The phone rang. I swiveled my chair, not groaning, and lifted the instrument.
“Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.” “Oh, Mr. Goodwin? My husband has told me about you. This is Cecily Pine, Mrs.
Jasper Pine.” “Yes, Mrs. Pine.” “I just got home from a theater supper, and my husband told me about your inquiry regarding Waldo Moore. I would like to help, if I can in any way, and I don’t think these things should be put off, so I’ll drive down there now. I have the address.” I tried to keep my voice friendly and sociable. “I’m afraid it would be better to make it tomorrow, Mrs. Pine. It’s pretty late, and Mr. Wolfe-” But he ruined it. He had got on his extension, and broke in, “This is Mr. Wolfe, Mrs. Pine. I think it would be better to come now. An excellent idea. You have the address?” She said she had and would leave right away, and only had to come from Sixty-seventh Street. Wolfe and I hung up.
“It’s unfortunate,” Wolfe said. “You should be in bed, but it may be necessary for you to take notes.” “I’m not sleepy,” I said through my teeth. “I was hoping she would call.”
CHAPTER Fourteen
Considering what I knew of her, I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened the door and let her in. Probably I had unconsciously been expecting something on the order of Hedy Lamarr as she would be with the wrinkles of age, and therefore the sight of her pink smooth-skinned wholesome face and her medium-sized housewife’s chassis, a little plump maybe, but certainly not fat, gave me a shock.
“You’re Archie Goodwin,” she said in a low-pitched educated voice.
I admitted it.
She was openly staring at me, and advanced a step to see better. “What on earth,” she asked, “has happened to your face? It’s all red and bruised!” “Yeah. I got in a fight with a man and he hit me with his fist. Both fists.” “Good heavens! It looks simply awful. Have you got any beefsteak?” I did not believe, considering everything, that she was speaking from experience. She had simply read about it. I told her that it wasn’t bad enough to rate beefsteak at ninety cents a pound, adding pointedly that all I needed was a good long night’s sleep, and ushered her into the office.
Wolfe was on his feet, having probably got up to stretch. Mrs. Pine crossed to him to shake hands, declined the red leather chair because she preferred straight ones, accepted the one I placed for her, let me take her coat of platinum mink or aluminum sable or whatever it was, and sat down.
“You really ought to do something for your face,” she told me.
The funny thing was that her harping on it didn’t irritate me. She gave me the distinct impression that it really made her feel uncomfortable for me to be uncomfortable, and how could I resent that? So we discussed my face until Wolfe finally dived into an opening.
“You wanted to see me, madam, did you?” She turned to him, and her manner changed completely, possibly because he didn’t have bruises and red spots.
“Yes, I did,” she said crisply. “I thoroughly disapprove of what my husband has done, engaging you to investigate the death of Waldo Moore. What good can it possibly do?” “I’m sure I don’t know.” Wolfe was leaning back, with his forearms paralleled on the arms of his chair. “That’s a question for your husband. If you don’t like his engaging me you should persuade him to disengage me.” “I can’t. I’ve been trying to. He’s being extremely stubborn about it, and that’s why I came to see you.” Good for Jasper, I thought, but who the hell stuck a ramrod down his spine?
Mrs. Pine went on. “I suppose, of course, my husband has committed himself-or rather, the firm. If you withdraw from it, now, there’ll be no difficulty about that. I’ll pay whatever it comes to.” “What good would that do you?” Wolfe inquired testily. I won’t go so far as to say that he never liked women, but he sure didn’t like women who picked up the ball and started off with it. “Your husband would hire someone else. Besides, madam, while I like to charge high prices for doing something, I haven’t formed the habit of charging for doing nothing, and I won’t start with you. No.
Obviously you’re accustomed to getting what you want, but there must be some other way of doing it. What is it you want?” Mrs. Pine turned to me. For a second I thought she was going to revert to my face, but instead she asked, “What’s he like, Archie? Is he as stubborn as he sounds?” The Archie from her came perfectly natural. “From him,” I told her, “I would call that almost flabby.” “Good heavens.” She regarded Wolfe with interest but with no sign of dismay. “I presume,” she said abruptly, “you know that Waldo Moore was at one time a close friend of mine?” Wolfe nodded. “I have been told so. By Mr. Goodwin. He got his information from a newspaperman. Apparently it is known.” “Yes, of course. That’s the advantage of not trying to hide things; things that people know about are taken for granted. But permitting people to know about them, and permitting them to be publicly discussed in newspapers-that’s a very different thing. Do you suppose for a moment, Mr. Wolfe, that I am going to sit and do nothing while you make pictures for tabloids out of my private life?
While you make a public sensation out of the death of Waldo Moore?” “Certainly not, madam.” Wolfe was still testy. “It’s quite plain that you aren’t going to sit and do nothing. You aren’t now. You’ve come here to see me at half-past two in the morning. By the way, you must have asked that same question of your husband. What did he say?” “He says it will not become a public sensation. He says that all he is after is to stop the gossip at the office and make it impossible for my brother to start it again. But I don’t care to run that risk and I don’t intend to.” “What does your brother say? Have you discussed it with him?” That pricked her skin. Since I had not yet been told to take notes I was able to give her face my full attention, and that was the first sign it showed of needing to go into conference. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
It occurred to me that it seemed to run in the family, since at my so-called lunch with Kerr Naylor the first and only time he had paused to think had been when his sister had been inserted into the conversation.
She finally spoke. “I don’t know what is in my brother’s mind-not exactly. He won’t tell me, though he usually does. He is a-very peculiar man. He dislikes my husband and all of the other top men in the company -all except one or two.” Wolfe grunted. “Does he dislike you?” “Why, no. No!” “Then why doesn’t he stop his flummery about murder when you ask him to?” “He doesn’t-” She stopped, then went on, “That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but my brother says exactly what my husband says, that there’s no danger of it’s becoming public. But I don’t care what they say, there’s still a risk, and I have always believed in doing anything within reason to avoid unnecessary risks. If my husband and my brother are both going to act like spoiled brats-actually making idiots of themselves in my opinion-then I’ll have to take things into my own hands.” She looked at me, and immediately became a different woman. “It seems a little chilly in here, Archie. May I have my coat?” I thought no wonder, since she was still dressed for the theater, with nothing above the bra line but skin. For her age, which must surely have been mine plus ten, the skin was absolutely acceptable. I got the coat and draped it over her shoulders, and she smiled up at me for thanks, and I went and upped the thermostat a notch.