I shook my head. Nope, not a client. I got on a stool. A former client, Mrs Robert Robilottisomeone swiped a million dollars worth of rings and bracelets from her a couple of years ago and we got them backand I need some advice. You may not be as great an expert on women as you are on food, but you have had your dealings, as I well know, and I would appreciate some suggestions on how I act this evening.
He snorted. Act with women? You? Ha! With your thousand triumphs! Advice from me? Archie, that is upside down!
Thanks for the plug, but these women are special. With a fingertip I wiped up a speck of anchovy butter that had dropped on the table and licked it off. Heres the problem. This Mrs Robilottis first husband was Albert Grantham, who spent the last ten years of his life doing things with part of the three or four hundred million dollars he had inheritedthings to improve the world, including the people in it. I assume you will admit that a girl who has a baby but no husband needs improving.
Fritz pursed his lips. First I would have to see the girl and the baby. They might be charming.
Its not a question of charm, or at least it wasnt with Grantham.
His dealing with the problem of unmarried mothers wasnt one of his really big operations, but he took a personal interest in it. He would rarely let his name be attached to any of his projects, but he did with that one. The place he built for it up in Dutchess County was called Grantham House and still is. Whats that youre putting in?
Marjoram. Im trying it.
Dont tell himandsee ifhespotsit. When the improved mothers were graduated from Grantham House they were financed until they got jobs or husbands, and even then they were not forgotten. One way of keeping in touch was started by Grantham himself a few years before he died. Each year on his birthday he had his wife invite four of them to dinner at his home on Fifth Avenue , and also invite, for their dinner partners, four young men. Since his death, five years ago, his wife has kept it up. She says she owes it to his memorythough she is now married to a specimen named Robert Robilotti who has never been in the improving business. Today is Granthams birthday, and thats where Im going for dinner. I am one of the four young men.
No! Fritz said.
Why no?
You, Archie?
Why not me?
It will ruin everything. They will all be back at Grantham House in less than a year.
No, I said sternly. I appreciate the compliment, but this is a serious matter and I need advice. Consider: these girls are mothers, but they are improved mothers. They are supposed to be trying to get a toehold on life. Say they are. Inviting them to dinner at that goddam palace, with four young men from the circle that woman moves in as table partners, whom they have never seen before and dont expect ever to see again, is one hell of a note. Okay, I cant help that; I cant improve Grantham, since hes dead, and I would hate to undertake to improve Mrs Robilotti, dead or alive, but I have my personal problem: how do I act? I would welcome suggestions.
Fritz cocked his head. Why do you go?
Because a man I know asked me to. Thats another question, why he picked me, but skip it. I guess I agreed to go because I thought it would be fun to watch, but now I realize it may be pretty damn grim. However, Im stuck, and whats my programme? I can try to make it gay, or clown it, or get one of them talking about the baby, or get lit and the hell with it, or shall I stand up and make a speech about famous mothers like Venus and Mrs Shakespeare and that Roman woman who had twins?
Not that. No.
Then what?
I dont know. Anyway, you are just talking.
All right, you talk a while.
He aimed a knife at me. I know you so well, Archie. As well as you know me, maybe. This is just talk and I enjoy it. You need no suggestions. Programme? He slashed at it with the knife. Ha! You will go there and look at them and see, and act as you feel. You always do. If it is too painful you will leave. If one of the girls is enchanting and the men surround her, you will get her aside and tomorrow you will take her to lunch. If you are bored you will eat too much, no matter what the food is like. If you are offendedTheres the elevator! He looked at the clock. My God, its eleven! The larding! He headed for the refrigerator.
I didnt jump. Wolfe likes to find me in the office when he comes down, and if Im not there it stirs his blood a little, which is good for him, so I waited until the elevator door opened and his footsteps came down the hall and on in. I have never understood why he doesnt make more noise walking. You would think that his feet, which are no bigger than mine, would make quite a business of getting along under his seventh of a ton, but they dont. It might be someone half his weight. I gave him enough time to cross to his desk and get himself settled in his custom-built oversize chair, and then went. As I entered he grunted a good morning at me and I returned it. Our good mornings usually come then, since Fritz takes his breakfast to his room on a tray, and he spends the two hours from nine to eleven, every day including Sunday, up in the plant rooms with Theodore and the orchids.
When I was at my desk I announced, I didnt deposit the cheques that came yesterday on account of the weather. It may let up before three.
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 cheques 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 wouldnt 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 didnt want to pay you twenty grand but did.
What does she want now?
Me. Thats where you can get me this evening from seven oclock 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 didnt know she was cultivating you, or you her.
Were not. I havent 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 husbands 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 wouldnt say abetting it. A man I know named Austin Byne phoned and asked me to fill in for him because hes in bed with a cold and cant go. Anyhow, it will give me a fresh outlook. It will harden my nerves. It will broaden my mind.
His eyes had narrowed. Archie.