Rex Stout - Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

I obeyed the order and was facing her. She had thin lips and a thin nose, and a twist of her dyed brown hair straggled down her forehead. She was barefooted and her toes bulged. I smiled at her cordially.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she demanded.

"If you're not too tired," I said, "I suppose Miss Corcoran told you what I said on the phone. Actually it's a friend of mine who wants to get an Irish wolfhound. She has a place up in Westchester. I live in town, and I guess a city apartment is no place for an Irish wolfhound."

"It certainly isn't."

"Somebody told her she should get one from Ireland."

"Who told her that?"

"I don't know."

"Whoever it was, he's a fool. Commercial breeders in Ireland have very inferior stock. The best wolfhound breeder in the world is Florence Nagle in England, but she's not commercial, and she's very particular whom she sells to. All good breeders are. Of course I'm not commercial either, I sell only as a very special favor. I love wolfhounds and they love me. When I'm there, eight of them sleep in my bedroom."

I smiled nicely. "Does your husband like that?"

"I doubt if he even knows it. He wouldn't know a wolfhound from an ostrich. What's your friend's name?"

"Lily Rowan. Her place is near Katonah."

"Why does she want a wolfhound?"

"Well, partly for protection. There are no close neighbors."

"That reason's not good enough. You have to love them. You have to like it when a tail knocks over a vase or a lamp. Does she know that a good male weighs up to a hundred and thirty pounds, and when he rears up he's six feet six? Does she know that when he leaps at you because he loves you, you go down? Does she know that he has to run three miles a day and you have to tailgate him behind a station wagon? Tell her to get just a dog, a Great Dane or a Doberman."

I shook my head. "I don't think that's very smart, Mrs. Ballou."

"I do. Why not?"

"Because you ought to realize that Miss Rowan is all set to love an Irish wolfhound. Look at the trouble she's taking. She finds out about kennels, but that doesn't satisfy her, and she hears that the person who knows most about it is you, and she gets me to try to see you, because she thinks a man would stand a better chance with you than another woman. I told her she could do it herself by seeing your husband, but she didn't know if he was interested in wolfhounds. Apparently he isn't."

She closed her eyes and opened them again. "My husband is interested in absolutely nothing but finance and what he calls the structure of economics. What's the name of that Englishwoman who writes books about it?"

"Barbara Ward."

She nodded. "She might interest him, but no other woman would. What's your friend's name?"

"Lily Rowan."

"Yes. I'm tired. You seem to have some sense. Do you think a wolfhound would be happy with her?"

"I do, or I wouldn't be here."

"Does she want a male or a bitch?"

"I was told to ask you. Which would you advise?"

"It depends. I would have to know… she lives in the country?"

"Not in the winter. She has an apartment in town." I didn't add that her penthouse was about four hundred yards from where I was sitting.

"I would have to see her." She turned her head. "Celia, have you got that name? Lucy Rowan?"

Miss Corcoran, at the desk, said yes, she had it, and Mrs. Ballou returned to me. "Tell her to call Miss Corcoran. That's what she should have done instead of bothering you. I didn't get your name… it doesn't matter." She shut her eyes.

I arose and stood, thinking it would be better manners to thank her with her eyes open, but they didn't open, so I said thank you, and she said with her eyes shut, "I thought you had gone." If I had been an Irish wolfhound I would have wagged my tail as I left the room and knocked something over. Miss Corcoran, who accompanied me to the elevator to see that I entered it, told me that between ten and eleven in the morning would be the best time for Miss Rowan to phone.

I hadn't had a decent walk since Saturday, it wasn't five-thirty yet, and I might as well save taxi fare. But first there was a phone call to make, so I went to Madison Avenue, found a booth, got Lily Rowan, explained the situation, and said that she had better ring Miss Corcoran in the morning and tell her she had decided to get a dachshund instead. What she said was irrelevant and personal. Outside again, I turned my collar up and put gloves on. Winter was going all out.

If you have the impression that the help was doing all the work, Saul and Fred after the ten names I had got from Julie Jaquette and me cornering a jealous wife, no indeed. When I entered the office at a quarter past six there was Wolfe at his desk with a book, and I saw at a glance that it wasn't Invitation to an Inquest . It was The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, so I tiptoed across to my desk, not to disturb him. When he finished a paragraph and looked up I asked, "Wouldn't you get the feel better if you read aloud? Pretend I'm her."

He ignored it and demanded, "Have you done any better?"

"No, sir. Unless we want an Irish wolfhound for stalking. Mrs. Ballou is scratched. Even if someone had told her all about it, full details, she couldn't have gone there and settled Isabel Kerr because (a) she would have been too tired, and (b) she would have forgotten the name and address. Of course Miss Jackson has broadened your understanding of women, and you may not agree."

I reported. It was so brief that he hadn't much more than got comfortably arranged, leaning back with his eyes closed, when I reached the end, the phone call to Lily Rowan.

"There is one difference between you and her," I said. "You shut your eyes to concentrate on what I'm saying, and she shuts hers to hope I'm not there. She didn't even notice that I dragged her husband in by the heels, twice. I swear I could have told her all about Isabel Kerr and the pink bedroom, and when he came home from work she wouldn't have bothered to mention it to him."

He grunted and opened his eyes. "How could eight dogs that size possibly spend the night in her bedroom?" he demanded.

I nodded. "That worried me too. If you figure an average of two square yards to a dog, and maybe more if -"

The doorbell rang, and I went. It was a man in a heavy brown tweed overcoat and a smooth dark blue narrow-rimmed hat, which was ridiculous, and I guessed it was one of the bozos Saul or Fred had flushed. But when I opened the door he said, "I am Dr. Gamm. Theodore Gamm, M.D. Are you the man who called on Mr. and Mrs. Fleming Monday afternoon?" I told him yes, and he said, "I insist on seeing Nero Wolfe," and would have walked right through me if I hadn't sidestepped.

Of course that isn't the way to do it. You merely say something first and then you insist. He wasn't even built for it, after he peeled his coat off. He was round all over, round-shouldered and round-hipped and round-faced, and the bald top of his head was barely up to my chin. I put him in the front room, took the long route to the office, by the hall, and told Wolfe that Dr. Theodore Gamm insisted on asking him why he had sent me to see Mr. and Mrs. Fleming. He looked at the clock and growled, "Dinner in half an hour." I said that Mrs. Ballou had taken me only ten minutes, went and opened the connecting door, and brought him in. As I motioned him to the red leather chair Wolfe said something about twenty minutes. That chair is deep, and when he found that his feet weren't on the floor he slid forward, pinned his eyes on Wolfe, and said, "You're grossly overweight."