Rex Stout - Not Quite Dead Enough

The next test was a little stiffer. As we turned uptown on Fifth Avenue I said, “Now it can be told. Here was the situation. I wanted a private talk with you. I couldn’t talk with you in the presence of Roy and the pigeon. I knew we couldn’t have a talk in your apartment because I had met your grandmother. If I had asked you to go somewhere with me, you would have refused. So I invented an invitation from Lily Rowan. Now what are we going to do?”

Her eyes were wide open at me. “Do you mean — But how did you know—”

“Just a minute. The question was rhetorical. I suppose you’ve heard of Nero Wolfe, the detective. I worked for him up to two months ago, when I joined the Army. Today Lily Rowan told me that you asked her to send you to a lawyer, and she has been trying to arrange for you to see Nero Wolfe, but Mr. Wolfe has been occupied. I think I can fix it. He is a very busy man, if you’ll just tell me what it’s about—”

“Oh,” she said. She gazed at me. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t — I couldn’t tell you.”

“Why not? You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Didn’t you intend to tell the lawyer you asked Lily to send you to?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Nero Wolfe is worth ten lawyers. Any ten.”

“But you’re not Nero Wolfe. You’re just a handsome young man in a uniform.” She shook her head again. “Really I couldn’t.”

“You’re wrong, sister. I’m handsome, but I’m not just handsome. However, we’ve got all night. Say we try this. We’ve both had dinner. Say we go somewhere and dance. Between dances I’ll explain to you how bright I am, and try to win your confidence, and get you to drink as much as possible to loosen your tongue. That might get us somewhere.”

She laughed. “Where would we go to dance?”

“Anywhere. The Flamingo Club.”

I told the driver.

She turned out to be a pretty fair dancer, but not much at bending the elbow. The dinner mob already had the place nearly filled, but I declared a priority on a table in a corner that was being held for some deb’s delight, and when he turned up with his Abigail Spriggs alumna I just stared him out of it into the jungle. Ann and I got along fine. Socially the evening was absolutely okay, but fundamentally I was there on business and from that angle it was close to a washout.

Not that I didn’t gather information. I learned that the pigeon I had seen in the coop was a Sion-Stassart pigeon named Dusky Diana, the holder of nine diplomas and the mother of four 500-mile winners, and Roy Douglas had paid $90 for her, and she had hit a chimney three days ago in a gust of wind while out exercising, and was being nursed. Also that there had been a feud between Miss Leed’s mother and Mrs. Chack, Ann’s grandmother, dating from the 19th century, which Mrs. Chack and Miss Leeds were carrying on. The cause of the feud was that Chack fed squirrels and Leeds fed pigeons, both using Washington Square as a base of operations. They were both there every morning soon after dawn, staying a couple of hours, and again in the late afternoon. Mrs. Chack could stay later than Mrs. Leeds, often until after dark, because pigeons went to bed earlier than squirrels, and it was Mrs. Chack’s daily triumph when the enemy had to give up and go home. The bitterest and deepest aspect of the feud was that Mrs. Chack had accused Miss Leed’s mother of poisoning squirrels on December 9, 1905, and tried to have her arrested. That date had not been forgotten and never would be.

Also I learned that Miss Leed’s mother had died on December 9, three months ago. Mrs. Chack had announced to the neighborhood that it had been a visitation of God’s slow anger at an ancient crime, and whisperings that got to the ears of the police had resulted in a discreet investigation, but nothing had come of it. Here I thought I had something up a tree, in fact I was sure I had, from the way Ann acted, but that was as far as I got. Nor was she discussing her fiancé, even to the extent of admitting she had one. Evidently she was sticking to it that I was just handsome.

All of a sudden, around midnight, I realized something. What brought it to my attention was the fact that I was noticing the smell of her hair while we were dancing. I was even sniffing it. It had startled me so I bumped into a couple on the right and nearly toppled them over. There I was — presumably on duty, working, and sore at her for being too damn stubborn to open up — and there I was deliberately smelling hair! That was a hell of a note. I steered her around to an edge, off the floor and back to the table, and sat her down and called for the check.

“Oh,” she said, “must we go?”

“Look here,” I told her, looking in her wide-open eyes, “you’re giving me a run-around. Maybe you did the same to Lily Rowan, or she did to me. Are you in trouble, or aren’t you?”

“Why, yes. Yes, Archie, I am.”

“What kind of trouble? A run in your stocking?”

“No, really. It’s — real trouble. Honestly.”

“But you’re not telling me about it?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Honestly I can’t. I mean — I don’t want to. You see, you are young and handsome. It’s something terrible — I don’t mean it’s terrible about me — it’s something terrible about someone.”

“Is it about the death of Miss Leed’s mother?”

“It—” She stopped. Then she went on. “Yes, it is. But that’s all I’ll tell you. If you’re going to be like this—”

The waiter brought the change, and I took my share. Then I said, “Okay. The reason I’m like this, I caught myself smelling your hair. Not only that, for the last half-hour I’ve had a different attitude toward our dancing. You may have noticed it.”

“Yes, I — did.”

“Very well. I didn’t. Until just now. I admit it’s possible there is romance ahead of us. Or you may break my heart and ruin my life. Anything can happen. But not yet. What I want to know now is, what time do you quit work?”

She was smiling at me. “I leave the office at five o’clock.”

“And what, go home?”

She nodded. “I usually get home a little before five-thirty. And take a bath, and start cooking dinner. This time of year, grandmother gets home from the Square around seven, and I have dinner ready for her. Sometimes Roy or Leon eats with us.”

“Could you eat early tomorrow and come to Nero Wolfe’s house at seven o’clock? And tell him about the trouble you’re in? Tell him all about it?”

She frowned at me, hesitating. I covered her hand, on the tablecloth, with mine. “Look, sister,” I said, “it’s possible that you’re headed for something terrible yourself. I’m not trying to pretend—”

I stopped because I felt a presence, and I felt eyes. I glanced up, and there were the eyes looking down at me, one on each side of Lily Rowan’s pretty little nose.

I tried to grin at her. “Why — hello there—”

“You,” Lily said, in a tone to cut my throat. “On duty, huh? You louse!”

I think she was going to smack me. Anyhow, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to care what she did, and intended to proceed without delay, so it was merely a question of who moved first and fastest. I was out of my chair, on my feet across the table from her, in half a second flat, with a gesture to Ann, and Ann passed that test too, a fairly tough one, with flying colors. As fast as I moved she was with me, and before even Lily Rowan could get any commotion started we had my cap from the hat-check girl and were out on the sidewalk.

As the taxi rolled away with us I patted Ann’s hand and said, “Good girl. Apparently she was upset about something.”

“She was jealous,” Ann chuckled. “My lord, she was jealous. Lily Rowan jealous of me!”