Rex Stout: The Rubber Band

He turned and left the room, neither slow nor fast. He shut the door behind him, softly. I didn’t see him, I heard him; I was looking at the others. Miss Barish stared at Miss Fox and turned pale. Perry’s only visible reaction was to drop his dead cigar into the ash tray and push she tray away. The first move came from Miss Fox. She stood up.

The idea occurred to me that on account of active emotions she was probably better looking at that moment than she ordinarily was, but even discounting for that there was plenty to go on. In my detached impersonal way I warmed to her completely at exactly that moment when she stood up and looked at Anthony D. Perry. She had brown hair, neither long nor boyish bob, just a swell lot of careless hair, and her eyes were brown too and you could see at a glance that they would never tell you anything except what she wanted them to.

She spoke. “May I go now, Mr. Perry? It’s past five o’clock, and I have an appointment.”

Perry looked at her with no surprise. Evidently he knew her. He said, “Mr. Goodwin will want to talk with you.”

“I know he will. Will the morning do? Am I to come to work tomorrow?”

“Of course. I refer you to Goodwin. He has charge of this now, and the responsibility is his.”

I shook my head. “Excuse me, Mr. Perry. Mr. Wolfe said he would decide whether he’d handle this or not after my preliminary investigation. As far as Miss Fox is concerned, tomorrow will suit me fine.” I looked at her. “ Nine o’clock?”

She nodded– “Not that I have anything to tell you about that money, except that I didn’t take it and never saw it. I have told Mr. Perry and Mr. Muir that. I may go then? Good night.”

She was perfectly cool and sweet. From the way she was handling herself, no one would have supposed she had any notion that she was standing on a hot spot. She included all of us in her good-night glance, and turned and walked out as self-possessed as a young doe not knowing that there’s a gun pointed at it and a finger on the trigger.

When the door was shut Perry turned to me briskly. “Where do you want to start, Goodwin? Would fingerprints around the drawer of Muir’s desk do any good?”

I grinned at him and shook my head. “Only for practice, and I don’t need any. I’d like to have a chat with Muir. He must know it won’t do to have Miss Fox arrested just because she was in his room. Maybe he thinks he knows where the money is.”

Perry said, “Miss Barish is Mr. Muir’s secretary.”

“Oh.” I looked at the woman with the flat nose still standing there. I said to her, “It was you that typed the cablegram while Miss Fox waited in Muir’s room. Did you notice—”

Perry homed in. “You can talk with Miss Barish later.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, which said 5:20. “Or, if you prefer, you can talk with her here, now.” He shoved his chair back and got up. “If you need me, I’ll be in the directors’ room, at the other end. I’m late now, for a conference. It won’t take long. I’ll ask Muir to stay, and Miss Vawter also, in case you want to see her.” He had moved around to the front of his desk, and halted there. “One thing, Goodwin, about Muir. I advise you to forget his ridiculous outburst. He’s jerky and nervous, and the truth is he’s too old for the strain business puts on a man nowadays. Disregard his nonsense. Well?”

“Sure.” I waved a hand. “Let him rave.”

Perry frowned at me, nodded, and left the room.

The best chair in sight was the one Perry had just vacated, so I went around and took it. Miss Barish stood with her shoulders hanging, squeezing her handkerchief and looking straight at me. I said, friendly, “Move around and sit down—there, where Muir was. So you’re Muir’s secretary.”

“Yes, sir.” She got onto the edge of the chair.

“Been his secretary eleven years.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut out the sir. Okay? I’m not gray-headed. So Muir looked through your belongings last Friday and didn’t find the money?”

Her eyes darkened. “Certainly he didn’t find it.”

“Right. Did he make a thorough search of your room?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care if he did.”

“Now don’t get sore. I don’t care either. After you copied the cablegram and took the original back to Miss Fox in Muir’s room, what was she carrying when she left there?”

“She was carrying the cablegram.”

“But where did she have the thirty grand, down her sock? Didn’t it show?”

Miss Barish compressed her lips to show that she was putting up with me. “I did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram. I have told Mr. Muir and Mr. Perry that I did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram.”

I grinned at her. “And you are now telling Mr. Goodwin that you did not see Miss Fox carrying anything except the cablegram. Check. Are you a friend of Miss Fox’s?”

“No. Not a real friend. I don’t like her.”

“Egad. Why don’t you like her?”

“Because she is extremely attractive, and I am homely. Because she has been here only three years and she could be Mr. Perry’s private secretary tomorrow if she wanted to, and that is the job I have wanted ever since I came here. Also because she is cleverer than I am.”

I looked at Miss Barish more interested, at all the frankness. Deciding to see how far down the frankness went, I popped at her, “How long has Miss Fox been Perry’s mistress?”

She went red as a beet. Her eyes dropped, and she shook her head. Finally she looked up at me again, but didn’t say anything.

I tried another one. “Then tell me this. How long has Muir been trying to get her away from Perry?”

Her eyes got dark again, and the color stayed. She stared at me a minute, then all at once rose to her feet and stood there squeezing her handkerchief. Her voice trembled a little, but it didn’t seem to bother her.

“I don’t know whether that’s any of your business, Mr. Goodwin, but it’s none of mine. Don’t you see … don’t you see how this is a temptation to me? Couldn’t I have said I saw her carrying something out of that room?” She squeezed the handkerchief harder. “Well … I didn’t say it. Don’t I have to keep my self-respect? I’ll go out of my way too, I don’t know anything about it, but I don’t believe Clara Fox has ever been anybody’s mistress. She wouldn’t have to be, she’s too clever. I don’t know anything about that money either, but if you want to ask me questions to see if I do, go ahead.”

I said, “School’s out. Go on home. I may want you again in the morning, but I doubt it.”

She turned pale as fast as she had turned red. She certainly was a creature of moods. I got up from Perry’s chair and walked all the way across the room to open the door and stand and hold it. She went past, still squeezing the handkerchief and mumbling good night to me, and I shut the door.

Feeling for a cigarette and finding I didn’t have any, I went back to the windows and stood surveying the view. As I had suspected, the thing wasn’t a good clean theft at all, it was some kind of a mess. From the business standpoint, it was obvious that the thing to do was go back and tell Nero Wolfe it was a case of refusing to let the administrative heads of the Seaboard Products Corporation use our office for a washtub to dump their dirty linen in. But what reined me up on that was my professional curiosity about Clara Fox. If sneak thieves came as cool and sweet as that, it was about time I found it out. And if she wasn’t one, my instinctive dislike of a frame-up made me hesitate about leaving her parked against a fireplug.

I was fairly well disgusted, and got more disgusted, after gazing out of the window for a while, when I felt in my pockets again for a cigarette with no results.