"Thank you," Wolfe said politely. His head turned. "Miss McGee, where were you last evening from nine o'clock to midnight?"
"Don't answer him," Aiken commanded her. "Don't answer anything. We're going. You can answer me, but not here. Come on." She looked at him, at Wolfe, and back at him. "But Mr. Aiken, I have to! I have to answer that. I told you, I thought that was what he wanted to see me about - that girl, Maria Perez." She didn't pronounce either "Maria" or "Perez" the way they did. "That's why he wants to know where I was last evening." She turned to Wolfe. "I never saw that girl. I never heard of her until I read the paper today. I didn't kill Mr. Yeager and I didn't kill her. I don't know anything about her. Last evening I had dinner with friends and I was there all evening, with them and other people, until after midnight. Their name is Quinn and they live at Ninety-eight West Eleventh Street. I had to tell him that, Mr. Aiken. It's bad enough for me without - I had to."
He was focused on Wolfe. "What about the girl?" he demanded.
Wolfe shook his head. "Since I lie, why bother to ask?"
That was the note it ended on. Plenty of times clients have left that office boiling or sore or sulky, but I have never seen one quite as peevish as Aiken. Not, I must admit, without reason. As he said, Wolfe had the handle, and a president is used to having the handle himself. Leaving with Julia McGee, he forgot his manners, leading the way out of the office and down the hall to the door, and when I reached to get his homburg from the rack he snatched it from my hand. Miss McGee was in for a bad half-hour. I returned to the office and told Wolfe, "It's a good thing presidents don't sign corporation checks. He'd get palsy signing one made out to you."
He grunted. "If indeed. You realize that we have never been so close to catastrophe. And ignominy."
"Yes, sir."
"It is imperative that we find the murderer before Mr. Cramer finds that room."
"Yes, sir."
"Will Mr. and Mrs. Perez hold out?"
"Yes, sir."
"Tell Fritz to set a place at lunch for Fred. Then get Saul and Orrie. Here at two-thirty. If they have other commitments I'll speak to them. I must have them this afternoon."
"Yes, sir." I moved.
"Wait. That woman, Meg Duncan - presumably she was at the theater last evening?"
"Presumably. I can find out."
"Until when?"
"The play ends about ten to eleven; then she had to change. If she made a date with Maria Perez for eleven-thirty she could have kept it without rushing. Have I missed something?"
"No. We must cover contingencies. Instructions after you get Saul and Orrie." I went to the kitchen to tell Fritz.
13
May I introduce Mr. Saul Panzer and Mr. Orrie Cather? Mr. Panzer is the one in the red leather chair. Looking at him - his big nose, his little deep-set eyes, his hair that won't stay in place - you will suppose that he isn't much. Hundreds of people who have supposed that have regretted it. A good operative has to be good in a dozen different ways, and in all of them Saul is the best. Mr. Cather, in the yellow chair to Saul's left, might fool you too. He is fully as handsome as he looks, but not quite as smart as he looks, though he might be if his ego didn't get in the way. If a man is to be judged by a single act and you have a choice, the one to pick is how he looks at himself in a mirror, and I have seen Orrie do that. You have met Mr. Fred Durkin, in the chair next to Orrie's.
Wolfe and Fred and I had just come from the dining room to join Saul and Orrie in the office. During lunch I had been wondering what Wolfe had on the program for them, considering the instructions he had given me. With me it had got to the point where earning a fee was only secondary; the main question was how we were going to wriggle down off the limb we were out on; and while I fully appreciated the talents and abilities of those three men, I couldn't guess how they were going to be used to find an answer to that. So I wanted to hear that briefing, but as I went to my chair and whirled it around Wolfe spoke.
"We won't need you, Archie. You have your instructions."
I sat. "Maybe I can supply details."
"No. You had better get started." I got up and went. There were several pointed remarks I could have made, for instance that I had a right to know what the chances were that I would sleep in my bed that night, but it might not fit his script, granting that he had one, for Saul and Fred and Orrie to know how bad it was. So I went, spry and jaunty until I was in the hall out of sight. I had a date with an actress, made on the phone, but not for a specified minute - any time between three and four. It was five after three when I entered the lobby of the Balfour on Madison Avenue in the Sixties, gave the hallman my name, and said Miss Meg Duncan was expecting me.
He gave me a knowing look and inquired, "How's the fat man?"
I said, "Turn around. I'm not much good at faces, but I remember backs."
He said, "You wouldn't remember mine. I used to hop at the Churchill. Has Miss Duncan lost something?"
"Questions answered while I wait," I told him. "Mr. Wolfe is just fine, thanks. Miss Duncan can't find her solid gold knuckleduster and thinks you took it."
He grinned. "It's a treat to meet you. You can pick it up on your way out. Twelfth floor. Twelve D."
I went and entered the elevator and was lifted. Twelve D was at the end of the hall. I pushed the button, and in half a minute the door opened a crack and a voice asked who it was. I pronounced my name, the door swung wide, and a square-jawed female sergeant gave me an unfriendly look. "Miss Duncan has a bad headache," she said in a voice that went with the jaw and the look. "Can't you tell me what - "
"Mike!" A voice from inside somewhere.
"Is that Mr. Goodwin?"
"Yes! He says it is!"
"Then send him in here!"
A man is bound to feel a little uneasy if he has an appointment to call on a young woman in the middle of the afternoon and is ushered into a room dimmed by Venetian blinds, and she is in bed and clad accordingly, especially if as soon as the door is closed behind you she says, "I haven't got a headache, sit here," and pats the edge of the bed. Even if you are certain that you can keep control of the situation - but that's the trouble; you can't help feeling that keeping control of the situation is not what your fellow men have a right to expect of you, let alone her fellow women.
There was a chair turned to face the bed, and I took it. As I sat she asked if I had brought her cigarette case.
"No," I said, "but it's still there in the safe, and that's something. Mr. Wolfe sent me to ask you a question. Where were you yesterday evening from nine o'clock to midnight?"
If she had been on her feet, or even on a chair, I believe she would have jumped me again, from the way her eyes flashed. It was personal, not professional. "I wish I had clawed your eyes out," she said.
"I know, you said that before. But I didn't come to fire that question at you just to hear you say it again. If you have seen a newspaper you may have noticed that a girl named Maria Perez was murdered last night?"
"Yes."
"And that she lived at One-fifty-six West Eighty-second Street?"
"Yes."
"So where were you?"
"You know where I was. At the theater. Working."
"Until ten minutes to eleven. Then you changed. Then?"