“Something you said,” I told her. “Maybe I didn’t hear it right.”
She swallowed pudding. “Maybe I didn’t say it right. I often don’t.” She leaned to me and lowered her voice. “Is this Mr Laidlaw a friend of yours?”
I shook my head.” Never saw him before.”
“You haven’t missed anything. He publishes books. To look at me, would you think I was dying to know how many books were published last year in America and England and a lot of other countries?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I would think you could make out all right without it.”
“I always have. What was it I said wrong?”
“I didn’t say you said it wrong. I understood you to say something about the society men that were here the other time, and I wasn’t sure I got it. I didn’t know whether you meant another party like this one.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s what I meant. Three years ago. She throws one every year, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“This is my second one. This friend of mine I mentioned, she says the only reason I had another baby was to get invited here for some more champagne, but believe me, if I liked champagne so much I could get it a lot quicker and oftener than that, and anyway, I didn’t have the faintest idea I would be invited again. How old do you think I am?”
I studied her. “Oh—twenty-one.”
She was pleased.” Of course you took off five years to be polite, so you guessed it exactly. I’m twenty-six. So it isn’t true that having babies makes a girl look older. Of course, if you had a lot of them, eight or ten, but by that time you would be older. I just don’t believe I would look younger if I hadn’t had two babies. Do you?”
I was on a spot. I had accepted the invitation with my eyes and ears open. I had told my hostess that I was acquainted with the nature and significance of the affair and she could count on me. I had on my shoulders the responsibility of the moral and social position of the community, some of it anyhow, and here this cheerful unmarried mother was resting the whole problem on the single question, had it aged her any? If I merely said no, it hadn’t, which would have been both true and tactful, it would imply that I agreed that the one objection to her career was a phoney. To say no and then proceed to list other objections that were not phonies would have been fine if I had been ordained, but I hadn’t, and anyway she had certainly heard of them and hadn’t been impressed. I worked it out in three seconds, on the basis that while it was none of my business if she kept on having babies, I absolutely wasn’t going to encourage her. So I lied to her.
“Yes,” I said.
“What?” She was indignant. “You do?”
I was firm. “I do. You admitted that I took you for twenty-six and deducted five years to be polite. If you had had only one baby I might have taken you for twenty-three, and if you had had none I might have taken you for twenty. I can’t prove it, but I might. We’d better get on with the pudding. Some of them have finished.”
She turned to it, cheerfully.
Apparently the guests of honour had been briefed on procedure, for when Hackett, on signal, pulled back Mrs Robilotti’s chair as she arose, and we chevaliers did likewise for our partners, they joined the hostess as she headed for the door. When they were out we sat down again.
Cecil Grantham blew a breath, a noisy gust, and said, “The last two hours are the hardest.”
Robilotti said, “Brandy, Hackett.”
Hackett stopped pouring coffee to look at him. “The cabinet is locked, sir.”
“I know it is, but you have a key.”
“No, sir, Mrs Robilotti has it.”
It seemed to me that that called for an embarrassed silence, but Cecil Grantham laughed and said, “Get a hatchet.”
Hackett poured coffee.
Beverly Kent, the one with a long narrow face and big ears, cleared his throat. “A little deprivation will be good for us, Mr Robilotti. After all, we understood the protocol when we accepted the invitation.”
“Not protocol,” Paul Schuster objected. “That’s not what protocol means. I’m surprised at you, Bev. You’ll never be an ambassador if you don’t know what protocol is.”
“I never will anyway,” Kent declared.” I’m thirty years old, eight years out of college, and what am I? An errand boy in the Mission to the United Nations. So I’m a diplomat? But I ought to know what protocol is better than a promising young corporation lawyer. What do you know about it?”
“Not much.” Schuster was sipping coffee. “Not much about it, but I know what it is, and you used it wrong. And you’re wrong about me being a promising young corporation lawyer. Lawyers never promise anything. That’s about as far as I’ve got, but I’m a year younger than you, so there’s hope.”
“Hope for who?” Cecil Grantham demanded. “You or the corporations?”
“About that word ‘protocol’,” Edwin Laidlaw said, “I can settle that for you. Now that I’m a publisher I’m the last word on words. It comes from two Greek words, prхtos , meaning ‘first’, and kolla , meaning ‘glue’. Now why glue? Because in ancient Greece a prхtokollon was the first leaf, containing an account of the manuscript, glued to a roll of papyrus. Today a protocol may be any one of various kinds of documents—an original draft of something, or an account of some proceeding, or a record of an agreement. That seems to support you, Paul, but Bev has a point, because a protocol can also be a set of rules of etiquette. So you’re both right. This affair this evening does require a special etiquette.”
“I’m for Paul,” Cecil Grantham declared.” Locking up the booze doesn’t come under etiquette. It comes under tyranny.”
Kent turned to me. “What about you, Goodwin? I understand you’re a detective, so maybe you can detect the answer.”
I put my coffee cup down. “I’m a little hazy,” I said, “as to what you’re after. If you just want to decide whether you used the word ‘protocol’ right, the best plan would be to get the dictionary. There’s one upstairs in the library. But if what you want is brandy, and the cabinet is locked, the best plan would be for one of us to go to a liquor store. There’s one at the corner of Eighty-second and Madison. We could toss up.”
“The practical man,” Laidlaw said. “The man of action.”
“You notice,” Cecil told them, “that he knows where the dictionary is and where the liquor store is. Detectives know everything.” He turned to me.” By the way, speaking of detectives, are you here professionally?”
Not caring much for his tone, I raised my brows. “If I were, what would I say?”
“Why—I suppose you’d say you weren’t.”
“And if I weren’t what would I say?”
Robert Robilotti let out a snort. “Touchй , Cece. Try another one.” He pronounced it “Seese”. Cecil’s mother called him “Sessel”, and his sister called him “Sesse”.
Cecil ignored his father-in-law. “I was just asking,” he told me. “I shouldn’t ask?”
“Sure, why not? I was just answering.” I moved my head right and left.” Since the question has been asked, it may be in all your minds. If I were here professionally I would let it stand on my answer to Grantham, but since I’m not, you might as well know it. Austin Byne phoned this morning and asked me to take his place. If any of you are bothered enough you can check with him.”
“I think,” Robilotti said, “that it is none of our business. I know it is none of my business.”
“Nor mine,” Schuster agreed.
“Oh, forget it,” Cecil snapped. “What the hell, I was just curious. Shall we join the mothers?”
Robilotti darted a glance at him, not friendly. After all, who was the host? “I was about to ask,” he said, “if anyone wants more coffee. No?” He left his chair. “We will join them in the music room and escort them downstairs and it is understood that each of us will dance first with his dinner partner. If you please, gentlemen?”