is mine. I am sometimes successful. Take, for instance, your statement that you did not steal that money. Do I believe it? As a philosopher, I believe nothing. As a detective, I believe it enough to leave it behind me, hut am prepared to glance back over my shoulder. As a man, I believe it utterly. I assure you, my reason for the questions I am asking is not idiotic. For one thing, I am observing your face as you reply to them. Bear with me; we shall be getting somewhere, I think. Did you kill anyone this evening between five and six o’clock?”
“No.”
“Did Mr. Walsh or Miss Lindquist do so?”
“Kill anyone?”
Tes.”
She smiled at him. “As a philosopher, I don’t know. I’m not a detective. As a woman, they didn’t.”
“If they did, you have no knowledge of it?”
“No.”
“Good. Have you a dollar bill?”
“I suppose I have.”
“Give me one.”
She shook her head, not in refusal, but in resigned perplexity at senseless antics. She looked in her bag and got out a dollar bill and handed it to Wolfe. He took it and unfolded it and handed it across to me.
“Enter it, please, Archie. Retainer from Miss Clara Fox. And get Mr. Perry on the phone.” He turned to her. “You are now my client.”
She didn’t smile. “With the understanding, I suppose, that I may-”
“May sever the connection?” His creases unfolded. “By all means. Without notice.”
I found Perry’s number and dialed it. After giving my fingerprints by television to some dumb kluck I finally got him on, and nodded to Wolfe to take it.
Wolfe was suave. “Mr. Perry? This is Nero Wolfe. I have Mr. Goodwin’s report of his preliminary investigation. He was inclined to agree with your own attitude regarding the probable innocence of Clara Fox, and he thought we might therefore be able to render some real service to you. But by a curious chance Miss Fox called at our office this evening- she is here now, in fact-and asked us to represent her interests in the matter…. No, permit me, please…. Well, it seemed to be advisable to accept her retainer…. Really, sir, I see nothing unethical…”
Wolfe hated to argue on the telephone. He cut it as short as he could, and rang off, and washed it down with beer. He turned back to Clara Fox. “Tell me about your personal relations with Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir.”
She didn’t answer right away. She was sitting there frowning at him. It was the first time I had seen her brow wrinkled, and I liked it better smoothed out. Finally she said, “I supposed you had already taken that case for Mr. Perry. I had gone to a lot of trouble deciding that you were the best man for us- Miss Lindquist and Mr. Walsh and Mr. Scovil and me- and I had already telephoned on Saturday and made the appointment with you, before I heard anything about the stolen money. I didn’t know until two hours ago that Mr. Perry had engaged you, and since we had the appointment I thought we might as well go through with it. Now you tell Mr. Perry you’re acting for me, not the Seaboard, and you say I’ve given you a retainer for that. That’s not straight. If you want to call that a retainer, it’s for the business I came to see you about, not that silly rot about the money. That’s nonsense.”
Wolfe inquired, “What makes you think it’s nonsense?”
“Because it is. I don’t know what the truth of it is, but as far as I’m concerned it’s nonsense.”
Wolfe nodded. “I agree with you. That’s what makes it dangerous.”
“Dangerous? How? If you mean I’ll lose my job, I don’t think so. Mr. Perry is the real boss there, and he knows I’m more than competent, and be can’t possibly believe I took that money. If this other business is successful, and I believe it will be, I won’t want the job anyhow.”
“But you will want your freedom.” Wolfe sighed. “Really, Miss Fox, we are wasting time that may be valuable. Tell me, I beg you, about Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir. Mr. Muir hinted this afternoon that Mr. Perry is enjoying the usufructs of gallantry. Is that true?”
“Of course not.” She frowned, and then smiled. “Calling it that, it doesn’t sound bad at all, does it? But he isn’t. I used to go to dinner and the theater with Mr. Perry fairly frequently, shortly after I started to work for Seaboard. That was during my adventuress phase. I was going to be an adventuress.”
“Did something interrupt?”
“Nothing but my disappointment. I have always been determined to get somewhere, not anywhere in particular, just somewhere. My father died when I was nine, and my mother when I was seventeen. She always said I was like my father. She paid for my schooling by sewing fat women’s dresses. I loved my mother passionately, and hated the humdrum she was sunk in and couldn’t get out of.”
“She couldn’t find George Rowley.”
“She didn’t try much. She thought it was fantastic. She wrote once to Harlan Scovil, but the letter was returned. After she died I tried various things, everything from hat-check girl to a stenographic course, and for three years I studied languages in my spare time because I thought I’d want to go all over the world. Finally, by a stroke of luck, I got a good job at the Seaboard three years ago. For the first time I had enough money so I could spend a little trying to find George Rowley and the others mentioned in father’s letter-1 realized I’d have to find some of the others so there would be someone to recognize George Rowley. I guess mother was right when she said I’m like father; I certainly had fantastic ideas, and I’m terribly confident that I’m a very unusual person. My idea at that time was that I wanted to get money from George Rowley as soon as possible, so I could pay that old debt of my father’s in California, and then go to Arabia. The reason I wanted to go to Arabia-“