“What on earth are you talking about? What’s a T-woman?”
“Oh, come on down. When you went to get your coat you phoned him. Two of them waiting here in a car? And the way he went about it? If I’m wrong you can sue the newspaper and me both for libel.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Ha. You double-talking she-weasel. Giving me the dewy eye and purring at me, ‘I’m a woman.’ Touching my arm and asking me if you weren’t fit to be trusted. Come in and purr at Nero Wolfe a while. Are you coming or going?”
“I have nothing to say to Nero Wolfe. If you can set a trap—”
“Shut up! If I go in alone I ring my newspaper friend before I take off my coat and hat. Which do you want me to use, Tammy or Tamiris?”
No reply. I turned and started up the steps. She came. By the time I had my key out she was there, and I swung the door open and let her precede me. T-women first. She stood while I got rid of my hat and coat and then started for the office, but I stopped her. “In here,” I told her, opening the door to the front room, and she passed through. “I’m going to report first,” I said. “Help yourself to the magazines. Don’t bother to strain your ears; the soundproofing is good. I’m locking the door to the hall only so you won’t roam around looking for packages; if you get tired waiting you can leave by a window.”
She had something to say but I wasn’t interested. Leaving by the hall door, which I locked, and proceeding to the office, I found Wolfe at his desk counting bottle caps he had taken from his drawer. Tuesday is the day for checking the week’s beer consumption. I went and stood. When he looked up I asked, “Any more invasions?”
“No,” he said. “I had a talk with Mr. Cramer on the phone. He wanted to know what that woman told you yesterday and what you were doing at her house. Of course he wasn’t satisfied, he never is, and he may call. I’ll be through in a moment.” He finished putting the caps in groups of ten, figured the total, scowled at them, muttered, “I don’t understand it,” and brushed them into a heap. “Didn’t I hear a woman’s voice?”
“You did. She’s in the front room. The bait worked fine, as planned, but it hooked the wrong fish. It is now one sweet mess. I’ll have to report in full.”
“Very well.”
I went to my desk and sat, and gave it to him, omitting nothing. He is the best listener I know of, his most violent reaction being with his fingertip, making circles the size of a quarter on the arm of his chair. When I got to the end and said, “If you have no use for her I’ll take her to the Empire State Building and push her off,” he moved the fingertip to rub the side of his nose.
He cleared his throat. “It could be that your wit was dulled by your discomfiture. How certain are you that she is a colleague of Mr. Leach?”
“Utterly. Totally. Absolutely. She is probably kept under cover and used only for special occasions. I doubt if Tammy Baxter is her real name.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes, and his lips moved — out to a pucker and then in again, out and in, out and in. His record for that performance is around forty minutes. That time it was only three or four. He opened his eyes and spoke. “I need your opinion.”
“Of her?”
“No. Of a stratagem. That one miscarried, but it has prepared the way for another. I’ll describe it.”
He did so, and I gave it both ears. It was nothing as complicated or fancy as some of the programs he has cooked up, and I had to answer only three questions as my contribution. And at the end a fourth, when he asked, “Well?”
“Yes,” I said, “except for one detail. What if you can’t keep her here and Leach is waiting for me at the door?”
He grunted. “Am I a clod? Bring her.”
I went and opened the connecting door and said, “In here, Miss Baxter.”
VI
As she sat in the red leather chair Wolfe frowned at her on principle and I frowned at her in particular. The chair would have held two of her, and in order to have her knees straight in front and her feet flat she had to sit on the edge. Twenty-four hours earlier I would have thought that she went fine with the red leather, but now my mind was closed.
“Do you know what a premise is, madam?” Wolfe demanded.
“Why... yes,” she said.
“We have one: that you are an agent of the Secret Service of the Treasury Department. If you’re going to waste my time denying it you may as well go. If you do, you know what Mr. Goodwin’s intentions are and I approve of them. It would be a readable item. He suffered a contretemps, but so did you and your colleagues. Shall I proceed?”
“I’ll listen,” she said.
“Good. First, I am concerned only with the exposure of a murderer. With you that is secondary; your target is a counterfeiter. The reason for my concern is personal and not material to this discussion. I wish you success in your pursuit, but I won’t let it impede mine. You know who killed Hattie Annis.”
“I do not!”
“I think you do. At least you have grounds for a strong suspicion. You were assigned to that house because there was evidence that someone there was involved in a counterfeiting operation, and you have lived there three weeks. Surely you aren’t so inept that you learned nothing. You may even have known who it was when you went there, and your purpose was to discover his source of supply. I won’t list the reasons for the assumption that he killed Hattie Annis; you know them as well as I do. I don’t suggest that you will let a murderer escape his doom if it suits your convenience; it is merely that you give priority to your objective, and I do not. But the advantage is with me. I have the package of counterfeit bills.”
Her eyes widened. “You have it? You admit it?”
“I state it, here with you, where Mr. Goodwin makes it two to one if you are moved to quote me. Parenthetically, there is a plausible explanation for the package that was just taken from the pocket of Mr. Goodwin’s coat. Yesterday Mr. Leach asked if Hattie Annis had left some counterfeit money here. Obviously there was some somewhere, and presumably it had been a factor in Miss Annis’ fate, so I told Mr. Goodwin to make a package of appropriate size and shape to use as bait. That’s our explanation for the record; for you the truth is better. We have the package.”
“Where is it?”
“Out of your reach, I assure you. Another parenthesis: the disclosure of your status removes some difficulties. As an instance, we had supposed that Mr. Leach knew that Miss Annis had come to this house yesterday because he or one of his men had followed her here. But if so, as Mr. Goodwin pointed out to me, why hadn’t he followed her when she left, and why hadn’t he seen the driver of the car that killed her? Now those questions are answered. She was followed here by the man who was soon to kill her — and you could name him — but not by Mr. Leach. He knew she had come here because you told him. I concede that you are not without gumption. When you learned that Mr. Goodwin had said on the phone that his name was Buster you inferred that Miss Annis had spoken with him, and you left the room, ostensibly to get your lipstick, but actually to make a phone call.” His head turned. “Archie?”