He was glancing through the mail I had put on his desk. “Get Dr. Vollmer,” he commanded.
The idea of that was that if I let a little thing like a cold gusty March rain keep me from getting checks to the bank I must be sick. So I coughed. Then I sneezed. “Nothing doing,” I said firmly. “He might put me to bed, and in all this bustle and hustle that wouldn’t do. It would be too much for you.”
He shot me a glance, nodded to show that he was on but was dropping it, and reached for his desk calendar. That always came second, after the glance at the mail.
“What is this phone number?” he demanded. “Mrs. Robilotti? That woman?”
“Yes, sir. The one who didn’t want to pay you twenty grand but did.”
“What does she want now?”
“Me. That’s where you can get me this evening from seven o’clock on.”
“Mr. Hewitt is coming this evening to bring a Dendrobium and look at the Renanthera. You said you would be here.”
“I know, I expected to, but this is an emergency. She phoned me this morning.”
“I didn’t know she was cultivating you, or you her.”
“We’re not. I haven’t seen her or heard her since she paid that bill. This is special. You may remember that when she hired you and we were discussing her, I mentioned a piece about her I had read in a magazine, about the dinner party she throws every year on her first husband’s birthday. With four girls and four men as guests? The girls are unmarried mothers who are being rehabil—”
“I remember, yes. Buffoonery. A burlesque of hospitality. Do you mean you are abetting it?”
“I wouldn’t say abetting it. A man I know named Austin Byne phoned and asked me to fill in for him because he’s in bed with a cold and can’t go. Anyhow, it will give me a fresh outlook. It will harden my nerves. It will broaden my mind.”
His eyes had narrowed. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?”
“Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you don’t, so go right ahead.”
“I am not intruding. If it is your whim to lend yourself to that outlandish performance, very well. I merely suggest that you demean yourself. Those creatures are summoned there for an obvious purpose. It is hoped that they, or at least one of them, will meet a man who will be moved to pursue the acquaintance and who will end by legitimating, if not the infant already in being, the future produce of the womb. Therefore your attendance there will be an imposture, and you know it. I begin to doubt if you will ever
let a woman plant her foot on your neck, but if you do she will have qualities that would make it impossible for her to share the fate of those forlorn creatures. You will be perpetrating a fraud.”
I was shaking my head. “No, sir. You’ve got it wrong. I let you finish just to hear it. If that were the purpose, giving the girls a chance to meet prospects, I would say hooray for Mrs. Robilotti, and I wouldn’t go. But that’s the hell of it, that’s not it at all. The men are from her own social circle, the kind that wear black ties six nights a week, and there’s not a chance. The idea is that it will buck the girls up, be good for their morale, to spend an evening with the cream and get a taste of caviar and sit on a chair made by Congreve. Of course—”
“Congreve didn’t make chairs.”
“I know he didn’t, but I needed a name and that one popped in. Of course that’s a lot of hooey, but I won’t be perpetrating a fraud. And don’t be too sure I won’t meet my doom. It’s a scientific fact that some girls are more beautiful, more spiritual, more fascinating, after they have had a baby. Also it would be an advantage to have the family already started.”
“Pfui. Then you’re going.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve told Fritz I won’t be here for dinner.” I left my chair. “I have to see to something. If you want to answer letters before lunch I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”
I had remembered that Saturday evening at the Flamingo someone had spilled something on the sleeve of my dinner jacket, and I had used cleaner on it when I got home, and hadn’t examined it since. Mounting the two flights to my room, I took a look and found it was okay.
I was well acquainted with the insides of the Grantham mansion, now inhabited by Robilottis, on Fifth Avenue in the Eighties, having been over every inch of it, including the servants’ quarters, at the time of the jewelry hunt; and, in the taxi on my way uptown, preparing my mind for the scene of action, I had supposed that the pre-dinner gathering would be on the second floor in what was called the music room. But no. For the mothers, the works.
Hackett, admitting me, did fine. Formerly his manner with me as a hired detective had been absolutely perfect; now that I was an invited guest in uniform he made the switch without batting an eye. I suppose a man working up to butler could be taught all the ins and outs of handling the hat-and-coat problem with different grades of people, but it’s so darned tricky that probably it has to be born in him. The way he told me good evening, compared with the way he had formerly greeted me, was a lesson in fine points.
I decided to upset him. When he had my hat and coat I inquired with my nose up, “How’s it go, Mr. Hackett?”
It didn’t faze him. That man had nerves of iron. He merely said, “Very well, thank you, Mr. Goodwin. Mrs. Robilotti is in the drawing room.”
“You win, Hackett. Congratulations.” I crossed the reception hall, which took ten paces, and passed through the arch.
The drawing room had a twenty-foot ceiling and could dance fifty couples easily, with an alcove for the orchestra as big as my bedroom. The three crystal chandeliers that had been installed by Albert Grantham’s mother were still there, and so were thirty-seven chairs—I had counted them one day—of all shapes and sizes, not made by Congreve, I admit, but not made in Grand Rapids either. Of all the rooms I had seen, and I had seen a lot, that was about the last one I would pick as the place for a quartet of unwed mothers to meet a bunch of strangers and relax. Entering and casting a glance around, I took a walk—it amounted to that—across to where Mrs. Robilotti was standing with a group near a portable bar. As I approached she turned to me and offered a hand.
“Mr. Goodwin. So nice to see you.”
She didn’t handle the switch as perfectly as Hackett had, but it was good enough. After all, I had been imposed on her. Her pale gray eyes, which were set in so far that her brows had sharp angles, didn’t light up with welcome, but it was a question whether they ever had lit up for anyone or anything. The angles were not confined to the brows. Whoever had designed her had preferred angles to curves and missed no opportunities, and the passing years, now adding up to close to sixty, had made no alterations. At least they were covered below the chin, since her dress, pale gray like her eyes, had sleeves above the elbows
and reached up to the base of her corrugated neck. During the jewelry business I had twice seen her exposed for the evening, and it had been no treat. The only jewelry tonight was a string of pearls and a couple of rings.
I was introduced around and was served a champagne cocktail. The first sip of the cocktail told me something was wrong, and I worked closer to the bar to find out what. Cecil Grantham, the son of the first husband, who was mixing, was committing worse than murder. I saw him. Holding a glass behind and below the bar top, he put in a half-lump of sugar, a drop or two of bitters, and a twist of lemon peel, filled it half full of soda water, set it on the bar, and filled it nearly to the top from a bottle of Cordon Rouge. Killing good champagne with junk like sugar and bitters and lemon peel is of course a common crime, but the soda water was adding horror to homicide. The motive was pure, reducing the voltage to protect the guests of honor, but faced with temptation and given my choice of self-control or soda water in champagne, I set my jaw. I was going to keep an eye on Cecil to see if he did to himself as he was doing to others, but another guest arrived and I had to go to be introduced. He made up the dozen.
By the time our hostess led the way through the arch and up the broad marble stairs to the dining-room on the floor above, I had them sorted out, with names fitted to faces. Of course I had previously met Robilotti and the twins, Cecil and Celia. Paul Schuster was the one with the thin nose and quick dark eyes. Beverly Kent was the one with the long narrow face and big ears. Edwin Laidlaw was the little
guy who hadn’t combed his hair, or if he had, it refused to oblige.
I had had a sort of an idea that with the girls the best way would be as an older brother who liked sisters and liked to kid them, of course with tact and refinement, and their reactions had been fairly satisfactory. Helen Yarmis, tall and slender, a little too slender, with big brown eyes and a wide curved mouth that would have been a real asset if she had kept the corners up, was on her dignity and apparently had some. Ethel Varr was the one I would have picked for my doom if I had been shopping. She was not a head-turner, but she carried her own head with an air, and she had one of those faces that you keep looking back at because it changes as it moves and catches different angles of light and shade.
I would have picked Faith Usher, not for my doom, but for my sister, because she looked as if she needed a brother more than the others. Actually she was the prettiest one of the bunch, with a dainty little face and greenish flecks in her eyes, and her figure, also dainty, was a very nice job, but she was doing her best to cancel her advantages by letting her shoulders sag and keeping her face muscles so tight she would soon have wrinkles. The right kind of brother could have done wonders with her, but I had no chance to get started during the meal because she was across the table from me, with Beverly Kent on her left and Cecil Grantham on her right.
At my left was Rose Tuttle, who showed no signs of needing a brother at all. She had blue eyes in a round face, a pony tail, and enough curves to make a contribution to Mrs. Robilotti and still be well supplied; and she had been born cheerful and it would
take more than an accidental baby to smother it. In fact, as I soon learned, it would take more than two of them. With an oyster balanced on her fork, she turned her face to me and asked, “Goodwin? That’s your name?”
“Right. Archie Goodwin.”
“I was wondering,” she said, “because that woman told me I would sit between Mr. Edwin Laidlaw and Mr. Austin Byne, but now your name’s Goodwin. The other day I was telling a friend of mine about coming here, this party, and she said there ought to be unmarried fathers here too, and you seem to have changed your name—are you an unmarried father?”
Remember the tact, I warned myself. “I’m half of it,” I told her. “I’m unmarried. But not, as far as I know, a father. Mr. Byne has a cold and couldn’t come and asked me to fill in for him. His bad luck and my good luck.”
She ate the oyster, and another one—she ate cheerfully too—and turned again. “I was telling this friend of mine that if all society men are like the ones that were here the other time, we weren’t missing anything, but I guess they’re not. Anyway, you’re not. I noticed the way you made Helen laugh—Helen Yarmis. I don’t think I ever did see her laugh before. I’m going to tell my friend about you if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Time out for an oyster. “But I don’t want to mix you up. I’m not society. I’m a working man.”
“Oh!” She nodded. “That explains it. What kind of work?”
Remember the discretion, I warned myself. Miss Tuttle should not be led to suspect that Mrs. Robilotti
had got a detective there to keep an eye on the guests of honor. “You might,” I said, “call it trouble-shooting. I work for a man named Nero Wolfe. You may have heard of him.”
“I think I have.” The oysters gone, she put her fork down. “I’m pretty sure … Oh, I remember, that murder, that woman, Susan somebody. He’s a detective.”
“That’s right. I work for him. But I—”
“You too. You’re a detective!”
“I am when I’m working, but not this evening. Now I’m playing. I’m just enjoying myself—and I am, too. I was wondering what you meant—”
Hackett and two female assistants were removing the oyster service, but it wasn’t that that stopped me. The interruption was from Robert Robilotti, across the table, between Celia Grantham and Helen Yarmis, who was demanding the general ear; and as other voices gave way, Mrs. Robilotti raised hers. “Must you, Robbie? That flea again?”
He smiled at her. From what I had seen of him during the jewelry hunt I had not cottoned to him, smiling or not. I’ll try to be fair to him, and I know there is no law against a man having plucked eyebrows and a thin mustache and long polished nails, and my suspicion that he wore a girdle was merely a suspicion, and if he had married Mrs. Albert Grantham for her money I freely admit that no man marries without a reason and with her it would have been next to impossible to think up another one, and I concede that he may have had hidden virtues which I had missed. One thing for sure, if my name were Robert and I had married a woman fifteen years older than
me for a certain reason and she was composed entirely of angles, I would not let her call me Robbie.
I’ll say this for him: he didn’t let her gag him. What he wanted all ears for was the story about the advertising agency executive who did a research job on the flea, and by gum he stuck to it. I had heard it told better by Saul Panzer, but he got the point in, with only fair audience response. The three society men laughed with tact, discretion, and refinement. Helen Yarmis let the corners of her mouth come up. The Grantham twins exchanged a glance of sympathy. Faith Usher caught Ethel Varr’s eye across the table, shook her head, just barely moving it, and dropped her eyes. Then Edwin Laidlaw chipped in with a story about an author who wrote a book in invisible ink, and Beverly Kent followed with one about an army general who forgot which side he was on. We were all one big happy family—well, fairly happy—by the time the squabs were served. Then I had a problem. At Wolfe’s table we tackle squabs with our fingers, which is of course the only practical way, but I didn’t want to wreck the party. Then Rose Tuttle got her fork on to hers with one hand, and with the other grabbed a leg and yanked, which settled it.