Rex Stout - And Four to Go

Both hands were gripping the bag again. “The trouble,” she said, “is a woman. A woman named Bianca Voss.”

Wolfe made a face. She saw it and responded to it. “No, not an affaire d’amour, I’m sure it’s not that. Though my brother has never married, he is by no means insensible to women, he is very healthy about women, but since you are worthy of confidence I may tell you that he has an amie intime, a young woman who is of importance in his establishment. It is impossible that Bianca Voss has attracted him that way. She first came there a little more than a year ago. My brother had told us to expect her, so he had met her somewhere. He designed a dress and a suit for her, and they were made there in the shop, but no bill was ever sent her. Then he gave her one of the rooms, the offices, on the third floor, and she started to come every day, and then the trouble began. My brother never told us she had any authority, but she took it and he allowed her to. Sometimes she interferes directly, and sometimes through him. She pokes her nose into everything. She got my brother to discharge a fitter, a very capable woman, who had been with him for years. She has a private telephone line in her office upstairs, but no one else has. About two months ago some of the others persuaded me to try to find out about her, what her standing is, and I asked my brother, but he wouldn’t tell me. I begged him to, but he wouldn’t.”

“It sounds,” Wolfe said, “as if she owns the business. Perhaps she bought it.”

Flora Gallant shook her head. “No, she hasn’t. I’m sure she hasn’t. She wasn’t one of the financial backers in nineteen-fifty-three, and since then there have been good profits, and anyway my brother has control. But now she’s going to ruin it and he’s going to let her, we don’t know why. She wants him to design a factory line to be promoted by a chain of department stores using his name. She wants him to sponsor a line of Alec Gallant cosmetics on a royalty basis. And other things. We’re against all of them, and my brother is too, really, but we think he’s going to give in to her, and that will ruin it.”

Her fingers tightened on the bag. “Mr. Wolfe, I want you to ruin her .”

Wolfe grunted. “By wiggling a finger?”

“No, but you can. I’m sure you can. I’m sure she has some hold on him, but I don’t know what. I don’t know who she is or where she came from. I don’t know what her real name is. She speaks with an accent, but not French; I’m not sure what it is. I don’t know when she came to America; she may be here illegally. She may have known my brother in France, during the war. You can find out. If she has a hold on my brother you can find out what it is. If she is blackmailing him, isn’t that against the law? Wouldn’t that ruin her?”

“It might. It might ruin him too.”

“Not unless you betrayed him.” She swallowed that and added hastily, “I don’t mean that, I only mean I am trusting you, you said I could, and you could make her stop and that’s all you would have to do. Couldn’t you just do that?”

“Conceivably.” Wolfe wasn’t enthusiastic. “I fear, madam, that you’re biting off more than you can chew. The procedure you suggest would be prolonged, laborious, and extremely expensive. It would probably require elaborate investigation abroad. Aside from my fee, which would not be modest, the outlay would be considerable and the outcome highly uncertain. Are you in a position to undertake it?”

“I am not rich myself, Mr. Wolfe. I have some savings. But my brother-if you get her away, if you release him from her-he is truly gйnйrlux -excuse me-he is a generous man. He is not stingy.”

“But he isn’t hiring me, and your assumption that she is galling him may be groundless.” Wolfe shook his head. “No. Not a reasonable venture. Unless, of course, your brother himself consults me. If you care to bring him? Or send him?”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” She gestured again. “You must see that isn’t possible! When I asked him about her, I told you, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He was annoyed. He is never abrupt with me, but he was then. I assure you, Mr. Wolfe, she is a villain. You are sagace -excuse me-you are an acute man. You would know it if you saw her, spoke with her.”

“Perhaps.” Wolfe was getting impatient. “Even so, my perception of her villainy wouldn’t avail. No, madam.”

“But you would know I am right.” She opened her bag, fingered in it with both hands, came out with something, left her chair to step to Wolfe’s desk, and put the something on his desk pad in front of him. “There,” she said, “that is one hundred dollars. For you that is nothing, but it shows how I am in earnest. I can’t ask her to come so you can speak with her, she would merely laugh at me, but you can. You can tell her you have been asked in confidence to discuss a matter with her and ask her to come to see you. You will not tell her what it is. She will come, she will be afraid not to, and that alone will show you she has a secret, perhaps many secrets. Then when she comes you will ask her whatever occurs to you. For that you do not need my suggestions. You are an acute man.”

Wolfe grunted. “Everybody has secrets.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but not secrets that would make them afraid not to come to see Nero Wolfe. When she comes and you have spoken with her, we shall see. That may be all or it may not. We shall see.”

I do not say that the hundred bucks there on his desk in used twenties was no factor in Wolfe’s decision. Even though income tax would reduce it to sixteen dollars, that would buy four days’ supply of beer. Another factor was plain curiosity: would she come or wouldn’t she? Still another was the chance that it might develop into a decent fee. But what really settled it was her saying. “We shall see” instead of “We’ll see” or “We will see.” He will always stretch a point, within reason, for people who use words as he thinks they should be used. So he muttered at her, “Where is she?”

“At my brother’s place. She always is.”

“Give Mr. Goodwin the phone number.”

“I’ll get it. She may be downstairs.” She started a hand for the phone on Wolfe’s desk, but I told her to use mine and left my chair, and she came and sat, lifted the receiver and dialed.

In a moment she spoke. “Doris? Flora. Is Miss Voss around?… Oh. I thought she might have come down… No, don’t bother, I’ll ring her there.”

She pushed the button down, told us, “She’s up in her office,” waited a moment, released the button, and dialed again. When she spoke it was another voice, as she barely moved her lips and brought it out through her nose: “Miss Bianca Voss? Hold the line, please. Mr. Nero Wolfe wishes to speak with you… Mr. Nero Wolfe, the private detective.”

She looked at Wolfe and he got at his phone. Having my own share of curiosity, I extended a hand for my receiver, and she let me take it and left my chair. As I sat and got it to my ear Wolfe was speaking.

“This is Nero Wolfe. Is this Miss Bianca Voss?”

“Yes.” It was more like “yiss.” “What do you want?” The “wh” and the “w” were off.

“If my name is unknown to you, I should explain-”

“I know your name. What do you want?”