Rex Stout - If Death Ever Slept

“What do you think?” Her blue eyes widened. “About her. She slapped him. Oh, for God’s sake, quit trying to look innocent! Your first day as his secretary, and spending the morning on the terrace with Lois and taking me to Rusterman’s for lunch! Secretary!”

“But he’s away. He said to mark time.”

“He’ll get a report from Nora when he comes back, and you know it. I’m not a fool, Alan, really I’m not. I might be fairly bright if I wasn’t so damn lazy. You probably know more about my husband than I do. So quit looking innocent.”

“I have to look innocent, I’m his secretary. So does Steck, he’s his butler. As for what I know, I didn’t know Susan had slapped him. Were you there?”

“Nobody was there. I don’t mean slapped him with her hand, she wouldn’t do that. I don’t know how she did it, probably just by looking at him. She can look a man on or look him off, either way. I wouldn’t have thought any woman could look him off, I’d think she’d need a hatpin or a red-hot poker, but that was before I had met her. Before she moved in. Has she given you a sign yet?”

“No.” I didn’t know whether I was lying or not. “I’m not sure I’m up with you. If I am, I’m innocent enough to be shocked. Susan is his son’s wife.”

“Well. What of it?”

“It seems a little undignified. He’s not an ape.”

She reached to pat the back of my hand. “I must have been wrong about you. Look innocent all you want to. Certainly he’s an ape. Everybody knows that. Since I’m in walking distance I might as well do a little shopping. Would you care to come along?”

I declined with thanks.

On my way uptown, walking the thirty blocks to stretch my legs, I had to decide whether to give Wolfe a ring or not. If I did, and reported the development, that Trella said our client had made a pass at his daughter-in-law and had been looked off, and that therefore it seemed possible he had hired Wolfe and tried to suborn me only to cure an acute case of pique, I would certainly be instructed to pack and come home; and I preferred to hang on a while, at least long enough to expose myself to Susan once more and see how it affected my pulse and respiration. And if I rang Wolfe and didn’t report the development, I had nothing to say, so I saved a dime.

Mrs. Wyman Jarrell was out, Steck said, and so was Miss Jarrell. He also said that Mr. Foote had asked to be informed when I returned, and I said all right, inform him. Thinking it proper to make an appearance at my desk before nightfall, I left my hat and topcoat in the closet around the corner and went to the library. Nora Kent was at Jarrell’s desk, using the red phone, and I moseyed over to the battery of filing cabinets and pulled out a drawer at random. The first folder was marked PAPER PRODUCTION BRAZIL, and I took it out for a look.

I was fingering through it when Nora’s voice came at my back. “Did you want something, Mr. Green?”

I turned. “Nothing special. It would be nice to do something useful. If the secretary should be acquainted with these files I think I could manage it in two or three years.”

“Oh, it won’t take you that long. When Mr. Jarrell gets back he’ll get you started.”

“That’s polite, and I appreciate it. You might have just told me to keep hands off.” I replaced the folder and closed the drawer. “Can I help with anything? Like emptying a wastebasket or changing a desk blotter?”

“No, thank you. It would be a little presumptuous of me to tell you to keep hands off since Mr. Jarrell has given you a key.”

“So it would. I take it back. Have you heard from him?”

“Yes, he phoned about an hour ago. He’ll return tomorrow, probably soon after noon.”

There was something about her, her tone and manner, that wasn’t just right. Not that it didn’t fit a stenographer speaking to a secretary; of course I had caught on that calling her a stenographer was like calling Willie Mays a bat boy. I can’t very well tell you what it was, since I didn’t know. I only felt that there was something between her and me, one-way, that I wasn’t on to. I was thinking a little more conversation might give me an idea, when a phone buzzed.

She lifted the receiver of the black one, spoke and listened briefly, and turned to me. “For you. Mr. Foote.”

I went and took it. “Hello, Roger?” I call panhandlers by their first names. “Alan.”

“You’re a hell of a secretary. Where have you been all day?”

“Out and around. I’m here now.”

“So I hear. I understand you’re a gin player. Would you care to win a roll? Since Old Ironsides is away and you’re not needed.”

“Sure, why not? Where?”

“My room. Come on up. From your room turn right, first left, and I’ll be at my door.”

“Right.” I hung up, told Nora I would be glad to run an errand if she had one, was assured that she hadn’t, and left. So, I thought, Roger was on pumping terms with the butler. It was unlikely that Steck had volunteered the information that I had invited him to a friendly game.

Foote’s room was somewhat larger than mine, with three windows, and it was all his. The chairs were green leather, and the size and shape of one of them, over by a window, would have been approved even by Wolfe. Fastened to the walls with Scotch tape were pictures of horses, mostly in color, scores of them, all sizes. The biggest one was Native Dancer, from the side, with his head turned to see the camera.

“Not one,” Roger said, “that hasn’t carried my money. Muscle. Beautiful. Beautiful! When I open my eyes in the morning there they are. Something to wake up to. That’s all any man can expect, something to wake up to. You agree?”

I did.

I had supposed, naturally, that the idea would be something like a quarter a point, maybe more, and that if he won I would pay, and if I won he would owe me. But no, it was purely social, a cent a point. Either he gambled only on the beautiful muscles, or he was stringing me along, or he merely wanted to establish relations for future use. He was a damn good gin player. He could talk about anything, and did, and at the same time remember every discard and every pickup. I won 92 cents, but only because I got most of the breaks.

At one point I took advantage of something he had said. That reminds me,” I told him, “of a remark I overheard today. What do you think of a man who makes a pass at his son’s wife?”

He was dealing. His hand stopped for an instant and then flipped me a card. “Who made the remark?”

“I’d rather not say. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I happened to hear it.”

“Any names mentioned?”

“Certainly.”

He picked up his hand. “Your name’s Alfred?”

“Alan.”

“I forget names. People’s. Not horses’. I’ll tell you, Alan. For what I think about my brother-in-law’s attitude on money and his wife’s brother, come to me anytime. Beyond that I’m no authority. Anyone who thinks he ought to be shot, they can shoot him. No flowers. Not from me. Your play.”

That didn’t tell me much. When, at six o’clock, I said I had to wash and change for a date with Lois, and he totaled the score, fast and accurate, he turned it around for me to check. “At the moment,” he said, “I haven’t got ninety-two cents, but you can make it ninety-two dollars. More. Peach Fuzz in the fifth at Jamaica Thursday will be eight to one. With sixty dollars I could put forty on his nose. Three hundred and twenty, and half to you. And ninety-two cents.”

I told him it sounded very attractive and I’d let him know tomorrow. Since Jarrell had said to let him have fifty or a hundred I could have dished it out then and there, but if I did he probably wouldn’t be around tomorrow, and there was an off chance that I would want him for something. He took it like a gentleman, no shoving.