“We have no vacancies at the moment,” I said, “but you can leave your number. Don’t call us, we’ll call—”
“That’s pretty corny,” she said. She had thrown her coat open to drape it over the back of the chair, revealing other personal details that went fine with the face and legs.
“Okay,” I conceded. “It’s your turn.”
“My name is Tammy Baxter. Short for Tamiris. I haven’t decided yet which one to use on a theatre program when the time comes. What do you think, Tammy or Tamiris?”
“It would depend on the part. If it’s the lead in a musical, Tammy. If it packs some weight, O’Neill for instance, Tamiris.”
“It’s more apt to be a girl at one of the tables in the night club scene. The one who jumps up and says, ‘Come on, Bill, let’s get out of here.’ That’s her big line.” She fluttered a gloved hand. “Oh, well. What do you care? Why don’t you ask me what I want?”
“I’m putting it off because I may not have it.”
“That’s nice. I like that. That’s a good line, only you threw it away. There should be a pause after ‘off.’ ‘I’m putting it off... because I may not have it.’ Try it again.”
“Nuts. I said it the way I felt it. You actresses are all alike. I was getting a sociable feeling about you and look what you’ve done to it. What do you want?”
She laughed a little ripple. “I’m not an actress, I’m only going to be. I don’t want anything much, just to ask about my landlady, Miss Annis — Hattie Annis. Has she been here?”
I raised a brow. “Here? When?”
“This morning.”
“I’ll ask.” I turned my head and sang out, “Fritz!” and when he appeared, in the doorway to the hall, I inquired, “Did anyone besides this lady come while I was out?”
“No, sir.” He always sirs me when there is company and I can’t make him stop.
“Any phone calls?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay. Thank you, sir.” He went, and I told Tammy or Tamiris, “Apparently not. You say your landlady?”
She nodded. “That’s funny.”
“Why, did you tell her to come?”
“No, she told me. She said she was going to take something — she was going to see Nero Wolfe about something. She wouldn’t say what, and after she left I began to worry about her. She never got here?”
“You heard what Fritz said. Why should you worry?”
“You would too if you knew her. She almost never leaves the house, and she never goes more than a block away. She’s not a loony really, but she’s not quite all there, and I should have come with her. We all feel responsible for her. Her house is an awful dump, but anybody in show business, or even trying to be, can have a room for five dollars a week, and it doesn’t have to be every week. So we feel responsible. I certainly hope...” She stood up, letting it hang. “If she comes will you phone me?”
“Sure.” She gave me the number and I jotted it down, and then went to hold her coat. My feelings were mixed. It would have been a pleasure to relieve her mind, but of what? What if her real worry was about the Hope diamond, which she had had under her mattress, and she knew or suspected that Hattie Annis had snitched it? I would have liked to put her in the front room, supplied with magazines, to wait until her landlady arrived, but you can’t afford to be sentimental when the fate of a million-dollar diamond is at stake, so I let her go. Another consideration was that it would be enough of a job to sell Wolfe on seeing Hattie Annis without also accounting for the presence of another female in the front room. He can stand having one woman under his roof temporarily if he has to, but not two at once.
At eleven o’clock on the nose the sound of the elevator came, then its usual clang as it jolted to a stop at the bottom, and he entered, told me good morning, went to his desk, got his seventh of a ton deposited in the oversized custom-built chair, fingered through the mail, glanced at his desk calendar, and spoke.
“No check from Brigham?”
“Yes, sir, it came.” I swiveled to face him. “Without comment. I took it to the bank. Also my weakness has cropped up again, but with a new slant.”
He grunted. “Which weakness?”
“Women. One came, a stranger, and I told her to come back at eleven-fifteen. The trouble is, she’s a type that never appealed to me before. I hope to goodness my taste hasn’t shifted. I want your opinion.”
“Pfui. Flummery.”
“No, sir. It’s a real problem. Wait till you see her.”
“I’m not going to see her.”
“Then I’m stuck. She has a strange fascination. Nobody believes in witches casting spells anymore, I certainly don’t, but I don’t know. As for what she wants to see you about, that’s simple. She has got something that she thinks is good for a reward, and she’s coming to you instead of the police because she hates cops. I don’t know what it is or where she got it. That part’s easy, you can deal with that in two minutes, but what about me? Why did I tell her I would try to persuade you to see her? Should I see a psychiatrist?”
“Yes.”
He picked up the top item from the little pile of mail, an airmail letter from an orchid hunter in Venezuela, and started to read it. I swung my chair around and started sharpening pencils that didn’t need it. The noise of the sharpener irritates him. I was on the sixth pencil when his voice came.
“What’s her name?” he demanded.
“Miss Hattie Annis. That’s another aspect of it. I don’t like the name Hattie.”
“Who is she?”
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t even ask her. That’s still another aspect.”
“Is she coming or phoning?”
“Coming.”
“I’ll give her two minutes.”
You can appreciate what I had accomplished only if you know how allergic he is to strangers, especially women, and how much he hates to work, especially when a respectable check has just been deposited. Besides that satisfaction I had something to look forward to, seeing his expression when I escorted Hattie Annis in. I thought I might as well go and retrieve the package from under the couch and put it in my desk drawer, but vetoed it. It could wait till she came.
But she didn’t come. 11:20. 11:25. At 11:30 Wolfe looked over the top of the book he was reading to say that he had some letters to give me but didn’t like to be interrupted, and I said neither did I. At 11:45 he got up and went to the kitchen, probably to sample the chestnut soup, in which he and Fritz had decided to include tarragon for the first time. At noon I went to the hall and mounted two flights to my room, and from there dialed the number Tammy Baxter had given me. After four buzzes I got a male voice:
“Who is this?”
It would be a pleasure to kick anyone who answers a phone like that. “My name,” I said, “is Buster. I want to speak to Miss Annis.”
“She’s not here. Buster what?”
“Then I’ll speak to Miss Baxter, please.”
“She’s not here either. Who is this?”
I hung up.
She never came. When I returned to the office Wolfe was back at his desk, and until lunch time I was busy with the notebook and typewriter. The chestnut soup was fine as usual, but I couldn’t taste the tarragon. After lunch Theodore brought files down from the plant rooms and we worked on propagation records while Wolfe read his book and drank beer, and at four o’clock they left for the afternoon session with the orchids, which is from four to six no matter what. As soon as they were gone I dialed the Gazette number and got Lon Cohen.
“Just a little personal favor,” I told him. “Nothing for publication. Have you had anything, maybe an accident, anything at all, about a woman named Hattie Annis?”