Rex Stout - The Golden Spiders

I handed him a card. “Miss Estey, please?”

He admitted me, but he had an expression on his face. He probably thought I was batty, since from the facts as he knew them that was the simplest explanation. Instead of ushering me down the hall, he told me to wait there, and went to the door to the office and disappeared inside. Voices issued, too low for me to catch the words, and then he came out.

“This way, Mr. Goodwin.”

He moved aside as I approached, and I passed through the door. Jean Estey was there at a desk with my card in her hand. Without bothering with any greeting, she asked me abruptly, “Will you please close the door?”

I did so and turned to her. She spoke. “You know what I told you Saturday, Mr. Goodwin.”

The greenish-brown eyes were straight at me. Below them the skin was puffy, either from too little sleep or too much, and while I still would have called her comely, she looked as if the two days since I had seen her had been two years.

I went to a chair near the end of her desk and sat. “You mean about the police asking you to see Nero Wolfe and pass it on?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, only — well — if Mr. Wolfe still wants to see me, I think I might go. I’m not sure — but I certainly wouldn’t tell the police what he said. I think they’re simply awful. It’s been more than two days since Mrs. Fromm was killed, fifty-nine hours, and I don’t think they’re getting anywhere at all.”

I had to make a decision in about one second. With the line she was taking, it was a cinch I could get her down to the office, but would Wolfe want her? Which would he want me to do, get her to the office or follow my instructions? I don’t know what I would have decided if I could have gone into a huddle with myself to think it over, but it had to be a flash vote and it went for instructions.

I spoke. “I’ll tell Mr. Wolfe how you feel, Miss Estey, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it, but I ought to explain that what it says on that card — ‘Representing Nero Wolfe’ — is not exactly true. I’m here on my own.”

She cocked her head. “On your own? Don’t you work for Nero Wolfe?”

“Sure I do, but I work for me too when I get a good chance. I have an offer to make you.”

She glanced at the card. “It says, ‘To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe on Friday.’”

“That’s right, that’s what I want to discuss, but just between you and me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You soon will.” I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “You see, I was present during the talk Mrs. Fromm had with Mr. Wolfe. All of it. I have an extremely good memory. I could recite it to you word for word, or mighty close to it.”

“Well?”

“Well, I think you would appreciate hearing it. I have reason to believe you would find it very interesting. You may think I’m sticking my neck out, but I have been Mr. Wolfe’s confidential assistant for a good many years, and I’ve done some good work for him, and I’ve seen to it that he has learned to trust me, and if you call him up when I leave here, or go to see him, and tell him what I said to you, he’ll think you’re trying to pull a fast one. And when he asks me and I tell him you’re a dirty liar, he’ll believe me. So don’t worry about my neck. I’ll tell you about that talk, all of it, for five thousand dollars cash.”

She said, “Oh,” or maybe it was “Uh,” but it was just a noise. Then she just stared.

“Naturally,” I said, “I don’t expect you to have that amount in your purse, so this afternoon will do, but I’ll have to be paid in advance.”

“This is incredible,” she said. “Why on earth should I pay you five cents to tell me about that talk? Let alone five thousand dollars. Why?”

I shook my head. “That would be telling. After you pay and I deliver, you may or may not feel that you got your money’s worth. I’m giving no guarantee of satisfaction, but I’d be a fool to come here with such an offer if all I had was a bag of popcorn.”

Her gaze left me. She opened a drawer to get a pack of cigarettes, removed one, tapped its end several times on a memo pad, and reached for a desk lighter. But the cigarette didn’t get lit. She dropped it and put the lighter down. “I suppose,” she said, her eyes back to me, “I should be insulted and indignant, and I suppose I will, but now I’m too shocked. I didn’t know you were a common skunk. If I had that much money to toss around I’d like to pay you and hear it. I’d like to hear what kind of a lie you’re trying to sell me. You’d better go.” She rose. “Get out of here!”

“Miss Estey, I think—”

“Get out!”

I have seen skunks in motion, both skunks unperturbed and skunks in a hurry, and they are not dignified. I was. Taking my hat from a corner of the desk, I walked out. In the hall Peckham showed his relief at getting rid of a lunatic undertaker without regrettable incident by bowing to me as he held the door open. On the sidewalk the cop thought he would say something and then decided no.

Around the corner I found a phone booth in a drugstore, called Wolfe and gave him a full report as instructed, and flagged a taxi headed downtown.

The address of my second customer, on Gramercy Park, proved to be an old yellow brick apartment house with a uniformed doorman, a spacious lobby with fine old rugs, and an elevator with a bad attack of asthma. It finally got the chauffeur and me to the eighth floor, after the doorman had phoned up and passed me. When I pushed the button at the door of 8B it was opened by a female master sergeant dressed like a maid, who admitted me, took my hat, and directed me to an archway at the end of the hall.

It was a large high-ceilinged living room, more than fully furnished, the dominant colors of its drapes and upholstery and rugs being yellow, violet, light green, and maroon — at least that was the impression gained from a glance around. A touch of black was supplied by the dress of the woman who moved to meet me as I approached. The black was becoming to her, with her ash-blond hair gathered into a bun at the back, her clear blue eyes, and her pale carefully tended skin. She didn’t offer a hand, but her expression was not hostile.

“Mrs. Horan?” I inquired.

She nodded. “My husband will be furious at me for seeing you, but I was simply too curious. Of course I should be sure — you are the Archie Goodwin that works for Nero Wolfe?”

I got a card from my wallet and handed it to her, and she held it at an angle for better light. Then she widened her eyes at me. “But I don’t— ‘To discuss what Mrs. Fromm told Mr. Wolfe’? With me? Why with me?”

“Because you’re Mrs. Dennis Horan.”

“Yes, I am, of course.” Her tone implied that that angle hadn’t occurred to her. “My husband will be furious!”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Perhaps we might sit over by a window? This is rather private.”

“Certainly.” She turned and found a way among pieces of furniture, and I followed. She took a chair at the far end near a window, and I moved one over close enough to make it cozy.

“You know,” she said, “this is the most dreadful thing. The most dreadful. Laura Fromm was such a fine person.” She might have used the same tone and expression to tell me she liked the way I had my hair cut. She added, “Did you know her well?”

“No, I saw her only once, last Friday when she came to consult Mr. Wolfe.”

“He’s a detective, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you a detective too?”

“Yes, I work for Mr. Wolfe.”

“It’s simply fascinating. Of course there have been two men here asking questions — no, three — and Saturday more of them at the District Attorney’s office, but they’re really only policemen. You’re truly a detective. I would never have thought a detective would be so — would dress so well.” She made a pretty little gesture. “But here I am babbling along as usual, and you want to discuss something with me, don’t you?”