“I don’t see how—”
“Hold it. I know you’re biting nails, but hold it. You can tell them that Mr. Wolfe will explain why this conference is necessary, and he will. Have you told any of them about your gun being taken?”
“No.”
“Don’t. He will. He’ll explain that when you learned that Eber had been shot with a thirty-eight — that should be on the air by now, and it will be in the early afternoon papers — you were concerned, naturally, and you hired him to investigate, and he insisted on seeing all of you. I know you’ve got objections. You’ll have to swallow them, but if you want help on it get rid of Wyman and Nora and call me back. If you don’t call back we’ll be expecting you, all of you, here at six o’clock.”
“No. I’ll call back.”
“Sure, glad to have you.”
I hung up, turned, and told Wolfe, “You heard all of it except his noes and yeses. Satisfactory?”
“No,” he said, but that was just reflex.
I’ll say one thing for Wolfe, he hates to have anyone else’s meal interrupted almost as much as his own. One of the standing rules in that house is that when we are at table, and nothing really hot is on, Fritz answers the phone in the kitchen, and if it seems urgent I go and get it. There may be something or somebody Wolfe would leave the table for, but I don’t know what or who.
That day Fritz was passing a platter of what Wolfe calls hedgehog omelet, which tastes a lot better than it sounds, when the phone rang, and I told Fritz not to bother and went to the office. It was Jarrell calling back, and he had a lot of words besides yes and no. I permitted him to let off steam until it occurred to me that the omelet would be either cold or shriveled, and then told him firmly that it was either bring them or else. Back at the table, I found that the omelet had had no chance to either cool or shrivel, not with Orrie there to help Wolfe with it. I did get a bite.
We had just started on the avocado, whipped with sugar and lime juice and green chartreuse, when the doorbell rang. During meals Fritz was supposed to get that too, but I thought Jarrell might have rushed down to use more words face-to-face, so I got up and went to the hall for a look through the one-way glass panel in the front door. Having looked, I returned to the dining room and told Wolfe, “One’s here already. The stenographer. Nora Kent.”
He swallowed avocado. “Nonsense. You said six o’clock.”
“Yes, sir. She must be on her own.” The bell rang again. “And she wants in.” I aimed a thumb at Orrie. “Archie Goodwin here can take her to the office and shut the door.”
“Confound it.” He was going to have to work sooner than expected. To Orrie: “You are Archie Goodwin.”
“Yes, sir,” Orrie said. “It’s a comedown, but I’ll try. Do I know her?”
“No. You have never seen or heard of her.” The bell rang again. “Take her to the office and come and finish your lunch.”
He went. He closed the door, but the office was just across the hall, and it might startle her if she heard Alan Green’s voice as she went by, so I used my mouth for an avocado depot only. Sounds came faintly, since the walls and doors on that floor are all soundproofed.
When Orrie entered he shut the door, returned to his place, picked up his spoon, and spoke. “You didn’t say to rub it in that I’m Archie Goodwin, and she didn’t ask, so I didn’t mention it. She said her name was Nora Kent, and she wants to see Mr. Wolfe. How long am I going to be Archie Goodwin?”
I put in. “Mr. Wolfe never talks business at the table, you know that, Orrie. You haven’t been told yet, but you were going to be me at a party later on, and now you can practice. Just sit at my desk and look astute. I’ll have my eye on you. I’ll be at the hole — unless Mr. Wolfe has other plans.”
“No,” Wolfe muttered. “I have no plans.”
The hole, ten inches square, was at eye level in the wall twelve feet to the right of Wolfe’s desk. On the office side it was covered by what appeared to be just a pretty picture of a waterfall. On the other side, in a wing of the hall across from the kitchen, it was covered by nothing, and you could not only see through but also hear through. My longest stretch there was one night when we had four people in the front room waiting for Wolfe to show up (he was in the kitchen chinning with Fritz), and we were expecting and hoping that one of them would sneak into the office to get something from a drawer of Wolfe’s desk, and we wanted to know which one. That time I stood there at that hole more than three hours, and the door from the front room never opened.
This time it was much less than three hours. Orrie waited to open the door to the office until I was around the corner to the wing, so I saw his performance when they went in. As Goodwin he was barely adequate introducing Wolfe to her, hamming it, I thought; and crossing to my desk and sitting, he was entirely out of character, no grace or flair at all. I would have to rehearse him before six o’clock came. I had a good view of him and Nora, but could get Wolfe, in profile, only by sticking my nose into the hole and pressing my forehead against the upper edge.
WOLFE: I’m sorry you had to wait, Miss Kent. It is Miss Kent?
NORA: Yes. I am employed by Mr. Otis Jarrell. His stenographer. I believe you know him.
WOLFE: There is no taboo on beliefs, or shouldn’t be. The right to believe will be the last to go. Proceed.
NORA: You do know Mr. Jarrell?
WOLFE: My dear madam. I have rights too — for instance, the right to decline inquisition by a stranger. You are not here by appointment.
(That was meant to cut. If it did, no blood showed.)
NORA: There wasn’t time to make one. I had to see you at once. I had to ask you why you sent your confidential assistant, Archie Goodwin, to take a job with Mr. Jarrell as his secretary.
WOLFE: I wasn’t aware that I had done so. Archie, did I send you to take a job as Mr. Jarrell’s secretary?
ORRIE: No, sir, not that I remember.
NORA: (with no glance at Orrie) He’s not Archie Goodwin. I knew Archie Goodwin the minute I saw him, Monday afternoon. I keep a scrapbook, Mr. Wolfe, a personal scrapbook. Among the things I put in it are pictures of people who have done things that I admire. There are three pictures of you, two from newspapers and one from a magazine, put in at different times, and one of Archie Goodwin. It was in the Gazette last year when you caught that murderer — you remember — Patrick Degan. I knew him the minute I saw him, and after I looked in my scrapbook there was no question about it.
(Orrie was looking straight at the pretty picture of the waterfall, at me though he couldn’t see me, with blood in his eye, and I couldn’t blame him. He had been given to understand that the part was a cinch, that he wouldn’t have to do or say anything to avert suspicion because she wouldn’t have any. And there he was, a monkey. I couldn’t blame him.)
WOLFE: (not visibly fazed, but also a monkey) I am flattered, Miss Kent, to be in your scrapbook. No doubt Mr. Goodwin is also flattered, though he might challenge your taste in having three pictures of me and only one of him. It will save—
NORA: Why did you send him there?
WOLFE: If you please. It will save time, and also breath, to proceed on an assumption, without prejudice. Obviously you’re convinced that Mr. Goodwin took a job as Mr. Jarrell’s secretary, and that I sent him, and it would be futile to try to talk you out of it. So we’ll assume you’re right. I don’t concede it, but I’m willing to assume it for the sake of discussion. What about it?
NORA: I am right! You know it!
WOLFE: No. You may have it as an assumption, but not as a fact. What difference does it make? Let’s get on. Did Mr. Goodwin take the job under his own name?