While we walked over to Third Avenue, she took my arm, chatting innocently, apparently unaware of what her soft grip was doing to my heartbeat and respiration. As always when I was with her, I was blind and deaf to our surroundings. All my senses were zeroed in on her, and once, when she shivered with cold, said, 'Brrr!' and hugged my arm to her yielding breast, I almost sobbed with joy.
In the restaurant all I wanted was to look at her, watch those perfect white teeth bite into a dumpling, note how the soft column of her throat moved when she swallowed, and how she patted her mouth delicately with a paper napkin when a small burp rose to her lips.
'Oh, Josh,' she said, between bites and swallows, 'did I tell you about this absolutely marvy sweater I saw in this store on Madison? I'd love to get it, but it's soo expensive, and also it's cut way down. I mean it really is a plunging neckline, and I suppose I'd have to wear a scarf with it, something that would cover me a little if I wore it to work, or maybe a blouse under it, but that would spoil the lines because it's sooo clinging, and it's like a forest green. Do you like green, Josh?'
'Love green,' I said hoarsely.
'It costs sooo much, but maybe just this once I'll spend more than I should because I believe that if you really want something, you should get it no matter what it costs. I have this saying, "I don't want anything but the best," and that's really the way I feel, and I suppose you think I'm just terrible.'
'Of course not. You deserve the — '
'Oh well,' she said, giggling, 'maybe I'll buy it as a birthday present to me from myself.'
'It's your birthday?' I cried.
'Oh not yet, Josh. Not until next week. But I certainly hope you don't think I'm, you know, telling you that for any, you know, ulterior motive like I was angling for a present or anything, because I'm certainly not that kind of girl.'
'I know that, Yetta.'
She reached across the table to put a hand briefly on mine.
We got fortune cookies with our ice cream. Yetta's fortune was A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU. Mine read: A NEW LIFE AWAITS YOU.
Yetta stared at me, suddenly solemn.
'Josh,' she said, 'isn't that the strangest thing that ever happened to you? I mean, we're both going to have a new life. I certainly think that's strange. You don't suppose —? '
She broke off, glanced at her watch.
'Goodness,' she said, 'look at the time! I've really got to get back. Duty calls!'
We strolled back to the office together. Just before we got there I said, 'Yetta, that store where you saw the sweater you liked. . '
'Between 36th and 37th,' she said, 'On the west side. It's in the window.'
I resolutely stayed in my office all afternoon and worked hard on routine inquiries from the junior partners and associates. A few minutes after four o'clock, I called the officer who had investigated Sol Kipper's suicide. He answered the phone formally.
'Detective Percy Stilton.'
'Sir,' I said, 'my name is Joshua Bigg. I work for the legal firm of Tabatchnick, Orsini, Reilly, and Teitelbaum.
Mr Tabatchnick gave me your name and address. He said you investigated the suicide of Solomon Kipper.'
'Kipper?' he said. 'Oh yes, that's right. I caught that one.'
'I was hoping I could talk to you about it,' I said. 'This concerns a matter of estate and insurance claims.'
'I can't show you the file,' he said.
'Oh no,' I said hastily. 'Nothing like that. I mean, this isn't official. Very informal. You won't be asked to testify.
I just wanted to ask a few questions.'
'You say this concerns insurance?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Uh-huh,' he said. He was silent a moment. Then: 'Well, I guess it wouldn't do any harm. You want to come over here?'
'I was wondering if we might meet somewhere. Dinner perhaps?'
'Dinner?' he said. 'You on an expense account?'
'Yes, sir,' I said.
'Great,' he said. 'I'm getting tired of pizza. Want to make it tonight?'
'That would be fine.'
'I have to do some work later at Midtown Precinct North. That's on West 54th Street. I should be finished about eight o'clock, and be able to break loose for a while.
I'll meet you at eight or thereabouts at the Cheshire Cheese 79
on West 51st Street between Eighth and Ninth. It's veddy British.'
I was tidying up my desk, getting ready to leave, when my phone rang. That was a welcome change.
'Joshua Bigg,' I answered.
'Just a moment, Mr Bigg,' a woman's voice said. 'Dr Morris Stolowitz calling.' When he came on he was loud and irascible. 'What's this about Professor Stonehouse?'
he demanded.
I told him who I was and whom I worked for, and explained that I wanted to talk to him. He wanted to know where I got his name and snarled that the doctor-patient relationship was confidential. In the end he said he could see me for five minutes the next day. He slammed down the phone and I decided to call it a day.
Since my route home took me to Madison Avenue, I, found the store Yetta Apatoff had mentioned. The green sweater was in the window, displayed on a mannequin.
Yetta hadn't exaggerated; that neckline didn't plunge, it submerged. About as far down as my spirits when I saw the price: $59.95. Maybe she'd like a nice handkerchief instead. I decided to think about it for a while; after all, her birthday wasn't until next week. I continued down Madison to 23rd Street, took a crosstown bus to Ninth Avenue, then walked home from there. Captain Shank wasn't on the third-floor landing to greet me, but I could hear his TV set blaring behind his closed door. I sneaked into my own apartment and shut my door ever so softly. I liked the old man, I really did, but I was not partial to muscatel.
At 7.30 I took the Eighth Avenue bus uptown and arrived at 51st Street ahead of time. I found the Cheshire Cheese, a few steps down from the sidewalk. It was, as Stilton had said, an English-style restaurant with a long bar on the left as you entered, and small tables for two along the right wall. In the rear, I could see a large dining room 80
with tables for four.
It was a pleasantly dim place, redolent with appetizing cooking odours and decorated with horse brasses and coats of arms. The theatre crowd had already departed, and there were few diners: two men together, two couples, and a foursome. No Detective Stilton.
I waited near the entrance until a slender man wearing a long white apron came from behind the bar and approached me. He was polishing a wine goblet with a cloth.
'Sir?' he said.
'I'm meeting a gentleman,' I said. 'Perhaps I'll take a table and have a drink while I'm waiting.'
'Very good,' he said, looking around. 'How about the corner?'
So that's where I was seated after I had hung up my coat. My back was to the wall, and I could watch the entrance. A waiter came over and I ordered a Scotch and water.
I had taken only one sip when a tall black man came into the Cheshire Cheese and looked around. He took off his coat and hat, stowed them on the open rack, and came walking directly towards me with a light, bouncy stride. I struggled out of my chair to shake his hand.
'Mr Bigg?' he said. 'I'm Stilton.' As he shifted the free chair from my right to sit opposite me, the waiter scurried over to move the pewter serving platter, napkin, utensils, and water goblet in front of the detective.
'Waiting long?' Stilton asked.
'Just got here,' I told him. 'I'm having a drink.
Something for you?'
He ordered a dry martini straight up, no twist or olive. It arrived with lightning speed.
'All right?' I asked him.
'Just right,' he said. 'How long have you been a Chief Investigator?'