“Yeah,” I said. “Her name is Hester Livsey.” “Good. Week-ending in Connecticut? Told the Westport police that she knows nothing of Mr. Naylor and her association with him was remote?” “Yes, sir.” “Get Mr. Cramer-or Mr. Stebbins.”
CHAPTER Twenty-Three
It is a simple thing to make a swivel-chair swivel a half-turn and to pick up a phone, but sometimes the simple things are the hardest. I did not perform that maneuver. Instead, I wet my upper lip with my tongue, then my lower lip, and then got the tip of the tongue between my teeth and experimented to see how hard I had to bite to produce pain.
“Well?” Wolfe demanded. “What’s the matter?” I gave the tongue its freedom. “I am reminded,” I said, “of the famous remark of Ferdinand Bowen up at Sing Sing when they told him to walk to the chair they had got ready for him. He muttered at them, ‘The idea is repugnant to me.’ Not that I regard the fix I’m in as identical, but I am strongly disinclined-” “What’s repugnant about it?” “I like the way the sun shines through Miss Livsey’s hair.” “Pfui. Phone Mr. Stebbins.” “Also, while it is true I pronounced her name, all I had was a description and I think it should be verified by having Saul look at her before we toss her into the fire.” “We’re not engaged to catch the murderer of Mr. Naylor. I’m not going to pay transportation to Westport for Saul and you.” “You don’t have to. He can see her Monday down at the office.” “It would be improper to withhold information-” “Listen to you! Will you please listen to you?” My voice was up without needing any instructions. “One of the main reasons you love to get information is so you can keep it from the cops, and you know it! You’re just being pigheaded, and if you phone Stebbins yourself, which you won’t because exercise is bad for you, I’ll withdraw my identification. From Saul’s description I would guess that it was the Duchess of Brimstone, who is in this country-” “Archie.” Wolfe was glaring. “Has that girl enravished you? Has she cajoled you into frenzy?” “Yes, sir.” That took the edge off him instantly. He leaned back, nodded to himself, made a circle with his lips, and exhaled with a sort of hiss that was the closest he ever got to a whistle.
“Monday will do,” he declared, as if no one but a fool could think otherwise. “I was impetuous.” He looked at the clock on the wall, which said two minutes to four, time for his afternoon session with the orchids. He engineered himself out of his chair and was erect. “You can come here Monday morning, Saul, and go downtown with Archie. For the present-come up to the plant rooms with me. I have one or two suggestions for you.” They left, Saul for the stairs and Wolfe for his elevator. Their destination reminded me that I had got behind on the germination and blooming records, and I opened a desk drawer to get the accumulation of memos from Theodore.
CHAPTER Twenty-Four
I had got behind on sleep too, and I caught up that night, Saturday. But not quite to the extent that Wolfe thought I did. Soon after he had gone up to the roof with Saul my mind had informed me that it was too restless to concentrate on germination records, at least of plants, and I had gone and got the car and driven to Twentieth Street to see what was stirring. Sergeant Purley Stebbins had not thought it necessary, just because for some hours I had enjoyed the important role of last man to see the victim alive, to open all the books for me, but I was allowed to hang around long enough to get an impression that nothing startling had developed. Of course a couple of them took a stab at trying to filter out of me the dope on how Wolfe had learned about Naylor taking a taxi on Fifty-third Street, but I had insisted that I had had nothing whatever to do with it, which was perfectly true. The taxi driver had not yet been collected, though the number of his cab had of course led them straight to where he should have been. He had gone to Connecticut to fish for shad, and a courier had been sent to get him, and I only hoped to God he wouldn’t find him walking back and forth on a river bank with Hester Livsey.
It was because of her that Wolfe thought I got more sleep Saturday night than I really did. Saturday nights I usually take some person of an interesting sex to a hockey or basketball game, or maybe a fight at the Garden, but that one I worked in the office a while after dinner and then announced that I was sleepy.
Taking some doughnuts, blackberry jam, and a pitcher of milk upstairs with me, I sat in the chair I had selected and paid for myself and went over matters. On account of Saul’s description of her clothes, particularly the dark brown hat with a white cloth flower, I knew darned well it had been Hester Livsey he had seen with Naylor. I deny I was in a frenzy, but when a girl has patted a man’s head he should be willing to go to a little trouble to see that she gets a break. Besides, it isn’t often that at first sight, in the very first minute, a girl gives you the feeling that no one on earth but you knows how beautiful she is, and that too seemed to me to be worthy of consideration.
I thought she should have a chance to wipe off the smudge, in case it hadn’t made a stain that wouldn’t come out, and I well knew what the wiping process would be like if we turned her over to Cramer and his bozos. It could be that her walkie-talkie with Naylor had concerned a private matter not connected with what was about to happen to him, and if it had, and if she chose to keep it to herself, she was as likely a prospect as I had ever seen for an all-day and all-night conference with men, coming at her in shifts, who think nothing of taking their coats off in front of ladies. What I had come to my room to consider was whether to go get the car and drive to Westport and have some conversation with her. I decided against it finally, and undressed and went to bed, because if it turned out wrong in the end it would be Wolfe who would have to save the pieces, not me.
Next morning, Sunday, I was in the kitchen finishing breakfast, enjoying the last two swallows of my second cup of coffee and reading the paper, when the doorbell rang. Fritz went to answer it, and when, a moment later, I heard a female voice in the hall I tossed the paper down and went to see.
“A lady, Archie,” Fritz told me.
“Yeah, that’s what you always think. Hello there.” It was Rosa Bendini, Mrs. Harold Anthony, and she was good and scared if I know what emotions look like.
She came down the hall to me and practically demanded, “For God’s sake put your arms around me!” I didn’t regard the request as offensive per se, but Fritz was there, on his way back to the kitchen, and in his Swiss-French way he can be a very tenacious kidder. So I tried to hold her off and spoke sharply, but she kept uttering sounds, possibly even words, and was determined to crawl inside of me. Fritz was staying as an impartial observer. She wasn’t keeping her voice down, we were at the foot of the stairs, and Wolfe was in his room one flight up, eating his breakfast. I picked her up, carried her into the office, deposited her in the red leather chair, and told her roughly: “You look like you just escaped from night court and the chase is hot. Is your husband out front?” “My husband?” She slid forward to the edge of the chair. “Is he here?” “I don’t know, I was asking you, and stay in that chair. After you ran out on me the other night I knocked him flat and made him tame.” I thought it might give her some perspective and steady her to refer to the past. “Have you seen him since?” She didn’t answer that. Apparently her husband was the least of her troubles.