Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 31 (3 page)

“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 littie
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.

Miss Tuttle had said something that I wanted to go into, tactfully, but she was talking with Edwin Laidlaw, on her left, and I gave Ethel Varr, on my right, a look. Her face was by no means out of surprises. In profile, close up, it was again different, and when it turned and we were eye to eye, once more it was new.

“I hope,” I said, “you won’t mind a personal remark.”

“I’ll try not to,” she said. “I can’t promise until I hear it.”

“I’ll take a chance. In case you have caught me staring at you I want to explain why.”

“I don’t know.” She was smiling. “Maybe you’d better not. Maybe it would let me down. Maybe I’d rather think you stared just because you wanted to.”

“You can think that too. If I hadn’t wanted to I wouldn’t have stared. But the idea is, I was trying to catch you looking the same way twice. If you turn your head only a little one way or the other it’s a different face. I know there are people with faces that do that, but I’ve never seen one that changes as much as yours. Hasn’t anyone ever mentioned it to you?”

She parted her lips, closed them, and turned right away from me. All I could do was turn back to my plate, and I did so, but in a moment she was facing me again. “You know,” she said, “I’m only nineteen years old.”

“I was nineteen once,” I assured her. “Some ways I liked it, and some ways it was terrible.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “I haven’t learned how to take things yet, but I suppose I will. I was silly—just because you said that. I should have just told you yes, someone did mention that to me once. About my face. More than once.”

So I had put my foot in it. How the hell are you going to be tactful when you don’t know what is out of bounds and what isn’t? Merely having a face that changes isn’t going to get a girl a baby. I flopped around. “Well,” I said, “I know it was a personal remark, and I only wanted to explain why I had stared at you. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I had known there was anything touchy about it. I think you ought
to get even. I’m touchy about horses because once I caught my foot in the stirrup when I was getting off, so you might try that. Ask me something about horses and
my
face will change.”

“I suppose you ride in Central Park. Was it in the park?”

“No, it was out West one summer. Go ahead. You’re getting warm.”

We stayed on horses until Paul Schuster, on her right, horned in. I couldn’t blame him, since he had Mrs. Robilotti on his other side. But Edwin Laidlaw still had Rose Tuttle, and it wasn’t until the dessert came, cherry pudding topped with whipped cream, that I had a chance to ask her about the remark she had made.

“Something you said,” I told her. “Maybe I didn’t hear it right.”

She swallowed pudding. “Maybe I didn’t say it right. I often don’t.” She leaned to me and lowered her voice. “Is this Mr. Laidlaw a friend of yours?”

I shook my head. “Never saw him before.”

“You haven’t missed anything. He publishes books. To look at me, would you think I was dying to know how many books were published last year in America and England and a lot of other countries?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I would think you could make out all right without it.”

“I always have. What was it I said wrong?”

“I didn’t say you said it wrong. I understood you to say something about the society men that were here the other time, and I wasn’t sure I got it. I didn’t know whether you meant another party like this one.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s what I meant. Three years ago. She throws one every year, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“This is my second one. This friend of mine I mentioned, she says the only reason I had another baby was to get invited here for some more champagne, but believe me, if I liked champagne so much I could get it a lot quicker and oftener than that, and anyway, I didn’t have the faintest idea I would be invited again. How old do you think I am?”

I studied her. “Oh—twenty-one.”

She was pleased. “Of course you took off five years to be polite, so you guessed it exactly. I’m twenty-six. So it isn’t true that having babies makes a girl look older. Of course, if you had a lot of them, eight or ten, but by that time you would
be
older. I just don’t believe I would look younger if I hadn’t had two babies. Do you?”

I was on a spot. I had accepted the invitation with my eyes and ears open. I had told my hostess that I was acquainted with the nature and significance of the affair and she could count on me. I had on my shoulders the responsibility of the moral and social position of the community, some of it anyhow, and here this cheerful unmarried mother was resting the whole problem on the single question, had it aged her any? If I merely said no, it hadn’t, which would have been both true and tactful, it would imply that I agreed that the one objection to her career was a phony. To say no and then proceed to list other objections that were not phonies would have been fine if I had been ordained, but I hadn’t, and anyway she had certainly heard of them and hadn’t been impressed. I worked it out in three seconds, on the basis that while it was none of my business if she kept on having babies, I
absolutely wasn’t going to encourage her. So I lied to her.

“Yes,” I said.

“What?” She was indignant. “You do?”

I was firm. “I do. You admitted that I took you for twenty-six and deducted five years to be polite. If you had had only one baby I might have taken you for twenty-three, and if you had had none I might have taken you for twenty. I can’t prove it, but I might. We’d better get on with the pudding. Some of them have finished.”

She turned to it, cheerfully.

Apparently the guests of honor had been briefed on procedure, for when Hackett, on signal, pulled back Mrs. Robilotti’s chair as she arose, and we chevaliers did likewise for our partners, they joined the hostess as she headed for the door. When they were out we sat down again.

Cecil Grantham blew a breath, a noisy gust, and said, “The last two hours are the hardest.”

Robilotti said, “Brandy, Hackett.”

Hackett stopped pouring coffee to look at him. “The cabinet is locked, sir.”