When we got back to the building on William Street I parted from him in the lobby, went to a phone booth and dialed the number of the Gazette, and asked for Lon Cohen. He knew more facts than the Police Department and the Public Library combined.
When he was on I told him, “It’s your turn on the favors. What about a Mrs.
Jasper pine? When born she was called Naylor. Her husband is president of a big engineers’ supply firm with offices downtown. Ever hear of her?” “Sure, she’s meat.” “What kind of meat?” “Oh, that means anyone who might make a meal for a journalist some day, strictly as news. So far she has kept herself off the menu, except for paragraphs on the right inside pages, but not a sheet in town has lost hope.” “What keeps the hope going?” “Where are you phoning from? Wolfe’s office?” I tutted at him. “Didn’t I tell you my name? That’s all right, I’m in a booth.” “Okay. The subject of your inquiry is a befriender of young men. Not promiscuous. Discriminating, but chronic. She has plenty of dough, is well preserved, and presumably not a fool or she would have lost her balance long ago. I would advise you to try for it-now old are you, thirty? Just about right for her! You have the looks, and you could brush up on manners-” “Yeah. You’ll get ten per cent. I don’t suppose you could get hold of a list of my predecessors she has befriended?” “Well, we wouldn’t have one, we’re not that thorough. Do you think this paper would nose into people’s private af- Say! Wait a minute! You and Nero Wolfe and your homicides. I’ll try word association on you-damn it, what was that name?
Murray. No. Moore?” “Mr. Cohen,” I said in awe, “you have nailed the head on the hit as usual.
Compared to you John Kieran is a blank page. Moore was killed by a hit-and-run on Thirty-ninth Street the night of December fourth. Do tell me he was being or had been befriended.” “I do.” “By Mrs. Pine?” “Restate the question. Even from a booth I don’t like names on anything as fragile as this.” “By the subject of my inquiry?” “Yes.” “Would you mind spreading it out?” “Sure, it looked as if the meat might be on its way to the table, that was all.
With him mowed down like that in the dead of night, and with that connection he had, we felt we owed it to the community to cover all angles in an effort to prevent any breath of scandal-” “My God. Go on.” “So we did, and I suppose the cops did too, but it was a washout. The details are hazy by now, but it was definitely nothing doing for the presses. I remember this, the most obvious line only got us to a starve-out. The husband had certainly not done a desperate deed to retrieve his honor, or for vengeance.
Moore was nothing but number -I don’t know-seven or eight-and besides, he had been ditched months before and the current befriendee was-I forget his name, it doesn’t matter. And the husband had known all about it for years. That was absolutely established by our research department. You must be smothering in that booth. I’ve got to go to work. I do so by demanding that you come clean, for the record if possible. Who has hired Wolfe?” “Not yet,” I told him. “You’ll get it as soon as it’s ripe if it hasn’t got worms. You know us, we return favors with interest. If I Pay you a visit could I talk with whoever forked on it?” “You’d better phone ahead.” “I will. Thanks and love from all of us.” I ducked out through the lobby to the street, down the block to a place I had spotted, bought three ham sandwiches and a quart of milk, and transported them to the building and up to my place of employment on the thirty-fourth floor.
There in my room I ate my lunch without being disturbed. By the time it was all down I had arrived at a couple of decisions, the first one being that it was just as well I hadn’t obeyed my impulse to walk out of the Fountain of Health with nothing to show for my trouble but an apple.
CHAPTER Ten
Having two things to do, it would have been in character for me to save the best till the last, and I had it programmed that way, but it didn’t work. The idea was to phone Jasper Pine to arrange to run up to see him at three o’clock, but when I tried it all I got was the word from a Mr. Stapleton that Mr. Pine would not be available until four-fifteen. That compelled me to shift. But before making a call on Miss Livsey I thought it would be well to get in a piece of equipment I needed, so I did what I had been told to do when the occasion arose, called Extension 637 and said I needed a stenographer. In two minutes, not more, one entered with a notebook. She was nothing like my non-speller, but neither was she any evidence against my theory that there was a strong preference at Naylor-Kerr for females who were easy to look at.
After I had got her name I told her, “I have nothing against you, quite the contrary. The trouble is I don’t want you, just your typewriter. Could you bring it in here and let me use it?” From the look on her face it might have been thought I had asked her to bring Mr. Kerr Naylor in handcuffs and set him on my lap. She tried to be nice about it, but what I had asked for was not done and could not be done. I let her go and went to work on the phone, and it wasn’t too long before I had a typewriter, with paper and other accessories. Then I emerged to the arena, crossed to the other side, found the door next to Rosenbaum’s on the left standing open, and entered.
I pushed the door shut, crossed to a chair near the end of her desk, and sat down. Her room was twice as big as mine, but there was just as little free space in it on account of the rows of files. The light from the window filtering through the top layer of her fine brown hair made it look as if someone had crowned her with a wreath of shiny silk mesh. She gave the typewriter a rest and let me have her full face.
“It was simply stinking,” I said. “Mr. Naylor eats oats and shredded bark.” No smile for that, but she nodded. “Yes, he’s famous for that. Someone should have warned you.” “But they didn’t, including you. Are you crowded for time?” “No, I only have eight or nine more letters.” She glanced at her wrist. “It’s only three o’clock.” “Good.” I tipped my chair back, with my hands in my pockets, to show how informal I was. “I guess the best way to start is just to follow the routine.
How long have you been working here?” “Three years. Well-two years and eight months. I’m twenty-four years old, nearly twenty-five, I get fifty dollars a week, and I can do over a hundred words a minute.” “That’s wonderful. What are the three things you dislike most, or like least, about your job?” “Oh, now, really.” Still no smile, but there was a little curving twist to her lips. “May I ask one?” “Go ahead.” “Why did you invite me to lunch?” “Well-what do you want, candor?” “I like it.” “I do too. One look at you, and I seemed to be paralyzed all over, as in a dream. The two sides of my nature there fighting for control. One, the base and evil side, wanted to be alone with you on an island. The other side wanted to write a poem. The lunch thing was a compromise.” “That’s pretty good,” she said, with some sign of appreciation but not enthusiastically. “If that’s candor, let’s have some double talk. Why? You wanted to ask me about Waldo Moore, didn’t you?” “What makes you think so?” “Why, my lord. You practically broadcast it! Asking that girl about him-it was all over the place in no time.” “Okay, say I did. What did I want to ask you about him?” “I don’t know, but here I am, ask me.” “You shouldn’t be a stenographer,” I said admiringly. “You should be a personnel expert or a college president or a detective’s wife. You’re perfectly correct, it would be difficult for me to question you about Moore without giving you a hint of where I got on and what my ticket says. So I won’t try. You and Moore were engaged to marry, weren’t you?” “Yes.” “A long time?” “No, just about a month, a little less.” “And of course his death was an awful blow.” “Yes.” “Would you mind telling me in a general way what kind of a guy he was?” “Why-” She hesitated. “That’s a strange question. He was the kind of guy I wanted to marry.” I nodded. “That settles it for you,” I agreed, “but I’ve only known you about twenty minutes altogether, so it leaves me hazy. You understand, of course, that this is just you and me talking. I represent no authority of any kind and your tongue is yours. Had he been married before?” “No.” “How long had you known him?” “I met him soon after he came to work here.” “What was he-tall, short, handsome, ugly, fat, thin-” She opened a drawer of her desk and got her handbag, took a leather fold out of it, and opened the fold and handed it over.