“Sure I do,” he conceded. “God knows I do. But how it could help for you to go and discuss it with a private detective-No, I don’t see it.”
They looked at each other. The mutual resemblance was so remarkable that you might say they had the same face, allowing for the difference in age; and also they were built alike. Her bulk was more bone and meat than fat, and so was his.
When she spoke I got a suspicion that I had misjudged her. Her tone was new, dry and cool and meaningful. “I think I ought to go,” she said.
He appealed now. “Please, Mumsy. At least we can talk it over. You can go later, after dinner.” He turned to me. “Could she see Wolfe this evening?”
“She could,” I admitted. “Now would be better.”
“I really am tired,” she told me. Her tone was back to what might have been normal. “All this awful business. After dinner would be better. What is the address?”
I got my wallet, took out a card, and handed it to her. “By the way,” I observed, “that reminds me. At that meeting last Friday at Mr. Beebe’s office, Aubry put one of his cards on Beebe’s desk and left it there. Do you happen to remember what became of it?”
Mrs. Savage said promptly, “I remember he took out a card, but I don’t-”
“Hold it,” Dick barked at her, gripping her arm so hard that she winced. “Go upstairs.”
She tried to twist loose, found it wouldn’t work, and leveled her eyes at him to stare him off. That didn’t work either. His eyes were as level as hers, and harder and meaner. Four seconds of it was enough for her. When he turned her around she didn’t resist, and without a word she walked to the stairs and started up. He faced me and demanded, “What’s this about a card?”
“What I said. Aubry put one on Beebe’s desk-”
“Who says he did?”
“Aubry.”
“Yeah? A guy in for murder? Come again.”
“Glad to. Beebe says so too.”
Dick snorted. “That little louse? That punk?” He lifted a hand to tap my chest with a finger, but a short backward step took me out of range. “Listen, brother. If you and your boss think you can frame an out for Aubry don’t let me stop you, but don’t come trying to work my mother in, or me either. Is that plain?”
“I merely want to know-”
“The way out,” he said rudely, and strode to the door and opened it. Since I stay where I’m not wanted only when there is a chance of gaining something, I took advantage of his courtesy and passed on through to the sidewalk.
I was getting low on prospects. Back at the Park Avenue address, where the hallman and I were by now on intimate terms, he informed me that Mrs. Horne had come in, and he had told her that Mr. Goodwin had called several times and would return, and she had said to send me up.
At Apartment D on the twelfth floor I was admitted by a maid, properly outfitted, who showed me to a living room where a slice of Karnow’s money had been used with no great taste but a keen eye to comfort. I sat down, and almost at once got up again when Ann Horne entered. She met me and let me have a hand.
“We’ll have to hurry,” she said. “My husband may be home any minute. What do you do first, rubber hose?”
She was wearing a nice simple blue dress that either was silk or wanted to be, and had renovated her make-up since coming in from the street.
“Not here,” I told her. “Get the stole. I’m taking you to a dungeon.”
She flowed onto a couch. “Sit down and describe it to me. Rats, I hope?”
“No, we can’t get rats to stay. Bad air.” I sat. “As a matter of fact, I’ve decided the physical approach wouldn’t work with you, and we’re going after you mentally. That’s Mr. Wolfe’s department, and he never leaves the house, so I’ve come to take you down there. You can leave word for your husband, and he can join us.”
“That doesn’t appeal to me at all. Mentally I’m a wreck already. What’s the matter, are you afraid I can’t take it?”
“On the contrary, I’m afraid I can’t give it. Nature went to a lot of trouble with you, and I’d hate to spoil it. You’d enjoy a session with Nero Wolfe. He’s afraid of women anyhow, and you’d scare him stiff.”
She pulled a routine that I approved of. Knowing that if she took a cigarette I’d have to get up to light it, she first picked up a lighter and flicked it on, and then reached to a box for the cigarette. A darned good idea.
“What’s the score?” she asked, after inhaling and letting it out.
I told her. “Paul Aubry is charged with murder. Mr. Wolfe can earn a big fee only by clearing him. Mr. Wolfe has never let a big fee get away. So Aubry will be cleared. We’ll be glad to let you share the glory, though not the fee. Get the stole, and let’s go.”
“You’re irresistible,” she said admiringly. “It’s too bad about Paul.”
“Not at all. When he gets out he can marry his wife.”
“If he gets out. Do you remember nursery rhymes?”
“I wrote them.”
“Then of course you remember this one:
“Needles and pins,
Needles and pins,
When a man murders
His trouble begins.”
“Sure, that’s one of my favorites. Only Aubry didn’t murder.”
She nodded. “That’s your line, of course, and you’re stuck with it.” She reached to crush her cigarette in a tray, then suddenly turned to me with her eyes flashing. “All this poppycock! All this twaddle about life being sacred! For everybody there’s just one life that’s sacred, and everybody knows it! Mine!” She spread her hand on her breast. “Mine! And Sidney’s was sacred to him, but he’s dead. So it’s too bad about Paul.”
“If you feel that way about it you ought to be ready to give him a lift.”
“I might be if I had anything to lift with.”
“Maybe I can furnish something. Last Friday you were at a conference at Jim Beebe’s office. Aubry put one of his business cards on Beebe’s desk. Why did you pick up that card, and what did you do with it?”
She stared at me a moment. Then she shook her head. “You’ll have to get out the rubber hose, or pliers to pull out my nails. Even then I may hold out.”
“Didn’t you pick up the card?”
“I did not.”
“Then who did?”
“I have no idea-if there was a card.”
“You don’t remember Aubry putting it on the desk? Or seeing it there?”
“No. But this begins to sound like something. You sound as if you’re really detecting. Are you?”
I nodded. “This is called the double sly squeeze. First I get you to deny you touched the card, which I have done. Then I display one of Aubry’s cards in a cellophane envelope, tell you it has fingerprints on it which I suspect are yours, and dare you to let me take your prints so I can check. You’re afraid to refuse-”
“Come and show me how you take my prints. I’ve never had it done.”
I was, I admit it, curious. Was she inviting physical contact because she was like that, or was she expecting to voodoo me, or was she merely passing the time? To find out I got up and went to her, took her offered hand and got it snugly in mine, palm up, and bent over it for a closeup. The hand seemed to be telling me that it didn’t mind the operation at all, and with the fingertips of my other hand I spread her fingers apart, bending lower.