Rex Stout: If Death Ever Slept

“I’m Alan Green,” I said. “Finding my way around.”

She was on a couch, stretched out from the waist down, with her upper half propped against cushions. Since she was too old for either Lois or Susan, though by no means aged, she must be Trella, the marital affliction. There was a shade too much of her around the middle and above the neck — say six or eight pounds. She was a blue-eyed blonde, and her face had probably been worthy of notice before she had buried the bones too deep by thickening the stucco. What showed below the skirt hem of her blue dress — from the knees on down — was still worthy of notice. While I noticed it she was reaching for a remote-control gadget, which was there beside her, to turn off the TV.

She took me in. “Secretary,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I acknowledged. “Just hired by your husband — if you’re Mrs. Otis Jarrell.”

“You don’t look like a secretary.”

“I know, it’s a handicap.” I smiled at her. She invited smiles. “I try to act like one.”

She put up a hand to pat a yawn — a soft little hand. “Damn it, I’m still half asleep. Television is better than a pill, don’t you think so?” She patted the couch. “Come and sit down. What made you think I’m Mrs. Otis Jarrell?”

I stayed put. “To begin with, you’re here. You couldn’t be Miss Lois Jarrell because you must be married. You couldn’t be Mrs. Wyman Jarrell because I’ve got the impression that my employer feels a little cool about his daughter-in-law and it seemed unlikely he would feel cool about you.”

“Where did you get the impression?”

“From him. When he told me not to discuss his business affairs with anyone, including members of the family, I thought he put some emphasis on his daughter-in-law.”

“Why must I be married?”

I smiled again. “You’ll have to pardon me because you asked. Seeing you, and knowing what men like, I couldn’t believe that you were still at large.”

“Very nice.” She was smiling back. “ Very nice. My God, I don’t have to pardon you for that. You don’t talk like a secretary, either.” She pushed the remote-control gadget aside. “Sit down. Do you like leg of lamb?”

I felt that a little braking was required. It was all very well to get on a friendly basis with the mistress of the house as soon as possible, since that might be useful in trapping the snake, and the smiling and sit-downing was very nice, but her concern about feeding the new secretary right after only three minutes with him was going too far too quick. Since I didn’t look a secretary or talk like one, I thought I had better at least act like one, and I was facing up to it when help came.

There were footsteps in the corridor and a man entered. Three steps in he stopped short, at sight of me. He turned to her. “Oh. I don’t need to wake you.”

“Not today, Wy. This is your father’s new secretary. Green. Alan Green. We were getting acquainted.”

“Oh.” He went to her, leaned over, and kissed her on the lips. It didn’t strike me as a typical filial operation, but of course she wasn’t his mother. He straightened up. “You don’t look as sleepy as usual. Your eyes don’t look sleepy. You’ve had a drink.”

“No, I haven’t.” She was smiling at him. She gestured at me. “He woke me up. We’re going to like him.”

“Are we?” He turned, moved, and extended a hand. “I’m Wyman Jarrell.”

He was two inches shorter than me and two inches narrower across the shoulders. He had his father’s brown eyes, the rest of him came from somebody else, particularly his tight little ears and thin straight nose. There were three deep creases down the middle of his brow, which at his age, twenty-seven, seemed precocious. He was going on. “I’ll be talking with you, I suppose, but that’s up to my father. I’ll be seeing you.” He turned his back on me.

I headed for the door, was told by Mrs. Jarrell there would be cocktails in the lounge at six-thirty, halted to thank her, and left. As I moved down the corridor toward the front a female in uniform came around a corner and leered at me as she approached. Taken by surprise, I leered back. Evidently, I thought, this gang doesn’t stand on formality. I was told later by somebody that Freda had been born with a leer, but I never went into it with Freda.

I had stepped out to the front terrace for a moment during my tour, so had already met the dogwoods and glanced around the layout of redwood slabs and chrome and plastic, and now I crossed to the parapet for a look down at Fifth Avenue and across to the park. The sun was smack in my eyes, and I put a hand up to shade them for a view of a squirrel perched on a limb high in a tree, and was in that pose when a voice came from behind.

“Who are you, Sitting Bull?”

I pivoted. A girl all in white with bare tanned arms and a bare tanned throat down to the start of the curves and a tanned face with dimples and greenish brown eyes and a pony tail was coming. If you are thinking that is too much to take in with a quick glance, I am a detective and a trained observer. I had time not only to take her in but also to think, Good Lord, if that’s Susan and she’s a snake I’m going to take up herpetology, if that’s the word, and I can look it up.

She was still five steps off when I spoke. “Me good Indian. Me good friend white man, only you’re not a man and you’re not white. I was looking at a squirrel. My name is Alan Green. I am the new secretary, hired today. I was told to get my bearings and have been trying to. I have met your husband.”

“Not my husband, you haven’t. I’m a spinster named Lois. Do you like squirrels?”

“It depends. A squirrel with integrity and charm, with no bad habits, a squirrel who votes right, who can be counted on in a pinch, I like that squirrel.” At close quarters they weren’t what I would call dimples, just little cheek dips that caught shadows if the light angle was right. “I hope I don’t sound fussy.”

“Come here a minute.” She led me off to the right, put a hand on the tiled top of the parapet, and with the other pointed across the avenue. “See that tree? See the one I mean?”

“The one that lost an arm.”

“That’s it. One day in March a squirrel was skipping around on it, up near the top. I was nine years old. My father had given my brother a rifle for his birthday. I went and got the rifle and loaded it, and came out and stood here, right at this spot, and waited until the squirrel stopped to rest, and shot it. It tumbled off. On the way down it bumped against limbs twice. I yelled for Wy, my brother, and he came and I showed it to him, there on the ground not moving, and he — but the rest doesn’t matter. With anyone I might possibly fall in love with I like to start off by telling him the worst thing I ever did, and anyway you brought it up by saying you were looking at a squirrel. Now you know the worst, unless you think it’s worse that several years later I wrote a poem called ‘Requiem for a Rodent.’ It was published in my school paper.”

“Certainly it’s worse. Running it down by calling it a rodent, even though it was one.”

She nodded. “I’ve suspected it myself. Some day I’ll get analyzed and find out.” She waved it away, into the future. “Where did you ever get the idea of being a secretary?”

“In a dream. Years ago. In the dream I was the secretary of a wealthy pirate. His beautiful daughter was standing on the edge of a cliff shooting at a gopher, which is a rodent, down on the prairie, and when she hit it she felt so sorry for it that she jumped off the cliff. I was down below and caught her, saving her life, and it ended romantically. So I became a secretary.”