“You are smart,” she said. “You do like me?”
“So far, I do. I could tell better if that hat didn’t shade your eyes so much.”
She removed the hat, no fussing with it, and put it on a chair, and actually didn’t pat around at her hair. “There,” she said, “then I’ll be blunt too. I want you to help me. I want to see Mr. Nero Wolfe.”
I nodded. “I suspected that was it. I don’t want to be rude, I am enjoying meeting you, but why didn’t you just phone for an appointment?”
“Because I didn’t dare. Anyway, I didn’t really decide to until I saw you at the Churchill and I thought there was my chance. You see, there are three things. The first thing is that I know he charges very big fees, and I am not so rich. The second thing is that he doesn’t like women, so there would be that against me. The third thing is that when people want to hire him, you always look them up and find out all you can about them, and I was afraid my brother would find out that I had gone to him, and my brother mustn’t know about it. So the only way was to get you to help me, because you can make Mr. Wolfe do anything you want him to. Of course, now I’ve spoiled it.”
“Spoiled it how?”
“By letting you pull it out of me. I was going to get friendly with you first. I know you like to dance, and I am not too bad at dancing. I would be all right with you — I know, because I saw you at the Flamingo. I thought I would have one advantage: being French I would be different from all your American girls; I know you have thousands of them. I thought in a week or two you might like me well enough so I could ask you to help me. Now I have spoiled it.” She picked up her glass and drank.
I waited until she had put her glass down. “A couple of corrections. I haven’t got thousands of American girls, only three or four hundred. I can’t make Mr. Wolfe do anything I want him to; it all depends. And a couple of questions? What you want him to do — does it involve any marital problems? Your brother’s wife or someone else’s wife that he’s friendly with?”
“No. My brother isn’t married.”
“Good. For Mr. Wolfe that would be out. You say you’re not so rich. Could you pay anything at all? Could you scrape up a few hundred without hocking that stole?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. I am not a pauvre — pardon — a pauper. But Mr. Wolfe would sneer at a few hundred.”
“That would be his impulse, but impulses can be sidetracked, with luck. I suggest that you proceed with your plan as outlined.” I looked at my wrist. “It’s going on six o’clock. For the Flamingo we would have to go home and dress, and that’s too much trouble, but there’s nothing wrong with the band at Colonna’s in the Village. We can stick here for an hour or so and get acquainted, and you can give me some idea of what your problem is, and you can go right ahead with your program, getting me to like you enough to want to help you. Then we can go to Colonna’s and eat and dance. Well?”
“That’s all right,” she conceded, “but I ought to go home and change. I would look better and dance better.”
I objected. “That can come later. We’ll start at the bottom and work up. If you dress, I’ll have to, too, and I’d rather not. As you probably know, I live in Mr. Wolfe’s house, and he might want to discuss something with me. He often does. I would rather phone and tell him I have a personal matter to attend to and won’t be home for dinner. You passed the buck. You said I’m the man and it’s for me to say.”
“Well, I would have to phone too.”
“We can afford it.” I got a dime from a pocket and proffered it.
At ten-thirty the next morning, Tuesday, I was in the office on the first floor of the old brownstone on West 35th Street which is owned and dominated by Nero Wolfe, when I remembered something I had forgotten to do. Closing the file drawer I was working on, I went to the hall, turned left, and entered the kitchen, where Fritz Brenner, chef and housekeeper, was stirring something in a bowl.
I spoke. “I meant to ask, Fritz: What did Mr. Wolfe have for breakfast?”
His pink, good-natured face turned to me, but he didn’t stop stirring. “Why? Something wrong?”
“Of course not. Nothing is ever wrong. I’m going to jostle him and it will help to know what mood he’s in.”
“A good one. He was very cheerful when I went up for the tray, which was empty. He had melon, eggs à la Suisse with oatmeal cakes and croissants with blackberry jam. He didn’t put cream in his coffee, which is always a good sign. Do you have to jostle him?”
I said it was for his own good — that is, Wolfe’s — and headed for the stairs. There is an elevator, but I seldom bother to use it. One flight up was Wolfe’s room, and a spare, used mostly for storage. Two flights up was my room, and one for guests, not used much. Mounting the third flight, I passed through the vestibule to the door to the plant rooms, opened it and entered.
By then, after the years, you might think those ten thousand orchids would no longer impress me, but they did. In the tropical room I took the side aisle for a look at the pink Vanda that Wolfe had been offered six grand for, and in the intermediate room I slowed down as I passed a bench of my favorites, Miltonia hybrids. Then on through to the potting room.
The little guy with a pug nose, opening a bale of osmundine over by the wall, was Theodore Horstmann, orchid nurse. The one standing at the big bench, inspecting a seed pod, was my employer.
“Good morning,” I said brightly. “Fred phoned in at ten-fourteen. Putz is at his office, probably reading the morning mail. I told Fred to stay on him.”
“Well?”
I’ll translate it. What that “well” meant was, “You know better than to interrupt me here for that, so what is it?”
Having translated it, I replied to it, “I was straightening up a file when I suddenly realized that I hadn’t told you that there’s an appointment for eleven o’clock. A prospective client, someone I ran across yesterday. It might be quite interesting.”
“Who is it?”
“I admit it’s a woman. Her name is Flora Gallant; she’s the sister of a man named Alec Gallant, who makes dresses for duchesses that dukes pay a thousand bucks for. She could get things for your wife wholesale if you had a wife.”
He put the seed pod down. “Archie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are being transparent deliberately. You did not suddenly realize that you hadn’t told me. You willfully delayed telling me until it is too late to notify her not to come. How old is she?”
“Oh, middle twenties.”
“Of course. Ill-favored? Ill-shaped? Ungainly?”
“No, not exactly.”
“She wouldn’t be if you ran across her. What does she want?”
“It’s a little vague. I’d rather she told you.”
He snorted. “One of your functions is to learn what people want. You are trying to dragoon me. I won’t see her. I’ll come down later. Let me know when she has gone.”
“Yes, sir.” I was apologetic, “You’re absolutely right. You’d probably be wasting your time. But when I was dancing with her last evening I must have got sentimental, because I told her I would help her with her problem. So I’m stuck. I’ll have to tackle it myself. I’ll have to take a leave of absence without pay, starting now. Say a couple of weeks, that should do it. We have nothing important on, and of course Fred can attend to Putz, and if you—”