“I think,” I said, “that the crucial point in this case will come in about a month or six weeks, when we’ll have to decide whether to stop and send in our bill or go on a while longer. It will depend on two things—how much we need the money, and how much Naylor-Kerr will pay for nothing. That’s the problem that confronts us and we must somehow solve it.” “Then you don’t think Mr. Moore was murdered.” “I don’t know. There are at least two hundred people who might have murdered him. If one of them did, and if there were any possible way of finding out which one, naturally I have my favorites. I have mentioned Pine. I like the idea of him because it is always gratifying to call a bullheaded bluff, and if it was him he certainly tried one when he hired you. But if he’s the sort of bird who takes it in his stride when his wife keeps two-legged pets on account of her owning stock in the company that pays his salary, what would ever work him up to murder? Anyhow, she had given Moore the boot. My real favorite is Kerr Naylor.” “Indeed.” “Yes, sir. On account of psychology. Wait till you see him Monday. His last ten incarnations he was a cat, and he always held the world’s record for mouse-playing. Add that to the well-known impulse of a murderer to confess, and what have you got? Although it has all been filed away as a hit-and-run, with the hit-runner not found and not likely to be at this late day, he has got that impulse, so he tells the world, including a Deputy Commissioner of Police, that it was murder. That satisfies the impulse without costing him anything, and also it carries on the tradition of his cat ancestry. Baby, what fun! In this case the mouse is the people in his department, the president of the firm and the Board of Directors, the cops—everybody but him. “Yep, he’s my favorite.” “Any others?” I started to wave a hand but called it back on a word from my shoulder. “Plenty.
Dickerson, for the honor of the Section. Rosenbaum, hipped on Miss Livsey and wanting to save her from a two-bit Casanova. And so on. But this is all academic. We might reach some kind of a conclusion, but what if we do? The waves have washed all the foot-prints away, and as I said before, all we’ll be able to solve is the question when to quit and render a bill. The only consolation is that I’ll get a wife out of it. I’m going to make Miss Livsey forget Waldo.” “Confound it.” Wolfe reached for his beer glass and saw that it was empty, lifted the bottle and found it empty too, and glared at both of them. “I suppose we’d better go to bed. Are you in pain?” “Pain? Why? I thought we might sit and talk a while. This is a very difficult case.” “It may be. Tomorrow I’d like to see Mrs. Pine. She can come at eleven in the morning, or right after lunch. You can arrange it through Mr. Pine.” He gripped the edge of his desk with both hands, the customary preliminary to getting to his feet.
The phone rang. I swiveled my chair, not groaning, and lifted the instrument.
“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” “Oh, Mr. Goodwin? My husband has told me about you. This is Cecily Pine, Mrs.
Jasper Pine.” “Yes, Mrs. Pine.” “I just got home from a theater supper, and my husband told me about your inquiry regarding Waldo Moore. I would like to help, if I can in any way, and I don’t think these things should be put off, so I’ll drive down there now. I have the address.” I tried to keep my voice friendly and sociable. “I’m afraid it would be better to make it tomorrow, Mrs. Pine. It’s pretty late, and Mr. Wolfe—” But he ruined it. He had got on his extension, and broke in, “This is Mr. Wolfe, Mrs. Pine. I think it would be better to come now. An excellent idea. You have the address?” She said she had and would leave right away, and only had to come from Sixty-seventh Street. Wolfe and I hung up.
“It’s unfortunate,” Wolfe said. “You should be in bed, but it may be necessary for you to take notes.” “I’m not sleepy,” I said through my teeth. “I was hoping she would call.”
CHAPTER Fourteen
Considering what I knew of her, I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened the door and let her in. Probably I had unconsciously been expecting something on the order of Hedy Lamarr as she would be with the wrinkles of age, and therefore the sight of her pink smooth-skinned wholesome face and her medium-sized housewife’s chassis, a little plump maybe, but certainly not fat, gave me a shock.
“You’re Archie Goodwin,” she said in a low-pitched educated voice.
I admitted it.
She was openly staring at me, and advanced a step to see better. “What on earth,” she asked, “has happened to your face? It’s all red and bruised!” “Yeah. I got in a fight with a man and he hit me with his fist. Both fists.” “Good heavens! It looks simply awful. Have you got any beefsteak?” I did not believe, considering everything, that she was speaking from experience. She had simply read about it. I told her that it wasn’t bad enough to rate beefsteak at ninety cents a pound, adding pointedly that all I needed was a good long night’s sleep, and ushered her into the office.
Wolfe was on his feet, having probably got up to stretch. Mrs. Pine crossed to him to shake hands, declined the red leather chair because she preferred straight ones, accepted the one I placed for her, let me take her coat of platinum mink or aluminum sable or whatever it was, and sat down.
“You really ought to do something for your face,” she told me.
The funny thing was that her harping on it didn’t irritate me. She gave me the distinct impression that it really made her feel uncomfortable for me to be uncomfortable, and how could I resent that? So we discussed my face until Wolfe finally dived into an opening.
“You wanted to see me, madam, did you?” She turned to him, and her manner changed completely, possibly because he didn’t have bruises and red spots.
“Yes, I did,” she said crisply. “I thoroughly disapprove of what my husband has done, engaging you to investigate the death of Waldo Moore. What good can it possibly do?” “I’m sure I don’t know.” Wolfe was leaning back, with his forearms paralleled on the arms of his chair. “That’s a question for your husband. If you don’t like his engaging me you should persuade him to disengage me.” “I can’t. I’ve been trying to. He’s being extremely stubborn about it, and that’s why I came to see you.” Good for Jasper, I thought, but who the hell stuck a ramrod down his spine?
Mrs. Pine went on. “I suppose, of course, my husband has committed himself—or rather, the firm. If you withdraw from it, now, there’ll be no difficulty about that. I’ll pay whatever it comes to.” “What good would that do you?” Wolfe inquired testily. I won’t go so far as to say that he never liked women, but he sure didn’t like women who picked up the ball and started off with it. “Your husband would hire someone else. Besides, madam, while I like to charge high prices for doing something, I haven’t formed the habit of charging for doing nothing, and I won’t start with you. No.
Obviously you’re accustomed to getting what you want, but there must be some other way of doing it. What is it you want?” Mrs. Pine turned to me. For a second I thought she was going to revert to my face, but instead she asked, “What’s he like, Archie? Is he as stubborn as he sounds?” The Archie from her came perfectly natural. “From him,” I told her, “I would call that almost flabby.” “Good heavens.” She regarded Wolfe with interest but with no sign of dismay. “I presume,” she said abruptly, “you know that Waldo Moore was at one time a close friend of mine?” Wolfe nodded. “I have been told so. By Mr. Goodwin. He got his information from a newspaperman. Apparently it is known.” “Yes, of course. That’s the advantage of not trying to hide things; things that people know about are taken for granted. But permitting people to know about them, and permitting them to be publicly discussed in newspapers—that’s a very different thing. Do you suppose for a moment, Mr. Wolfe, that I am going to sit and do nothing while you make pictures for tabloids out of my private life?