“I know, I know,” the dick said, harassed. “Ordinarily, with people like you, I would feel that the thing to do was to sit down and discuss it, but with what happened to Keyes things are different from ordinary.” He appealed to Dorothy. “You say you’re making a charge, Miss Keyes?”
“I certainly am.”
“So am I,” Talbott stated.
“Then that’s that. Come along with me, Mr. Pohl.”
“I’m staying here.” Pohl was still panting. “I have a right here and I’m staying here.”
“No, you’re not. You heard what the lady said.”
“Yes, but you didn’t hear what I said. I was assaulted.
She makes a charge. So do I. I was sitting quietly in a chair, not moving, and Talbott tried to strangle me, and he struck me. Didn’t you see him strike me?”
“It was in self-defense,” Dorothy declared. “You threw an iron—”
“To save my life! He assaulted—”
“All I did—”
“Hold it,” the law said curtly. “Under the circumstances you can’t talk yourselves into anything with me. You men will come along with me, both of you. Where’s your hats and coats?”
They went. First they used up more breath on words and gestures, but they went, Pohl in the lead, with only half a necktie, Talbott next, and the law in the rear.
Thinking I might as well tidy up a little, I went and righted the chair Pohl had tried to use, then retrieved the iron and put it back on the table, and then examined the beautiful surface of the desk to see how much damage had been done.
“I suppose you’re a coward, aren’t you?” Dorothy inquired.
She had sat down again, in the same chair, and crossed the same legs. They were all right; I had no kick coming there.
“It’s controversial,” I told her, “It was on the Town Meeting of the Air last week. With a midget, if he’s unarmed, I’m as brave as a lion. Or with a woman. Try picking on me. But with—” A buzz sounded.
“The phone,” Dorothy said.
I pulled it to me and got the receiver to my ear.
“Is Miss Keyes there?”
“Yes,” I said, “she’s busy sitting down. Any message?”
“Tell her Mr. Donaldson is here to see her.”
I did so, and for the first time saw an expression that was unquestionably human on Dorothy’s face. At sound of the name Donaldson all trace of the brow-lifter vanished. Muscles tightened all over and color went. She may or may not have been what she had just called me, I didn’t know because I had never seen or heard of Donaldson, but she sure was scared stiff.
I got tired waiting and repeated it. “Mr. Donaldson is here to see you.”
“I—” She wet her lips. In a moment she swallowed. In another moment she stood up, said in a voice not soft at all, “Tell her to send him to Mr. Talbott’s room,” and went.
I forwarded the command as instructed, asked for an outside line, and, when I heard the dial tone, fingered the number. My wrist watch said five past three, and it stopped my tongue for a second when once more I heard Orrie’s voice.
“Archie,” I said shortly. “Let me speak to Saul.”
“Saul? He’s not here. Been gone for hours.”
“Oh, I thought it was a party. Then Wolfe.”
Wolfe’s voice came. “Yes, Archie?”
“I’m in Keyes’ office, sitting at his desk. I’m alone. I brought Pohl his lunch, and he owes me ninety-five cents. It just occurred to me that I’ve seen you go to great lengths to keep your clients from being arrested. Remember the time you buried Clara Fox in a box of osmundine and turned the hose on her? Or the time—”
“What about it?”
“They’re scooping up all the clients, that’s all. Broadyke has been collared for receiving stolen goods — the designs he bought from Talbott. Pohl has been pulled in for disturbing the peace, and Talbott for assault and battery. Not to mention that Miss Keyes has just had the daylights scared out of her.”
“What are you talking about? What happened?”
I told him and, since he had nothing to do but sit and let Orrie answer the phone for him, I left nothing out. When I was through I offered the suggestion that it might be a good plan for me to stick around and find out what it was about Mr. Donaldson that made young women tremble and turn pale at sound of his name.
“No, I think not,” Wolfe said, “unless he’s a tailor. Just find out if he’s a tailor, but discreetly. No disclosure. If so, get his address. Then find Miss Rooney — wait, I’ll give you her address—”
“I know her address.”
“Find her. Get her confidence. Get alone with her. Loosen up her tongue.”
“What am I after — no, I know what I’m after. What are you after?”
“I don’t know. Anything you can get. Confound it, you know what a case like this amounts to, there’s nothing for it but trial and error—”
Movement over by the door had caught my eye, and I focused on it. Someone had entered and was approaching me.
“Okay,” I told Wolfe. “There’s no telling where she is, but I’ll find her if it takes all day and all night.” I hung up and grinned at the newcomer and greeted her.
“Hello, Miss Rooney. Looking for me?”
XI
Annie Audrey was all dressed up in a neat brown wool dress with red threads showing on it in little knots, but she didn’t look pleased with herself or with anyone else. You wouldn’t think a face with all that pink skin could look so sour. With no greeting, not even a nod, she demanded as she approached, “How do you get to see a man that’s been arrested?”
“That depends,” I told her. “Don’t snap at me like that. I didn’t arrest him. Who do you want to see, Broadyke?”
“No.” She dropped onto a chair as if she needed support quick. “Wayne Safford.”
“Arrested what for?”
“I don’t know. I saw him at the stable this morning and then I went downtown to see about a job. A while ago I phoned Lucy, my best friend here, and she told me there was talk about Vic Talbott selling those designs to Broadyke, so I came to find out what was happening and when I learned that Talbott and Pohl had both been arrested I phoned Wayne to tell him about it, and the man there answered and said a policeman had come and taken Wayne with him.”
“For why?”
“The man didn’t know. How do I get to see him?”
“You probably don’t.”
“But I have to!”
I shook my head. “You believe you have to, and I believe you have to, but the cops won’t. It depends on what his invitation said. If they just want to consult him about sweating horses he may be home in an hour. If they’ve got a hook in him, or think they have, God knows. You’re not a lawyer or a relative.”
She sat and looked at me, sourer than ever. In a minute she spoke, bitterly. “You said yesterday I may be nice.”
“Meaning I should mount my bulldozer and move heaven and earth?” I shook my head again. “Even if you were so nice it made my head swim, the best I could do for you this second would be to hold your hand, and judging from your expression that’s not what you have in mind. Would you mind telling me what you have got in your mind besides curiosity?”
She got up, circled two corners of the desk to reach the phone, put it to her ear, and in a moment told the transmitter, “This is Audrey, Helen. Would you get me— No. Forget it.”
She hung up, perched on a corner of the desk, and started giving me the chilly eye again, this time slanting down instead of up.
“It’s me,” she declared.
“What is?”
“This trouble. Wherever I am there’s trouble.”
“Yeah, the world’s full of it. Wherever anybody is there’s trouble. You get shaky ideas. Yesterday you were scared because you thought they were getting set to hang a murder on you, and not one of them has even hinted at it. Maybe you’re wrong again.”