I am not being snooty. I can’t afford it, because during that long dry spell I was being as futile as everybody else. I performed occasional and miscellaneous errands which aren’t worth telling about, but most of the time I was at William Street, in the stock department, trying to kid somebody. The only meal I ate at home was breakfast because I worked overtime. Monday evening I took Rosa to dine and dance. Tuesday I took Gwynne Ferris. Wednesday I made a try for Hester.
First she said she would go and then a couple of hours later reneged, stating that she had tried to cancel another engagement and couldn’t. My guess was that Sumner Hoff was handling things and that if I tried for the next evening or the next I would only get humiliated and perhaps a start on an inferiority complex, so I passed it up and made a stab at a possible fresh source of gossip which weighed around a hundred and fifty and went by the name of Elise Grimes. She proved to be unprofitable no matter what I was after, and Thursday I repeated with Rosa and Friday with Gwynne. I won’t go so far as to say the time and effort were wasted, but I had to be stern with myself to persuade me that it was entirely proper, nothing but routine really, to put it on the client’s expense account.
Wolfe and I, during that week, had three hot arguments about Hester Livsey and Sumner Hoff. I lost the first one, when I took the stand that we should let the cops have a try at them. Wolfe was dead against it. He said, first, that Cramer would be sore and suspicious because we had held it back so long; second, that Cramer wouldn’t do a real job on them because he wouldn’t be sure we weren’t trying to put something over and Saul was lying; and third, that even if he took Saul for gospel, it would be two against one and Hester and Hoff would probably hold fast. I hated to agree with him but had to.
The other two arguments ended in a tie. I insisted that Hester and Hoff should be got to the office one at a time, offering to do the getting myself no matter how they felt about it, and Wolfe should give them the works. He maintained it was hopeless. He would have nothing to go on, he said, but one little fact regarding which they had agreed to lie, and they knew we knew they were lying.
It was stalemate, and he would have nowhere to start from. I said it was the only crack we had found anywhere and he ought to try to get a wedge in it anyhow. He flatly refused. I thought at the time he was just being contrary, but it may be that he was already considering the experiment that he finally decided to try on Sunday evening and didn’t want to run any risk of spoiling it.
At least it wasn’t laziness. He was really working. With a minimum of pestering from me he agreed that the executives and directors required some attention, and even took my advice where to begin, so I had the satisfaction, Thursday morning, of putting the bee on Emmet Ferguson. At first he was going to sneer me right off the phone, but a few well-chosen dirty insinuations put him where he belonged, and at two o’clock he came tearing into Wolfe’s office with his ten-dollar Sulka tie off center, full of words and ready for war. Wolfe spent two hours on him, and when he finally tore out again two things were perfectly plain: one, Ferguson would always vote against hiring Wolfe or me by anyone for anything, at any time, and two, if Wolfe and I should run short on morals and resort to a frame for the murders, we would heartily agree on who to pick for the victim.
I would say that probably nobody engaged with the investigation of Naylor’s death got a single thing out of that whole week, except me. Not only were there those opportunities to study women, which any detective under eighty should be glad to have, at the client’s expense, but also I got season tickets for both the Giants and the Yankees. And not by mail or messenger; Cecily brought them herself. When I got home Thursday after midnight I found Wolfe still up, reading apparently only one book, at his desk in the office.
He grunted at me. “Where have you been?” “I told you where I was going. With Rosa. At one time, months ago it seems, I thought she thought her husband killed Moore, but I’m beginning to think she did it herself. She has a great deal of vitality.” He shuddered. “The plant records are getting badly behind and Theodore needs them.” “They sure are,” I agreed. “I can’t help it if this case is so tough that I have to work days and nights both.” I yawned. “You got me that job down there. You told me to use my organs as the occasion suggests and my capacities permit.” I yawned. “I guess I’ll go to bed.” “No. Mrs. Pine is coming. She telephoned that she wants to give you your baseball tickets and I told her you would be home shortly.” “My God. Shouldn’t you-let us be alone?” “No. I want to see her. Anyhow, that’s what she really wants. Why the devil should she want to give you baseball tickets?” That, it seemed to me, called for an argument, and I sat down to give it my attention, but before I got a word out I had to get up again because the doorbell rang. I went down the hall, glanced through the one-way panel, opened the door, and invited her in.
She put out a hand and exchanged a firm friendly clasp with me, gave me a warm wholesome smile, looked searchingly at my face and nodded-to herself, not to me-and said cheerfully: “I could see you would be like that even when you were all red and bruised. Is that fat man in there? I’d like to see him.” Without waiting for clearance she was on her way, and I followed her down the hall and into the office. She offered no hand to Wolfe, only a polite nod with a good evening, and took the straight-backed chair she had used before, after I had moved it up for her.
“I surmised, madam,” Wolfe said peevishly, “that you wished to see me as well as Mr. Goodwin.” “Not particularly,” she declared. “Except that it is always a satisfaction to remind a man-especially a conceited one like you -that I was right. If you had done what I asked you to my brother would not have been killed.” “Pah. He wouldn’t?” “Certainly not.” Mrs. Pine looked at me. “You know perfectly well, Archie, that you are responsible, spreading it around that he told you he knew who killed Waldo Moore. If you had stayed away from there as I wanted you to it wouldn’t have happened. Not that you’re to blame, since you work for this Mr. Wolfe and have to do what he tells you to.” She smiled at me. “Oh, here are those tickets.” She opened her bag, a medium-sized embroidered thing with a gold frame, fingered in it, and produced an envelope. I crossed to get it, and thanked her, trying to speak like a pet. She asked if I would dispose of her wrap, and I took it-this time it was chinchilla-and put it on the couch.
Apparently she was in mourning, as her gray and black dress covered a lot of pink skin that had been visible the other time.
“I doubt,” Wolfe muttered, “if that conclusion is sound. Your brother had adopted a policy of jaunty indiscretion long before Mr Goodwin got there.
Besides, you said last week that Mr. Moore’s death was accidental. Now you’re assuming that he was murdered and that the murderer killed your brother to anticipate disclosure. You can’t have it both ways, madam.” He was wasting logic on her again.
She completely ignored it. “My brother jaunty? Good lord!” She added, “The funeral was yesterday.” Whether she was merely stating a deplorable fact, or whether she meant to imply that it was up to us to have the funeral repealed or nullified, there was no way of telling. Evidently it was the former, for she didn’t follow through on it, but sent me an unsmiling glance.
“You see, Archie, this wouldn’t have happened if you had taken my suggestion and quit working for him and started your own business. How much will it cost?” “Eleven thousand, four hundred and sixty-five dollars,” I told her.