CHAPTER Eleven
The first chore on my list consisted of manual labor, with the typewriter in my room as the tool for it, so I went there and started to work.
I had asked, among other items, for some coated stock, letter size, and while the stuff they had sent was nothing to brag about, I inspected it again and decided it would serve. It was a quarter to four, only half an hour till my date with Jasper Pine, and therefore I had to step on it. Making a club sandwich of three sheets of the coated stock and two of carbon paper, I inserted them in the machine and typed in the upper right-hand corner in caps:›REPORT FROM THE OFFICE OF NERO WOLFE March 19 1947 Four spaces down, in the middle, I put: CONFIDENTIAL TO NAYLOR-KERR, INC.
914 William Street New York City
There wasn’t time to do it up brown, giving all the little details, the way it should be done for most clients to make them feel they’re getting something for their dough, but I made it fairly comprehensive and in my opinion adequate. It conveyed the information that Kerr Naylor had introduced Moore’s name in the first three minutes, that he had invited me to lunch and flushed me by calling me by my right name, that he insisted Moore had been murdered but refused to furnish an specifications of anything, that he had agreed to go to see Wolfe, that he said he had told Deputy Police Commissioner O’Hara that Moore had been murdered, and that he also said that Moore had been recommended for employment by his sister. In addition to all that on Naylor my report had a summary of my talk with Dickerson, the head of the Correspondence Checkers Section, a statement that word had got around in the department that I was investigating Moore’s death, and a one-sentence paragraph to the effect that I had talked with one Hester Livsey, who had been engaged to Moore, without any result worth mentioning. The only incident the report passed up entirely was my brief interview with the non-speller, which didn’t seem to me to be relevant-and of course the phone call to Lon Cohen at the Gazetee, which seemed to be a little too relevant.
Through at the typewriter, I signed the original, folded it and stuck it in my pocket, and did likewise with one of the carbons. The other carbon I didn’t fold. I went and unlocked the filing cabinet, opened the drawer I was using, removed all the folders, and with my handkerchief gave a good wipe to the inside of the metal drawer, sides and ends and bottoms. As I replaced the folders, which were made of green slick-surfaced cardboard, I wiped each one, all four surfaces. Inside the third folder from the top, on top of the papers that were already in it, I placed the second carbon of the report I had just typed, and on top of the report I carefully deposited four grains of tobacco which I had removed from the end of a cigarette. I put them in four selected spots and gently lowered the cardboard of the folder onto them. Closing the drawer, I wiped the whole front of the cabinet, and then I was confronted with a question which I would have liked to consider a little if it hadn’t been twelve minutes past four and me due upstairs in three minutes. Should I just leave it unlocked, or leave the key there in the lock? I voted for the former and stuck the key in my pocket.
I hotfooted it to the outside hall and the elevators, and, as I got off at the thirty-sixth floor, found myself faced by another question which I should have had an answer all ready for but had overlooked in the rush. For the veteran receptionist in the lobby of the executive offices, who was I? The day before, calling on Pine, I had been Goodwin. Was I now to be Truett and expect her to look straight at my intelligent face and think it credible that I didn’t know my own name? Impossible. I walked up to her desk and told her that Mr. Goodwin had an appointment with Mr. Pine for four-fifteen.
Then I had to sit and wait over ten minutes. Usually I am a good waiter, unruffled and relaxed, but that time it irritated me because I could have done a much better job of wiping if I hadn’t hurried. However, it couldn’t be helped, and I sat till I was summoned.
Pine looked tired, busy, and harassed. He stayed behind his desk and started talking before I got across to him.
“I can only give you a few minutes,” he said brusquely. “I already had a full schedule and things are piled up. What is it?” I handed him the original of the report and stayed on my feet. “Of course you could take it and read it later, but I thought maybe-” I chopped it off because he had started reading. He raced through it, three times as fast as Wolfe ever reads, and then went back and gave some of the paragraphs a second look. A sharp glance came at me. “I knew Mr. Naylor had called on the Deputy Commissioner of Police.” “Sure,” I conceded heartily. “You didn’t mention it, but a man can’t mention everything. Which reminds me, I’ve got a little problem. When Mr. Wolfe reads a copy of this, you see I know him pretty well, the first thing he’ll ask will be whether you knew Mr. Naylor’s sister had asked him to give Moore a job, and if so why you didn’t tell me.” I thought it was more diplomatic to say “Mr.
Naylor’s sister” than to say “your wife.” I was going on, “Of course if you don’t-” “Certainly I knew,” he snapped. “What has that got to do with it?” “Nothing, so far as I know.” I was conceding everything. “But I need your advice. AS I say, I know Mr. Wolfe. He’ll tell me to get Mr. Naylor’s sister on the phone, and ask her to come to his office to see him, and tf and when she won’t come he’ll tell me to go to see her, and I’ll have to go. What would you advise me to do?” “You work for Wolfe, don’t you?” “Yes.” “Then do what he tells you to.” “Okay, thanks. You have no suggestions or instructions?” “No.” Pine made his little gesture of impatience. “If you mean I might want to protect my wife from annoyance, you will learn why it is unnecessary when you meet her. What I want to know is how did Mr. Naylor learn your identity? Can you tell me?” “If I could,” I said, “it would be in that report. I’d like to know too. There are two possible ways. My picture has been in the paper a couple of times. It could be that he-or someone else and told him-remembered it well enough to recognize me, but the odds against it would go up into six figures. I like the other way better. How many people around here know about me? The receptionist outside, and who else? I believe you mentioned discussing it with two of your brother executives and a member of the Board of Directors.” I could tell by the look on his face that he was not lost at sea. He liked the other way better too, and he was checking off names. The ”-uh, complexities” were turning up again, and he wasn’t getting any pleasure out of them.