“Certainly I’ll answer,” Hester said. She was in the red leather chair, facing the window. “I’ll answer that. Those weren’t my words, but it amounted to that, yes. Mr. Goodwin told me that you had learned a certain fact about Mr. Naylor and me, and that if I came here you would tell me what it was. What-” “There is no such fact,” Hoff snapped, “and we want to know what you’re talking about!” Wolfe pointed a finger. “That door,” he said, “leads to what we call the front room. The wall and door are soundproofed. I suppose, Mr. Hoff, you’d better go in there.” “Oh, no. I’m staying here.” Protect your woman.
“Nonsense. Even if you weren’t flabby Mr. Goodwin could put you anywhere I told him to. Archie. If Mr. Hoff interrupts again remove him, I don’t care where.” “Yes, sir.” “Without ceremony.” “Yes, sir.” “You keep still, Sumner,” Hester admonished him. “All I want is what Mr. Goodwin asked me to come for,” she told Wolfe. “There can’t be any fact about Mr. Naylor and me. What is it?” “When was the last time you saw Mr. Naylor, Miss Livsey?” “Don’t ans-” Hoff began. I had started for him before he finished the first syllable. He didn’t bite it off, the words just stopped coming, and I saw to my regret that I would never have the pleasure of plugging him. He wasn’t up to it.
There might be occasion for shoving him or bundling him, but he would never rate a real sock. I sat down again.
Anyhow, Hester didn’t obey. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I saw him at the office some time Friday, but I didn’t notice and I don’t remember.” Wolfe shook his head. “Not at the office. At six-thirty-eight Friday afternoon you met him at the corner of First Avenue and Fifty-second Street, walked back and forth with him over an hour, and parted from him at seven-forty-one at Second Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. What were you talking about?” Hester was wide-eyed. “That isn’t so,” she asserted in a loud voice, unnecessarily loud.
“No? What did I get wrong?” “All of it’s wrong. It isn’t so.” “You didn’t see Mr. Naylor after office hours on Friday?” “No. I didn’t.” So far so good. Obviously her talk with Naylor had been about something she didn’t want to broadcast, and naturally she would deny it as long as that seemed feasible. I had not yet reported to Wolfe on her awful fumble that morning in her office, and I saw no need for it now, since he had the high card and all he had to do was play it.
“It’s no good, Miss Livsey,” Wolfe said. “Abandon it. I have a witness.” “You can’t have,” she declared. “You can’t have a witness to my being with Mr.
Naylor where you said, because I couldn’t have been there, because I was somewhere else. Friday afternoon I left the office at five o’clock and went to Grand Central Station and went to the soda fountain on the lower level and had a sundae. I had intended to catch a train to Westport, but at the office that day Mr. Hoff had said he wanted to talk with me about something and we had made an appointment. We met there at the soda fountain at six o’clock. We talked there a while and then went upstairs to the waiting-room and talked some more. He persuaded me to go to the theater with him and take a later train to Westport.
By that time it was too late to eat in a restaurant and make it to the theater, so we ate in that big cafeteria near the station on Forty-second Street. Then we had bad luck and couldn’t get seats for the show we wanted to see and we went to a movie instead-The Best Years of Our Lives. Then I caught the eleven-fifty-six to Westport. Then the next day, Saturday, Mr. Hoff-he knew where I was-he came to Westport and said it was my duty to cooperate with the authorities, so I came to New York and went to the District Attorney’s office and told them what I have told you and answered their questions. So when you say you have a witness-well, I’d like to know who the witness is.” I was thinking to myself savagely, you will, my beautiful little liar, you’ll know all right. But I only felt it; I didn’t look it. I kept my face deadpan.
Wolfe didn’t. He looked concerned and apologetic. “It seems,” he said, “that you had facts for me, not me for you. I do have a witness, Miss Livsey, but manifestly a mistaken one. Of course you certify all this, Mr. Hoff?” “I do,” Hoff said emphatically.
“Then that settles it. I owe you an apology, Miss Livsey, which is a rare debt for me to incur. As for my witness-I wonder if you’ll do me a favor. Will you send me a photograph of yourself-a good one, as recent as possible?” “Why-” Hester hesitated.
“Certainly,” Hoff agreed for her. “I don’t know what for, but certainly she will.” “Good. I’ll appreciate it. Today, if possible, by messenger collect. The witness may have an idea of going to the police and there’s no use getting them more confused than they are already.” Wolfe was out of his chair. “Good day, Miss Livsey. Good day, Mr. Hoff. Thank you for coming.” I went to the hall with them. At the door Hester told me, offering a hand, “I’m sorry if I was impolite this morning, Mr. Goodwin. I guess I was upset.” “Don’t mention it,” I told her eyes. “You were nervous. Everybody in the neighborhood of a murder gets nervous, sometimes even the murderer himself.” I returned to the office, resumed my chair, and sat and glared at Wolfe as he opened a fresh bottle, poured, waited until the foam was exactly a quarter of an inch below the rim of the glass, and drank. He put the glass down empty and used his tongue on his upper lip first and then his handkerchief. When company was present he omitted the tongue part.
“Superficially neat,” he muttered at me, “but they’re a pair of idiots.” “Enravished,” I said, “is no word for it. I’m absolutely nuts about her. Did you notice that she even named the movie they went to? She left out the kind of sundae she had. That was an oversight. One thing you didn’t know about, but I doubt if it would have mattered, all I told her was that you had a fact you wanted to ask her about, and she was so anxious to know which fact that she nearly lost her pants. There was a time when the mere thought of her pants would have made my heart beat. Anyhow, our fact isn’t the only one, I’ll guarantee that. What do we do now, feed her to the animals?” “No.” Wolfe was grim. “I doubt if Mr. Cramer could shake them. Even if he could, she sat there and told me that preposterous lie and I will not tolerate it. What about Saul? Did he look twice?” “No. Not a chance. He spotted her himself and said yes, and with Saul you know how good that is. Even if she has a twin, it was her. Also, as I told you, he spotted Sumner Hoff.” I snorted. “Protect your woman.” “What?” “Nothing. It’s a motto. The corny performance we have just witnessed has got me voting for the stock department again. When I left the directors’ meeting I was voting for the thirty-sixth floor, murder on the highest executive level, but not now. What I would really like is to combine the two. I hate to leave Emmet Ferguson out of it.” “Tell me about the directors’ meeting.” I did so, and hoped he was listening. That was open to question because he kept his eyes open. When he doesn’t close his eyes while I am making a report it usually means that part of his mind is on something else, and I never know how big a part. On that occasion I suspected it was more than half, knowing as I did what he was doing with it. He was peeling strips of hide off of Hester Livsey and sprinkling salt on the exposed tissue. She had diddled him good. He had counted on getting from her, at a minimum, a hint as to where the path either entered the thicket or left it, and all he had got was a barefaced lie with Sumner Hoff to back it up.
When I finished the report, instead of asking questions or making comments, he muttered that he wished to speak to Mr. Cramer, and when the connection was made he told Cramer that in checking alibis and tracing movements of people for Friday evening a special effort should be made in the case of Sumner Hoff for the two hours from six to eight. Cramer naturally wanted to know why, since the hours they were concentrating on were from ten to midnight, and Wolfe’s refusal to explain naturally got growls. Wolfe hung up, sighed deeply, and leaned back and then in a matter of seconds had to straighten up again when a call came from Saul Panzer.