Rex Stout - The Father Hunt

"Noticeable, no."

"That point isn't vital, but it would help to know. We will. On another point I need your opinion. Should Miss Denovo be here?"

"That is a point. She has been on my mind the last two days. I want to make a speech."

"Go ahead."

"She's a nice girl and a good client, and for a week I've been sorry we were going to have to tell her that Floyd Vance is her father. And since Tuesday morning I have been even sorrier. It's a damn shame that she has to know not only that such a character as Vance is her father but also that he killed her mother. I have thought of three possible ways to handle it without telling her, but none of them is really neat. I invite suggestions."

"I have none. I have an argument."

"Go ahead."

"I too have had reflections, if not identical with yours at least similar. It's desirable for a client to be satisfied not only with our performance but also with its result

With Miss Denovo that's impossible. Circumstances forbid it. So the question is, What will dissatisfy her least? There are very few questions about any woman that I would undertake to answer with confidence, but you don't have that restraint and you know Miss Denovo. If she were offered the alternative, which would she choose? To know definitely that Floyd Vance, with all his grievous flaws, is her father? Or to remain all her life in the state of ignorance that brought her here three weeks ago with that money? Not how do you feel about her, but how would she feel?"

I didn't need to take a full minute to look at it, but I did, for the sake of appearances. "She would rather know," I said.

"Then she should be here tomorrow morning. In the alcove. Arrange it. Make certain that she will not intrude, no matter what she hears. You know her. Perhaps Saul should come to be with her. You will see him this evening?"

"I hope to. Depending on how long it takes to get her. She's loose now." I swung around to get the phone.

That was why I was late for poker. It was going on ten o'clock when I finally got Amy, at her apartment. Again I couldn't tell her anything, except to be at the office at half past ten in the morning, but at least that indicated that something was stirring. I told Saul ten-thirty too. The shape New York is in, you had better allow half an hour even with a Saul Panzer if you want to be sure.

16

I looked it up once. To eavesdrop means to stand under the eaves to listen to what is said inside a house. But to listen to what is said inside Wolfe's office you don't stand under the eaves; you stand in the alcove, which is at the rear end of the hall, to the left as you approach the kitchen. At eye level, if you are about the height of Wolfe or me, there is a rectangular hole in the wall, seven inches high and twelve inches wide. On the alcove side of the hole there is a panel which slides open silently, and on the office side there is a trick picture of a waterfall; "trick" because through the one-way picture you can not only eaves-hear from the alcove but also eaves-see nearly all of the office.

In arranging for Amy Denovo, who was eight inches shorter than me, to hear and see from the alcove I could have put phone books for her to stand on, but the show might last an hour or more, and for her price of admission, of twenty grand she deserved something better than standing room. So after breakfast Friday morning I took the kitchen stepladder to the alcove, sat on it, and found that my eyes were five inches above the center of the hole. I had never measured Amy and me to determine how much of my extra eight inches was below the hips and how much was above, but I decided that would be close enough.

Amy arrived at 10:21 and Saul at 10:29. I took Amy to the alcove, had her perch on the stepladder, slid the panel open, and saw that her eyes were about right. "The size of that seat," I said, "it's a good thing it's your fanny and not Mr. Wolfe's."

"What is this?" she demanded.

"For you, spectator sport. You're going to hear and see the man who sent those two hundred and sixty-four checks to your mother. Cyrus M. Jarrett is due at eleven o'clock, by appointment. We thought you ought to hear it firsthand, and with him in the red leather chair his face will be about ten feet from yours. Take a look."

She leaned to get her eyes closer to the hole. "Won't he see me?"

"No. From that side it's just a picture."

She turned to me, "But why do… What's he going to say?"

"We're waiting to hear him. Among other things he may tell us, and you, the name of your father. That may-"

The doorbell rang and I went, and it was Saul. I had told him what the program was and needed only to take him to the alcove and introduce him to the client who had paid him, through me, a little less than a grand in two weeks.

"Since you call me Archie," I told Amy, "you'll have to call him Saul not to hurt his feelings. He'll be here with you and if you get the idea that we're not asking Jarrett the right questions and decide to come and help, Saul will block you. Jarrett must not suspect that he has any audience but Mr. Wolfe and me. Have your shoes off, and if you feel a cough or a sneeze coming, for God's sake feel it soon enough to beat it to the kitchen." I looked at my watch. "He's due in twenty-five minutes, but he's driving ninety miles and he might be early. Saul will now take you to the kitchen for a coffee break. I'll be in the office taking tranquilizers to steady my nerves."

"You won't," Amy said. '

"Then I won't," I said, and left them. It would take Saul about five minutes to get acquainted with her.

There had been one big danger. A man of Jarrett's position, financially and otherwise, might be able to put enough pressure on someone like the Police Commissioner or the Mayor or the New York Secretary of State, who issues private investigator licenses, to gag us. I blamed that fact, which had been on my mind ever since Jarrett had hung up, for something that had happened Thurs-

day evening, when I had let Lon Cohen rake in a fat pot without showing, though it was at least three to two that my tens would have taken it. But now, as eleven o'clock came closer and closer, that danger got slimmer and slimmer, and it looked surer and surer that Jarrett's tie-in was so very personal that he couldn't risk it.

Wolfe came down at eleven on the dot, put the daily display in the vase on his desk, sat, and went at the morning mail. I had the expense book at my desk, checking entries and additions and getting totals, on the theory that they were final totals, except for Saul today. Just a pair of private detectives starting the daily grind, yeah. The reason they weren't holding their breath was that a man can't hold his breath more than about two minutes, and the doorbell didn't ring until a quarter past eleven.

The first two things I noticed when I opened the front door were that the car Jarrett had come in was a Heron town car, and that his eyes were exactly the same as they had been two weeks ago. I felt that I deserved a credit mark for the way I said, "Good morning." I could have made it a jab or even a jeer, but I swear it was just a cordial welcome.

He also said, "Good morning," but it wasn't a cordial anything. It was probably merely the way he had always said good morning, and always would, to everybody from the office boy to the senior vice-president. What was different from before was his walk as he went down the hall to the office. He didn't totter, but his steps were short and he made sure of each one before he took the next one. I waited until he had got safely lowered into the red leather chair to say, "Mr. Jarrett. Mr. Wolfe."